Second page V

 

A warm afternoon is going by from where I stand. The break room is quiet. I should try this talking feature. Not now, of course, but thus I can see if my pronunciation in English is going somewhat acceptable.  Perhaps that’s why I haven’t got a better a job. What is a better job, anyway? A higher pay? I often compare what I think I deserve to earn with the kind of jobs that actually pay it so, and realize why anyone should give me a chance. I mean, I know I have potential  but how can anyone tell? Actually, how do you prove nowadays such skills?  Scrolling. Scrolling life. Time goes by as I blink. An eight millimeters view, sight. We see the stripes as we live, as we breathe, an interruption that is constantly conquering our focus. Like a light bulb about to go down. Flashes. Flashes of wisdom.  We blink. It’s blurry. We blink again. Characters are others. Is this a film? Is it happening over again? Accents. Words we pick from an attitude. This attitude I kind of hate. We’re all tired. Words turn into sentences but they are not really telling. They are making you remember instead. We want to forget; to pretend, to put our culture over this one. We want to take these memories out so everyone can see them; hear them. What for? For a time to consume. Memories are drags we smoke from Time, and time takes us back to long, to long and miss, so we let sadness out, or anger. At the end, there’s something available, and affordable if split the total amount,  to purchase in the market. Thus we allow ourselves to mitigate unwanted feelings. A trend on social media will work out. At least to trade what we’ve got with what they think we should get, or how, or when. “When” plays impressive roles. Specially in this post-truth era.

Heat. Hot. It’s hard on pants to go off and on. The sound of the machines got this point of synchronicity that it feels like it was a rhythm, a rhythm I accompany by blowing my horn. And with this sort of parade music, I smile at the day. Accents again. Diversity.  A few hours more and that’s it. Many people have come during the last 3 years. Hope is cruel sometimes. Faith fading, or spacing around with every breath. When to expect? What are we trying to accomplish? If we go home, what would we take with us? Children.  Children are the answer.  Children are hope, faith, faith that grows,  faith that gives power, strength.  So we bear this for them. I do, I am, and I always will. For them, for my children. I love when I'm at home and see a toy car in the living room, or a little ball in the corner. That presence is the best decoration, without mentioning all those tiny clothes that just make my day better.

Where should I start? Is it our story something we feel like telling? I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to tell mine,  despite of whatever I may have written earlier, but what I think I’m going to do is giving some examples of several stories. Lines back, I tried to explain what made us move. Now, let’s try to summarize what’s going on once here. Before that, two words popped up in mind: cartoon and plastic; for people, both of them. The first one stands, as I get it, for unproportioned gestures and reactions when it comes to self expression. The second one, to me, is more intriguing.  The second one goes by insincerity, fake. I’ve come to think that being plastic, and being cartoon, have some to do with posing, pretending, have something to do with the pursuit of an archetype. I am a plastic person because plastic people do these kinds of things I want to be involved in. I force myself to it whatsoever. I push myself  hard, and for long,  because the need to belong is stronger than the self understanding. My story has to fit in. I have to fit in. Too many unique people looking like too many more. Perhaps that’s why it gets difficult when bringing a story filled up with some plastic and cartoon to bear. I’m involved as well, why deny it? It is because of my own search that I’ve come to see it this way. So let’s see: two people have just come from Venezuela. This was four years ago. They had to sell all personal belongings: jewelry,  cars, collectibles that were once a sign of pride, since these things were (or used to be) the kind of hobby nice people did for years. Years that went to the void, to the sad section ever made for memories.  A section nowadays so full that they must borrow space from joy. Maybe that’s why every time I bring a good memory,  I feel like I want to cry, who knows! These two people had to sell almost everything because there was no way they could afford an airplane ticket with the money they made. They asked for help. Only few replied. They came to a room. They got help of another kind at first. They felt like they were kids again: so needed for guidance, so lonely. They were supported,  not for much, but they were indeed; to settle, let’s say. I tend to believe many stories begin with the same situation. They got jobs they didn’t like and this is when the process of adaptation starts: what to expect from jobs when you are new arrived in town? These people came from a culture where college is a must. Parents do all kinds of things to have their children graduated.  Venezuela has a very high index of college population.  It is hard for any of them to, let’s say, break the bubble and come out to a world, where such a culture won’t be embraced as a big endeavor, or as an achievement of something to acknowledge, specially when there are a lot of people who don’t even know that Venezuela is not a part of México. But let’s be honest.  Why would they have to, right? The fact that we are making a cultural encounter implies understanding these things and learn to live with them. The challenge here is how to get through it. How to find the best way for it. Most fellow countrymen complain about this. We must understand, like one famous man said, one thing is tourism,  and another one is immigration. We were used to come as tourists; the impact is big. The things we did, and the things we do now,  to get money in our bank accounts,  states a wide difference between them. We’re teaching our brain and heart how to move things from one place to another. When we move out, it’s not just physically.  Back to the couple, they kept working. Started paying back all that money they had to borrow to come. A couple who came from living with each of their parents, to try to build a home which was partial, given the conditions of their country back then. They came with the hope of building it now and, we may say they made it, but it wasn’t easy. They started by renting a room. They started by putting themselves behind the other couple, the one who was renting the room. Good months and bad months went by, So Covid, alongside with all the ignorance that erupted from social media. Mask off, mask on, 6 feet, glasses to divide work stations, curfew, and all that wave of theories and recommendations. We survived it. They survived it too. They made it to their own rented apartment. No more bully, no more critics from a position of power. A new home in progress. A baby who came a year later. Hope. Thick faith that doesn’t fade. Not a drag, not a smoke.