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.