AUTHOR NOTE · NOVEMBER 2026

What you feel before you know who you are

Before we can say who we are, some things already move us. A voice, a farewell, the scent of a house we have not returned to. Something happens within us, even if we cannot yet explain it.

Over the years, we learn to introduce ourselves. We give our name, our profession, the degrees we have earned, the work we do. I can say I am a civil engineer, educator, mediator and poet. Each word tells part of my life. But even after saying them, something remains: what I feel as I inhabit each of those roles.

Engineering taught me to seek answers that can be verified. To measure, review and understand how loads are transferred. When I look at a crack, I need to know its origin before proposing a repair. What is visible offers a clue; understanding what is happening means looking beyond the surface.

That habit also appears when I write. Some memories return like a small crack in an ordinary day. At first, they are barely noticeable. Later, we discover they have been there for some time, quietly running through other things.

Facing a blank page, however, I do not always have a procedure. Sometimes a sentence appears and I do not know where it comes from. I write it down, let it rest, return to it. Only afterwards do I recognize the absence, fear or desire I was trying to express.

As an educator, I have seen a question emerge long before someone dares to ask it. I have also seen how easily a difficulty is confused with an identity: “I do not understand this” becomes “I am no good at this.” A passing experience starts to look like a definition of the person.

Sometimes we do the same with our own lives. We rush to decide who we are on the basis of a loss, a mistake or a stage we are still going through.

Mediation has taught me to listen for that distance. Someone speaks of a sum of money, an unmet obligation or a difference of opinion, and their account also reveals a need to be acknowledged, to receive an explanation, to regain trust. It takes time and listening for each person to find their own words.

Something similar happens to me with poetry. I write to pay attention to what I do not yet understand about myself. Sometimes I find clarity; at other times, only an image that lets me stay a little closer to an emotion.

That is why I return to memory, to absences, to encounters. Some experiences change their meaning as we change. A memory that once hurt may acquire tenderness. A certainty may begin to fill with questions. A poem written years ago may tell me something today that I could not hear back then.

I have spent much of my life learning to calculate, explain and accompany others. I am also still learning to recognize what I feel without demanding an answer from it.

— Ángel Ervey Martínez Rodríguez