Author Archives: Esmeralda Cabral

About Esmeralda Cabral

Esmeralda Cabral lives and writes in Vancouver, BC. Her work has been published in Gávea-Brown, The Common Online, Canadian Traveller, Curiosity, and several anthologies. She often writes about her immigration experience and has recently completed a memoir about returning home to Portugal with her Canadian-born family and their Portuguese Water Dog.

Smiling Is Not Professional

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I come from a long line of laughers. My father was a prankster who loved to play jokes on people. His favourite day of the year was April Fool’s and, as a gullible child, I always fell for his pranks. One morning, when I wanted an extra dose of sweetness in my cereal, I discovered that he had replaced the sugar in the bowl with flour. I knew immediately that he was the culprit. My mother was a hearty laugher. I remember her playing cards in the evenings with friends and there was always boisterous laughter involved. My grandfather was a talented storyteller, and my uncles and aunt were natural entertainers who would easily fill a room with music, singing, and merriment.

I was known as the serious child. At a young age, I was described as responsible and methodical, and my older sisters often told me to “lighten up.” But my mother peppered me with opposite advice. I remember her saying, “Never laugh too loudly or too heartily in public,” and “Cover your mouth with one hand if you giggle.” In a class-oriented society such as ours, laughing too much or too loudly outside the home was considered rude and uncouth.

The Portuguese are not known to be a happy people. This is a stereotype, of course, but I wonder how it came to be. When I think of Brazil, also a Portuguese-speaking country, I conjure up images of Carnival and the samba, and dancing in the streets. Their Portuguese ancestors? We are better known as seafarers and masters of nostalgia—a people of saudade—famous for the bluesy tunes of the fado. My people are not a smiley lot, at least not in public.

I remember visiting my home island of São Miguel in the Azores when my children were teenagers. Both of them remarked that people did not smile much, that they looked so unhappy. Even my husband agreed. “Everyone looks like they’ve had a really hard day,” he said. I issued a daily challenge: “The first one to spot a person smiling or laughing gets to choose where we have lunch.” It turned out they were right—smiles were hard to come by. Some days, I feared we would starve.

My attitude now towards joy and laughter is different than what this public persona of the Portuguese seems to convey. Despite my sensible character in childhood, my humour genes became more prominent as I grew up. When we moved to Canada and I started school, I covered my discomfort and loneliness with humour. I made so many mistakes when I was first learning English. Each time I said “tree” instead of “three” or “sink” instead of “think,” I knew my classmates would laugh but I liked to head off the chuckles by laughing first. Later, as I grew more comfortable with the language, I would offer quips in class to make others laugh. Sometimes, the teacher laughed too. “Don’t do that too often, you don’t want to be the class clown”: my mother’s words resonated in my head. I was learning that it was best to be reserved in public settings, but among family and friends, it was fine to laugh and have fun. I learned later that it wasn’t just a Portuguese thing; society in general seems to dismiss laughers and prize seriousness, especially where women are concerned.

I listened to my mother and tried to be more serious in class. I looked forward to the evenings when I could relax with her and my sisters. I no longer needed to be prodded to lighten up. We would poke fun at each other and laugh till the tears came.

When I landed my first permanent job, a researcher for a government department, most of my co-workers were male, except for the administration staff, and I was the youngest by at least five years. As I eased into my role and grew more comfortable, I started joking around with my colleagues. At one meeting, I remember sitting around a big table, flanked by a dozen older men wearing suits in various shades of dark blue. Afterwards, my boss took me aside to give me advice on how to thrive in my new professional role. “Don’t smile so much. When you laugh easily, people don’t take you seriously.” I wondered then if he would have been inclined to give the same advice to a male employee.

Cartoon by Dawn Mockler showing a male and female surgeon wearing masks and operating. The male is saying, "You should smile more."

Smile More by Dawn Mockler

I gravitated towards the women in the office and shared lunch with them in the boardroom or joined them for brisk walks. The men worked at their desks or went for the occasional “liquid lunch.” I noticed that they took extra-long lunches on Fridays and would come back more jovial than usual, filling the hallway with laughter. I later learned this was due to their excursions to the local exotic dance club. I called them out on it and said that I noticed the men-only nature of these outings. They responded by inviting me to join them the following week.

I did not enjoy myself and I felt objectified, even though I was sitting at a table, with all my clothes on. I asked my boss who was sitting next to me, “Why is this okay for a professional but smiling isn’t?”

Within a year, our group was disbanded, and I was transferred to a different department. The atmosphere was more casual, and I enjoyed the camaraderie I shared with my new colleagues but, on some level, the message had stuck: smiling is not professional.

It was tricky to manage my image as professional at work and relaxed at home, as reserved in public and carefree in private. I juggled my mother’s advice and my boss’ opinions and tried to conform but at some point, I must have decided that it was too exhausting, and I became less concerned about what others might think of me. I gave up trying to convey the ideal polite, professional image.

I often wish I could go back to that boardroom and observe the young me, navigating my uncertainties among all those men in dark blue. How much did I smile, and did I really laugh too much? I imagine my youthful exuberance has been tempered over time by age and experience, but do I laugh more or less now?

There have been times in my life when the ability to laugh has felt remote. There were the years when I was the primary caregiver for my ageing, ill parents. My days revolved around tasks, duty, and responsibility and I don’t remember laughing much then. And there were the times I lost people I loved. That’s when I feared I might never laugh again.

But one day, inevitably, I would catch myself smiling. Maybe it was when I noticed the first crocus poking out of the soil in the spring or when my neighbour’s cherry tree burst into full bloom. And then one evening over dinner with my husband, one of us would say something silly and we’d both start laughing. We’d laugh so hard that I would snort, and he would wipe tears from his cheeks. And we would agree that it had been way too long since either of us had laughed like that. And I would carry on, grateful that time and beauty conspire to soften the sharp edges of grief and help me return to laughter.

Now, when I look in the mirror, I examine the wrinkles around my eyes and mouth. I have developed some pretty significant laugh lines. I see them as signs of resistance. I have somehow managed to keep laughing, even when I’ve been told that I shouldn’t.

 

Listen to Esmeralda Cabral read “Smiling Is Not Professional.”

Loss and Love in the Time of Covid

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Evenings of board games and laughter, intellectual discussions over dinner, days of drifting from reading to knitting to cooking elaborate meals and baking beautiful bread. Walks in the woods with my dog, the odd bike ride with my husband. Gardening in the sun. I had unrealistic expectations, perhaps, but this is what I dared imagine life in self-isolation might be, the four of us all together for the first time in years.

There have been elaborate meals—nettle risotto, roast leg of lamb, slow-roasted vegetables, homemade pasta. The bread has indeed been beautiful, thanks to the plethora of no-knead recipes out there now, and I’ve also made hot cross buns and nut loaves and cookies and yogurt. But discussions over dinner have often disintegrated into nit-picking and arguments, conflict over the Netflix account, and whose turn it is to walk the dog. Ah, the children are both home. Except they are no longer children.

I get it, life changed practically overnight for them, but also for us. The global pandemic caused us all to come to a pause and rethink our future in two-week blocks at a time.

Our daughter, at twenty-one, was in her last month of classes at university, about to graduate. The world was full of possibility. She had a few leads on jobs, a budding romance, and was looking forward to crossing the stage in cap and gown to collect her well-earned degree.

Our son, at twenty-five, was working and living with his girlfriend at a resort in the Rockies. It had been a cold winter and he was looking forward to spring skiing. They mapped out future adventures and dreamed dreams, their world full of possibility too.

And then, the new coronavirus we’d vaguely heard about became more prominent. It was proving to be more virulent than expected, more deadly than anticipated. The world reacted. We became familiar with terms like physical distancing, self-isolation, quarantine. Stores closed and we lined up for groceries, stocked up on hand sanitizer, Lysol wipes and toilet paper. The shortage of flour and yeast would come later.

There was the email from the president of the university—in-person classes were cancelled, graduation postponed indefinitely. Our daughter would finish her term, and write her exams, online. She and her friends lost their part-time jobs and, unable to pay rent, many returned home to different parts of Canada and the world. They didn’t have a chance to say good-bye in person. Some of them will likely never see each other again.

The budding romance came to an abrupt halt, the boy returning home to Ontario for the foreseeable future, our daughter staying in Vancouver with us. Now they talk and do crosswords and even workouts, all on Facetime. Love in the time of Covid.

The resort in the Rockies closed and staff were laid off. Our son’s girlfriend headed east, on a flight back to Ontario, to spend time with her parents. He drove west, to Vancouver, piled his stuff in our garage, and reclaimed his old bedroom. Their plans for another year or two of the wanderer lifestyle up in the air. Now they too are together but apart, connecting on Facetime. How to plan when he is here and she is there and everything, absolutely everything, is uncertain? Love in the time of Covid.

For my husband and me, life hasn’t changed that much. We are newly retired and had already learned to slow down and spend days together. We walk the dog, go on the odd bike ride, garden when the sun shines. Sometimes it feels like we will run out of things to talk about. Yesterday, we danced in the kitchen. Love in the time of Covid.

I love that our family is together again. And yet, I know it is not the adult children’s first choice. We are lucky and we know it—we are healthy, we eat well, and we have a comfortable home near the woods that makes self-isolation bearable, even pleasant. But we are getting cranky. It’s raining today and we are all inside. Whose turn is it to walk the dog?

(Original link with readers’ comments is here.)

Loss and Love in the Time of Covid

By .

Evenings of board games and laughter, intellectual discussions over dinner, days of drifting from reading to knitting to cooking elaborate meals and baking beautiful bread. Walks in the woods with my dog, the odd bike ride with my husband. Gardening in the sun. I had unrealistic expectations, perhaps, but this is what I dared imagine life in self-isolation might be, the four of us all together for the first time in years.

There have been elaborate meals—nettle risotto, roast leg of lamb, slow-roasted vegetables, homemade pasta. The bread has indeed been beautiful, thanks to the plethora of no-knead recipes out there now, and I’ve also made hot cross buns and nut loaves and cookies and yogurt. But discussions over dinner have often disintegrated into nit-picking and arguments, conflict over the Netflix account, and whose turn it is to walk the dog. Ah, the children are both home. Except they are no longer children.

I get it, life changed practically overnight for them, but also for us. The global pandemic caused us all to come to a pause and rethink our future in two-week blocks at a time.
Continue Reading Loss and Love in the Time of Covid

You Can Do Better Than That

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I was two days away from my thirty-second birthday and giving birth to my first child.

“Push, push! Come on, you can do better than that,” the nurse was yelling at me.

“No, I can’t. I’m giving it everything I’ve got,” I remember saying.

“There’s something to be said for having your kids when you’re younger,” she grumbled.

Everything after that is a blur. My baby boy came out healthy and demanding my attention from his first breath. He weighed nine pounds but the statistic that impressed me was that his head circumference was thirty-seven centimetres.

“That’s a large head,” my doctor later told me. “Good for you, you did so well.”

“The nurse didn’t think so,” I said and then recounted my “moment” in the delivery room. I was still angry weeks later and now so was my doctor.

“Some people still believe that the best time to give birth is in your early twenties. It’s old thinking,” she said.

“Who’s ready for that in their twenties?” I’d had a long labour and a tough delivery.

“Exactly,” the doctor said.

Since then, a number of my friends have had their first children at forty-two and forty-three. I didn’t think that unusual. My mother gave birth to me when she was forty. And back then, that was definitely rare. I was the youngest of three; my sisters were ten and fifteen when I was born.

“Why the big gaps?” I asked my mother.

“Sometimes you can’t plan these things,” she said. “I wanted five-year spacing but after your sister was born, I had a hard time getting pregnant again. But I really wanted a third child so we kept trying,” she explained. “And now here you are, what a gift.”

“Was it because dad wanted a boy?” I asked what I had wondered for so many years.

“Oh, maybe,” my mother said. Her eyes were sparkling and she was smiling. “But he was thrilled when you were born. We both were.”

Looking back, I realise that I have always been around people who were older. It was normal to me. There were my parents, and my parents’ friends; my sisters and their friends. No one was surprised then, that I married a man twelve years my senior. I wasn’t bothered by our age difference too much, although there were times when I wondered if it was a good idea. I remember talking to my mother about it once and our conversation went something like this:

“If on average women live seven years longer than men and he’s twelve years older than I am, I’m going to be alone for nineteen years. I don’t know if I want that,” I said.

“Yes, but remember, those are statistics. You can’t plan your life out too carefully. Sometimes you just have to live it.” My mother adored Eric.

We had been married for ten years when both of my parents moved in with us. My mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and needed care. My sisters were working full time but I had taken time off the paid workforce to raise my two children. I was at home anyway, so why wouldn’t I look after my parents too?

 


Holding On (hooked rug) by Laura Kenney

 

Looking after my parents was not only what I wanted to do, it was what I had been raised to do. In our Portuguese culture, it’s normal, it’s expected, it’s just the way it is.

Our situation was more complicated than most in that my parents didn’t speak English very well. They had immigrated at the age of fifty and their knowledge of English at the time was limited to a few words and sentences. Both of them had started their Canadian life working hard, each of them often juggling two or three labour-intensive jobs. Learning English dropped on the priority list—they had to house and feed their family. After nearly three decades, they could get by in their adopted country, but their English was still broken.

As my mother’s illness progressed, she lost all of her ability to speak English and could only communicate in Portuguese. To have put her in a home would mean that one more time in her life, she’d be unable to talk to anyone. I couldn’t fathom that. So Eric and I invited them to live with us. My sisters helped regularly and, later, there was support from the health system. Still, for a few years, my life was a whirr of caregiving. I remember taking my parents for coffee one day. It was their preferred outing: coffee and a biscotti in the afternoon. As we were walking from the car to the coffee shop, we took up the entire sidewalk. I was in the middle; my mother held on to my arm on my right, and my father, with his cane, held on to her. On my left, I held my son’s hand and he held on to his sister who was then about four years old. We must have made quite the scene. One woman walking toward us stopped and said to me, “Well, aren’t you the sandwich generation.”

Yes, yes I was. My days were full of caregiving from the moment I woke up until I laid my head on the pillow at bedtime. And sometimes I’d be called upon once or twice during the night too. My morning shower was the only time I could guarantee that I would be alone. Sometimes, when I took an extra long shower, there would be a knock on the door, “Mommm! Vóvó needs you!”

I remember crying in the shower one day, thinking, Oh my God, I am going to be looking after needy people for the rest of my life.

That night, in bed, I turned to Eric and said, “I’m going to need to look after you too, aren’t I?”

“Maybe. Or maybe I’ll have to look after you. You can’t always plan, sometimes you just have to live, isn’t that what your mother said?”

“Yes, you’re right. I mean, I could step off the curb one day and get hit by a truck. That would be horrible.” I remember laughing so hard after I said that. I was exhausted.

My mother died after living with us for two years. My father died nine months later. And then, two short years after that, when we were finally recovering from all the grief and were establishing a new normal in our extended family, my sister Maria was diagnosed with aggressive, terminal cancer, and died. She was fifty-six.

Today, I am the same age Maria was when she died. I have taken a leave from work and I have become a student again. So many people, friends and strangers alike, have said to me, “Wow, good for you. A student. I don’t think I could do that, not at my age.”

That baby I pushed out all those years ago has now finished university; his sister is halfway through. Both are adults with their own dreams. Eric will retire at the end of the year and soon after that I hope to get my degree. No part of our lives follows the expected trajectory. We seem to live life by the seat of our pants and, most of the time, I wouldn’t want it any other way.