There is a path in my life that is illuminated by beauty and perfection, made up of constellations of toys and laughter among friends and sisters; a path that never fades and, despite the vulnerability of some memories, remains intact in the pockets of my memory. That long and fun path is my childhood and games.

I wouldn't know where to start. Perhaps playing is so easy when we are children that I don't remember ever being bored during that time. I played at home with my two sisters: one older and one younger than me. But I also played at school with my classmates and played in the streets of the neighborhood with my friends who lived nearby.

There were rules for playing in each space: at home, we weren't allowed to jump, run, or push; we could only use toys or our hands. On the street and at school, we could jump rope, run after a ball, or simply race other children and give the last one to arrive a penalty.

Although I never had a bicycle, skateboard, or roller skates, toys that many children had at that time, I never missed them. I only remember once wanting a toy: a large doll that sang and had hair that grew. It was a very expensive doll, and there were three girls in our house who wanted it. So my parents wisely solved the dilemma: they only bought one and made us believe that Baby Jesus couldn't buy three dolls for one house because there were other girls who wanted the same thing we did. So my two sisters and I took turns playing with that doll, which was almost the same size as us.

But if there was one doll that was my favorite, it was Nancy, a doll with my name and long black hair. Long before Toy Story, I already believed that Nancy came to life at night. I remember that the doll slept with me, I celebrated her birthday, and I even made her custom clothes out of candy wrappers. She was the only doll I didn't give away when I became a young lady, but then I donated her when I grew up and they came looking for toys for some disadvantaged children. I hope Nancy has brightened a little girl's life, just as she brightened mine.

Another game I enjoyed playing was hide-and-seek, which involves hiding while someone else looks for you. I was perfect at hiding (my size helped a lot). I would hide in people's gardens, up in trees, and even behind my grandmother, who kept an eye on us while we played in the street. Only if my grandmother could watch us could we play: she was the guarantor that we wouldn't do anything wrong and that nothing bad would happen to us.

But the best entertainment, if you can call it that, was when all my friends and I would gather around my grandmother or dad and they would tell us stories. Some stories were repeated because they were the best, and we would ask them to tell them over and over again, like the story of the Savage, La Llorona, Juan the fisherman, Negrin, and Purpurina. It was normal to listen to those fantastic stories and ask questions, but also to be unable to sleep at night because we were scared:

“Dad and Grandma are doing nothing. Let's ask them to tell us stories,” I would say, and we would run out, five or even ten children, to sit at the feet of the adults and listen to them, just as grass grows in the shade of large trees.

I currently have a 7-year-old niece, Yeyé, who gets bored easily (a common problem these days), and I love playing with her. But when I play with her, I play the games from my childhood: the days when we didn't need much to have fun. So I draw paper dolls, make her hide, and start looking for her, or I simply tell her stories that, even though she already knows by heart, she says to me:

“Auntie, tell me the story of the three-legged dog again,” she says, settling down next to me on the bed. And I tell the story that my grandmother used to tell me, and as I tell it, I become a child again.