Cellulose
Alexandra Clemente Perez
I didn’t know you were dying.
The last time I saw you was when I returned to Caracas for my wedding. You were standing strong that fall. Long, rubbery leaves protruding from your branches. You were still so generous with your giving then. Red squirrels and yellow birds and brown bats ate your fruits. You gifted us a variety of mango that I regrettably never tried. Your generosity was too sweet and too fibrous for my taste.
I showed you off to my husband with the pride of someone introducing an esteemed family member. We took pictures underneath you. The whole family was decked out, dressed up in the black-tie attire my husband found foreign because of the formality. On his soil, people wore jeans to weddings. But neither formality nor foreignness deterred you that day. You looked stunning, crowned with your deep green canopy.
I didn’t know you were dying when I gave you my back, dressed in my white satin gown. Maybe I couldn’t tell because you too were dressed up that day. Your trunk overflowed with the orchids with which my mother adorned you. Your wood was barely visible underneath all those white and purple flowers. They decorated your trunk like a necklace of pearls, shining brightly against the dark wood. My mother knew what suited you best. Ever since my sister and I left home fifteen years ago, she has been building an altar of flora at your feet.
I showed you off to my husband with the pride of someone introducing an esteemed family member. We took pictures underneath you. The whole family was decked out, dressed up in the black-tie attire my husband found foreign because of the formality. On his soil, people wore jeans to weddings. But neither formality nor foreignness deterred you that day. You looked stunning, crowned with your deep green canopy.
I didn’t know you were dying when I gave you my back, dressed in my white satin gown. Maybe I couldn’t tell because you too were dressed up that day. Your trunk overflowed with the orchids with which my mother adorned you. Your wood was barely visible underneath all those white and purple flowers. They decorated your trunk like a necklace of pearls, shining brightly against the dark wood. My mother knew what suited you best. Ever since my sister and I left home fifteen years ago, she has been building an altar of flora at your feet.
When did your soul leave your cellulose skeleton?
You had given us signs you were dying before that day. Signs my mother had already noted. You had been her guardian your whole life. She could read your falling leaves like a full sentence.
After the wedding, your dying became apparent. Your generosity became less overwhelming; your torrents of red-blushed fruits transformed into an occasional drizzle. Your branches broke, fracturing under the weight of what you once comfortably held. That’s when your dying became a problem. Your collapsing appendages endangered what you once protected. My mother tried all she could to avoid the inevitable, pruning you so you wouldn’t need to spend extraneous energy, so that you could hold your center. Once you started decomposing on top of the power lines, your dying was an emergency. Gardeners came with jagged saws and little mercy. Once they were done, there could be no denying you were dead. All they left was an ashen trunk that once brooded deep brown.
After the wedding, your dying became apparent. Your generosity became less overwhelming; your torrents of red-blushed fruits transformed into an occasional drizzle. Your branches broke, fracturing under the weight of what you once comfortably held. That’s when your dying became a problem. Your collapsing appendages endangered what you once protected. My mother tried all she could to avoid the inevitable, pruning you so you wouldn’t need to spend extraneous energy, so that you could hold your center. Once you started decomposing on top of the power lines, your dying was an emergency. Gardeners came with jagged saws and little mercy. Once they were done, there could be no denying you were dead. All they left was an ashen trunk that once brooded deep brown.
But you had been dying for a long time, hadn’t you?
I believe you started to die the last time I saw my grandfather, your original benefactor. That day, not quite ten years ago, when I got into a car and drove away to another home. I believe this because we die when those who carry our memory die. And because a little of me died that day. My grandfather’s death is an absence for which no altar will do.
But you forgave me for that day I left. Because you knew in your roots I had to go.
But you forgave me for that day I left. Because you knew in your roots I had to go.
When does our soul leave our carbon skeleton?
I left a land that could not sustain us. An earth soaked in too much blood, too many tears to quench our thirst. A country with too many broken branches and jagged saws in hands with not enough mercy. Nine million of us Venezuelans are scattered across the world. Perhaps if you could’ve uprooted yourself, you would’ve left too.
I now live in a land of conifers and oaks. Parsimonious trees that bear hardened fruits.
Leaving your fertile soil engendered in me a decomposition. I was never meant to survive on this arid air. I need your humidity so that this San Francisco atmosphere can permeate my lungs and saturate my blood. Perhaps the hypoxia I acquired as an immigrant explains the panic attacks I developed when I first got here. My cells could never hold on to enough oxygen. In the middle of my work, I would find myself suddenly short-winded. I felt unbalanced. I lived every day afraid I would float away or explode. It felt like my body trying to ration the resources it needed. Because all I could do on this American soil was economize.
Going back to Caracas is not an option. I’ve committed myself to thriving in an environment where mangoes don’t grow in backyards. Here, they are packaged in plastic and imported from India. They are stiff and sour things cut into squares and added to salsa. Suffocated in Saran wrap, unable to perfume the air around them. Their flesh doesn’t get bitten away by squirrels or birds or bats. Their juices don’t drip down the fingers of children. I still can’t eat them.
I now live in a land of conifers and oaks. Parsimonious trees that bear hardened fruits.
Leaving your fertile soil engendered in me a decomposition. I was never meant to survive on this arid air. I need your humidity so that this San Francisco atmosphere can permeate my lungs and saturate my blood. Perhaps the hypoxia I acquired as an immigrant explains the panic attacks I developed when I first got here. My cells could never hold on to enough oxygen. In the middle of my work, I would find myself suddenly short-winded. I felt unbalanced. I lived every day afraid I would float away or explode. It felt like my body trying to ration the resources it needed. Because all I could do on this American soil was economize.
Going back to Caracas is not an option. I’ve committed myself to thriving in an environment where mangoes don’t grow in backyards. Here, they are packaged in plastic and imported from India. They are stiff and sour things cut into squares and added to salsa. Suffocated in Saran wrap, unable to perfume the air around them. Their flesh doesn’t get bitten away by squirrels or birds or bats. Their juices don’t drip down the fingers of children. I still can’t eat them.
What would you have me do?
If I can’t go back, I must be here. If I must be here, I must root down. If I must root down, I should look to your brethren for an example: trees like you that have been forcibly migrated to other shores. Since you are no longer here to teach me how to hold my center.
I’m learning from the crimsoning Japanese maple that greets me through my window. I admire the generosity of the fragrant magnolia of my Californian backyard. Trees that are not native to this latitude but have adapted to thrive in this Bay of ours. Much like your ancestors, who made a home by the Caribbean, transplanted from Asia to the Americas by Europeans arriving at our shores.
The stoicism of vegetation is universal. One can be grounded on soil that is tended. Leaves can sprout again come the right season. Those sentences are true in all languages.
Considering language, I consider this: Was my emotional dysregulation a relearning of the language of resistance you taught us? An imperfect translation of your lessons in Spanish to English?
This consideration comes from the perspective of space and time, now that I no longer suffer panic attacks. Perhaps the tightness developing in my lungs wasn’t a force of compression. Maybe it was your roots barreling from Caracas to clutch over my heart, making sure it didn’t fall out of my chest. The fear of floating away in a dizzy spell was not a prelude to dissipating into a cloud of Bay fog. Perhaps that feeling was your invitation from the beyond to climb up to your canopy and feel the wind caress my temples. Maybe these episodes were not economizations of emotions but a call to refocus my energy. A call to look inward before branching out.
These days, I visit your grave through my phone. My mother will show off her latest offering she’s left at your feet: new varietals of orchids cascading over your bones, stone statues she calls your guardians. Her adoration for you is unwavering, unoxidized by the passing time.
These interactions through WhatsApp feel like a sign of respect, but not an act of grieving. It’s an important gesture, but ultimately an empty one. Like going to visit my grandfather’s grave. The hollowness stems from knowing that your spirit no longer lives in your body. But this knowledge does not make me sad. The soil under my feet feels fertile. I know the breeze that swoops the Bay won’t break me.
I’m learning from the crimsoning Japanese maple that greets me through my window. I admire the generosity of the fragrant magnolia of my Californian backyard. Trees that are not native to this latitude but have adapted to thrive in this Bay of ours. Much like your ancestors, who made a home by the Caribbean, transplanted from Asia to the Americas by Europeans arriving at our shores.
The stoicism of vegetation is universal. One can be grounded on soil that is tended. Leaves can sprout again come the right season. Those sentences are true in all languages.
Considering language, I consider this: Was my emotional dysregulation a relearning of the language of resistance you taught us? An imperfect translation of your lessons in Spanish to English?
This consideration comes from the perspective of space and time, now that I no longer suffer panic attacks. Perhaps the tightness developing in my lungs wasn’t a force of compression. Maybe it was your roots barreling from Caracas to clutch over my heart, making sure it didn’t fall out of my chest. The fear of floating away in a dizzy spell was not a prelude to dissipating into a cloud of Bay fog. Perhaps that feeling was your invitation from the beyond to climb up to your canopy and feel the wind caress my temples. Maybe these episodes were not economizations of emotions but a call to refocus my energy. A call to look inward before branching out.
These days, I visit your grave through my phone. My mother will show off her latest offering she’s left at your feet: new varietals of orchids cascading over your bones, stone statues she calls your guardians. Her adoration for you is unwavering, unoxidized by the passing time.
These interactions through WhatsApp feel like a sign of respect, but not an act of grieving. It’s an important gesture, but ultimately an empty one. Like going to visit my grandfather’s grave. The hollowness stems from knowing that your spirit no longer lives in your body. But this knowledge does not make me sad. The soil under my feet feels fertile. I know the breeze that swoops the Bay won’t break me.
Your cellulose will live in the carbon of my bones until I return to the earth.
Alexandra Clemente Perez (she/her) was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. She writes about her experience moving from Venezuela to the United States. Her work has been supported by organizations such as Tin House, and her words have appeared in publications including The New York Times. She lives in the Bay Area in Northern California. She still doesn't like mangoes. You can find her at aleclemente.com.