Nineth page II

 

 

Engagement farming. How interesting is that! I wonder if it applies to our past, to our definition of things, or knowledge of what it happened, on what we think it happened. It’s kind of like a postulations pool, I bring something up and it will turn slowly into my personal vision which is, not necessarily, the truth of the whole. So we’re back picking concise crumbs from a bigger abstract cake. Our concise, not the concise, again; not necessarily. How harmless is that? A meeting is set. Friday has turned into afternoon. Another week saying goodbye to life. Office is quiet. I remember noisier times. Not here, there, where noise collected joy as it gets. I’m not saying there’s no joy in here. I believe that offices have a common ground when it comes to people’s behavior despite the cultural differences. This is more than a halfway meeting. I gave to pay. I have to pay a lot. I need to put that down. I’m optimistic today. Estrogen, it feels good when I’m surrounded by them. I feel like I want to do more, go further; improve. I feel this impulse to be better when I am with my son. I guess it’s natural. I was trying to get a better explanation of this connection, but my social media burnout pose won’t let me, so I guess I will have to make it up. So be it. Enjoy! In a kind of Charles Xavier style, I let my thoughts out of my head, and everyone does it the same way, we can’t just see them, but get them in our way, when driving, when walking, when trying to come up with own thoughts. It’s a mute noise, like the white noise, but unable to be heard. It’s more like an abstract picture. In fact, sometimes we get to see some pieces, but not the whole thing, not anyone’s at least. We barely see our own. The streets are full of those, of the living, and of those not around us anymore. Incomplete pieces that hold on for years to be decoded, and therefore understood. I want to make sure my son will get all mine at least. Not that they are the most valuable pieces of thoughts, but certainly they will be some of those he can decode when the time comes.  This is something we don’t do by ourselves. We need God, Angels, past lives souls to get every needed piece. You see, we’re talking about different universes and chronologies, about different places and figures.

 

Coffee smell. Voices asking. A space of silence from time to time. No answer to state. Emails to take care to. Spring and its moments. We just came back from the screenings. I felt this urge for checking if anyone has ever yet reacted to any of my social media posts. I have this fantasy in my head that I am some sort of discoverer, or it is just my ego playing with my thoughts and making me think that whatever I found, or create, constitutes somewhat something interesting for some people on the other side of the screens. The void when nothing is found, grows bitter and increase my intolerance, also my time spent on those feeds looking for nothing but wasting myself as it was a cigarette, a cigarette I light to see my questions floating with the smoke I exhale. I have exhaled enough for these days. I want more flour in my life. These diets and their crusades against wheat. Sometimes I think cigarettes brands sponsor such campaigns so people worry more about sugar intake than tobacco or alcohol. Don’t get me wrong, I love alcohol,  and I hardly get wasted because of it. I get more wasted on social media, it is a stronger drug.

 

Funny videos and cool pictures to then check who saw them a make up a whole narrative out of it. That person saw my profile, I can tell because of the recommendations to follow now. We have no people in common,  or we do, but I don’t talk to them, I just see their posts as I suppose they see mine. They want to know what I’m up to, if I am in better situation or I keep hanging in there like all of them. Immigrants and our picturesque view of life, of society.  Virtual society nowadays.  A few messages back and forth. We’ve got to keep the diplomacy,  we may not know when do we need her, him, them. They are full of shit, perhaps, but there is always the chance of success on the next move, and we all want to be close to the successful,  but not yet, no while they remain as they are now. It is just in case, just that. The narrative goes on, my life become archetype to model, I can see them copying me. I need to expand my spectrum: the world is more interesting than this. Yes, but nobody knows me, or give a fuck, only those I don’t speak to, so we ignore each other in the real world. We all have to work and pay after all. So there is not really too much time for the immense, nor for making peace, so we keep it in here, in the void, a void full voices, names and memories, all silent by the present and the unsure; the unknown. Better wonder than find out.

 

I see myself cool, still cool, after all. I can see it when she smiles at me. I believe I still got it. It can’t be just politeness,  it can’t be because I refuse myself to it, besides,  there is always a post suggesting me that this may be real, and may be is enough to trap myself into it. So I let my imagination fly, fly high and create a whole possible new reality, a successful one, so everyone comes back to talk to me again and flatter me this time. I woke up. I wasn’t even sleeping.  It’s time to go. Duties always knock on and out.

I’ll wait sounds in my ear, only one. I have to pay attention. Words coming in but with no story to place, instead, I’m just putting pieces together. Pieces of faith, of hope, and laugh at the suggested scenarios. In the end those things might never get to happen. I think I better go outside.

 

Nineth Page

 

Time to leave. Only not yet. There’s a little bit more for some words, words of waiting, waiting without expecting, expecting without hoping, and hoping to serve me a glass of wine. See you tomorrow, but not just yet. Still Thursday, it’s raining hard. Toto is on TV, and it’s probably one of the few things technology has to offer: Music wherever and whenever we want; anything, any band we like. That’s something to rescue, to appreciate, and I do, I do appreciate it. Wine is gone, time to bed is right here, I’m just taking advantage of the moment alone and get some words for service. Elections here, elections there. I feel like I want to say something about it but I guess it doesn’t get me like it used to, it’s more like I just don’t care. I never got a choice, at least nor there, neither here, but here I am and stand, for my wife, for my mom, and specially for my boy. Dad is in my heart but he’s still there. I hope that time won’t be cruel with us this time. Specially now that the vulnerability has been getting some strength on our hearts, on our faith. We stand strong, still stoical; this is a storm, sun will come tomorrow, to shine, and make us hope for the best with will, will for doing more, doing what it takes, whatever we might need that for. Too much bread, too much flour, it never bothered me before. It’s just this hype that flour and gluten turn into sugar and that is poison for the body. I think sniping someone else’s lives is more poisoning. Comparing oneself with anyone else as reference for what we should or should not do is the real poison. I gain weight as I work out, it’s kind of simple: no work out, more weight, and we set that balance with each day that goes by. It’s up to us, nobody can work out for us. Don’t let the sun go down on me, yes, specially on vulnerable times. Sorry seems to be the hardest word, and perhaps mind your own business, the hardest advice…

 

Advice we get often. Many people love giving advice, especially when it comes from the voice within to sweet their ego, because to be honest, it’s rarely given on some attempt of sympathy, and I kind of get it. Advising has more to do with katharsis than with advice itself. We just need to project it to someone, make that someone a target of our inner voice and disguise it as a sort of care, but it’s not, not really, I mean, and it becomes necessary at some point. Immigrants need to project a lot, in every tense, mostly on past tense. Nobody wants to admit mistakes or, perhaps phrasing it differently; people often find in the action of giving advice a hidden confession of mistakes once made. Yes. I think it is that way. Friday, lazy Friday. I better get a coffee and get back to work too. Saturday afternoon. Cynicism over resentment, I was sort gravitating my thoughts. We must believe in something, someone; careful, it’s risky, I know, but we have to believe, we have to chose to believe, because otherwise we become cynical, and such a pose tends to reveal resentment in disguise. In Venezuela Chavez sold out the idea, in his signatured (I give him that) style, or way, that resentment came up as a consequence of a failed and corrupt system implemented for over forty years, and that’s why there were so many with no chance whatsoever. Chances never came for those people, to be honest, but the idea that those then in power might lose their status over a change of system, got many enchanted enough to transform a promise into disgrace, and the disgrace was the plan since the beginning. Only that we thought it was about verbiage and a matter of procedures, but they; the chavistas in power, they achieved their goal, systematically, and by steps of depth. Now the Venezuelan problem affects the whole continent, and only a few can ignore it. Here I go again, for a Saturday, for a sunny afternoon on a nap time. So back to the resentment, people thought it was fair, and the government made it look that way for perhaps almost ten years, enough time to convince a whole generation of it, then the resentment, once there, once among many, burst into what it has always been: a spoil born out of failure, a failure commonly confused with unjust. There are unjust cases, of course. A society, a social system will always have flaws, but their anger is not because the former system failed them, because they were outcasted from it, not, the anger is for not trying harder, because there was always someone preaching that hard was not fair, and fair was what we deserved. Nos we’re all fairly broken, and many decided to start over elsewhere, and back to the song: here I go again!

 

The war: how difficult is to understand why they come up in modern times. It used to be like, easier to get when it was about territory, power, siege, expansionism, but nowadays, I’m not sure. People claim so lightly that it is over resources, I kind of disagree, I mean, you can just buy them off, out, in perpetuity, all of it, however the case may be. They are all for sale, and it’s much cheaper just to do business rather than destroy a whole place to rebuild it again and take whatever resource you were looking for at first. I don’t think it works out that way anymore. I don’t think it’s about expansionism either, I mean, what’s the use of having more territory, taxes? Again, resources? Come on! It’s too expensive. It has to be something else, something unclear for the commoner, as many other never ever understandable phenomena of the human race. Music fades. Language barrier, that’s how it is called when you can’t make yourself understood. Halfway meeting again. I’m cool with that. Program Information Report. I should focus more on it. I’m about to, but my fingers need some dancing, and this keyboard is pretty much their dance floor. I should get a music keyword and learn how to play it, but I’m going to need a level of abstraction and concentration that right now are impossible to obtain, regardless of what’s within or outside, it won’t matter at this point. We’re getting into a state of splitable thinking and rearranged reasonings, and I’m afraid it will turn perpetual eventually. An empty room and a cell phone to simulate joy, wisdom and lifestyle. Followers of unapplicable opinions. See you soon! 

Eighth Page

 

Hopes and uncertainty. I had this pain again, my ear, my head, even when I’m trying to eat, to rest, it is there, as it were expecting something from me: reminding me of something I should be doing but I haven’t started yet, and I haven’t started it indeed because I don’t want to, because I don’t like to, but it’s not, and if it is so, well, I don’t know. What I do know is that as the pain it is, and as the pain I’m calling it, it makes me remember some other pains, pains from other times, with other faces, pains I don’t write in this language, but in the language of silence, of loneliness, it must be more is sounding in one ear, at least I can listen to music, in spite of the pain. News, once again, don’t look promising, they look more like unmet goals, like undone jobs, like regret, like past tense full of imperfections, and imperfections we count as I can see, and the government wants us to believe in a reggaeton concert. I doble hate them, but here I am, now listening to hearts break even from Bon Jovi, to me, it is an underrated song, it is as good as any other on the radio, but that’s the beauty of listening to the music when it comes from an artist you had already connected to, and not because the radio is suggesting it. There it is, again, the pain. I better get back to what I was doing, I don’t even want this coffee. That was yesterday. The mood and the vibe are different now. Despite the gray of the day, a few good news have come by to spark a little joy. New music on. I feel like I want to talk about impunity. I think it is a gray area, more like a blurry area perhaps, and each region traces their own borderlines from right to wrong, considering accepted and unaccepted as possible variations, or as second thoughts judgements when it comes to typify whatever we think we can say – and judge – about it. Trying to bring up an example, an action that takes place might be wrong, but not illegal, or it might be illegal, but right. Politicians play an important role in this. Most of the current social problems remain problems precisely for the politicians, but I’m not talking about that. I want to say, somehow, and of course, serve it here, that a certain lack of definition at some laws, defines the idiosyncrasy of a place, or at least influences to a point. I want to believe it, and it might be the reason why, for instance a Venezuelan physician touches you, approaches you more closely, in some cases even dare to a riskier treatment, because in some way he knows that those things won’t cause him any legal issues on his practice as professional, and the patient, mostly, thanks the doctor for that. People are less, let’s say, afraid of hugging, kissing, or standing close to one another, and it is because they weren’t raised thinking they might be violating some legal thing by doing it. Consent has a different interpretation. My point is that societies are not to be evaluated as better or worse, or more, or less developed ones, but as this is here, and that is there. We need to understand that. We need to reach a state in which our culture and the new country’s culture can meet and coexist without setting them apart from each other. Our next generation will surely take that as a gift. In the meantime, as I’ve been saying it all this long; we meet halfway through. This is a throw forth Thursday: we’re going to listen to the music of our teen years, we will rescue those things. We will get tired of social media, we’ll see that is not social anymore, perhaps it never was, but certainly, people will cut off individual conversations. This look-at-me-only approach is showing signs of tiredness. I can feel it. Rock music is there waiting to welcome us all.

 

Busy days are coming up. Trees are dressing their greens. A new home, a new hope. I still need to settle a lot of things but I’m on it. My little Julie, I’m sorry for having failed you. I always thought we would meet again, I always thought I would be there for our last good-bye. I tried to get you here, I tried. I only have this faith that something might happen, but we both know by now that nothing happens, we just make as many attempts as we can until we get things to happen, but it seems that not this time. Not this time and not so many times that I just cry in silence and hope my muted soul for an eventual encounter. You would love our boy. He certainly would love you. There are so many woulds in these lines. Let’s see what science has for us. I wish I could let you know you never left my heart nor will never leave it. Now I better get back to what I was doing.

 

The diary of an immigrant is usually full of expectations, hopes, and perhaps a few existential popups, which come as a result of a constant comparing, and surely as a need to frame all the new within some place built on previous understandings. It is also full of broken promises and unwanted farewells, which add too much weight on any thinking. Perhaps that sort of explains why translating is so hard when talking, when trying to keep up with any random conversation; because the need to say anything must go through the filters of the sentiments and knowledges forced to stay back: that’s where the delay comes from. It’s not that we are retarded, it’s not that we are dumb, it is a whole world full of names, moments and learnings that flows in the unknown, and must be pushed to remain silence: nobody cares, and that is always in present tense…

Tense is this present. A past to remember and hope for. Springtime. How long before things start to work out? Will they ever do in the first place? I want to believe they will. I need to believe they will at least. Coffee. Bitter. It needs more creamer. I love creamer. Creamer is not good according to dieticians, but this hazelnut flavored steam that comes out every time I approach the cup to my lips is quite an event for my silence, for stop thinking about worries and start remembering my desires, in the flesh, in the spirit, but specially in the flesh. I wet my lips with every sip. I wipe them clean with my tongue, a tongue hungry for licking, for a test of skin. I should warn my wife, but we are sad and worried, we need to wait to where our prayers go at the end of the day. Two guitars playing one sound, I must play that song one more time. Time is abstract at this very moment. I’m careless. Not for too long, this is just a pause, not a break, just a pause: a momentum… You’re hanging on tight, baby. You’re giving me strength. I might need a couple of years, a couple of years for a just farewell. God only knows! God and you! Here I stand. A day after the eclipse, a total eclipse of the heart. Not sure if it’s of the heart or to the heart, but in both cases, I guess that a shadow won’t let see that feeling inside for that someone, a someone at the other side of the shadow. What could such a shadow represent in this metaphor?

 

Rainy afternoon. Cubicles have been forced to extra-lights. After a dark morning full of meetings, silences and thoughts are floating from past to future. I got a few of them here willing to become part of a paragraph. Pollen siege. Noses are having a hard time. Too much sugar for the day. I’m reaching the age of body feeling uncomfortable after a couple of cookies. I never thought it would feel so good to go to bed early, nor to be sick after a big portion of dessert. Middle age is hiding behind the pollen, I guess. Summer seems tummy for myself. Goodbye my dear. Thanks for making us happy during that time. You were unique. You picked us. You watched TV with us, stayed with us, comfort us every time we feel down. Always received us joyfully when we got home. You didn’t talk with your tail, because you didn’t have any, but you have this beautiful movement like little jumps from here and there to make yourself understood. I really thought you were going to meet us some day, may be not in this life. Will you be there in the next one? I hope heaven takes you as we did. They will love you as we always will. Let me hug you through these words, let me think of you in my own silence. Windy afternoon, not a Thursday to throw back, it is more like to remember. Back to the trivial. To the pains we mitigate through pills and social media. I keep the sadness to myself. You see. I want to think today that the need for sharing wealth and happiness might come from the fact that sadness is so personal, and so valuable, that no technology has yet been able to exhibit it in any way whatsoever. The pain from the heart is the only one that elevates us from this place, and you don’t care about anything while you are within such an elevation. That’s why media insists on keeping you entertained with each other’s happiness and good times collection guides. Virtual garbage, honestly.

 

Seventh Page

 

This meeting halfway is also halfway lost. Never mind, here we stand. It’s almost time to go. It was a quiet day, a quiet day for noisy times, a quiet self for burning thoughts. I have this in my ears, I have this need to check them all the time. They feel itchy,  specially when I’m stressed out.  I’ve been in the doctor twice already for it: otitis media,  they call it. I’m just burning time, burning time while getting calories. This is the drill. No sugar: how? It is a lot enough quit smoking. Talk show in mute: that’s how I feel when I hang out.  I smile at this words. Night has fallen. Only the led light from the TV is letting us see the living room. Toys and books on the floor. Art can be messy, so words and silences. A pause in air conditioning for breaths to catch. A few kisses to decorate. Fingers want to walk but we just went to sleep. It’s Wednesday now. Cold, but no so much.  The smoke comes and goes as any random post from a social media feed. I wave my hand along with the imaginary melody I’m playing in head. My ears again. The sound of air conditioning is taking its place during this while. Caracas, Caracas again. The Avila and the multiple views.  Message voices upcoming.  See you later!  I was wondering if the times a song is played on the radio has something to do with the money they must be paying for it. Some songs are played so much more than others, I don’t think it obeys to a preference basis. It is hardly unlikely, to be honest.  There is this post repeated so many times, and by different people, assuring that music business has changed, and that nowadays it must be branded through social media: maybe, but I don’t care. I think whoever invests money on social media is who has the say on whatever sort of business gets tried on it. Followers are just that: Followers. The illusion has already been sold and bought by everyone.  It’s simple, we don’t choose, that’s it. Radio plays as told, and any media posts as told, as instructed, along with the trick we are always discovering, or choosing, but not really, and we must accept it. At least they let me still enjoy rock music. Despite of the horrible Reggaeton.

 

Throw back Thursday.   That was yesterday.  Friday, wine out. It’s raining but we’re not walking.  So let’s this flight enchant us with its taste and evocate in silent, as second layers, behind the current talk. Wine in, at home at last. Ghost, always Ghost. What a band! Promises, I think of Cranberries, of Savage Garden. I just can’t keep them. How many times saying “mama-güevo” is enough, by the way? I guess there are not enough times, but at least I can listen to music and regret of the past that is not present, and the present that is not past. What can de we do? As a matter of fact,  doing is a lie, it’s an illusion. All those regrets have brought you here, and here you ate, not there. This world is not made out of if only, but here I am, so here we are… but we can bring up, for pleasure, for stubbornness,  for a need, but in the end it will always be: here I am. I’m kind of drunk. I don’t if I’m just tired. I think I’m just tired. At least I’m not in social media consuming about the princess,  or our prominent contender, who, at the end, has to give up, or pass through, and keep the drama, the anguish, because that’s what politics mean in Venezuela; anguish. Video calls, music is still good. I’m still in charge of it.  I wouldn’t know how to convey this but, when the drums is in its best tempo, guitars are tuned properly,  and the band is just playing at  their best, it is just magical,  and the fact that we can feel it and share it, the fact that technology is also served for such a purpose,  it just makes the world better. I toast to rock music and everything rock music has given us, given me, at least.  Saturday afternoon. Headache is barely gone, it wasn’t a good morning because of it. I’ve been reading a couple of headlines from Venezuela.  The contender has chosen a champion to run as candidate. I may have mentioned that there is this woman who has stood up against the regime for more than twenty years, and finally, the local traditional opposition agreed to let her, not without complaining, be the only contender to represent those who can’t stand the chavismo anymore. This is not a democracy,  so this woman was banned to run in these elections.  For this story, and for so many others too, the magical realism can’t be taken off the narrative; it’s the way we are. The woman, now carrying the hope of practically the entire nation, has named another woman to run in her behalf, this in order to be able to run for the elections, since the government won’t allow her in the first place. Will the mechanism be fair? Of course not. Will this work out? We don’t know, but as a Venezuelan,  I can only hope for the best, and this seems to be our best this year. We have a strategy every year that ends up in failure. This is our new one, so faith is selling at this time, and only time will tell, by the way! Sunday, morning, coffee with hazelnuts creamer after a great cassava arepa with perico. Just great! Traditions, religious ones included, tend to have to do with the place, now that I think about it. In Venezuela,  today is Domingo de Ramos, it is a good day to go to church and bless the handcrafted crosses we make out dried palm leaves. There are no palm leaves here, and the weather at this time is not working out for palm trees. No church and no cross then, I guess. Don’t misunderstand me, that never compromises faith. Faith is here, there, everywhere, in spite of the cynics and the mass information.   There is a happy palm Sunday,  indeed! It’s just me that I haven’t searched enough. It's good to know. So, happy palm Sunday for everyone!

 

Operaciones básicas como preposiciones.

 

Tenemos este filtro de agua touchless que hace que el dedo se canse incluso mas que con uno común y corriente. Cosas de la modernidad. Modernidad que, en efecto, poco a poco nos ha ido mudando de lugares, lugares para el olvido, ese que se mantiene lleno de memoria, y que el teléfono ahora distorsiona, porque resulta que como se recuerda no fue, si no como se relata, y por quien es relatado, por cierto, y por las redes, con el teclado en inglés, y por supuesto: en spanglish universal. Este por no multiplica, lo sé, fueron muchos, como mucho somos ahora y por lo tanto cada vez menos especiales, mas generales, mas predecibles, entre nosotros, difícilmente entre ellos, para ellos seguimos siendo parte de lo mismo, y lo mismo vamos siendo.  Entre nos, por si acaso, menos somos, pero ya no más. Me encanta como te queda ese vestido verde. Las manos se me van solas. Solas son las acciones que no se conjugan, sin jugo por el azúcar, el edulcorante. El ayuno intermitente de fe; el alma y sus modas sin modales, que sea por la luz para culparla, pero ya es primavera. En mi país le decimos echar carro, y no lo pienso explicar. Me faltan las tildes y muchas cosas más. Tengo música, antes no la tenía, así que estamos en ventaja. Un melómano es mucho mas productivo escuchando lo que le gusta. Me quedo pensando en el vino, sin ir, sin haber llegado. Ya son mas de cuatro años. Salud de día, imaginario, touchless, como el filtro, con agua, durante la hora de receso… más o menos, entre y por

 

Saludos en letras

 

No he vuelto, pero a veces las ganas de escribir brotan.

 

HIdden

It really was a bad day yesterday. I mean, It was one of those moments when one realizes that life seems to be pretty much the making of a figure with sand at the beach. I tend to believe that time will tell, if you get to build a castle or just a little house. Everything starts with a little house. At least to some; to me, perhaps. Yesterday was one of those moments when you can see life is not in the sand but in the water, and just one wave can put you at the beginning again. For how long, or how many times, I wonder. I guess it will be as many as hope and expectations govern human thoughts. Why these thoughts then? I´m hoping when hope hurts. Is it some sort of self-destructive nature? Not really. We strive for good. It’s just that hoping and expecting tend to be just one word in Spanish and that´s how we, the Hispanics, get such a feeling. Waiting for, hoping for, and expecting, are conjugated through the same word in Spanish. So this is more an inside thing. I hope inside while waiting outside. I might look expecting to other when I’m just waiting without any hope. There are multiple combinations because we are going to use the tone, we want the other to get and not what we really mean. Spanish gives you that for sure, but on the other hand, once you get all the tones you will understand everything, and, mostly, this exhibition of tones is just nothing but drama. Drama we love. It is interesting that Drama and Dream look pretty similar as words, considering the context in which they can go together. I made a drama out of my unmet dreams. I hope, while I wait, that my expectations get met someday but without too much drama, since I just dream about it. I don’t know but, what I do know is that some of these words were hidden in a post never published, and my ODC compels me to do something about it. This is my something about it. This is from four years back. I wasn’t even a father then. So many things have changed. Except the drama. Even dreams are different nowadays. I took that picture for my wife when I went to Pensacola, four years later. Four years indeed... 

Sixth page VI

 

Wednesday. A month later, a month of drowned thoughts that never learned to swim. Here I am at the shore of my cavitation, waves of advice come and go. There’s too much to pay and too little to earn. I’m kind of addicted to bad times, they’re always close, alongside. Wine, always wine. I’m kind of waiting some help to knock on my door like a relative from Venezuela, who magically managed to get through against all odds and made it here. It’s the way we are; picturesque, that’s the most suitable word for us. We need to go back and across the entire family, neighborhood,  childhood, just to give an excuse of why we’re coming late for work, for example. Caracas, sometimes I think about you. It’s hard. There are a few names I like to evocate, names I wish I could,  names that never meant to be, names that my social media brings up, names, names and moments: I’m smiling right now. I’m smiling at the fact that I’m about to be evicted. Eviction is quite a word. TV is on. My boy, my everything. Something has to happen.  Wine is almost over. Winter is gone too. I reduced my spectrum,  I have even less people to talk to, to vent, to speak my mind. I’m just stacking words, building a train of nonsense going on the railroad of what I’m thinking when I’m sitting on the toilet, and I have to get a shower, by the way. Let’s rest. Worries are getting me and I need ideas, money,  but I don’t have any, and I get paid in two days. Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think.  I’m disregarding of everything I just wrote lately; not because I’m not feeling it but because I don’t remember it, and I don’t want to go ut supra to be in context again. Today, I don’t care. I was thinking what if this is ever published? What sort of story this should be? This is a diary, not dairy, despite my intolerance, which I’m not, I mean, I might be, but I don’t care, I love dairy products,  but this is, in spite my thoughts, a Diary: the Diary of a settlement in the world of an immigrant. An adaptation of a new life, mixed with middle age crisis and first time parenthood; a man in his forties finding out what he left and how to keep going on without it. Nothing really promising,  nor original, but very Venezuelan indeed, and that means, that what’s missing will never matter as long as we get with this comfy place (literal or figurative) available, on hand, to stay there for a while, so we can smile at our sorrows, and fight back again. Wine takes me there, mostly, Cerati too. A Letter to Elise again in my ears: I love it! Thanks God It’s Friday! At work, but my myself. Voices floating, but I’m here… nothing wrong with that! Evening is greeting, a child program on TV, everyone in their own thing. I was thinking about reading a book, I may grab it but it will not work. I might have to cut it, so let’s stay with the phone. Wine time is coming. I wanted to leave here this thought I’ve been dreaming about and, it is that I kind of feel how some pieces of me start parting from myself to my son; it’s quite an honor, actually, to be honest. Will some of me live on in him? Is that how we remain in this world after we die? If so, do we die at all? What if every dead person is just spread out in people who got something from them? Wasn’t something like that this Prince from Oscar Wilde? I tend to think this is also how we talk to God: by writing and letting go whatever flows and burns behind social smiles and focused silences. There is the noise: nothing for me except the glass of wine. Shapes, the time of shapes: circle, every circle seen is declared. My son sees it as a shape, and I see it as a reflection. An answerless reflection,  by the way. I didn’t get to read and I knew it.  Night time. A movie, perhaps. There are some cookies and a bit less than have of a bottle of wine. Silence is here. It suddenly came. I thought it was only in the office but it seems like it cane hiding in one of my pockets.  I really need to figure it out. A rainy Saturday,  inexplicably amusing. Everyone woke up in good mood today. The smell and the taste of coffee has taken over, lips are having somehow a good time. Alright, let’s keep going: pieces of us. Features (rather than skills, but it can be just aspects, I guess) have started to transfer: it’s a wonderful feeling.  It also means that the time to get totally transformed is coming. I just wish to accomplish a few things before that. God, please, let me stay here, healthy, and working for such things. We could say, assuming that I might have a point, that puberty is the time when you start collecting for the next generation; childhood is when we collect for ourselves. Then when adulthood comes up, and it’s more like struggling back and forth with the time left and the expectations still unmet. We’re keeping the good mood. We’re going to have difficult times, again, but here we are, happy, yes, great! Let’s drink to that! Presidential elections are on the schedule: here and there, the clown decided to run again. First, a war threat, then carnivals, and now the anticipation of the elections. That’s Venezuela, and the people keep with the hope, the good mood. Perhaps that’s why I am how I am, I can’t tell. Come undone is sounding, I have two bottles in my system at this time. It’s time to stop, indeed, A view to a kill sounds now: dance into the fire then, or whatever it says… Sunny, early, time change. I noticed that because of the microwave; probably the only device not connected to the network.

 

This is Wednesday.  Evening.  Everyone is angry. Anger is kind of like a rain falling and getting all wet. Despite the umbrella, despite the boots, somehow it gets into your socks… and it’s never selfish.  We always want to share it, to pass it through.  I need to write this before I forget it: fulfillment is a place, a place we build over the years and,  once it has some room, once we fit in, we start understanding that what you didn’t bring is because you never needed it. I hope to be able to show that to my son. I want him to build his place for fulfillment, somewhere he can leave worries out and forget for a while, because obligations will always wait, but a pause is good from time to time, and thus, if he gets hurt, he can use it to feel better again. I will try my best. So Anger, Anger needs to be shared, that’s the only way to transform it. I must go, by the way. I feel like I need to close my eyes and hug my parents, tell them that I love them, pick up my wife and tell her it’s going to be fine, that we need nothing but ourselves. I have to get back to work. I love this job! Napping, trying but anxiety tends to take over. The need to be inside any feed on social media is, let’s say, dumbing me up. Fortunately I believe whatever wisdom I might have collected,  is probably already passed to my son. That’s narcissistic, to be honest. Who isn’t in these days! We need to consider we are presenting our lives as a slide show full of wealth understood as good. We have already talked about this before. Let’s go back to resting. I should get some sleep. It’s not Sunday yet. Saturday evening indeed. Daylight is lasting a bit longer, so we can take a walk before it gets dark. It’s good if we intent to open a bottle of wine. Cheers already! Time is becoming wind and as wind It’s touching my face, making me close my eyes and forget where I step. Music is playing chaperon, then I’m not alone. I open my eyes, and I’m already in my living room; having a glass. I was evocating, as I try to do when I’m alone. Time again, like I just said; it has its power, and now it’s becoming light, indoors light for a indoors contemplation. Cronos is how they call you, right? Well then: thank you, thank you for everything.  I know I’m not grateful most of the time but I do appreciate all, and I actually can tell when it’s you. Night has fallen. There is some discomfort. I wanted to complain,  to make an scene out of it but then I realized; why, what am I complaining about, whatever bothering me has always been there, and it didn’t come out of nothing I haven’t done previously to make it happen. So I just remained quiet, as always; keeping the bitterness to myself to drown it with the wine I’m drinking,  or digest it with all the junk food I have to then feel regretful for it. My belly won’t stop growing with regrets, and time, time won’t do (and there’s no need, actually) won’t do anything to stop it, or delay it. This is all on me.  Tuesday morning. An arepa is put on. I think that could be the most suitable way to say “montar” in the context of cooking for an arepa. So I’m putting on an arepa for my son before leaving.  I have to work. It’s cold. Unnecessarily cold. I write while I wait for the engine to warm up. There are opinions about this but it is already an old habit and this is an old car too. Let’s go. I used to feel kind of like a poser when wearing sunglasses but now, now I just got used to it. I might still look a poser but I just don’t care anymore. The value of the benefit overcomes the shame from the shyness.  Puberty issues, I know. Now let’s get back to work. Not before a coffee,  of course.

 

Sixth page V

 

Sunday, Foggy. A terrible music has just passed by, fortunately for me, it was a car moving and it’s gone. It’s a shame that, in times of endless access, music get to be that bad. Good music is surviving thanks to Nostalgia but… but I’m holding my second glass of wine and, when second glasses get served,  guilt and remorse just pack their bags and leave. Only anecdotes stay because they can see some way out despite the promises and memories, although made up stories tend to pop up like a unwanted internet publicity; which there’s no choice about it. So They just come, and now I talk, but I meant it then; almost two months ago. All these faces and says went on vacation to nowhere,  and I think they could be back since technology allows it so. We are in the middle of the road. Let’s see what this new year offers us while we keep on our catharsis since we have no friends at all.

 

I kind of like how my mind works. That’s actually why I forced myself to come back to writing. I just can’t think of several things at once. When something worries me, I can’t function at the rest of things, and when I’m writing  I kind of let go that worry for a while, so I need to write a lot for now, and I need to apologize to an audience,  whenever it may be around, for making you people read words that are not trying to convey any message but to calm their author down. What if it came out, kind of like it always does, a new study; only this time revealing that our dead remains are not the ones we buried, but that it turns out there is this discovery: implying that everything we've put under, experiences some phenomenon transformation to a point of exchanging, pretty much everything,  anything: from bones to caskets, and those we pray and praised, are not indeed ours anymore. I was thinking about that because I remember Chávez, along with all his staff, explaining boringly and tirelessly the importance of bringing dead remains from abroad, also the need to practice an exhumation to those resting on national soil. He wanted to unbury Bolívar. He made a whole show about it. To be honest, I’m not sure if they actually did it. I mean, they might have done it, but they have been for too long holding a position from which anything stated doesn’t have to be true. So why bother, I wonder! It might have been sadism, witchcraft: sure but, when it comes to those people: the high leaders of the ruling party – Chávez and some others are dead now – the concept of truth, or righteousness, are not subjected to an actual accountable reality. We don’t even know where Maduro was born. So I was thinking: what if all that waste of resources did actually provoke something; something we may never know. What if God in his own way is punishing us as a nation for all these excesses. There must be some further reasons why, despite of moving out, there are many in pain still. We don’t collect too many stories of success outside the academy or the sport field. Have we ever wondered it? I’m just thinking about it now. Debts make you think a lot…

One sigh, then silence,  then another sigh; this one louder than the previous one. Everyone is covering their cubicles: private little rooms behind curtains, like artists on stage not yet performing, but getting ready to, checking their lines, tuning their instruments,  making a last phone call before the show; this show, showing up and on despite the thoughts. Perhaps that explains the silence. Enjoy the silence with Depeche Mode.

 

Almost noon. Restroom first.  It’s hard to call it restroom after I-don’t-know-how-many-years calling it bathroom.  That is a lot of a second language thing, just like Where have you been. I was asked that question before and I have answered it like: I’ve been in Europe a few times, but that’s not what it was meant to be when it was asked. That’s the thing when we translate first, and it’s fine, I mean, we just have to get used to be a little behind and understand that, to others, we might sound a bit naive sometimes. Mischief, slyness, they come out better suited from the first language, but again: it’s fine. The Sound of Silence is another song, or so I think it is. The thing is that this symphony has more to do with little cough,  a sneeze from time to time, and steps; back and forth, in stereo mode: “surrounding me, going down on me” – now guess what song is that – I see my thoughts in songs, I can’t help it. I think some wine should be taking care of this thirst over my lips, like a kiss right after shutting up a sexy female voice, but neither the kiss nor the wine are dealing with this dryness. I’m writing instead: terrible deal. Another morning. Rainy. Not cold, but rainy. The sky got painted in gray. No sunshine for the moment, no brightness for the words. Dark words instead, more like bored words. Why this need to complain about anything? How do we get annoyed from things that doesn’t happen that often? I want to blame this intolerance on social media: the need for the sudden comes with lack of patience for anything else. Green tea, not like coffee but the virtual agreement places it healthier,  so here I am. It’s quiet, it’s early and Friday, by the way!

 

A statement has come for visit. I’m not sure that I want it to be part of my perception,  but I want to hear it. This is a silent life full of indistinguishable voices; I hear them all the time, when I’m trying to come around, or now where I am sitting on the toilet, which is not figurative,  by the way. I hear them say my words will be only mine and that’s why I remain quiet.  I’m not sure who might want to come to these phrases but the idea I’m giving space is, that our words will define our sense of a world we’re creating for  our own understanding.  In another way, we are islands of thoughts built out of the words we chose to learn, and by those words we’ll get anything that comes further. Time is timing as many times as necessary; and we prioritize based on those words, and that’s who we are. Would you like to change that? We must incorporate more words, so we can get different angles.  Does anyone want that whatsoever? Disposition meets time, but time is no sharing any speed, so the moment is only ours, and my legs want me to get out.