the perception is nostalgia

There’s this article in which I could read some about time’s perception. It wasn’t too deep but what I usually remember from it is that we, –the almost forty in 2018- when saying something about the nineties, tend to think it was about ten years ago. I hadn’t bought a DVD player yet. I remember that a friend lent me two VHS tapes with the bands he could record from a special broadcasting of Woodstock 99. I remember Limp Bizkit: the nookie. Few years later Korn came to Venezuela, Papa Roach performed at that show too. I was amazing, affordable, young and nearly ten years ago (in my head at least). Moments and memories are always playing tricks, I can´t precise when I stopped playing VHS tapes and replaced them with DVDs, for instance. I remember those Coca-Cola concerts (Experiencia Roja, they were called) as not so distant events. My wife gave me as a present my first smartphone in 2013 (I’m not so into what’s on but that’s not the point here) and nowadays I’m finding hard to see the daily routine without it, even though I’ve been using it only for five years: it’s seems like forever but it’s not. I’ve spent more time with mobiles of the other kind. So this tricky is this perception issue…

Money, on the other hand, got tricky too. During the first months of 2008 the Government ordered the first trick with money; from then on, three units would be suppressed this way: what´s valued one hundred fifty thousand bolívares changed into one hundred fifty; three zeros out. It was called (bolívar fuerte) to make a difference from the former one and this was, for real, ten years ago. It obviously created a new perception. Four years later there was no distinguishing of one currency from another; there were both bolívar and also by that now, the former bills were all out of circulation (they got out the same 2008 and this is tricky too: nowadays there’s a strong shortage of bills) We simply got used to say that a car costs forty thousand instead of forty millions, and if it’s putted that way it did not sound so bad until you talked about salaries…

Venezuelans have been dealing with ‘Control Cambiario’ (this sort of ban from free market and that’s a euphemism, because it is brutal) for over fifteen years. Fifteen years of managing multiple exchange rates. This got crazy on 2015 (the first time someone had to pay one hundred bolívares just for a dollar) but it didn’t stop there, by October 2017 one dollar was fifty thousand bolívares, one hundred thousand by November, two hundred thousand last January, just for a dollar. That makes most of us handle salaries not higher that ten dollars per month… and this situation brought us a refreshed trick: due to the astonishing devaluation, people are suppressing, again, three zeros, this time on their own; a nice but not so fancy meal costs five hundred in a restaurant, but it’s not five hundred, it’s five hundred thousand and most of the people just make over a million in thirty days, so, if you want to have a meal, just a meal out, you know it will be almost half of a salary for some, and simply impossible for many…

The government made time and money a matter of perception in Venezuela. The most frequent tale people say to each other is what you could do with certain amount of money and that’s certainly less and less every day on… the perception is nostalgia.  

Wheat got over for the day

I believe when Axl starts singing Estranged, he says something like: when you’re talking to yourself and nobody is home. Good. I’m talking to myself just now. I’m not at home but I think I’m pretty much alone, and I put it this way because There’s something I’d like to say and no one can hear it. Let’s see…

Two men were standing on a line to buy some bread – and this is accurate to imply. Not because its importance but because its relation. So here it is: a teacher told me once that we, the Venezuelans, have a port style economy. He meant we tend to consume what it’s brought from the sea. Well, literally, all our north long is a coast; we have a large extension of the Caribbean Sea in front of us... I wrote what I just wrote because wheat does not precisely grow here. We’ve been importing it since who knows when, and the waiting lines for buying bread are usually so long that bakeries run out of it far before reaching the last costumers. I also need to imply that most of the people who wait for bread are poor. Bakeries offer some other type of breads which costs are unaffordable to them. The people who wait, do it for a specific type of bread which quality is obviously lower than the unaffordable ones… This situation started just about four years ago and it had gone worse since then – they didn’t know each other but it is a common habit nowadays to chat while waiting, especially because people may spend, with some luck, about an hour. Not a lucky day that day. They were talking about the opposition followers. They began mocking them because their leaders announced a six hours Trancazo from noon until six in the afternoon. A Trancazo is a way for protesting against the government which have become popular recently. It consists in blocking (with garbage bags, tree branches, trash or wasted things) the main streets of several neighborhoods and avenues. It paralyzes the city, mostly for those who move by car or bus. The two man at the bakery were laughing because the stupidity oppositionists show by doing that. They lock themselves, they claimed in smiles. Some personnel of the bakery came out and said they ran out of bread, so the people remaining on the line – the two men included – started yelling and complaining. Another man from the bakery came out a while later and said if they behave; if they wait patiently, there would more bread within an hour. And there were, but just until the lady before the two man. Wheat got over for the day… 

chauffeur with a car

Bridge in construction, that’s what I read from the banner every time I go to Animus. I sleep for some dreaming and just then start the path, flying low until finally I get to a cave: an entrance says Thoughts, and due to its size, not so high to me at least, I’ve got to stop flying.

I take a walk: my steps don´t settle enough because the soil is soft, like sand or mud, I can´t notice. I feel myself willing to keep up; there’s no rush, time in dreaming is patient, so I just wonder with my hands and sense some texture, grab a little of it and try to see, to take a closer look: it was gray but out of my knowledge. I could imagine that’s how moon sand might look like but it is because what I’m carrying in my bag (I forgot to say I carry a bag every time I dream) I usually fill this backpack with names: I like to think I dream with real people but really I ignore, or maybe I’m the ignored one, I haven´t figured it out the scope of my desires. For now, let’s move on over this soft and gray (neutral) soil. Yes, because it is free from any judgment.

I keep walking; see some questions spread and several answers hanging: doubts of my reality, of my certain future. Future is not uncertain, uncertain are facts when they’re sudden and it depends, because sometimes Present leaves pieces as a warning that a bit of a whole will be completed and that the time for awakens is more sensed than in dreams’; therefore, impatience might come from outside, unlike this patience, that comes within.

I read When, Why, Because as well, but the rest are just ellipsis.

I open the bag and grab some pronouns; the first clue for the questions spread. Doubt is like opportunity; both have issues with people just like the names I bring onto my dreams. It’s not necessary to say them loud, the voice of the dreams has its own language, anyone who sees someone sleeping knows it when this asleep talks; it is some kind of no translatable dialect.

I start wondering inside the cave: why she? When you? Why we? The wind blows and pushes the answers, I assume a You towards me is an I, so the answers lies on me but I don´t know what to say. I check the bag again but get sort of nervous; I’m afraid not to pick the right name (yes, random and chance are strange while you dream on) I finally prefer the doubt and wake up…

Nothing special, just a day full whys and whens, for example: why so much traffic, so many critics, so stupid fundaments? There’s not a single because for any of my whys but, well, let´s wait until tonight…

It is said (better than known) Love reflects itself in many ways, for instance: a metaphor related with time, about love I’m talking, might be how long the beloved one takes to reach your eyes at knowing you’re waiting at the entrance to her home. If it’s the same home for both, well, I’m not sure (I guess there’s more than a why) Reasons varies and love (as I just said it) reflects in many ways.

I was a lucky; I could fly a little more before going back to the cave, before running away from widow questions and orphan answers. I go on, open the bag; Animus is a bridge, a bridge inside a cave: this big is this cave, these many are my doubts. I wake up…

I forgot to say I’m a chauffeur with a car of his own: take me there, pick me up, and yes, just when I was about to pick her up, Boom! I crashed the car. Another day with whys…

Moon sand got wet but hands were no longer my path, I’m barefoot, one doesn´t know how’s looking while dreaming. I sense a shore, a silvered sea with some few waves. I stepped on from answers to windows, windows without transparency, like frames, like a gallery, a gallery which frames look like stars and as stars enlighten. I see some like my face, yes, through these windows. I didn’t just see my face through it, for example: I saw myself stroking the legs of an important name I always carry in my bag; it is the name of my present, a present which will be future, for now. Through other window I saw me as a child; as an animal through another, an unknown animal. There’s a windows, old, blurred; the texture of the weather is strange but I figured it out by a pair words written with a finger on it, just like someone else would have been here before, someone who got bored, tired. The words were: Silence and Oblivion. This, along with the questions, looks like an afterthought. Since there’s some antagonisms in the bag, I may do some conjectures: why don´t I forget? (For oblivion) Or when this silence? Because I remember you, and from the noise I… I wake up…   

There is a certain feeding for waking up on a bad mood when sleeping with doubts; some people dream with things they can’t have, some others with things they can’t understand. That explains the reflects in the morning, those moments in front of the mirror trying to accept ourselves, to accept that there’s just a shaving machine, a makeup set. The day promises to be the same, but today I don´t work, I’m without the car, so I’m just taking a walk…

Curiously doubts fade away with the steps, and unlike dreams, there’s sort of a comprehension while keeping up on the sidewalks. Perhaps it’s just oblivion and silence, and next dream remember…

It was a beach at night, a beach inside a cave with moon sand and a bridge, and the windows, the words, the memories, everything making noise while I go on, and I’m again in the same dream. Probably pronouns are no longer needed because the only one here is me, it means I am: I’m who walks and doubts due to sensations and uncertainties of everyday and there’s no more sand, nor sea for my steps. There’s just a banner at the end of this path: Bridge in construction.

Versión en español: aquí