Doña Ramona is one of my neighbors. Although I've waved to her countless times over the past four years, I somehow doubt that she even knows I exist. Doña Ramona is an unforgettable woman. She stands about four feet tall, has long graying hair and has certainly never worn a pair of shoes in her life. She is a legend in our neighborhood for filling a cajuela (coffee collection basket) faster than anyone, even in her golden years. I'm told that she is 80. There's a certain fire in her eyes that is haunting, and I can only imagine what her life has been like.
Her home is the last in a long line of tied together tin shacks, with dirt floors and an out house. She is small and weathered, but never seems destitute. It is as if she was born into a world before the luxuries of plumbing and fancy floors. She lives in a place where shoes are optional and life is just life, not necessarily hard, but what it is. It goes to prove that life is only a struggle for the things we have to sacrifice, but if you never know life any other way, perhaps the simplicity is a luxury in itself.
There are others around, people who have not seen enough to imagine they are poor. Whose feet have hardened and spread out so that no shoe would fit, perhaps no part of this sophisticated, polished world would fit. Imagine Doña Ramona suddenly living in a city flat. I think she would be totally overwhelmed. As it is, she has no agenda, no phone, no boss, no car, no debt, no insurance. I'm sure that she has encountered hardships and struggles, as all of us have. Like many at her age, she may not remember the faces that frequently pass her by, but her existence seems much more natural and I feel lucky just to have the chance to observe the innocence life must have had long ago.
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I look at my piles of bills, the ringing phone, and the never-ending frustrated hair pulling that is modern life with computers and sometimes I wonder if chucking it all and living life like she does is the way to go. But, alas, I never can. Not that I am physically unable to, it is that mentally I'll remember what life was like before. I'll have a comparison to judge against and a never ending sense of loss--despite the equally large (or larger) loss of annoyances from that life. Innocence, once lost, can never be regained (outside of acute amnesia I guess). Is she better in her life not knowing? The only way to find out is to expose her to another life, but in doing so destroy her first life forever. This must be the sort of thing that drives anthropologists insane, there's no good answer here.
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