In which everything goes backwards, in time and motion. Palm trees shrink back into the ground, Mangos become seeds and reappear in the eyes of Indian women. The years go back, cement becomes wood. Panama hats are seen upon skeletons, walking the plazas. Of once again wooden benches The past starts to happen again. I see Columbus’s three boats going backwards on the sea, Getting smaller. Crossing the Atlantic back to the ports of Spain
Cadiz, Dos Palos, Huelva Where the sailors disembark and go back to their towns. To their homes, They become adolescents again become children, infants they re-enter the wombs of their mothers till they become glances. Clutching a pound of bread through a busy plaza that becomes the taste of the sound of church bells in reverberation. El Poema de lo Reverso BY VICTOR HERNÁNDEZ CRUZ
I went to a very famous Art school, La Guardia School of Music and Art. One of the early drawing classes I took was on perspective. I learned about vanishing points and how two dimensional drawings and paintings are based on one or many vanishing points. Where you place the vanishing point changes how the viewer sees the picture. We can see our life this way. Depending on what you focus on, changes your attitude and viewpoint on life. Your placement in your family, birth order, race, environment. and experiences change your vanishing points on this plane called life. I was the second youngest daughter, in a family of 7. I have an older sister and 3 younger brothers. I am Puerto Rican American born to an artist / craftsman father and a Montessori teacher mother in the Bronx, New York. The experiences I had growing up molded me and changed me to the person I am today. Growing up and looking back on my life, to my vanishing point where it all began, really puts it all in perspective and that perspective changes as I get older and on a daily basis.
If I want to focus on the good, I look at what I am grateful for. If I put myself in someone else’s shoes, that changes my perspective. If I want to change my attitude, I can restart anytime by choosing what I want to focus on and what my vanishing point is. If I focus on racism, all I will see is racists. If I focus on art, all I will see is art. If I focus on love, all I will see is love. I can change my vanishing point at anytime. It’s important why ? In a negative world, what we choose to focus on changes ourselves and in changing ourselves, we change others. Try it. Focus on a vanishing point in your life and see how it all changes. It’s just a matter of perspective.