Una página del pensamiento feminista en México: Diario de Emma Sánchez Montealvo (1934-1957) Prólogo y estudio introductorio de Mílada Bazant y Jan Bazant

Por Jan Bazant Sánchez

Este diario ofrece un abanico del ideario femenino y feminista de una joven universitaria, moderna, como ella se autonombra, que vivió en la Ciudad de México y relató sus vivencias de vida cotidiana en una época de esplendor cultural en la "región más transparente del aire" como escribió Alfonso Reyes, una ciudad sin contaminación, de poco más de millón y medio de habitantes en la cual los estudiantes de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México como la autora, tenía estudios, diversiones y entretenimientos de todo tipo, en lo que hoy llamamos el Centro histórico. El barrio universitario le daba energía vital a la ciudad. Maestros de renombre como Ezequiel A. Chávez y Alfonso Caso convivían con sus alumnos en los salones de cátedra y en los cafés. Fue una época de fervor juvenil única, pues cuando la universidad trasladó sus instalaciones en 1956 a su actual sede en el sur de la metrópoli, aquel ambiente se perdió para siempre.
El documento es especialmente interesante porque cuando inicia en 1937 la autora recién llegaba a México después de haber vivido once años en Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Si como dice, Ernst Bloch "No toda la gente vive el Ahora al mismo tiempo", a la autora la sacudió el atraso de las mujeres y el pensamiento masculino con respecto a la mujer. Llegando de los Estados Unidos donde las mujeres estudiaban, trabajaban y ganaban a la par que los hombres, las posturas conservadoras del sexo masculino seguramente le llamaron más la atención de la autora que a sus compañeras de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. La autora, se convirtió en líder de un movimiento feminista universitario cuyo objetivo era impulsar los intereses de las mujeres quienes, como ella, luchaban por tener una vida más allá que ser el simple y tradicional ángel del hogar.
Pensamos que con la publicación de este diario, el sueño de Emma se convierte, de alguna manera, en realidad porque ella mencionó en algún momento escribir una novela que contaría la vida de su familia en Cerritos y en San Nicolás Tolentino, pueblos de San Luis Potosí muy queridos para ella, y en la capital de aquel estado, San Luis. También relataría su vida universitaria y su gran amor, sus grandes pasiones y la vida en general de una mujer moderna, estudiante universitaria que tenía, en palabras de la autora, "el son en las venas", que revelan su alegría por vivir.

• Idioma: Español
• Editorial: El Colegio Mexiquense
• Fecha de lanzamiento: 17 mar 2023
• ISBN: 9786078836222

Vista previa del libro

Diario de Emma Sánchez Montealvo, 1934-1957

I

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El inicio de mi diario, 1934-1935

May 28, 1934

Fancy me trying to write a diary!

I feel that I need to write something daily in order to start trying to explain my very complex self in an at least, a clear way.

It has always been my ambition to be able to use my pen as the best way to express myself, though dancing comes very close to making of any ambition a mere shadow to be used only to write the joy I feel when dancing. Where I sure that I would accomplish something in an, at least, near-great way, in the art of dancing, I would hesitate before. I would choose between the two. And make of it my life: but since I know I can never bring forth within all the thoughts and emotions that fight each other for dominance and express them physically (dancing) I will therefore make a supreme need be, effort to write, and thus find the way to cool my sometimes overheated self.

Since coming to Mexico I have found out many things that I know will change the course of my life. One cannot help being influenced by ones’ surroundings, perhaps this is the outstanding reason for my wanting to write Mexico as I find it now, a clear vision of it as it really is, and not write after when my senses have perhaps been dulled by its natural beauty and my heart has been lulled by its charm, and then I will no longer be fully awake or aware of the things that at first caused me to start.

Mexico needs of all of us. Needs that everyone of us becomes a better self so that he may be able to give an intelligent help: needs that we stay awake to see the mistakes that we have made, are making and not to make them again, needs that we become physically strong so that our bodies may be thus in harmony with our thoughts, and be able to carry them out to the end and not fail, or tumble or fall.

I find that the people are over emotional, this of course means, that the minds are weak and cannot think about a way to control themselves. That, in other words, is the outcome of an unharmonious state of being.

Where the emotions rule instead of only rendering their part to write with the due part of mind and thus live a true life, or a fuller life. But if I were to choose between an over-emotional or an over-mental person for a comparison I would not hesitate and chose the emotional.

An emotional self is a charming self in my conception, since charm is the giving of our inner better self in little ways. An over-emotional person would naturally have charm.

Hospitality comes to an emotional person as a second nature, but to a mental person comes, if it comes, by force.

I have wondered why some people insist on being dirty, here we are suffering from a chronic case. The Indians ancestors were not dirty, the Spaniards were not so dirty, so why should they are today?

I attribute this to the bad economic system we have. The Indians do not get paid well anywhere. With their little money, they barely keep their expenses and manage somehow on others to keep life.

But their wealthier brothers are not as clean either. The clase mestiza is almost as bad. Uneducation is the one and only reason. They don’t know any better. Girls are not clean if they wash their faces, they transform themselves, in a second into another person, with the sole aid of a lipstick and a little box of rouge. This last thing impressed me very much on first arriving four months ago. Now I have grown used to it.

Another thing that impressed me was their clothes. They dress pretty, but far from becoming smart, and I believe they don’t know what conventional dressing is. They wear evening dress and slippers to school at ten o’clock in the morning! Though they never wear sport cloths at night, in fact sports cloths don’t call their attention since they do have such marked predilection for evening dress.

May 29, 1934

A new day, I should say night is here. The day has been full of new experiences.

For the first time I met a boy in school who spoke with sense, and was serious. It seems so easy to be talking in my own language instead of just kidding along. I have a feeling that this boy, as Ana Marie would say, will amount to be something someday.

This noon the girls, Jimmy and I went to see our future home. We are to move in about 15 days, but I wonder if we are ready for the step. It seems odd that with the work of us girls, we have been able to do so much in only four months. Perhaps we are going too fast, but let’s hope we won’t stumble in the rush and fall. I like the house a lot. It has five rooms and a garden in the back that it’s for all the houses in the block. Finally, I will have a little more space to dance.

The dining room has fire place and everything. All in all, I believe we will be much contented in our selection later on, until we’ll buy our own.

We have hired a costurera. She seems to be ok. Has that sweetness typical of the Indians girls; I just wonder how they manage to keep their sweet temper under all circumstances! While I have to use all my self-control to keep from exploding almost every day!

Wonder why I should have been chosen for the stationary point of all these sudden outburst of sparks! I have sometimes nothing to do with them. It is they who come and insist on making themselves known to me very abruptly, and it is I who, in turn, give way to them and let them pass through me, and abrupt the people around! I hope to someday use all this overdose of vitality intelligently! Not that I consider myself dumb but… I am in a situation that could be very much improved upon. All I have to really do is to will to become all I want and I know I will accomplish anything I set my heart upon. The world is mine for the taking, if I only stay awake enough to give all in return.

May 30, 1934

I cannot resist the temptation of writing Victor Hugo’s poem in my diary without leaving behind its music in my daily work. So here it goes. May I never forget it!

Amémonos siempre! Amémonos ahora!

Cuando el amor se va la esperanza huye

El amor es el grito de la aurora

El amor es el himno de la noche

El amor hace soñar, vivir y creer

Él tiene para calentar el corazón

Un rayo más que la gloria,

Y este rayo es la dicha.

Conserva en tu Corazón sin tener miedo

Debas llorar o sufrir

La llama que no puede extinguirse

La flor que no puede morir!

May 31, 1934

I have changed my birthday to this very day, but somehow or other I feel sorry I did. Sara Compean sent me the nicest of flowers! A big, big bou-quet of white ethereal little flowers with some pink alelíes. When I came home from school I found them at the entrance steps and my heart gave a leap, they stood there giving me quite sweetly their message of friendship. My father sent me diez pesos. I have asked him for either riding pants or some boots. Now he is sending me both, and the money besides. I really feel a little guilty. He is not in the best of economic conditions, to be doing all this for me, though he sincerely seems to feel a certain pleasure in sending it to me. I hadn’t asked a favor from him for a long time. All I have to remember is to give him my help in return when the time comes, and now I’m giving him my love.

Image 14

Ilustración de la Riverside High School, Milwaukee,Wisconsin, ee.uu. Revista The Mercury, 1929, p. 78.

Spontaneity is non-existing in me tonight. So I will close rather than fill this with worthless forced words. I want to sit and live in the present, and sit listening to music in the radio, and thus pass the evening listening the minutes fly in harmony with it all, and then pass leaving me alone.

How long — if I may ask to you

How long — will I thus dream and

Hope to reach — someday

The heights

I know exist?

June 1, 1934

Another month is here, and that reminds me that during this month a year ago I was struggling very decisively to graduate from Riverside High School, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U. S. A. How our lives turn, how they change continually or how we change them! I just wonder where I will be five years from now. Will I be in Europe? My plans are to be there and if everything comes that way it is very probable that I will be there. But wonder what Mr. Destiny has in store for me, but I hope when he comes to dictate his will, he will not be very decisive so I can change his mind.

Image 15

Riverside High School, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Generación de juniors de la High School, de izquierda a derecha, Emma es la primera de la segunda fila. Salió en el anuario The Mercury en 1929, p. 82.

For the first time Mr. Valenzuela, my history teacher, held my un-divided attentions. He was telling us about Amado Nervo.¹ He met him personal y in 1918 when he was a student at the Prepa. It al came when they organized a literary club that was to have Amado’s name. The club did not come into existence because they just couldn’t decide upon a president, as usual, the Mexican trait was present. Well, anyway, they went to visit Mr. Nervo who appealed to them very much. They found him to be a suave man, amable, retraído and a mystic at heart. It is well known that Mr. Nervo was a timid soul who loved volcanos during his youth, and with that adoration that comes only when a person is so sensitive to beauty and so lonely in his daily life. Mr. Valenzuela told us in his inimitable way the charm that Mr. Nervo radiated and the graciousness of his manners. He was then 48 and just a year before his death. They talked about Ruben Dario,² the greatest of American poets.Amado related the instant in which Ruben Dario’s pride was hurt. He was as a man nothing to be desired physically, and he tended towards finding in wine the forgetfulness that we all try to find one way or another.

On a certain city of Spain, I think Seville, there was a young lady who liked his poetry almost to an extreme. Once she was reciting it aloud when Dario who was passing by, heard her and asked her whose poetry she was reciting with so much life! She proudly answered that it was Dario’s. He told her that she was speaking to him personally and, to his great concern, she laughed and told him that he could never be. That he imagined Ruben Dario the answer to a maidens prayer as to looks.

Yesterday I saw the most satirical example of satire. A typically dreamy Mexican young man driving a bus through the heavy traffic at noon time down town. He looked so out of place that I really felt sorry for him.

June 2, 1934

Saturday — As usual this morning I went to school; came home at almost two; ate, and after resting for a while went to call for Cuca Compean to go to equitación. This time the pack of us went together, that is, we did not divide in groups. I still had the remembrances of the fall the last Saturday, but I did not let them bother me. I rode very nicely in harmony with my horse, and nothing occurred, save the most glorious sunset —big heavy cloths turning to bright yellow—, as the background for the gigantic black trees along the road, impressed themselves upon my mind. It’s a pity that we can’t separate from the group and ride by ourselves or simply dismount, sit on the ground and watch the time roll by along with the clouds, the sun and the sky.

June 4, 1934

It seems a pity that we have to waste our very valuable time with these damn letters.

I feel rather ashamed of myself for having neglected you for these two whole days. So be sure I’ll never do it again. But my absence was justified, since I was very busy studying the lousy charming French! A question that always comes to me at the mention of a foreign language: Why the f… can’t we swallow some pills instead of struggling so? But after all what we all need is an obstacle big enough to make us outgrow a little bit of ourselves and makes us a little tough, so that we may acquire a certain thick slippery surface, so that may not even touch us or least make an ugly scar on us.

I have often wondered if I ever forget the striking qualities that are Mexico’s. If I could only have a little more presence of mind perhaps then I would not need to write them down. I wonder at the way boys in school like to show at the first opportunity the little they know.

June 6, 1934

After thinking how little I know and how little everybody else knows, I have come to the grand conclusion that at least I know how little everybody knows.

I just wonder what intelligence may be; the gathering of facts beautiful or otherwise, in our minds and growing in the said gathering, or in other words, making all the work of other authors your own and thus becoming a fountain of information. Or not knowing, or being incomplete, ignorant of the words of great people and having but a few thoughts that come way from within and revealing them to ourselves in the plainest ways.

I just say this because, I have come face to face with the problem of studying, in some cases memorizing, what somebody else thinks right; taking Latin or math, subject that absolutely hold no interest in my heart and I try to make them my own, or know them, when the first impulse is to send them straight to h…

Of course, If I think, I always come to the conclusion that taking something hard to get always brings lightness to the soul! Is like lighten-ing that comes to give us light so we may have a clearer outlook on life as whole?

June 7, 1934

Again Latin will be the main subject! My lovely teacher seems to be getting it in for me. I am passed to the blackboard every day without exception and as I am the only girl (we are 3) so privileged I feel a tiny winy little bit self-conscious. But I have quoting Lola, that if is my destiny to learn Latin, I might as well make up my mind to do it, and now!

After I had made up my mind not to waste any time going to the show during the week, and giving to my time a little more of an intellectual.

June 8, 1934

My ardent desire to speak out and take in my class a part —is dying out. I no longer seem to feel the urge to show— that’s what I thought a little while ago. But now more than ever I want to take my full part and more if it be within my power.

This morning, being Friday, we had free speakers in our literature class. One of them read an article upon the U. S’s invasion in Mexico —all students of Durango where it is felt the most, they don’t want all this vain and second hand Americanism to come and take their genuine quite ways of living; they don’t want their practical ways: they don’t want American people. And this boy expressed in no uncertain terms the repulsion that all this brings to him. I agreed with him —in a way—but having lived in the States this last nine years I know that sooner or later we have to change. We, who hold that life in short and thus waste it dreaming? We don’t want to be practical! Oh no! What for? But being practical does not necessarily means that we have to copy the U.S. or any other country in the world. Being practical, is should be understood, is being awake to one’s opportunities that life always offers us.

This boy said that we have to save ourselves from the Americans. I say we have to save ourselves from ourselves.

So awake to the fact that we are living in 1934 and not in the past or in the tomorrow! The salvation, if salvation it must be, rests within ourselves, in each and every one of us. How do we expect to be decent and clean when we become a little older, if now we are just an over—conceited and emotional asleep, ready to hide at the slightest provocation?

June 9, 1934

(Well, well, I do think my history teacher is teaching the wrong subject) He would teach Literature in an almost sublime way, perhaps it is because what he tells us holds my interest to an almost an unwanted degree of attention.

This morning he was telling us about Manuel Jose Othón,³ the great poet of the aristocratic love affairs, who used to conceal his title of a lawyer quite successfully, and who was so much of a hit with the fair, yet unfair sex. He was never hard working, I imagine he and I had this and other point in common, he did work in an emergency case. On a certain occasion while he was in an awkward economic condition he heroically decided to take a position of a juez or something and thus reveal his title of a lawyer in little town of San Luis Potosi, Cerritos— where I was born and lived 20 years ago and where my papa had the great pleasure to meet him and know him too well.

It so happened that he, of the aristocratic love affairs, felt in love with a humble woman, who reached the heights of ugliness and vulgarity, without any marked intentions in her past. He, that was then in his late forties and in a critical age where all the fire of a lifetime unite and make a man feel youthful and act ridiculously, had the noble idea (and gallantly enough carried it out) of putting a home for her with servants. He then wrote poems expressing the deep affliction of his soul. It was something like this: "Tan abrumado estoy que ya me duele el pensamiento de tanto pensar". These lines, Mr. Valenzuela holds among the 100 original lines that have been produced in the history of literature of all times.

All I now want to say is that I hope to write Mr. Manuel Jose Othón’s biography some time, when I have the chance to visit Cerritos once again and get some first-hand information, that, together with the information I have from my papa, would make a mighty interesting and funny book.

June 10, 1934

Although its almost 11 o’clock at night and we have come from an all day trip in the mountains, I can’t go to bed without saying that life is very much worthwhile if all these mountains and trees, and lovely graceful paths and sky can be ours for the talking. When I am among them I feel as big as they and as colorful and as unselfish; and it is then that I want to give the little I have to the world.

June 11, 1934

Love is a wonderful thing so long that is does not become the subject of one talk every day and at every time one opens the mouth to speak.

I find that the main subject of the majority of our school poets is love —what they call love— but to that kind of love I would even hesitate to give it the name of a plain physical attraction. I’m tired of reading and listening all these discharges of love, all these physical descriptions of her or his eyes, mouth or hair. I want to find a poem in which a tree, a mountain, a bird, a bush or even an insignificant snail is the only subject. A little original description of how an ant lives and his habits would do a lot to refresh the atmosphere that these new Mexican poetry comes along.

To my conception, all this young people loose themselves in the wally foggy closed room of their emotions and instead of putting one brilliant spark in their poetry give way to a current of turbulent water that cannot go up, as the crystalline mountain waters do sometimes, but come down bringing themselves with them right along!

My oh my, what situation I’m in. After returning, from school this morning, as the day before, I had to calm down, down to earth with a stomach ache and with a heavy case of general physical discomfort. My legs ache; my head feels either too heavy or too light at almost regular intervals, but it does not feel at any time right. My senses, if I can still feel them, tend towards running away and leaving me alone. So here I am in bed, my very resourceful friend!

To Marina’s incredulity, it is the only place I feel comfortable in. Now I ask myself if it was worth climbing up that over grown valley of a mountain yesterday?

Ten times yes, I must have all this trouble to have a glimpse at Beauty nude in all its splendor. I’m more than willing to pay the price.

From that peak —that rock immense and friendly— I could see Mexico City a little village in the big plain where before used to be the prehistorical Lago de Texcoco. What times does to things! A lake was no to have existed there among the big chains of mountains! Having the Izta and the Popo⁴ to rule in proud solemnity!

The voices of that man and that woman were the only ones heard there: loud and penetrating in the vastness that existed for them —only—ages ago.

Now little, once great people, ruled there. How long will this condition last: only time will tell. Will we become great once again and will the Popo waken his Mujer Dormida and regain his lost throne? While the Popo has his inspiration, his love, his half, asleep, and is not and cannot be complete thus, alone. We Mexicans cannot either, be complete either without awakening our better half that have been asleep also.That is the inspiration of our lives without which we will also loose our throne. That part of us that calls from us our best: unselfishness and thinking and doing right: awakens.

We don’t want to give way to little people who want to come and take from us what we, so proudly (if not solemnly) call our own.

Let’s become aware of the present and thus take in our hands our future! And let’s hope that we will rule again that piece of land so precious that heaven has called our Mexico.

June 12, 1933 [1934]

I have been busy all day-went to see Sara Compean who seemed perfectly well this noon, only to have Blanch come and tell me tonight that she is all caput again. I really attribute all this to lack of will, power to will, to get well.

What is life?

It is a song

In which everyone

fall in harmony

with God?

June 16, 1934

It’s been days (plurals) since I wrote last. Since then we have moved and as the house is quite large we hope to have a little more time to dedicate to ourselves. What I like best about the house are the trees that almost surround it. Great big, green, protectful ones. From my bed I can see them, and their shade falls on me when I lie down. I wonder how they’ll be on moonlight night.

The other night Lola and I went to see Michio Ito,⁵ a Japanese dancer, at the Hidalgo Theater down town. What a neighborhood! Old dark street with darkeyed (seemed to be darked-thought) men wonder-ing about. An ideal setting for a Shakespearean street scene! A murdered or something on that line. We entered the theatre, we went to galería, on the side entrance and what was peculiar was that we had to pass through the roofs of the houses close by to get there!

When we were there, to my surprise, the theater was a little better and larger, if not cleaner that the one in Milwaukee, where I had seen Escudero and Carola Goya dance.⁶ I was astonished at the amount of people that attended; we can’t deny that Mexican people are a little more artistically, classically also, inclined than the greenhorns at Milwaukee, where the theater was but less than half full.

The dancers were good, but in my opinion over dramatic. It’s true that this reveals the present age, but I don’t see why they don’t bring any delicateness to this authenticity of themselves. Their images were vivid upon the stage and their movements as a whole sharp and not a bit hesitant. The women were better. One of them, Waldeen, did a Dan-zarina from the Orient, dance on an ethereal white Arabic gown with a large head dress, and she moved with much rhythm and grace.

June 18, 1934

It’s getting to be a habit to let a day or two pass without bringing myself to visit this diary.

June 20, 1934

It’s no use, my trying to write every day. I was not born that way.

I went to the library this afternoon and after reading for about two hours I felt so sleepy! I’m not in the habit of concentrating for a long time, and here’s where I have to start all over again.

Right now I’m visiting a German class, the cutest young teacher is teaching, where upon I make up my mind to take German up all over again. I never did like the idea of giving in without trying until the last. The more a thing (I’m not insinuating) becomes difficult the more I like it. This, I know, will never come true about my Latin, that I never did like and never had the slightest curiosity about.

June 23, 1934

The best way to feel we are alive is to let our intellects clash or inter-mingle with others who have that answer to our own. It matters little where that intellect may be: on a child, a man or an anciano, a short, tall, ugly, handsome person. For it there is that spark that awakens awe or makes our own burst into flame, it matters little where it comes from, so long that it does not go. Learning from people, I have found that out is the best of knowledge one may ever acquire, in people we see spontaneous outbursts of life! That feeling that can never be brought forth from the usual type of a book! If a book is written out with thoughts and emotions, a speech is the harmonious, melodious, way to express them verbally. Outspoken poetry cannot be compared with read-out poetry. In the former, life is issued from any syllable of the orator, in the latter that certain impetus is lost. Thus to read one thing out aloud is to bring music from within yourself.

I met an insignificant boy, much to my envy did not take notes in class. He sat there; ruler of his own will, listening or not listening, doing just as he pleased. I naturally asked what the reason might be and he quite naturally said that he was just carrying on his theories of life out! Where upon I nicely asked him if he would please explain that theory to one who lives quite warmly and conscientiously without them? He then told me that he has no diplomas or credit cards of no kind. That people either take his word for his education or otherwise they know what they can do! He bases everything on force, the force to will, to be or to do; and that force when it reaches a certain height it becomes the ruler, not only of himself but of others, at this point I pointed out that, if he so considered himself as the ruler or that force why didn’t he make all their interesting subjects his own, instead of letting them make of him their own? That he should be trying out one of his forces. Cause he doesn’t know much of history so essential. He said that he knew what he liked to know. For me who must take the final exams it would be out of the question to follow his example, but I understand too well that if there is that will to know, whatever our tastes may be, we will know more than those who follow the usual outline of learning. Where we have to force ourselves is to learn things that are completely out of harmony with us.

This boy spoke to me about English authors with much sense and understanding. And so I congratulated him warmly and bade to keep that spirit up.

June 25, 1934

I just can’t seem to enjoy myself with little boys. I went to a party last night and the boys were not only casi-niños but also very homely on top of it. It’s not that I want beauties but I do so much prefer to have something easer to look at!

I long for friends who will not only like to joke and dance and laugh but who will find an answer to my thoughts. I know that most boys prefer not to discuss their higher thoughts at all and least of all to a woman. Here women are, as yet regarded a little inferior, and I wonder if they are happy to keep them unmolested in that inferior sphere. Hardly ever I see boys and girls discussing good literature or even a good song. Boys discuss by themselves and girls hold their peace. Mind me not peace of mind! We are quite complete within ourselves, the only trouble is that we just can’t seem able to stand up and compete with them. We, I must, must take our place beside them sooner or later, as a truly civilized nation should be, so why not try to take it now? I have made up my mind to truly study! Don’t faint. I really mean it. The last days when I just wanted to play tennis and dance are over. I no longer enjoy those things, except on exceptional occasions, the world changes after, it has complete round —about free— changes and I believe so have I. My body strong now does no longer require my attention, it’s my mind that is calling loudly for it, and how many times I have let her there thirsty, so I could satisfy my other self; show me that I did not enjoy at all. I went walking until in disgust I turned home to study only to find that it was too late, or how many many times I have just sat, yes, just sat staring at nothing and letting my precious time fly. And I’m not flying along!

It’s all over now. I will believe me, I will attend to business now. With this strong resolution in mind. I close.

June 27, 1934

It’s no use I feel guilty not taking dancing lessons. I am wasting my time and money in a number of ways, but I have no time or money to take dancing up!

When I hear music something stirs strongly within myself and no matter where, how or when I am, I loose myself to music and my feet and my whole body yields in the most obedient manner. Many times I wish that music would not act on me thus; that it would instead make my pen fly along the lonely roads of thought and universal love. But then I am young and in dancing that youth expresses itself best. Maybe when I grow a little older I will be able to direct all that fire within me, burning at the approach of music into that channel that we call written drama, life, melody, music, song or love.

June 30, 1934

I have been having a hard time with my school work. I guess I made up my mind to study too late. But next semester it will be different.

I was completely lost a few days ago; now, since I’ve been studying almost every night, I seem to be seeing the way clearly. Last night, to my great surprise, I understood all the arithmetic that we have had during the semester in two hours. At the end of which I felt very high hearted, and since the radio was playing, my feet were contaminated and so I danced until 11 o’clock. There is that struggle within me; shall I dance or will I write? Or what will I? It’s no use, I enjoy myself dancing so...

My school work is taking too prominent a part in my daily life. Exams are coming and wish that it could be possible to eat some kind of pills, so I could absorb knowledge just like that!

With the coming of my father at the middle of this month, we seem to be getting glad.

January 24, 1934 [1935]

Great big mountains; blue mountains, purple mountains, brownish mountains, but all stand against the blue blue sky, clear cut and inspiring, and so different from the dull monotony of valleys that I had for the past ten years!

At the end of every street whichever way it may be open to, they face me and with their majestic picturesqueness, and hold my awe.

Is there anything so calm and protective than a mountain, a purple mountain?

To feel a mountain, thus is to have it! Who can tell you that all her beauty is not yours for the talking? Don’t let the minutes of your life pass so swiftly by without stopping to see the greatness of them, and see in return your own size. Don’t stop to hesitate but climb these mountains, for in them you may find the treasure that you may be seeking! That longing that is born in our hearts to climb, to run, to fly to something high, something higher than ourselves, to grow out of ourselves.

From a high mountain peak, after long hours of sighing to get there, the world seems different, our little worries vanish into nothingness. In their place we find a certain spirit of peace, and understanding of life, telling us that it may be all beauty if we just behold ourselves as we then behold the world from a high point of view without ever getting to that point, in that point from which everything is in harmony with lovely thoughts.

Being on top of a mountain is like breathing a bit of the browning spirit without the usual prescriptions of reading his feeling that bids, not sit nor stand but got to keep on going higher and higher until we meet in the clouds, and after that, the place that is open to all of us, is the symphony of the universe of love, where we shall be a tiny note that will be lost in the harmony of Being and thus will find ourselves.

August 30, 1935

How many things have happened since I wrote last. I simply can’t start or really don’t know how to begin to enumerate them. First, it seems that those was a misunderstanding I had with my friend T., were the beginning of a permanent break between us. Too bad, for he was a really nice guy. I believe that this is due entirely to my lack of mental activity. I have or had been pulled away from myself leaving it empty by circumstances. My dear sister Marina has been very ill and I have been ill with her. I feel her pain as much as she does, or more. It’s foolish I know, but then I’m so small, I can’t help myself. What I can’t understand is that if one thing fails, the rest seems to follow, for example my friend T. I meet him and I have ceased to feel any emotion. Though from far away, I still have sweetest memories. The worst part of it is that I don’t know for sure whether I have stopped liking him or not, or whether he has stopped or maybe he never did like me and I, like the rest of imaginative women, believed he did. Whatever way I am going to take it naturally, as it comes. If I deserve his love I shall undoubtedly get it, but if I don’t, then why fool myself. Of all the bad things I know the worst is to fool myself, I know exactly what’s good or bad, true or false, and never once have I tried to disguise, so I don’t want to start now. If it’s the end, I can’t say to it welcome but I shall try to at least whisper a farewell.

Life is activity, thought, energy. If one fails to live, one loses all interest in life, and life loses interest in us, and we fall. Mental stagnation is of all sicknesses the worst, because one feels entirely unconscious that we suffer from it until it’s too late and the action that brings wakefulness usually brings pains. For it bursts tremendously, more than what we usually want to admit, to find that we have failed to be awake and then while we slept lost a friend, and a dear friend at that. What I can’t understand is why on earth everybody passes through the same experiences. One should be enough for the rest, for example, I would tell my other friends and well.

Whichever way it has been the end and even thought, it hurts to have it vanished. I’m extremely happy, I was at least for a little while, completely awake — for wakefulness means happiness. And I shall welcome every opportunity I shall have to live awake again, even if I have to suffer after.

Emerson⁷ certainly had found a great truth in his compensation: one gets what one gives, only I want to add, when one loves one gives, but when one ceases to give love dies and selfishness is there instead. One wants to get and we usually get what we deserve: pain. I would add to Emerson’s theory that life also consists of a series of moments, separate, independent one from the other, and thus lies the question. Each has a certain silliness, and what we can be sure of, is that, as surely as there is bright moments there will be an opposite. So welcome each rebuff that makes earth’s smoothness rough.

September 5, 1935

School does not help me to find myself or really express myself, in better words. It helped me while I was in the States, but now life has come fully my way and other things take a second place.

One can learn in two ways: by experience, that is by life, having actual problems to solve when circumstances are such that active thought is created or by mental thought or energy creating for us, experience by reading books or giving our mind exercises with mathematics for example.

I remembered that last year I used to brag about living an ideal life. I was extremely happy and wanted to shout my joy.

Everybody was healthy. I studied (or tried to), I played (the thing I do almost perfectly) and I worked (did it well I believe). I asked for no more. Besides, I had friends and T.

Now Lola is sick, Jimmy is in bed with fever, Marina dangerously ill, Blanch doesn’t speak and Ana Marie is not very strong. I’m too fat (per chance stupid, I always connected the words fat + stupid in a peculiar way). Papa is away. We have no money. I seem to have lost all my friends when I said adieu to T. Now I wonder, is life worthwhile? A couple of days ago, I doubted it. My imaginative mind refused to accept reality.

Now my mind has accepted it and soon the rest of my ego shall follow, money does not matter. We shall get it when the sickness is over and we have no more expenses that way. Lola is better than yesterday. Jimmy is not, but will be well tomorrow for he is a boy and his moral or mental bodies cannot hold pain as yet. Marina will get well if it is best for her and for us. Papa will be here by the 20th to take Jimmy away, but Blanch and I smell trouble there. She’ll have to learn to control herself. I am afraid.

We have besides all that we needed for a good fight and that is youth. By nature, we are cheerful and naturally optimistic so we celebrate and salute life again — or all over again.

To think of myself, all the value that I’ll have will be through my service to others. That’s the only human value persons leave, and the sooner we realize it the better it for ourselves.

Febrero 2, 1936

Le falta lo que todo plantel de educación debe tener, mentes jóvenes despiertas, mentes desbordándose de ideas nuevas, espíritus creadores deseosos de contribuir para el desarrollo intelectual de los demás. El mejor maestro de la juventud es la misma juventud y aquí falta esto, encuentro jóvenes pasivos deseosos sólo de almacenar, para satisfacción propia, conocimiento de los demás y más tarde sustraer su intelectualidad (memoria para mí).

En fin, esto es lo que a primera vista parezco encontrar. Mi primer impulso fue de regresar a E.U. Pero comprendo que debo permanecer aquí todavía.

Marzo 27, 1936

Sobre la familia. (Relato del nacimiento de Jaime: esbozo de lo que Emma quería en un futuro formase parte de su novela).

Lo Montealvo en