Fifth Page

 

October. Another morning.  Indoors for now.  I haven’t gotten up early enough during this week yet. I still haven’t been able to serve few words for this text. I have carried enough weight. I have done it for quite a long time, I think.  I haven’t paid any attention to the sunrises, or the sunsets lately. I haven’t even placed my thoughts on a chain to at least understand them. I talked to a friend; that I did. I was trying to share my worries with him; he’s still in Caracas, with all that it could mean for us; for them, and for everyone somewhat attached to it. I was trying to get some perspective, and I think I did it after all. He made this point that the fact that I was one of those out of the country, for the ones who remain there, there wouldn’t be any sympathy towards us – at all, from what I see – on any of our concerns. Somehow leaving the country breaks something to a point in which we start sounding strange to them and the other way around as well. During that strangeness, we found out about  feelings we prefer we hadn’t had, now we see different,  we see each other different, and now that I’m writing it, I wonder if it’s something that just came out and burst because of the distance, or if it was always there; if it was there held by the courtesy of the hangouts, and the good times together. Third break. It’s late already. Low season, they call it. Time to go back. I got something to write and thus link a little bit all this. I hope not forgetting about it. Alright. I was talking to a guy from work. We were comparing our countries, the bad things, such as government,  culture,  underdevelopment things, third world things and, we got to a point in which we realized that, aside from certain places in Europe; where else in the american continent you live in a place in which more than three languages, all from different places, share the same neighborhood,  and actually can greet each other as neighbors, if not here, and moreover,  if such  diversity is well understood, and somehow accepted,  how come this government wouldn’t interfere in other countries’ affairs? We got this conclusion that mostly left-wing-like and halfway-informed people, tend to be the ones who despise this country over public opinion matters. Most of their claims are based on opinions and perspectives from centuries ago. It’s a petty that those are the kind of people who rule our countries, and convey such a resentful angle on schools. We become adults hating a system we haven’t yet understood.  So there’s this pride, born out of the failure, compelling us that our sorrows are not on us. And it could get more serious as we take it further. I mean, we develop hate as a feeling that can be indoctrinated, from politicians in power, through the educational system, and that embraces (or implies)  love as the logical immediate opposite, therefore it might be indoctrinated as well. This make the love-hate path a place that we can transit back and forth,  and back and forth we let our faith – and idiosyncrasy – grow. We become back and forth believers with back and forth foundations and thus our confidence, and thus our Morality. Unless you're one of those who had high class education, which I don’t know since it's not my area. Never was indeed. Friday afternoon.  Home. Indoors. I’m going to see if I can take a nap. It was great. Now I would like to come back to bed but my boy is like, so very awake. I guess I’m going to have to wait. Let’s see. Friday night. Wine is gone already. I got some complain about it. I just thought one bottle was enough. I still think so. But I accepted it. What else can I do! It’s coffee time now. I think it’s good after the wine. There’s no work tomorrow.  I need to do a lot of things but I keep procrastinating them. I’m glad I could talk with another friend; one who left Caracas too. I guess we are unavoidably picking sides over this undeclared feud. When I started this story, I was so convinced otherwise, now I feel like I have to take back on several things. The life abroad is affecting me, changing me, as these words take place over this sort of story. Our story. Our version, and conversion. I’m sure I have mentioned it before, but this is a cycle, a spiral through which we’ll have to step on the same thing over and over; kind of like Nietzsche’s eternal return, so let’s bring it on again: once you decide, by force or by choice, to become an immigrant,  you have to start from scratch; everyone knows that, but it also implies, and I want to emphasize it, for some narcissistic reason perhaps, but I feel this need to place it in words, that it implies start over being poor, even if you never were, a new immigrant is a new poor, and as a new poor you have to learn things from there. I have learned some, and I’m fine as poor until I get to talk to another Venezuelan; specially anyone who decided to stay.