Like Water for a Glass of Rioja

Or marry your cousin if you have stranger danger.

Ah love, there can be several interpretations of what it means. It’s that feeling for family, friends, kids, or on the romantic side, it’s that person that makes your heart swell and the dopamine kick in, or it’s the gilded cage of marriage because equity, longevity and memories can also be interpreted as love. Love can also lead to marrying your blood relative-just ask Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

My third great grandmother, Maria del Carmen Servín (1832-1865) wanted to know how Valentine’s Day went for me. I slid a box of Sees candy I bought for my kid toward her.

As good as it’s going to get with the choices I’ve made in my life. Chocolate?

Carmen popped a milk Bordeaux creme into her mouth. Want to know what I got for Valentine’s day?

A man saying he’ll admit he’s the father of your kids?

That’s low Dominique, even for a middle aged woman like you.

Hey, at least you died at 32 and beautiful.

It’s October 1922 in Los Angeles, California, and it is no longer the backwater ugly kid sister to San Francisco. The film industry has created opportunity, and more and more Mexicans have immigrated to this city that I will call home 82 years later. It is over a quarter of a century from when Ramon’s family moved to San Francisco in 1896.

Ramon Alvino Nemorio Armendariz (1853-1899), Carmen’s son has been dead for over twenty years and everyone with the exception of the oldest, Gustavo Jose my great grandfather, and oldest sister Concepcion Zara Ramona (1889-1908) have relocated to Los Angeles. The youngest of this Chihuahua-San Francisco Armendariz Clan, Eulalia Malvina (1893-1988) has just married a younger man, Jose Felix Gandara (1897-1961). They will eventually move to El Paso for the rest of their lives.

Eulalia Malvina standing in for Carmen Servín in 1940

Jose Felix is suave as Eulalia is striking and whip smart. She has been educated in the U.S since she was of school age and will become a pharmacist. Having escaped the Mexican Revolution, Jose Felix is a photographer, and later in life I will come to know him as the distant relative who was friends and went fishing in Baja California with the creator of Perry Mason, Erle Stanley Gardener. Jose Felix is bohemian but not before being a staunch soldier of Catholicism, attempting a revolution in its name, only to inevitably get swatted by the U.S Government, the Mexican government and even his supposed partner in crime, the Catholic church. You know the saying, don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Jesus! Why are the youngest so irreverent? I asked.

Carmen sucked down a chocolate cherry. Mexico’s government was still in flux, post dictatorship there was a continual struggle for power. The Cristero War was an effort by Catholic militants to overthrow the government. It lasted from 1926-1929, ending the same year as the U.S Stock Market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression.

Sorry, I meant your granddaughter, Eulalia. I didn’t know Jose Felix was the youngest of the two lovebirds. She strikes as kind of baller going for a younger guy in the 1920’s. Mis respetos, you know? I’ve always wondered if going younger would provide me with a built in caregiver when I’m drooling and talking nonsense.

You’re halfway there mocosa, she said. Anyway, I think it has something to do with being hyper observant of societal norms through the actions of parents and older siblings. You know, understanding the rules so well you can easily break them and avoid ramifications because someone already did the heavy lifting.

Or understanding shame, I countered. Understanding that shame can be a manipulative emotion, keeping everyone in their place.

On that note, lets begin with their grandmother, Carmen said. The maternal one she was named after, Eulalia Moye Portillo (1840-1893).

Oh, you mean your daughter in law’s mother?

Eulalia and Jose Felix’s maternal grandmother. Both.

Husband, Jose Felix and wife, Eulalia’s mutual maternal grandmother?

Am I stuttering?

No third grandma, but last I checked we weren’t the Hapsburgs. My chin is well proportioned.

Not the Hapsburgs but two half German sisters. My daughter in-law, Maria Enriqueta (1864-1941) and Maria Luisa Julia Carlota Moye (1868-1915)

Did they object to the nuptials?

Enriqueta possibly, she was mouthy and alive at the time. Carlota died during the Mexican revolution. According to her son Jose Felix, she died because her home was ransacked by a band of Alvaro Obregon’s soldiers. So I suppose this only fueled his need to overthrow the Mexican Government.

Really? I just checked her death certificate and it implied she died of congenital heart failure.

You can die of a broken heart.

Don’t get sentimental on me, Mama Sees.

Carmen hung her head in shame. It’s all my fault.

This is where I jumped on the kitchen island and begin screaming at the top of my lungs. Ah yes, that’s right! IT’S ALWAYS THE WOMANS FAULT! She brought this on! She asked for too much! She caused her own heartbreak! And my favorite, she’s crazy!

Carmen threw a milk buttercream at me. I meant genetically, dumbass. My niece married my nephew. Eat something.

Oh chocolate, how it comes in handy. I did watch too much mindless television this weekend. We had rain for so long, and the world feels so upside down right now. Right is the new wrong. Wrong is the new right. Pigs are flying.

Carmen held my hand and took me back to Chihuahua, Mexico to a wedding in 1879 between her half sister Concepcion’s son, Tomas and her sister Carolina’s daughter, lil’ Carolina. It was a beautiful civil ceremony, My great great grandfather Ramon, Carmen’s son looked very handsome as he was one of the witnesses. The certificate of marriage had Tomas MacManus parent’s as Francisco MacManus and Concepcion Gonzalez. Carolina Schetelig’s Jr parents as Emil Schetelig and Carolina Servín. And there was even an addendum document a judge granted on behalf of the Governor of Chihuahua dispensing the happy cousin couple of the “parentesco que los liga,” meaning they could marry legally, and have kids even with a pigs tail as the government was totally fine with it. One Hundred Years of Solitude? Ha! Mexican’s do it better, We make incest legal and spicy!

All of us, Concepcion, Carolina and me share the same mother. And with that the entire heart shaped box of chocolates went into Carmen’s pouty red mouth.

I began to wave my arms and stamp my feet (cue paso doble music).

Your mother, Maria Petra Carmen Juana Nepomuceno Gonzalez de la Rosa y Escontrias (1805-1853)? I knew it! It’s the curse of La Española. It’s always a Spaniard’s fault! But it’s perfect because the civil document also tells us who Concepcion’s real daddy is. Certificate says his name is Miguel Gonzalez. Name ring a bell?

Maybe but I bet he didn’t call her “Mama” like my father Alvino did.

I got down from my high horse, and sat on the counter.

No one will ever be as hot as your father Alvino (1815-?), third grandma. But while we are on the subject, why do you think falling in love with someone that is so societally wrong for you, is so tempting?

Chemistry is chemistry, and some people are willing to risk a little doom for being with that person that makes everything feel as it should be. Humans were made for friction especially when everyone is telling them to behave themselves. The youngest never buys into that.

As it should be?

Love is one of many emotions, Dominique. Like a box of chocolates.

I then found myself grabbing her hand and took her back to Calexico California in December. It was 1932 and it was snowing.

Why are you showing me this? Carmen asked.

You can love a place too.

But you weren’t here in 1932.

One of few times it snowed in Calexico! This is why I started writing and talking to you, Carmen. I love Calexico and I love you.

I love you too. So Calexico is your real Valentine?

Yes, and I wanted to show it to you at it at its most vulnerable before I deconstruct it for good.

For Further Reading, Eating and Listening : Mexican Exodus: Emigrants, Exiles, And Refugees Of The Cristero War, by Julia G. Young, Ancestry.com, Love Will Keep Us Together by Captain and Tenille, and Sees Candy because gurl, don’t marry your cousin unless he’s hot.