Jorge Alejandro Waterhouse-Hayward - 1948

 

Cualquier destino, por largo y complicado que sea, consta en realidad de un solo momento: el momento en que el hombre sabe para siempre quién es. Jorge Luís Borges

Any destiny, no matter how long or complicated, consists in reality in one singular moment: the moment in which man knows for ever who he is. Jorge Luís Borges – my translation

Because I write in Spanish lots, my Twitter/X feed has literary content that interests me. There is lots of Borges. I have a big collection of Borges books (40 at least) but I cannot remember all of it. This quote I noticed today and it reminded me that I experienced, what Borges writes, when I was 6.

At the time in Buenos Aires, my mother taught physics and chemistry at the American School on Belgrano R, a neighbourhood not far from our Coghlan one. She had friends in the American Embassy and she would often show up at home with American products simply not available in Argentina. It was then that I experienced the delight of lime Jell-O.

There was something else that she brought that took me to the Borges moment. She showed me a little bag of something she called candy corn. She gave me a handful. They were delicious. I wanted more but she nodded negatively and put the bag in a living room armoire.

Later in the day, since I knew where she had hidden the treasure I opened the armoire and helped myself to lots more candy. There was a large mirror on one of the doors. I looked at myself in the reflection and thought, “This is me and nobody else”. I was 6. I believe that it was then that I became an individual.

When I look at myself in a mirror now, 76 years later, I see the same boy, older perhaps, and the time in between has flown.