Los primeros minutos después de despertarte — esos momentos precisos donde dejamos atrás el sueño y se materializa el dia por venir — son la parte mas delicada del dia.Esas primeras sensaciones y pensamientos, lo primero que uno escucha o lee definirán como será el dia que nos espera. Y así va la infancia.
Hace mucho tiempo, en 1999, cuando comenzé a hacer las fotos con Guille y Beli, ellas tenían nueve años. Hacíamos de cuenta que estabamos en un programa de televisión, y yo las filmaba mientras ellas jugaban a entrevistarse. Bailaban, cantaban, y se preguntaban la una a la otra cuales eran sus frutas,
animales, o cantantes preferidas.
El miedo a peligros imaginarios ocupó un gran lugar en mi infancia. Miedo a la oscuridad, miedo a ser castigada por mi Dios de los Animales, miedo al diablo, fantasmas, y hombres malos abajo de la cama, asi que naturalmente sugerí que se pregunten sobre sus miedos.Belinda contó que temía especialmente a las
víboras porque “se te vienen por detrás sin aviso.”
Guillermina tenía miedo a tener novio, a “que me deje, me abandone. Yo he visto mucho que la gente se abandona”.Yo les pregunté como se imaginaban de grandes. Guille se veía como una cantante famosa, maestra de geografía, o peluquera “para cortarle el pelo a mi marido, si es que lo tengo algun dia”. Belinda se imaginaba “ama de casa, viviendo en el campo y rodeada de animalitos guachos”
Muchos de estos juegos los hacíamos en una casa de campo donde Beli y su familia vivían en ese entonces.
Si andan por ahí ahora, no vayan demasiado rápido, sino se pasarán por alto la tranquera gris y el sendero que serpentea entre las vacas, hasta llegar a un jardín descuidado rodeando la casona, ahora tapera. Empujen la puerta, caminen cuidadosamente sobre las tablas rotas y diríjanse hacia la habitación del fondo. Allí, abran cuidadosamente las persianas, prestando atención a los vidrios rotos.
El dormitorio se inundará de luz.
The few minutes after waking — that precise overlap between the moments you leave a dream or nightmare behind, and the materialization of the day ahead — are the most delicate part of the day. Those first thoughts and sensations, the first thing you hear or read, can define how the day goes, or how you will sway and bend with what the day brings. So goes childhood.
I started taking pictures with Guillermina and Belinda back in 1999 when they were nine years old. We would pretend we were on a TV show and I would film them while they interviewed each other. They’d dance and sing and ask each other about their favorite fruit or animal or singer. I’d often whisper to them my own questions.
Fear of imaginary dangers had a big place in my childhood — afraid of the dark, afraid of being punished by my Animal God, afraid of devils, ghosts, and bad men under my bed. So naturally I proposed they ask each other about their fears. Belinda said she was especially afraid of snakes because they come up behind you without any warning. Guillermina was afraid of having a boyfriend, because “He might abandon me. I’ve seen that’s what people do. Leave each other.”
I asked them how they imagined themselves as grownups. Guillermina saw herself as a famous singer, a geography teacher or “a hairdresser so I can cut my husband’s hair, if I ever have one.” Belinda saw herself “married, living in the country, taking care of orphaned animals.”
Many of our ‘meetings’ took place just west of my father’s farm, in a farmhouse where Belinda’s family used to live. Nobody’s lived there since and the land it’s on has been sold.
If you drive by there now, but don’t pay close attention, you’ll miss the grey gate and the unmarked path. Follow it as it winds through a flat grassy field scattered with cattle, and it will lead you to an overgrown garden surrounding the abandoned house. Push open the door, walk carefully over broken floorboards
and head to the last bedroom down the hall. Open the shutters slowly, watching out for splintered glass.
The room will now be flooded with light.
Alessandra Sanguinetti, June 2020
From 'The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer' by Alessandra Sanguinetti, published in September 2020.
