BULA PIPA
Bula pipa - literally ‘jumping over pipes’ is an expression in Papiamentu, my native language. It sounds very athletic, doesn’t it? I always envisioned a game of jumping over those long pipelines that brought the crude oil from the tankers moored at Caracas Bay all the way to the refinery. The pipes were often half a meter or more from the ground, and so jumping over them would require good physical skills.
My father was a champion at it – of bula pipa as an idiom for opting out. In his case, of social gatherings. It was his shying away from social life, from all those social commitments that were demanded by the close-knit social group he was born into. He much preferred to stay home in his free time from the store and work on his own projects – creating weather forecasting instruments on his lathe and working on his films.
It gave him pleasure, that bula pipa, the act of opting out. It was clear to all that my father would not come along to cocktail parties, wedding receptions and other events, and everyone came to accept that. But my mother never gave up the opportunity to go out, she would get a ride and go on her own, for she loved social life. And in the rare occasions when my father did join her, I could see how shy and uncomfortable he was hanging around the other men who would be drinking rum and whiskey and talking with a sense of macho bravado. He did not have that bravado.
At least not in that company. Perhaps his compensation for his shyness and his insecurity in social circles, was a humorous sense of boasting - broma – about his superior skills and knowledge. However, he would only do so among close family members. For instance, he loved to brag about his own piano playing, saying that when someone in his parental home was playing the piano out of tune, he would make sure to stand by the second-floor window, so that the neighbors could all see that it was not he who was playing off-key.
Bula pipa - I have no idea why this expression came to mean what it does. But it is interesting to note that the Hebrew slang expression for ‘not showing up’ also comes from the realm of water pipes - in this case referring to a faucet – ‘to put a faucet on you’.
I have inherited my father’s shyness at social gatherings, and his love of staying home, working on his own projects. The corona closures were a most fruitful time for me, opening up time for myself, in my own study without obligations and interferences - allowing me to accomplish much more creative work than I could dream of doing in normal times.
In kindergarten I already knew I needed this ‘time out’ – a time and space for myself without any demands placed on me to be an active part of the class. I would tell the teacher that I had a headache, so that I would be allowed to rest, sitting at my little table, putting my head down in my folded arms, and watch the kaleidoscopic colors that I would bring about by rubbing my eyes.
Yes, I understand my father completely. There is a joy in eliminating external obligations to go out, a great relief – as if a new space opens up, allowing you to enter room that had been locked before. As if you are gaining new time, as if an extra pocket of time that did not exist before is added to your life.
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photo by Benjamin Gomes Casseres in the late nineteen forties, early fifties.