Para pensarla:
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between Oscar Wilde (18541900)
THE EMERALD SAGA
by Doctor Andrea Huneeus-Vergara, MD.
When my parents, in their early twenties, married in a beach resort south of Valparaíso, 1964, they were both amazingly good-looking professionals.
During the Catholic ritual, they exchanged the gold wedding rings typically worn on the base of the left ring finger, where supposedly the vena amoris (vein of love) flows. A perfect "Comme il faut" arrangement, well behaved and polite. Yet not enough for my father Pablo who, enthralled by her lure, gazed endlessly into my mother´s eyes. Our story deserves better, he thought.
Diamonds, rubies and sapphires did not quite match Delias luminous green eyes. Only an emerald would do, specifically from the core of the Andean Range that unites and shakes us all, from Cape Horn to the Rocky Mountains of North America. Colombia, where the dazzling ones, originated some 23 million years ago in the Nazca tectonic plate materialize.
The occasion turned up when Pablo, while serving United Nations Geneva Office went, to survey UN rural development schemes in Latin America. In Colombia, he met a Sociology colleague who knew the mores of the land.
At 10 A.M, this friend reached the Colonial-style Casa Medina hotel where my Dad was staying. Back into town they went for a coffee in a nondescript hall near Bogota´s banking district. There, on a round little table for three, a curvy waitress serves exquisite coffee. Nothing happens. Then, quietly one trafficker after the next sits with us for a chat, Pablo recalls. From his clothes, a concealed white paper with one or two gems emerges. A nod and the next one comes by. He let go three or four of these dark suited traders, until one particular crystal struck his eyes, as if calling him.
Technically, it is an emerald crystal, from the Beryl Family of gemstones, extracted from Muzo, Boyacá, the renowned emerald mining area northeast of Bogotá, where the worlds finest colored stones on Earth happen. Emotionally, a dart into his heart, love at first sight, as in real life when he met my mother. Some dollar bills passed subtly under the table and hasta pronto amigo!
Back in Geneva, counseled by Princess Sophie Lippe-Weissenfeld who was married to a Chilean trader, the grand emerald enters the Gübelin Jewelry for an appraisal. They are impressed and Princess Sophie advices my father on the design, classic, accompanied by two diamonds on each side for clarity. All, in white gold: platinum.
Few jewels are as meaningful as the ring that celebrates the promise to spend the rest of each others lives together: the engagement ring.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires (TS Elliot)
Engagement with life. One virtue of the Emerald is to counteract poison. If a venomous animal looks at it, it will be blinded. It strengthens sight, memory and procreation. Geneva, Switzerland, July 2, 1966: Andrea Huneeus-Vergara is born.
Santiago de Chile, 27-XII-2024.
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Texto de prosa poética leído por Andrea durante el casamiento de su hijo Pedro con Elle Brundsdale en las serranías del Estado de Colorado, Estados Unidos.