Milena Moser about sharing a meal: Sit down, eat something

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Elena was once my ballet teacher when I wanted to fulfill one of my unfulfilled girlish dreams many years ago. I liked her so much that I dropped out of the course when she was fired. I wasn’t the only one. Today Elena no longer teaches at all; she finally has at least some kind of permanent place in the ensemble. But her parents live in my area, so we sometimes meet at a cafe on the corner. It always seems to me that Elena needs to recover after visits. She grew up and went to school in San Francisco, about the same age as my youngest son. At first I tried to find coincidences and similarities, but I kept coming across an invisible boundary carved in stone between cultures and social classes, even in this seemingly liberal city. The daughter of unskilled Mexican immigrants experiences a very different reality than the son of Swiss artists. The fact that Elena became a dancer goes against nature, especially against her mother. This is not why she emigrated! This is not why she went through all the difficulties! Elena’s older sister is a lawyer. And he got married. She is living her parents’ American Dream. Elena is trying to find hers.

“My mom has early onset dementia,” she says now. She remains in good hands at home: Elena has always described her father as a caring and generous man. And my sister, a “good” daughter, also lives nearby. “The diagnosis was a shock – but I’ll tell you, there are good sides to it.”

Elena takes out her phone and shows me a photograph: a short, plump woman in a kitchen apron over a traditional embroidered blouse, her hair strictly combed back. She beams from ear to ear as she hugs Elena and the tomboyish American in a street vest.

– Is this… Molly? Molly is Elena’s friend. A relationship that she still had to keep secret from her parents. Now she’s grinning. “The first thing my mother forgot was her prejudices! She doesn’t even know how disappointed I am. And now I can bring home whoever I want!” She pushes the picture aside and in the next one sits at the richly set kitchen table. Tortillas are stacked dangerously high next to bowls full of colorful ingredients: red tomatoes, white onions, green chilies and cilantro. It’s like us when we have visitors. Between Elena and her mother sits a man of indeterminate gender, dressed for the stage. Mom beams proudly over both her flour-stained cheeks again.

“She cooks all day long, and no matter who comes through the door, she always says, ‘Come in, sit down.’ You must be hungry!” This is cool”.

And touching. Victor once told me that in traditional Mexican families the way you are greeted is: “Sit down and do me the honor of sharing some boiled water and a pinch of salt!” No matter how little you have, it is shared.

“I know it will be difficult,” Elena says now, a little calmer. “But now I’m just enjoying my mom – the mom I never had.”

Source: Blick