El mapa: A face that tells many tales

She was in a dilapidated wheelchair rounding the corner on General Torres by San Francisco Plaza, pushed by a man who might have been her son. He was ancient himself but he didn’t have the years that she did.

The wrinkled faces of the elderly; there’re stories there. You have to be a special kind of reader to understand them, to unravel them, to bring to light what lies in the deep recesses behind those eyes.

She wears them with her head held high; the sight of her face invites you to imagine her life. There are deep ruts, you can see when her husband died, you can see when her children were born and that three are already gone.  You can see the markers, they’re all there. Every last one has its own riveting story to tell. I gaze deeply into her eyes and she meets mine. There’s depth there and light too but I decide to drop my gaze. I think I saw too much. I might have been in there; I think I glimpsed myself.

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