Teresa Colom: "When I was little, summers felt endless because I couldn't leave the house."

Barcelona"A child is a strange existence. You know they will be tied to you forever. Like a father and a mother," he writes. Teresa Colom (La Seu d'Urgell, 1973) in Everything happened at once (Comanegra). The writer and poet's first memoir is a reunion with her parents during childhood and, at the same time, a journey through the tortuous paths of a family filled with pain. Colón recounts her life with five siblings, a lying and jealous father, and a mother clinging to him and isolated from the world. Constructed from memories and filled with evocative imagery, Everything happened at once It is a family story that reflects how the deepest wounds can be passed down from generation to generation.

This is your most intimate book, in which you most directly expose painful experiences from your childhood. Why is it appearing now, in the middle of a literary career that you began 25 years ago?

— I've written this now, but it comes from a long time ago. First, I tried to talk about family through fiction, but it wasn't working. Then one day, very frustrated, I picked up the computer and started writing whatever came to mind. I spent three days writing; it flowed very easily. I began to worry that no one would be interested, until I showed it to a friend, and he told me not to stop.

The story isn't chronological; instead, it links memories in a kind of back-and-forth flow of memory. How did you structure it?

— They are short chapters in which one piece links to another, like a mirror. It has this kaleidoscopic form; the reader encounters parts they've seen before. I had everything very clearly in my mind, both my memories and everything my mother had told me. I had already made the connections, and as I wrote, I gradually understood all the memories I needed to access.

What topics did you want to cover?

— When I finished it, I realized that the book speaks to our universal need to reconcile with our parents, whether they are living or dead. But it also addresses how money destroys families and, above all, how traumas develop silently within a generation and, if left unresolved, are passed on to the next. Sometimes you don't know why you are a certain way, or why you behave in a particular way. Perhaps it doesn't originate from you. We inherit certain behaviors from our parents, and they inherit them from theirs.

You mention that your father kept your mother isolated at home and that this claustrophobia was also passed on to you, the children. How have you reconnected with these memories?

— When I started writing, the heat on the apartment terrace immediately came to mind. Summers felt endless when I was little because I couldn't leave the house. I remember calling my dad to ask if I could go for a bike ride with a friend around Seo, which was a very safe place where everyone knew each other. He told me no, that I had a pretty big terrace and that I should just wander around there. No matter how big a terrace is, you feel like a prisoner. Many years later I wrote the poem Go out, which is part ofThe Matrix Cemetery (Proa, 2021), in which I already spoke about this, but, of course, from the perspective of poetry. When someone told me that they liked this poem a lot, I felt a shiver and at the same time a kind of joy to see that it worked, regardless of knowing anything about it.

The portrait you paint of your father is terrible: a manipulative, controlling man who embezzled money from his own company and denounced his son for covering up his crime.

— The strongest attempt I made to show my father that he was living in a fantasy world was when I was 25. But it was no use. He put me in very difficult situations, always telling stories that were like traps. I wouldn't give him my phone number, but he would call me at the bank where I worked, and I didn't want to tell my coworkers that I didn't want to have any contact with him.

And the mother's?

— My father died, and over all these years, I've seen my mother change. Before, she always told us, "Godmother is mean." My grandmother played terrible tricks on her; she had a knack for stirring up family conflicts. She managed to keep her daughters from speaking to each other. When her sister was 70, she told her she'd been involved with her husband—that is, her brother-in-law. But with time, I've seen how now what worries my mother most is understanding why my grandmother didn't love her. It's much harder, in fact, but instead of malice, she now seeks love.

Have you been able to reconcile with your grandmother?

— She lost her mother when she was eight. She died of alcoholism. What pain did my grandmother carry, if I want to be somewhat compassionate? Did that satisfaction she derived from seeing her family fall apart stem from witnessing her own family break apart? They were about to adopt her, but she didn't want to lose her father; he was the only bond she had left. How did all of this affect her? I don't know.

How has all that legacy influenced your identity?

— The book was my answer to the need to make sense of what I felt as a child: the stories my mother told me, the claustrophobia I suffered as a child, which was intertwined with my mother's suffering. In a way, I've gathered all these things and brought them to a close. When I finished the book, I felt at peace.

And in your literature?

— In The Matrix Cemetery There is already a poem about claustrophobia, in Miss Keaton and Other Stories (Empúries, 2015) features many animals, which were my world as a child. Being around animals gave me vitality. And in the project I did for Pedrolo with Comanegra, I was already talking about women closely linked to their homes. In a way, the earlier works influence this latest one, because I already had that world within me.