Leonor Henríquez

leer en español       The room was packed.So full that we had to sit in a corner on the floor.The children, including my 8-year-old grandson Tomás, began to line up at the edge of the enormous white rectangle.All wearing their impeccable “dobok”, that is the name of the uniform.It was a session where the students would have to demonstrate their Taekwondo skills to advance to a higher level, with the deserved change of belt color.Taekwondo is one of the oldest martial arts. Its origins are Korean, and it is considered the highest art of self-defense.The children began their routines, following the commands given by the Master. The levels of concentration are enormous, with perfect coordination between kicks and arm movements.While researching for this article, I learned that Tae refers to f...

leer en español        It snowed last night.It's not unusual in March, but at this point in the winter one says: Enough!I promise this will be the last time I mention the cold and winter for a good while.I left early to walk the dog, Panda, that I'm taking care of these days, perhaps some of you remember her.There was not a soul in the extensive meadow, but my feeling of loneliness was questioned by the number of footprints in the snow.I felt like I was in the middle of an invisible crowd.There were footprints of all kinds; human, canine, deer, goose, and even rabbit; I have learned to identify them. Thank God there were no bear footprints, those are just awakening from their long hibernation.The footprints converged, diverged without order or pattern, carving improvised brushstrokes on th...

leer en español       The little squirrel was busy opening a nut, not caring about anything else around it.They are tiny, but incredibly agile and I would say intelligent.Anyway, in these times when sometimes one cannot avoid what happens in our upside-down world, I stayed there looking at the squirrel for a long time.I returned home ready to work on a children's poem, an assignment for an English magazine called “Caterpillar”; but of course, before starting I could not help but check the world news.I quit very fast, frightened, as always.I needed to “cleanse my palate” before returning to my poetic task, so I don't know if it was by fate or chance, or the internet that sometimes reads our deepest thoughts, I came across a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) called “The Mountain and th...

 leer en español       What am I doing watching a hockey game?I grew up in a family of six siblings and in my house, we watched all sports, soccer, baseball, tennis and even boxing.Well, all except hockey.I discovered that here in Canada.When I first arrived, my husband and I were invited by the company we worked for, VIP, to a hockey game at the “Saddledome”, the city stadium.I really enjoyed the atmosphere, the beer, the fans cheering the Calgary Flames, the local team, while huge flames appeared on the audience shouting “Goal!”I remember telling my husband, “I can’t see the ball”, and he replied, “there is no ball, but a small disk called a puck.”The fact is that a week ago, on Thursday, February 20th at six pm local time, an entire country fell silent.The only thing that could be heard...

leer en español        I closed my eyes and let its sweetness slide down my throat and into my memories.In the garden of my childhood home there were mango, banana, avocado and guava trees.There were also bougainvilleas and rose bushes that offered their aromas. In the background, a wall covered with Riqui Riquis (family of Bird of Paradise) where the hummingbirds went to drink.As a child, all that exuberance seemed “normal” to me.Today, after a brief convalescence, when the thermometer plummets and reads -20° C and the snow covers my Canadian landscape with its luminous blanket, remembering that idyllic orchard seems extraordinary to me.And all thanks to guava juice a dear friend gave me.I didn't even know that it was available in these arctic latitudes, but yes, as in my childhood, Del M...

leer en español        It happened at the beach club I used to go to with my parents when I was a child.I was about eight years old when they brought in a hypnotist, I think they called him “The Third Eye.”The cinema was packed with people, of course children weren’t allowed in, but I watched everything through a small hole on the wall.I didn’t understand anything the hypnotist said, but I clearly remember that, when he finished speaking, he called to the stage those who had been “bewitched”, so to speak.I remember him giving them orders, which they obeyed. It’s cold, and everyone was shivering. It’s hot, and they took off their clothes. There are mice, and everyone was climbing up on chairs and pretending to shoo them away with a broom.By definition, hypnosis, that altered state of mind, ...