always an angel | never a god

MARIANA

Before there was Marisol, there was Mariana.

Their star of the sea, the long awaited and much beloved heir - the promise of a beautiful future for a kingdom still in infancy. For the first five years she was all they had, all they’d ever want or need. But maybe like the star she burned too brightly and too fast. Or perhaps they could blame the sea, that which flowed through the heart of the nation bridging one side of the world to another and Mariana danced along the bridge between this world and the next. She was  bright and bold and happy, and they caught the disease  too late. The little princess did not live to see her sixth year, and a nation mourned.

Marisol, born three years and three days after the death of a sister she’d never know, came as  a surprise. Some say the King and Queen had given up on the idea of a future entirely. For them, Marisol  was a bit of divine intervention - be it the old gods long dormant in the mountains or He that arrived with the conquistadors. Stars, they thought, had not been bright or strong enough to sustain the future, and so they would need the sun.

She grew up in the shadow of her sister and the nation held its breath.  Marisol survived her sixth year, her seventh, and so on until the idea of losing yet another little princess was an echo of fear. Her parents spoke of Mariana, in the limited way that one can speak of a dead child to another child. They marked her passing each year three days prior to Marisol’s birthday, and kept a room in the palace locked and forbidden.

She never quite understood why we call those we love who have died ‘lost’ or ‘late’, as if there’s a chance they might be found again, or they will show up if you only wait just a little bit longer. She asked her mother this once, when she was very young yet allowed to attend a fancy dinner.

If Mariana was lost why did they not go look for her?

In the stunned silence that followed, Marisol started shaking, her nanny taking pity on the child and pulling her away to be put to bed. She never got an answer to that specific question, but thought it was the first time she might have felt a ghost.

FAMILIA

There's something to be said about the specific traumas of a picture perfect childhood, especially one that occurs in a haunted house. Marisol cannot recall ever seeing a ghost, but haunting has always been more about feeling rather than seeing. She was loved, of course, that she has never doubted. She was born into a world that told her she could be anything, and for a bit, she almost believed. But monarchies did not remain in power by letting their wildfire daughters follow just any whim, and from the beginning Marisol might have been just a little bit too much. Mariana had been first, and though she was gone she’d lived just long enough to leave a mark but not so long as to be anything less than perfect.  

Marisol, with those wide and wild eyes, at a young age she already felt everything so deeply and so fully. Already she was lost in a different way from her sister. It’s one thing to have expectations, to have to lessen herself, to carve away anything interesting and shrink until she  fits into the mold, the ideal, in order to please. It's another thing entirely to do all of this only to find that the role, the position for which she’d peeled away parts of herself, is still occupied by the ghost of another. Mariana’s state of being lost haunted them all with her absence, Marisol was lost in that she did not have a place.

She tried. She refused to resent them for missing her sister. She strived to be perfect, to be exactly what they wanted her to be. She went to school close to home, obeyed when they were  overprotective because it meant that they cared, that they noticed her and wanted her. But Marisol was emotion and sunshine, flesh and blood - too much bound up in the too small space she’d been allowed to occupy in her own life. It was only natural she would fall short, no matter how clearly they’d defined the lines, how easily they held out their love and devotion - fragile, but like a grenade and not glass.

Because here’s the thing they never tell daughters - it will never be enough. Even if she’d succeeded in doing everything they asked of her and all that they did not, smothering the parts of her that were deep and dark and interesting and utterly alive, it could never be enough. She would always be lacking, either through her own faults or the fallibility of humanity as a whole. Here is a universal truth - one can never be as good as a dead girl. Perfection is utterly unattainable in its own right, but add in the particular sort of perfection, of goodness, near holiness, ascribed to little girls taken from the world too soon - to strive for that might be its own type of madness.

And so she remained lost. Half bright and clever and generous, and half lost, nearly as much a ghost as her dead sister. As she grew older, Marisol found ways to carve out places for herself, spaces she could take up fully that were not already occupied, mostly. Ghosts, of course, are not real, she’d argue, a memory or a wish, the very best or very worst parts of those long gone lingering here still. There were no bad parts of Mariana, she’d been told, and all the best parts were a sort of haze, fitting whatever particular narrative was told, or whatever space Marisol might want.

Sometimes she hated a girl she never met, sometimes she hated her parents for their unconscious comparisons, for saving all this space for the child they’d lost instead of giving it to the one they had. She hated herself every time she thought these things, and clung to the moments when she felt the most at home, to this land and the people she loved.

PANAMA

She still remembers the first time they took her through the canal, the royal yacht making its way through the various locks and gates. A grand celebration of 90 years of travel, conveniently close to the Princess’s tenth birthday, her parents and the court sending silent prayers of thanksgiving that they’d not lost this one yet. Of course, Marisol was not aware of this thread running through the background of her day, far too entranced by the water and the sailors and all the different mechanisms that made this work. Safe in the cage of her father’s arms, she stood on the lower rungs of the railings, soaking in the sun and the sea - her namesake.

“The canal,” he says, “is really just a gate, a bridge between oceans, peoples, and worlds. In the past others tried to carve out the heart of us, of this land. But the land always won, would always win against those who did not understand and only sought to destroy. When your great grandfather was born, his father the king had enough with foreign investors and companies, other nations with their gunboat diplomacy bringing violence and destruction as they tried to create. No, he said, only those of us who know this land and respect it will be able to succeed. He knew the secret that the rest of them had missed, the secret that he told his son, who told his son, who told me, and now I am going to tell you.”

“You will never achieve anything truly great, never create something so masterful and crucial as this canal, if you go about it as if you are waging a war. The land will always win, in the end. It may take years, or even generations, but eventually all that was created and sustained through violence will be lost, but the mountains will still stand. Your great great grandfather did not see the land as his enemy, but as an ally. He did not try to carve out our heart, instead he followed those paths that already existed, a gradual expansion rather than an explosion. And so here we are, ninety years later following those same paths and thanking the land for allowing us this privilege.”

“How do we thank it?” She asked, peering up at him with round, dark eyes, eyes that held galaxies in their depths.

“By taking care of it, by serving the land and its people as the gatekeepers of this bridge. It may be difficult sometimes, especially when it seems like the world is getting bigger everyday, but also smaller as we become more connected. The world and other leaders will want your focus to be here, on the pathway between oceans, but the land is more than just this, and you will be responsible for, and beholden to all of the people in all the different parts of our home.”

The princess nodded slowly, solemnly, as if she was only just beginning to feel the weight and burden belonging to those who would wear a crown. Her father kissed her head and smiled.

“Do not worry too much now, Mari, we have many years for you to learn all you will need to succeed, I promise.”

The princess was asleep by the time they reached the Gulf of Panama, the sunset over the Pacific painting them all in shades of pink and gold. The king almost considered waking her, as he knew how much she loved when the sky echoed all her favorite colors, but he couldn’t bring himself to disturb her peace.

THE FUTURE

(the following is an excerpt from the draft of the Vogue Mexico cover story, an  interview with HRH the Princess of Panama sent to the Office of the Emperor of Mexico and the Office of the Crown Prince for approval )

It's a rainy Tuesday afternoon when I meet with her royal highness, Crown Princess Marisol Espinosa Batista of Panama, and the future Empress Consort of Mexico, at the Museo Nacional de Historia. She tells me she tries to visit every time she’s in Mexico City and before the princess can say why,  we are interrupted by a member of staff who eagerly informs her that some document or artifact she’d asked about previously had been recovered, and would be arriving next month. The Princess is  just as excited as the staff member, whom she spoke to warmly, even asking about the man’s granddaughter - by name. Over the course of our afternoon together, I discovered she actually is just like this with everyone, from the museum director to the busser at the cafe.

VM: What would you say is the role of Monarchy in the twenty-first century? HRH: Wow, not even a warm up question about who I’m wearing.

[She laughs. Later I will find out exactly who she’s wearing -  an up and coming Panamanian designer who draws inspiration from historical memory and sustainability.]

HRH: It’s refreshing. Hmm.. I believe that the monarchy provides unity and stability, sort of like a bridge between the nation as a collective group of individuals and the nation as a single entity upon the world stage, if that makes sense? [She pauses briefly to look up at a portrait of a serious looking nobleman, perhaps some distant relative of her fiance.] My father [the King of Panama] used to tell me that where businessmen and politicians are beholden to their shareholders and investors - We are beholden to the people, to the land. Every single person has a stake in the nation, and it is the job of the monarchy to make sure that their trust and hopes and futures are not jeopardized or endangered. But obviously I cannot speak for every monarch, this is just my understanding.

[She does this several times throughout our conversation, speaks thoughtfully and eloquently about some topic or another, only to second guess or dismiss her own words at the end. Royal media training to never fully comment on something or pick a side maybe, or perhaps she does actually doubt herself. ]

VM: Even with all that is going on in the world right now?

HRH: See that's always it! When you think about it, that is such a strange thing to say - as if nothing has ever happened before and everything is happening now, all at once. It shows how little historical memory we have as humans, we only really focus on what’s happened in our lifetime, or our parents' lifetime. And this is not at all to minimize the very real conflicts and suffering occuring. But by acting as if these things have never happened before, then we forget how conflicts were solved, how societies and people and culture thrived despite the chaos. Those are the stories we need to be telling, all of the wondrous things people created, the ingenious ways humans have solved conflict. Within the proper context, of course.

VM: You’ve said something similar, if I recall, about who gets to tell our stories.

HRH: Is this about the reverse Indiana Jones thing? [She laughs again.] I will admit that perhaps the Met Gala was not the most appropriate place for that joke.

VM: Maybe not, but it was a story that got you a lot of attention.

HRH: The story isn’t about me, though, it’s about the rich history and culture of my home, of this nation, and many others around the world, stolen centuries ago and yet still on display in far away places, without the necessary context. I think it’s wonderful that people from across the world want to learn about my history and culture, but that cannot be done in an effective or respectful way when the source of that knowledge lies in violence. Historians and activists and many others have been fighting for this for decades, if not longer. I am blessed with the unique privilege that comes from my education, my position, and my fiance's position to bring broader attention to this, and hopefully create real and meaningful change.

VM: So the tweets about you being banned from the British Museum?

HRH: No, [she laughs] I have not been banned from the British Museum as far as I am aware, though I doubt I’ll be visiting anytime soon.

ARTHUR

It was as if the creator made a mistake with you, placing your heart firmly on your sleeve instead of safely encased in your ribcage. Darling girl, lovely little fool - did you learn nothing from that first lie? That candy apple kiss to knock you off guard, to soften the blow of the poison he presses to your skin with lips that taste of another. Heartache, the shattering gaping feeling is something you’ve only read about, until it is not and that dark thing inside of him that you’ve always been drawn to threatens to swallow your light whole.

You make him give you time, intending it to be a week but caving after a single day. He might still be your prince, you rationalize, and doesn’t the heroine have to suffer, to lose something in order to make the happily ever after mean anything? Fall apart and come back together, that's how the story always goes.  

So you swallow his honeyed apologies, let him confess his sins against your skin,  run your fingers through his hair and promise him your future. You were not taught ruthlessness, did not learn the headyness of cruelty. And what a gift it was, to love so freely as you always have, made all the more crucial by this devastating sorrow.

Forgiveness, you believe, is not weakness. And so when he holds out his bloodstained hands, you pick up the knife yourself to offer him your bruised heart.

MARISOL

Where do you keep your sorrow?

I don’t. I wrap it up in my guilt, that which I can peel away, and then find somewhere to bury it deep within me. Sometimes it works. Often it doesn’t, and instead surfaces at the very worst times sharpened into something I cannot ignore.

What about your guilt?

In my shadow. Or maybe I am in its shadow. Guilt either follows me or I it - that I am not enough, that I am not her, that I have not done nearly enough with what I have been given to help those around me. Guilt that I might be enabling him, guilt that I might love him too much to care. Guilt over all of the things that I cannot change, and guilt that I might be too weak to change the things that I can. Fear and guilt are sisters, or so they say. Fear I keep in my chest, in that hollowed out space within my ribs where I’d once kept a heart. I haven’t quite decided if the cage is there to keep other things out or to keep fear in.

So where do you keep your heart?

On my sleeve, buried deep in the mountains, or strewn across the seas of home. I give a little bit of it to nearly everyone I know, to carry my love with them wherever they go. Some bits I’ve gotten back, some are still safely in the care of others, some lost forever or destroyed. You might ask if I feel it, the very moment someone decides to take the bit of heart I’ve given them and burn it. The answer is no, I only notice their absences and feel the embers. Most of it I gave to him, maybe I thought to fill the void inside his own chest. Or maybe I have always been doomed to love someone that tastes like war and feels like loss.

And that righteous anger?

It lives in me like a second skin, electric and racing at times. I didn’t find this part of me until I was older, until I moved beyond my gossamer perfect world and saw all that could be done and all that we were not doing. I found my anger in the vastness of the mountains, and the depths of the jungle. All the lost and stolen parts of my history, all the pain and sorrow of my people. Anger I cannot name, names I cannot forget. All those lives and loves sacrificed upon their altar of greed.  Again and again, anger found me, another jolt and another layer. I feel it so much I don’t know what to do with it, I don't know where to put it besides deep within me.

What about love? And joy?

My love lives with my heart, with others. I am constantly falling in love - with the sunrise, with a stranger’s smile, with the way the ocean looks after a storm, or how my cat gracefully stretches her paws. It is such a joy, and such sorrow, to love everything so freely and to feel everything so deeply. Love I spread like a balm across my skin, to protect me from that anger. Joy lingers in my fingertips, that incessant need to touch and feel. To live, and truly live - to bite down and suck out the marrow of life, to dig my nails deep into whatever I can. Then I wonder why does living fully and deeply invoke such violence. I wish I had an answer, I wish I had an explanation for my wants.