The Mythical, Magical Power of Deylin, the Phantasmagorical Blacksmith

September 14, 2018

The first thing he did was change his name- the spelling that is.

Almost everyone, especially foreigners and teachers- especially foreign teachers pronounced his name wrong. He had had enough of that anger. Now his written name matched the sound... ah... sound.

 Sound was important to Daylon.

Daylon sounded full, self-reliant, comfortable, calm, appropriately dignified, knowledgeable yet humble- aware of one’s place in the great scheme of things, offering the possibility of wisdom and strength. It was serious.

With his tenor and his violin Daylon left Managua. With his tenor and his violin he built his life. Tenor and violin: an odd combination his friends said. He had lived in three worlds: classical string quartet, jazz quintet and the world surrounding his orphaned young life: street violence, crime, prostitution, drug wars. He was lucky to be alive. More than one club at which he played had become the scene of rival gang turf-wars.

He had fallen in love with Miriam, who checked hats and coats at the club. She was studying to be a geriatric nurse. He joked that she had plenty of people to practice on at the club. The average age of the men who frequented the place was, well... “deceased.”

At least over 60... that included the young ages of gang members. The women who danced were mid twenties. They all said “26.” Even the ones who were 40. You really couldn’t tell in the dim light. You couldn’t even tell the color of the eyes of your lap-dancer.

Daylon usually drank Tiste, with his

quesillo- a favorite meal since childhood in León- his parents had been architects. They worked for the township restoring old Spanish colonial buildings to their former glory.

The Spaniards had named it Santiago de los Caballeros de León. Saint James is the patron saint of Spain - and of pilgrims. Jesus had named him one of the sons of thunder. Deylin’s father was fond of noting that St. Jame’s name in Spanish was Iago- hence the name Santiago- with a wry smile he added Iago was Shakespeare’s vilest, most evil villain.

With a population of just over 200,000 León was the second largest city in Nicaragua. Managua has close to one and a half million residents - not only so many more people, but also an extraordinary difference in density. León was much more open, sunlight everywhere.

Early morning walks little Deylin and his parents delighted in seeing a green guardabarranco with its bright red-orange breast, white head, dark beak and two long tail feathers. Once in a while they saw a pájaro Macua flying down from its usual high altitude, wafting in from its Amazon home. The little bird’s dramatically contrasting brilliant red head, white feathered body and gray-blue wings delighted little Deylin. For a festival at pre-school he and his mother made a guardabarranco costume including face paint and feathers. He really wanted to do it all. Even though he adored his mother, he didn’t like being helped.

For a special treat the young family visited the Herbario León where his parents’ scientist friends were studying conservation of native medicinal plants.

 Sun-showers amazed and dazzled little Deylin. The bright green, sparkling dew-bejeweled leaves in the late spring early morning followed by a “chase of the rainbow” over the old bridge on the pond were treasured memories. His friend Julia’s parents taught him a few words of Russian: Dorscht, wet and Mokra, rain. Language- sound had a mysterious attraction even then. 

Mostly little Deylin basked in the experience of being with his loving parents on warm beautiful mornings in the peaceful countryside. On holidays, they visited grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins all much older than Deylin. He remembered standing in a foyer waiting for his parents to take the drive home.

It was the first time he remembered saying to himself that he did not belong with the adults- or with the children. He did love his little brother whose death from complications of measles haunted him. He cried for weeks- until little Deylin fell in love with Julia - they ate lunch together in kindergarten, knowing each other for many years but losing their closeness, she developing into a young revolutionary, he escaping into music. That was years into the future.

 He remembered childhood treats shared with Julia: tangerine wedges, quickly baked in the summer sun so the sweetness was surrounded by a delicate crispy crunch, a delicious counterpoint to queso frito. 

There were a few other childhood friends and a couple of cousins who for a time lived nearby. 

As he got older, Deylin felt increasingly in a double-bind about everything. His father asked why the boy didn’t have more friends. When his mother said she would arrange play dates he flew into a rage saying dates were for men with women. His homophobia got in the boy’s way- like the time Deylin got a scholarship to study abroad. His father said there were predatory homosexuals who ran these music camps.

Deylin was awkward with kids. He couldn’t seem to learn the rules of most sports. That made him feel estúpido. The feeling stupid was dissonant with the praise he received in school- another root source of his anger which wasn’t to bloom for a few more years.

As for sports, Papa corrected him endlessly. He, like his father was athletic but unlike his father, disliked sports. No surprise there.

Nonetheless warm family moments abounded. His father also had a sense of humor. His mother was abundantly creative, decorating their home with fresh flowers and her paintings. Each meal was a work of art.

Joyously the parents worked over many years on the Catedral de León. When Deylin was even younger, his mother, Matilde Magdalena carried him from painting to painting, lovingly explaining each modern masterpiece. Magda wanted to share the irony which continually brought a smile to her beautiful face. The building itself was Baroque, with NeoClassical features; the art was 20th century -contemporary, extraordinary, vibrant.

His father Sebastian Carlos Alberto de León was just as loving and detail-oriented as his wife; he had however too much of the seriousness about him. Ah the seriousness. Weren’t men supposed to be serious- and angry?

Was anger the essence of machismo? Was it a cover, an ancient, one-emotion, one dimensional mask? Easy to understand: don’t mess with me!

A face and even more a personality of anger was a fortress not to be reckoned with. Prehistoric art, another passion of his father’s, was teeming with spectacularly scary specimens- some were so grotesque they made the family laugh.

Despite the jokes and other laughter, the love of art and nature, the feeling of seriousness, endless heavy oppressive seriousness often evident in his tirades on the lack of social justice, made Sebastian angry- traits Daylon discovered more and more in himself as he got older: anger and seriousness. Anger caused more by feeling trapped from his father’s double binds than by Deylin’s circumstances.

Just as dawn followed night, Deylin also had his mother’s joy and lightness. It was just harder for him to connect to those parts of himself.

Working assiduously to survive, then to extricate himself from Nicaragua reminded him of another early memory: He had been playing on a beach, building a tunnel. The caregiver was off smoking a cigarette, maybe uncaring, envious and/or passive aggressive. The sand tunnel collapsed on top of the boy. He screamed. No response.

It occurred to him no one could hear. After his intense and very brief panic, he found the strength to buck up cat-style and break through the wet sand which was rapidly hardening into a cement-like paste.

Remarkable when he thought about it years later, hard to believe a child could have that much presence of mind.

He unconsciously repressed this memory- until he arrived in California. Then it visited him from time to time, usually when he was almost despairing. It was his gift to himself- his unconscious reminding him of his inner strength, self-reliance, his magic.

Though he kept in touch with his parents’ friends from the Herbario, he never accepted their offers of help.

Interesting he thought: it was not until his late teenage years that those dark, raging qualities of his father’s emerged in full bloom. His father was dead; the thoughts were alive- all Daylon’s, his father’s posthumous gift.

Daylon’s father may have been dead, but Daylon was dead serious. Serious even though he smiled often - at beautiful women, at native drumming, at the wonders of nature- still, “serious” was how neighbors described him- and angry.

There was no time for light frivolity... anger was serious business.

That made him chuckle. The Ice around his heart began to melt.

He later came to understand that he used his anger well. Daylon learned to manage it to take control of his life. A fortune teller told him his hands had a line which meant “The Boss.” He started listening to Springsteen. He started to wonder if one of the reasons we was so angry was that he always made himself “less than” in order to take care of the egos of others onto whom he projected his father’s fragile sense of self-worth. Deep down Daylon knew he was a boss. To deny who he was was not humility. It was denying the world a leader. The very thought brought an inner tirade: “Who the hell do you think you are? Etta James’ music helped put it into perspective. It was avoiding taking responsibility.

How many of his bandmates had been consumed by raging impotent?

Daylon drank Tiste except when he brooded over why his parents ever brought him to the capital. He drowned his sorrow and anger over their murders in his music- mostly - but some nights in macuá.

Not the bird - white rum, guava and lemon juice, sugar and ice.

You could say he drank too much sweet rum because he didn’t have enough sweetness in his life. Miriam had a sugar-daddy. She was a one-man woman and although surrounded by gorgeous women, it was only Miriam for whom Daylon pined. He saw her shapely figure and sharp, clean intellect and that was all he wanted.

He listened to Miriam’s story. She lived with madre. Parents divorced when she was five. Mother was a part-time alcoholic- Miriam joked - her mom only drank twice a day: morning, noon and night. “Ok,” she said “So I’m not a mathematician.” Humor helped her survive. She had been taking care of her mother since she was five years old, when she and Papa split and Madre took to bed every day when she got home from work as an office manager. Her five brothers played soccer until Miriam called them in for dinner. They were much older and for a few years helped put food on the table and pay the mortgage. One by one they left to find their own lives. They were never close to their mother, except the youngest, a social worker who died of AIDS at a young age. He was Miriam’s soulmate. It took her most of her life to fully greave his passing. It was a nail in the coffin of her allowing herself to ever show vulnerability or be truly intimate.

So Miriam had her share of anger. She kept it inside, mostly. A few broken dishes here or there. Not one to share, it took many months for Daylon to piece together Miriam’s story. She was hidden and emotionally unavailable. Her occasional iciness added to her allure.

Daylon found he could work off his despair and rage at his part-time job at the blacksmith. The repetitive hammering built muscles on his wiry frame - daily he could see and feel his power growing. There was something else about the repetitive motions. It gave him clarity of mind. Once he had the thought, on leaving his anvil, that his love for Miriam was similar to an impossible scene a year earlier when he was in love with two women- not exactly unrequited but definitely unconsummated. That made him like the dog with two bones who went hungry because he couldn’t decide which he wanted. Was what he wanted so unreasonable? All he wanted... or did he really know?

Comfort food...

“A simple cheese-filled corn tortilla topped with pickled onions, a drop of cream,” usually he ate these quesillo with his beloved Tiste. He still got a kick out of it being served in an “ornately carved jícaro cup (made from the dried fruit of the jícaro tree)”—Daylon mused about this custom from pre-Hispanic times. He also liked those descriptions from the Web. He liked research and had learned love of detail from Magda and Sebastian. There was something of the architect, even the engineer in him, not his dominant trait but it was there.

 What would he have been like, what work would he have been doing if he had been born in pre-Hispanic times? He thought he would have been a priest. He would have loved to have been a High Priest. Then he castigated himself for his never-ending ego flights.

 “León—a Spanish colonial town on Nicaragua's Western side:” He missed the slower pace, the open spaces. The afternoon silence. 

Los pintores renacentistas se enfocaban principalmente en asuntos religiosos.

 Although the Catedral de León was famous for its modern art, young Deylin did see renaissance painting as well. Hard to avoid considering his parents religious upbringing even if they rarely went to church. They joked that they went to Catedral daily. 

In the rare moments when he wasn’t obsessing over his career, his safety, his resentment about his parents’ murders, his infatuation with Miriam or his fascination and fantasy combination of styles: West Coast Jazz with the Spanish tinge as Jelly Roll Morton had called it - but in the decades since so much more Afro-Cuban - and what the Baja could offer! - Daylon wondered in those rare moments: why with all its natural beauty of lakes and mountain volcanos and rich farmlands his native Nicaragua was such a terrible place. Even the fact that a Pediatrician had invented Daylon’s favorite, Macau reminded him of the American television show “Breaking Bad”- doctors and teachers who should be the paragons of society had succumbed to the general rottenness. There was no morality. God was dead. Every man for himself, a decayed, rotting putrefying social fabric. Yet there was more than a shred of hope in him, a light which balanced and clarified his darkness. In this unlikeliest of places, his inner gloom, there grew hope, the seed beneath the rock, an unending upward movement toward daylight. Always brewing in the back of his mind, often in his dreams lists of possibilities- choice was Daylon’s magic, his freedom, his ticket to ride, one of few Beatles’ lyrics to stay with him.

A choice he made early on was to embrace the beauty of tone. Daylon had developed his extraordinarily velvety sound and flexibility through the practice of long tones. A fellow band member noticed and gave him a copy of Zen and the Art of Archery. At the time, he was 15. This introduction to Zen melded perfectly with his nascent and intuitive understanding of macrocosm and microcosm.

And she noticed... appreciated, desired connection: Her radiance needed no makeup. This beautiful quiet woman wearing glasses, partially hiding her alluring dark eyes, heard him play. She returned nightly for two weeks before giving him The Way of the Peaceful Warrior. If Daylon had not been so hopelessly devoted to his impossible pursuit of Miriam, he might have found a loving life with this woman. He barely saw her- at the time, but she populated his thoughts- and regrets for decades after.

Sanity came in bursts... It was the old drummer, a man whose grandfathers were Native Amerindians who had noticed Daylon’s devotion to long tones. The ageless mentor taught him that breathing exercises could be done away from the instrument as a tool to gain self awareness and self mastery. This did in fact quiet the storms within, to paraphrase a book he had been meaning to read.

Instrument-free breathing sessions began showing up of their own accord throughout his days. Spontaneously he let go of his need to be near Miriam. No sooner had he had this epiphany, did he apply for passport and visa, set the wheels in motion to study in California. Tenía suerte; he was lucky. He got there, poor but not impoverished. He got his first gig the day he arrived, pulling out his tenor at the half-joking invitation of a wise-ass guitar player in a bar near the airport. At two in the morning, $200 American dollars richer, he found an inexpensive hotel across the street, collapsing into a slumber of 10 hours.

Awaking to the mid afternoon sun, famished, he wanted something other than rice and beans. Something even more special than quesillo. One man’s tedium is another’s novelty: He went to a diner and had steak and eggs- that was, to him, special. It was in fact listed on the menu as “The Daily Special.” Daylon nodded in approval.

He called the guitar player who told him where tonight’s gig would be. Daylon opened a bank account, showered, did some pushups, grabbed his two instruments, suitcase, backpack and headed for a cab.

A student visa meant he had to be a student. So he enrolled in a community college. His English was pretty good and he didn’t want to mess up his music by studying formally - he thought of Bernstein’s “I hate Music, but I love to Sing.” He wanted to try something different...

He enrolled in a computer programming course, got a certificate three months later, then got a day job and a girlfriend.

May Elizabeth was from Louisiana, looked like a southern belle... hidden not far beneath her sultry curves was a conga-playing piano monster. She had a day job too- marketing executive for an indie record label.

May Elizabeth was ashamed of her hillbilly folks- despite or perhaps because of their money. Her sister Maybelline had a drinking problem, then drug overdoses which ultimately killed her. Suicide? Maybe. Her brother was a compulsive gambler. The piano and drums saved May Elizabeth. She had her demons to be sure.

Freshman year in college she felt so trapped she banged her head on walls. It was amazing she did not seriously injure herself.

In later years she joked that that was the reason she was so nutso.

May made her first appointment to see a therapist that first year in college. She didn’t go. She cancelled it thinking her mother would have been humiliated... she would have been, how dare her beautiful daughter sully the glorious family honor. Better the silent demise of her siblings, ugh.

Somewhere May had learned resilience- unlike her brother and sister. A friend gave her The Artist’s Way. 

May was 30 and wanted a husband. Daylon was 20 and wanted to be a citizen.

She also wanted kids.

Not that there was no passion; there was plenty- just that he was nowhere near ready to be a father.

His mind cycled between the topics he cared about... and some he didn’t: Maybe, just maybe the reason Nicaragua was in the state it was in was a natural consequence of its having sugarcane as its major crop. Kids got hooked on sugar, then needed ever stronger drugs, the barely hidden drug economy fostered crime, all manner of vice. His vices, mostly lust and over-intellectualization, were ways he avoided commitment... if it was fear, was it fear that if he truly committed himself to something or someone he would probably find that he did not have the greatness which had been his carrot, his motivator all these years?

Then he would be without an excuse and have to face reality. He usually faced reality. It was when he did not that he got messed up. Ironic he thought that though life was so much easier in Los Estados Unidos than in Nicaragua, here he found decision-making layered with self-doubt, a paradox of choice.

If he waited until he was ready, really, really obsessively- compulsively ready, he’d never do anything. To be fully mature was death and that was something for which he was definitely not ready.

It took eight years for the couple to have children. That had been stressful... When their son was two and their daughter three they moved to better jobs in Chicago, a year later, New York.

A León website informed Daylon of Julia’s murder: political. It was a gut punch. He could barely breathe. Something taken which he could never reclaim. That started his midlife crisis.

Then Miriam showed up.

She was still curvaceous, still beautiful, the difference was that now she was available. Daylon wondered if the fact that he was no longer attracted to her was because she was no longer unattainable.

Then he started to have guilty thoughts. He was after all married and a responsible father of two young children. He was also given less to his fantasies of omnipotence. He chuckled when he thought of his younger self - his god/drek syndrome as Woody Allen had called it. Yes his anger and entitlement had served him well in escaping his hellhole youth. Just one problem: He missed the excitement of those nearly impossible years, the desperate desperation the do or die-ness of his perfectionist need to encompass all of Music, all of life, all meaning in each note. The violin had fallen away like so many booster rockets. The tenor remained. Tenire, to hold. The far reaches of his mind held on to something of his true essence - The Gregorian chant as it were, the Cantus Firmus, Berlioz’s idée fixe. Miriam brought back a tinge of his earlier intensity. He began to wonder if he was wasting his life as a systems analyst and occasional improviser.

Dee showed up too. She was a brilliant, dazzlingly beautiful. Her Mandarin and Cantonese were as flawless as her English, Italian, French, effervescent white teeth and extraordinarily touchable long black hair with the subtlest hint of deep chocolate.

Dee had grown up in Guangzhou, the granddaughter of indulgent grandparents. Her parents were always traveling on business.

Dee had everything, every lust-enticing, blood boiling charm that young Miriam had had- in spades. She wore very short leather skirts with very high boots. Only a few inches of skin showing, setting his imagination on fire. Next day she wore skin-tight gray jeans with a loose white shirt, tastefully yet provocatively unbuttoned. The curve of her hips inflamed his desire, her every move dripping with subtle invitation.

Dulce was an artist to boot. Nuts. Totally wacko. Except with her career. She never let her neuroses get in the way of self-promotion or money making... Hell he never really loved May anyway.

 Wait! Hold on. Slow down. Down boy.

Affection and friendship were in some ways greater then love. Or perhaps that’s really what Love was All About. That’s what Alfie said. The other was impossible, infatuation, lust, an addiction, a cruel and incessant master with whip and chains.

Daylon started to wonder if his outsize lust - his libido which was after all not just sexual desire, but desire in general and his life energy, could be tuned to service - he was initially a good-hearted, caring, sympathetic. socially-minded philosophical musician. He was formerly and still essentially a young man of principle. Did he really want to go down the rabbit-hole of self destructive hedonism? After all the tragedy and near annihilation he had already been through, was numbing himself with endless pleasure the be-all end all of his raison d’être? It dawned on him: he not only feared and worked tirelessly to avoid annihilation, he had a repetition compulsion to invite the forces of self-destruction...

 It amazed him when he stopped to think about it, how much stuff went on in his head. Quick to the office gym. Then he sat in a silent pew of a cathedral down the block from a dilapidated Buddhist temple.

*********

Before picking up the kids, May and Daylon met for a drink. May was in a darkly reflective mood lamenting what befell Daylon’s people - in general and in particular his parents. He knew there was something else on his wife’s mind. He also knew, if she would tell him at all, it would have to be at her own time. Leaving the unspoken as just that, he returned to what May had said. He reached for her hand, appreciating her sympathy. He said “Without that tragedy I never would have met you and we would not have had our beautiful children.”

 **********

The next night at May’s favorite restaurant, Cuba, their daughter, Maya asked, “Daddy, did you eat Pollo Managua in Managua?”

Daylon brightened. His whole face lit up in loving surprise. His whole body relaxed. His light gray suit and lighter gray shirt, open at the top button suddenly fit him better. His whole world felt complete and infinitely more comfortable... Tickled and warmed by his daughter, amused, delighted, he gently, softly, laughed his deep, resonant and self assured laugh, “Ah Maya, my dear, precious, beautiful, wonderful Maya, I could not have afforded it, then... Now, we can.” May Elizabeth gently hugged him. The family spontaneously held hands and smiled their thanks, appreciating the journey their parents had made for them - and for themselves.