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.  

Fourth page V

Waiting is the hardest part. Meanwhile Instagram is firing me with all these debt relief programs. I am tempted,  I’m really tempted. Sometimes I fill out the whole application and then I regret and take it back. The cost of living is the cost of life. I’m overwhelmed by my thoughts; the things I could do if, if only, but just only if, but no, not so far at least.  I need to figure out why I have this sense of remorse for things I didn’t mean to. It is so tiring to explain myself over the intentions of whatever I’ve done. It weakens me. Explain my intentions feels like I did something wrong or bad and I must justify it. If it’s bad, it’s fine, someone needs an explanation,  but what about those things beyond control. I came to pick up someone and that someone is not ready yet, do I have to feel bad for this time I’m waiting? I know I don’t, but I do, and I need to understand this impulse for explanation. Nobody cares, it doesn’t matter. I have to put this in different perspectives.  Meanwhile I remain regretful for not knowing how I should have done this or that. I can’t have a problem everyday,  please. There’s wine waiting. I just wish to be at home already. Why wine forces people to say things they can’t keep as true statements. It gets boring. Annoying. I gave it all. It is amazing. I am sure, completely sure, I gave it all, and I gave it all for nothing.  It’s hard to accept it. It was for nothing, but let’s leave that for later. Now I’m just waiting to get some sleep, to find hope elsewhere, perhaps focus on my boy’s voice; my boy’s smile, and stick with it. Nothing else matters, I guess, and I remain poor; that’s important to bring up; when you are poor, daily things become a drama. Rich people convey their art through higher states and dimensions, the poor, on the contrary, they play like they reach such a high level by exposing their miseries. We feel this need to tell everyone how bad we want to feel understood, ad we want to do that in a world where nobody cares. A whole drama. What are we going to do about it? Drink and bear. Next day tends to be next in several ways. Who knows? It could be my lucky day. Saturday morning. Gray like rain is coming anytime. A bit chilly but nothing unboreable with a sweater on. Coffee, balcony and birds singing; louder than other days, by the way. I can hear a few steps around. I was given another chance, that’s how God works. I must honor such a trust vow somehow, and I need to find the wisdom for it. My thoughts are not wise, and my ideas are not profitable in any sense. These very words won’t give me nothing to bring to my table, and yet I still come here and write some for my own realization. I wonder where this impulse; the insistence, comes from, given the fact that I am not the pushing kind. I’m more like introvert, I have this sort of condition that hits me every time which is called – I looked at it – over-explaining, and it is actually a trauma. Apparently we develop this when we are constantly made feel a fault. So we grow up always in search for approval. I’m not totally sure if that’s my case, but now I know it is an issue, and as such, I must take a look at it at least. Nevertheless I just go on with my things and it seems that today (and tonight) there will be wine and eat out. And I will get sad again for sure: what a cycle! But we are not there just yet. Let’s rise ad shine despite the gray.

 

Still loving you is just an amazing song, just like Comfortably numb. The solos, both solos, accompanied with a glass of wine, to listen then Stairway to heaven, the live version from The Song remains the same; watching my boy playing with my mom’s phone. This is my hallmark. My wife is coming to add some love to this scene. Now it’s time for thoughts to fly across the oneiric world I may create for them to flourish, thrive, or burst, depending on the dream. Tomorrow will be another day. Another Sunday. Let’s see. Let’s see indeed. Sunny, a bit chilly and quiet, except of course for the birds, and an airplane, which is coming right away, followed by the sound of a car running slowly: this is the song for those already awake at this time. I’m starting to get the sound of the elliptical machine too, I think I have mentioned at some point. I have a coffee, creamy but not sweet. Not sweetener for the first one I’m trying to state, and it has worked out pretty well so far since I started it. These sort of rituals, now presented as routines, help me – us, I believe – understand a bit more every time about my space-time relation with the environment I’m surrounded by. Birds’ singing is fading, for example,  that means more people are coming out, and that the morning is on for everyone. Indoors time, coffee is not over yet. I got this cool Star Wars mug with light sabers design, which shows the sabers on while the liquid inside remains hot. It’s a pretty nice thing to have. It was a gift from a good friend last summer,  not the summer just over but the one from last year.  I met him during a trip. We had a great time. Back in the balcony. Quiet, as I’m not used to. Another coffee, same mug, it became my everyday mug at home ever since. The weather can’t be nicer: sunny but not hot. I think I’m just giving myself this time for contemplation, I actually have nothing to write about, I mean, I’m always wondering why and how on several things floating inside my head. Some of them I just don’t know how to let out, but it’s not something I want to write about just now, maybe later. Later is not just yet. Later could be now, but I remain wordless for my ideas to become Text. Farewells are hard. I’m still trying to serve something about it, but not just yet I think. I’m still in the process of understanding some moves from certain people. In the meantime I would like to wonder why the exchange of own time over work done has this tendency for unjust? How do people actually realize they are doing more than what they get paid for? What is that thing that triggers our perception and takes us there? Because once there, there’s no turning back. It is kind of cruel in its own way. But now wine has done some damage, to the point of dizziness  and will for confessing. There’s coffee, decaf, because of the hour, but enough to withhold this impulse on over talking. We call it ultra petita, in law school. Everyone is in their room, so there’s no audience for uncomfortable confessions based on wine. Let’s get quiet, tomorrow it will hard and we have to work too. The air conditioning is going crazy with this weather.  So I am. Let’s just go to bed. No balcony, too early, early Monday. A farewell is coming. We must be on time to stop by and keep going.  Things look slow at work. A tense calm followed by the uncertainty of what will happen in the next few days. Supervisors don’t say a word. There is this sound I can hear and, I might guess, it is someone mopping the floor, there is a bucket falling down from some stairs, or so I hear. Two guys laughing and telling each other a story, a story I don’t care, but I have to listen to it. We should close our  ears the way we close our eyes. Some things are just worthless to listen to and yet we have no choice for it.  It’s not like when we don’t want to see something. The Power, wearing any of its faces, takes advantage of that. Power tends to find the way to get to our ears and makes us listen to those things we don’t want, and does it as many times as necessary, until we assimilate it, and then be pushed to believe and accept,  because, eventually,  we all accept it. There are plenty of examples throughout history. It happens with music too. What people call music nowadays is incredible. Most of the music I like comes from a joint effort of minds working together in an attempt of expression, and that doesn’t mean they must say something in a song. Sometimes it has more to do with the way they play the instrument,  or that, plus the musician put in a specific part of the song. Having that, getting that, it’s just sublime, provocative,  

Fourth page IV

 

Read a book, listen to a whole record, go on and watch a movie. Go ahead a pick one by chance, something,  someone you’ve never heard before. Give it a chance, give yourself a chance to go on something you never saw on social media, and then sense it. Make your own impression about it: a terrible movie, a boring record, a very bad novel, place, time, picture, exhibition,  it won’t matter because, each and every single one, will grant you with a piece of space for your thoughts and perception to float, to flow, so be it. Afterwards you pick a place and sit, talk to yourself and smile (or cry) alone. Then get your shit together and get a job, or go to work if you have one. It doesn’t sound like a plan to you? You can always go back to your scrolling, just give it a try. I try. I read some today. It felt great. It felt like a trip when you pay nothing ad you can get anything. O want some delusion here: there is this girl gone crazy for a guy. I haven’t seen that before, I mean, I have lived a life where women always have the say; watching that is really impressive to me. Sunday night. To some, we are in autumn already. Yesterday it rained the whole day. It was kind of like an entrance for the pumpkin season, but today, tonight, summer says goodbye on some fresh air despite of the dark. Tomorrow we’ll see. I feel like I want some coffee. And I had it, as I’m having one right now. It’s cold, the weather,  not the coffee, but a cold summer-like, which means there’s no need for any sort of coat. Friday and Saturday were colder. Almost no stars in sky, I can’t even see the moon. It’s thick, I don’t know, not Foggy, but dark blue gets me this thick sense. If I could get a piece of it, – a piece of sky – at least  a piece from the one I’m starring at now, it would be thick. Lamps on the streets are on. Lamps of the apartments across; not. Is it too early? I don’t think so.

Light bulb of the balcony needs to be replaced.  Dark and cold became friends. I could join them by wearing some coat but I guess I’m opting stay indoors out of my lack of mood. Why?  I guess – again – because bad news tend to hit harder lately,  not because of their impact; their impact is something different to place in thoughts: that requires a different angle.  I’m talking about how often, or how many, depending on my will to count them, or pay attention to them. I tried counting first, it’s just not working,  I mean, I get tired of it. There’s some weight to carry while thinking about them, and, during this traffic jam of thoughts, the effort of counting them, let the others vanish too soon, so there’s a little spot for reflection; and I need to come around. Light bulb replaced. This one is white, it gives you this sense of office now. I think I like it better in yellow. The yellow light gets me, I don’t know, warm, takes me back in time, takes me to Caracas,  on 1985, or 86, when I was in our elementary school. This one, on the other hand, takes me to an office, and I just realized I miss them both. Break time. Breakfast time but since fasting, the break’s got to wait a little longer. A little longer I must wait indeed for some news to come. And they will. I just need to give myself to delusion meanwhile: I see you see me, I see you see me behind that I-don’t-care-about-you gesture in your face. I know anger can be a mask sometimes,  a suit we feel like we need to dress due to the this fear of exposure.  Feelings must be kept in the mouths of silence. In the steam that comes out and rests around the glass right after a sip of wine. That moment, that look up trying to find it, and not getting it yet… that look down trying to let it go, and carrying with it still. At home. Quiet. Walls speak: a TV on, at some other apartment, a video on the phone perhaps. I feel like I need to shave but I tend to drop it right before the bath. It’s like this nutrition program: I just had an Ice cream that I shouldn’t have had.  Let’s play Depeche Mode for this moment and enjoy the silence. There’s plenty of time for whining in words (written thoughts) specially during this story, a story nobody cares, to be honest. 

 

It was just the perfect opportunity, and I just wasted it. Why? Well, here I am: the car won’t start. It was like that since yesterday evening.  I made here to pick up my mom and then it didn’t start anymore. Two people came for help. The first one tried to start it. He really wanted to help and I just felt and feel graceful for it. If you hesitate of God’s existence,  think again. Unfortunately,  it didn’t work out. I joined one of these car companies that provides roadside assistance. They never came. I got a call from them at 1:00 AM. I saw it at 5:00 AM. I was already at home thanks to the second man who stopped by and tried to help as well. Since he could not get the car started, he offered himself to take us – Mom and I – home. Like I just said. God is there. I’m in the workshop now, but let’s go back a few hours. I texted my boss to let him know I was going to be late today (which I’m still, and I guess I will be for the rest of the day) He didn’t answer but I assume he got the message. I got to the parking load where I left my car, right where I picked up my mom yesterday. I tried again, maybe 20 times more, and nothing happened. I called for a tow service. The second one was the one who took me to the workshop I’m used to take my car. The guy there refused to check the car, he claimed they don’t do that, so he suggested another workshop, and we went, and there was no one there. I told my tow driver: I’m lost, I’m not from here, I don’t know what to do, Do you know some place where I can take the car? He made a call, got a number. I called, and here I am, writing while waiting. Unfortunately I didn’t bring any boo and it was actually the best chance for it. I’m going to leave my whole salary here. Taking care of a problem means delaying another, that’s how life works for me, for us, I took my boy in my arms yesterday. I took a bath with him, I started to cry, he started to laugh and that made me think about God again. I have one of his angels right in my arms, so hope came back again. Today I feel broke – I am broke – but this story is not over. For now, let’s just state that I wasted the perfect opportunity for a good read, but on the other hand, I got a good one for writing. I don’t think I’m going to have one like this for a long time, but who knows! I’ve written a lot so far, despite the fact that no one is going to read it, my son will, I know, so it will worth at the end. Let’s still wait and do what most people do in cases like this one: scrolling up and down on social media. 

Fourth page III

 

My little man is still sleeping. I’m loading myself up of hope thanks to him. And it’s real, you know! Today it wasn’t that bad with the deliveries. I had it in a good pace. Still cloudy, and raining. It’s a bit chill too. I’m on the floor, on the carpet. This type of apartment has a carpet all over the floor. So here I am, with my little man, which is climbing the sofa over and over while I watch him and smile. I feel like I want a glass of wine but my wife and I decided to take a break (it’s Sunday) but who knows, she just went to the supermarket. Let’s see. She came back empty handed. It's time for a shower. The walls of this apartment sound like there were someone else taking a shower behind them. They talk, from what I can hear. We never feel alone. Actually feeling alone is more prompted towards being with people who don’t care about you, rather than being by yourself though. Chill. Bad mood around. It’s Monday but that doesn’t make any different from whatever day. That has more sense back home. Tuesday: dark, chill, black coffee on hand. There was a store in my dreams. I don’t remember what it was it about. Still early. I thought I could have a bit more of something to state, or wonder about and writing it here, but I just remain silent in every way. I don’t know what to do. There is this strategic move I should be smart enough to make it, but it overwhelms me. It’s like it is further from my capabilities. I hate it. I hate hesitation from myself. I feel bad enough already when realizing I’m repeating the classic pattern of not being with my boy, only because I have to work. That’s enough from a punishment. Sometimes I think that if something ever happens to me, these words won’t go public. I’m halfway from whatever goal I set up in my head, but I’m not sure how long will it take me that other half. I guess I have to honor my roots, go public incomplete, and keep going with the flow. Going with the flow is actually what I’ve been doing so far. The flow has taken me to work more and more. The flow has me worried about the car and the debts.

 

Yesterday,  I just felt tired for delivering. I forfeited it. I felt more like going published and so I did: I started posting this tale. I thought at first that I was going to slow down this impulse I’m having for writing, once I get to post the first page, – or chapter, whatever suits best – but it turns out that I’m still on it. I want to keep placing our thoughts as part of this narrative. Dark; We better get used to it. From now on, every morning is going to look as it looks now, only colder with time, and it will remain so until next summer; not even next spring, I think. More black coffee then, and more clothes for having some time here in balcony: yes, the balcony.  In order to keep ourselves writing, light must be on. That makes us one of these yellow ships floating in the dark. Like the one I’m in front of, like the one whose silhouette I have wondered about. Two more I can see at the back. Two little ones I see coming closer; it’s a car, and then another one: people going to their jobs, or just parking outside, until the school bus picks up their kids. This is the type of complex with gate bars at the entrance, we get a special magnetic key to enter, and there is a sensor that opens it when coming out. It has its timing, I guess for safety purposes; it takes a few seconds to open up, that means we have to wait to go out. If it’s not six thirty yet, you will have a few cars on your way out from those parents waiting for the school bus. It’s better to wait until six thirty five. Anxiety doesn’t like that. Anxiety is always interesting. It is always good to bring up. Clear, it’s clear: dark, but clear, the lead voice is on the engines. We get this sense of factory, of production lines, while having a coffee. I guess working is always in our heads. I was talking about that yesterday: working is so present on songs’ lyrics, not like in my culture, that there are songs for not working actually. On the other hand, it came to my mind these guys from On The Road; I think they don’t work in the story. I don’t remember it well. That’s why I tend to refrain from quoting, since I may mix references. We better stick with each other here and leave the wise ones alone in their pages. Again, dark and clear with machine sounds. A Slipknot song we could evocate out of this sensing. The coffee is a plus, weather is not warm at all. Evening at last. Nothing special to bring up, maybe a couple of things to break down. Illusions pops as wine fades, my mouth tastes the last one while my mind plays with the first one. Let’s declare: better times are coming, despite the desperation. My boy plays with his pacifier. I wonder and realize in the meantime. Hope has its own language, then I smile. I forgot if I’ve ever mentioned it, but we live near the airport,  so every few minutes we get to see (and hear) the airplanes. When it’s dark, kind of like now, airplanes look more a bit like spaceships, or so I see them, and they add some momentum to this sort of symphony I whiteness every time I sit by myself in the balcony. If this were a rock song, the airplane passing sound would be the epic drum fill, like the one in Tom Sawyer. It doesn’t look that dark today. It’s a bit cold, but enjoyable. First break with no eating yet. I was thinking about the word break: it is so not our culture, just like this combination: go by. I don’t go by the standards you break down for me. I have my own way, and expectations will met in both. This would be the kind of sentence a machine translator might not help you with. I just checked it on Google, and it turns out that it actually works pretty well. I’m heading to the obsolete. Let’s get there in good mood then, it will be unavoidable,  so why worrying or getting mad, right? A gray rainy Saturday. It doesn’t seem to be a joyful day. Let’s see. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t, but real life tends to be less dramatic. I had a bit of wine. I didn’t feel like having more, not even as usual. One glass, one glass was fine yesterday. Today looks better out there. It looks more for a nice walk. It’s Sunday. Again, let’s see. Now that I live in an English speaking country, I’ve been getting more than I used to from songs and movies. I’m not going to lie, remember,  we meet halfway, but what I’m trying to say is, that although I don’t get to understand fully like a native speaker,  I get more every time, and that more is putting me in a position of – I guess – realizing that there are quite a lot of songs whose message is leant to express the feeling while high, or on something stronger. I have nothing against it, but it makes me smile from time to time when getting it. By the way,  there’s something I need to leave here. I don’t remember if I already had done it, but just in case, here I go: we need to work more on our capability to give space to our thoughts to flow. Thoughts need to flow. They need space. A good way to make that space bigger might be by reading more fiction, so we train our head to create platforms on which we can develop our stories, or whatever we may be getting from a lecture: the more, the better. A bigger space helps us get how tiny things can be and therefore realize that not everything, in fact; almost nothing, is about us. Two people whispering around, for example.  They might be talking about anything, not exclusively about us. That is important.  We tend to spend too much energy on others, on things we think they are about us, and that’s because our platform (if I can call it so) is not big enough to let those thoughts vanish on the oblivion. It’s like smoking in a closed bedroom. We’ll get intoxicated, and so will happen with thoughts. Let’s make them a bigger room, a bigger space. That might work as an antidote for the excessive scrolling – and depressing vibe – on social media. I made an experiment on myself.  Too many people having the greatest time everyday and every time… honestly,  that is just sad. Imagine the pressure we get to be under, that we have to share only good things. Imagine spending your day, looking for something great, something that may last no more than ten seconds, most of the times, in an attempt to marvel  several people’s eyes who just don’t give a fuck about you. And on top of that, living with the anxiety that comes out when others post nicer things. The never ending comparison match. 

Fourth page II

 

Breakfast for lunch. An hour of exercise earlier. It’s been a cool Saturday so far. Now it’s time to work. And it was fine too. I’m holding a glass of wine thinking that I’m going to take a bath with my son in a few minutes. I haven’t taken it yet, I’m about to, but I haven’t though. Sunday morning. Cloudy.  It looks like it’s going to rain. I think I’ve missed a couple of details: you see, with this obsessive-compulsive habit of scrolling the phone screen – because we just can’t (and don’t want to) stop doing it – it is very common for anyone to fall onto a monothematic stage, to a point of self limitation,  which is actually moved by the trends of social media. We don’t choose our topics, we remain inside a loop that keeps us repeating the two or three variants of that subject we probably were not thinking about, and perhaps, if having something to say of it, it wouldn’t fit with the previously established variants I was referring to. In fact this very writing is a proof of that. Then, back to the never-ending topic, I wanted to add, based on my opinion, that the change of the establishment, talking about the factors of power, brought up what we’ve been calling dictatorship. Why? And here’s my guess: a left-wing-like system will always be less democratic due to its essence,  which in my understanding, goes by the increment of rules from The State, to seize more control over the nation (and by nation I mean everybody else) The democratic appearance was given by the allegedly free speech from the media,  and the size of the industrial park. The new regime changed that. They reduced the industrial park by setting up a bunch of economic measures and procedures, forcing several owners to find abroad a place to work under more suitable circumstances. They promoted a series of new laws that made payrolls simply unsustainable for the private sector. In order to keep the nation going, the government had to sponsor pretty much everything in every aspect. That’s what they wanted, they wanted to be above the private sector. As an employer you weren’t able to let an employee go unless you had a reason that fit the criteria of the law. Such a thing is going get different angles, I know. But there is the undeniable fact that owners prerogatives were undermined,  making it subjected to question the worth of having a property, where sovereignty is not fully so. And I’m just cherry picking here. They wanted to control the currency exchange: a terrible mistake. It takes a lot professional analysis to make the world understand that phenomenon. I don’t have the words. I was just a victim like every single nor high range officials, or friend of those, in Venezuela. And those are the ones I wanted to mention in the first place: those people have found the best money and power match at the cost of the nation. In other words, we lost the country to make those people rich. Now what we have left is our disposition for a job in another country and make ends meet with it. The morning is almost over.  It's raining.  It’s been raining for a couple of hours,  maybe.  Schedule is set. I’ll be on duty in the afternoon.  Let’s hope the rain to stop then. In the meantime,  I’m having my son here with me. He’s sleeping right over my chest. I remember when he fitted whole,  that was barely two years ago. Now his legs are out, his arms are out, and eventually, I’m not going to be big enough to have him this way, so I just enjoy it while I can. There is a kind of synchronicity between the fan spinning and his breathing.  I’m always getting those type of sounds like they were the music of the world, perhaps not the world; that sounds like too big. Let’s say that’s the music of the environment, the environment I’m surrounded by. There is a beat and I usually tend to get it. Sometimes I think that we are driven by it and the fact that we can listen to it is a proof we’re not entirely on our own, and that there might be a chance that someone is setting that up to make us function somehow. Some other times I think that it is just my obsession to find songs anywhere and everywhere. There are times in which I think it is a useless capability, but once in while I think it is going to be part of brighter future. Once in a while I think I’m not going to remain poor, and that the things I’ve learned and thought may be worth to pay for, so I can teach my son a sensitivity to understand the world from there, and not only from social media standards. The sound brings words, words that acquire a shape to become a message,  a message that comes up to share it, because we are here not only to do as told, but to create and explore, explore the untouchable and make up our own language out of it. Only that it is not happening now. I mean, it is happening, but in my head, and it says there; there and in these words. Most of the time I’ve got to go to work. In fact I’ll be working in two hours from now, so I’m helping my crazy thoughts not to vanish in the oblivion, by keeping them here and whoever decides to give them shelter while reading them if ever get to it. Thus I have space to worry about my situation and work hard to get through it. 

Fourth Page

 

Fog. Foggy dawn. It’s curious to me that fog excels the light while blurring it. Lamps cover more but in a less clear way. Sun is not shining yet at all. Somebody got an exercise machine. I can hear the cycling sound beating. There’s a shape walking by, and by the light that comes out of his cigarette,  I could see it was a man taking a drag. Crickets, I hear some. The rhythm is led by the exercise machine. Now I’m inside the apartment, hearing the sound of the water flowing through the pipes. Somebody is taking a shower, I guess. Voices. Voices behind the wall, two female voices. It’s still early. Monday: a new week of expectations. Is there a word in English language for the opposite? Let’s say I do not want any expectations. It’s not unexpected, it’s more like, for this case; dis-expected. I would like to dis-expect some of my worries, at least the upcoming ones, those not yet turned into actual problems. Please, don’t come! First job, checked. Second job, about to start. The day is fine. Sky looks nice, everything seems good for a Monday afternoon. It should be easy. Good music is making me company. Let’s enjoy it. At the end, it wasn’t that good but I can say it was fine, I mean, regardless of the distance, I did it in a good pace. Black dawn. No fog today, just darkness and engines running. I dreamed about some people, people I know. People whose ultimate decisions got me thinking. I thought of this great book: The unbearable lightness of being. I don’t know.  It’s not something we feel like we want to state, but there is some certainty on such an angle: determination is often thriven at random; by chance. Planning looks great on companies’ meetings and self-help books, but our true will grows stronger, in so many ways, and at so many times, by the appetite of the sudden. Let’s go, let’s do it. Tomorrow we’ll see! And tomorrow passes, over and over, to a point that I need to see it as a plan: a plan I never made, but it makes sense using it as the storyboard of this life I’ve chosen… In other words: I never got to the how of such a what, therefore I better work on my why. But when why is what with no how, or how is why with no what; how does what matter without why? I’m wondering. It rained. It rained during the second job. Tiring. Incomplete.  Let’s see what comes from oneiric. Actually it was a weird dream: there was a young guy; a janitor, on duty, who I asked for something in the pool to fix. He gave me that look you give when someone is wrong, saying something wrong, you think he’s stupid, or didn’t go to school, or perhaps that look immigrants get from a gringo when we try to express ourselves in English. In my country we say, if translated: the guy wrinkled his face. In Venezuela you wrinkle your face before a situation is not common to you and it sort of bothers you. Like the beggar on the street, who approaches with a story of misfortunes just to ask for money at the end of it. I wrinkle my face right away. Well. That’s the look the guy gave me,  or so I thought, because,  to be honest, we never see actual faces; what we see is more like what we interpret. And yes,  I got mad in the dream, I got mad, and for some reason,  I was bigger than him, so I stepped on, pretty close, and intimidated him. I don’t intimidate anybody in the awake world. I guess that happens because it’s my dream. So I did it, and he felt miserable by my claim. The next scenario, I remember it as myself trespassing somebody’s property to get, I guess it was a toy, for my son. The owner of the property: some shape with no face, came close and the janitor guy from the previous scene, talked to him on by my behalf and explained the owner whatever reason I may have had, and which I have no idea of. I remember we all shook hands, then I woke up before the alarm. That was two days ago. Now I’m waiting for the clock to reach eleven thirty five to approach myself to the break room. I have pasta. I love pasta. I think Venezuelans love pasta in general.  Last night I had a great time. It was my mother’s birthday.  Having hear around gives me hope. When we study in English we learn this expression: make ends meet. Let’s see how it goes. I don’t see it at the moment. In Venezuela, when people have hope, despite of some overwhelming scenario, we say: cualquier culo echa sangre, and it works like a mantra. Cold morning. Not Foggy. Actually it’s not that cold, it’s just colder than all these days before. Summer is coming to end. Perhaps it’s already over, and sunny afternoons are just a prelude for a see you next year. How positive do we get to be, to state that we’ll do this or that, or see whoever we say we’ll see, in a future time? Where does that confidence come from? From routines,  maybe? And what about when it’s not a routine? It might be a farewell.  Farewell is there, like and entity. An uninvited entity for some, but not for all, and moreover,  not for both; assuming that this is about a matter of two. A guy who works with me asked me, I was telling him some story from a past time and, now that I’m writing it, it occurs to me that a past time is in way a past life, another life, a life gone. I’ve come to think that those past life memories we tend to hesitate believe in, they might be in fact about  immigrants; immigrants’ lives, an immigrant telling something where he came from. Different languages meet halfway and I’m not even sure if what I’m writing here is actually what I want to say but, I’ll be more than pleased with our halfway encounter. So the guy asked me, right after finishing my story, what happened to Venezuela? I didn’t tell him this much, but I feel like telling a bit more here, not without pointing out,  that this is what I think, and that everyone has the right to agree or not, in fact, it might be better if there are disagreements.  Disagreements will take us to a better understanding.  So here I go: I want to call them factors of power; they are primarily two: The Clergy and The Oligarchy. The first one is formed by the church, which is an important political arm there, and the second one, by the aristocracy. I believe those factors have been in control since we were part of Spain. With time,  those factors came up with a third one: The Military force, and with such, it came the republic. As a republic, it was ruled for many years by the three factors. In my perception, it remained as it until half of the twentieth century, more or less; after that, when the democracy was established, and so the unions, this last one, as I see it, became the fourth factor of power. Everyone else was, in a way, a servant of the power structure. Every single chairman-like official in the government was promoted by any of the factors through political parties. That worked for a while. Of course, there were riots, laws, media influence, but in general, it worked out for many. Until bankers, media owners, and some other rich people who were not part of the aristocracy, decided to seize a place in structure of power. The first step was the division of the unions: teachers, police men, nurses, and a lot of workers, started feeling unrepresented.  The next move was… a hero, an outsider, and, to me, that’s how Chávez became famous.  He was the hero that this emerging power needed. So they made him a politician, and on top of that, they made him the alternative of the unionized. I believe some, let’s call them, deserters from the former factors, joint this new movement, knowing there was a lot of money and left wing agenda behind it. So everything got set, and Chávez became president and got all the support he needed to promote a new constitution, and therefore a new structure of power. Former factors got their share still. It was a transition. We never got the chance to choose. We never had it, actually. And the purge began… new ministries, laws, exchange control, expropriations, and all the things that made six million people leave their homes and lives, to start over where nothing previously done seems to be considered. There are millions of stories to pick: hunger, crime, threats, brutality,  nepotism,  corruption, everybody has something to say. I have my story, our story, we all have it: at the hospital, in the neighborhood,  while driving. There are too many. Too many voices silenced by routines in warehouses and social media feeds. Too many stories hidden behind smiles and cool poses. A transcultural era, for many, and still in disguise. 

Third page VIII

 

Another night, another deception . Get used to it. I take a shower with my boy. I have to take advantage of it because he will grow faster than my thoughts. I enjoy it. It's kind of like our moment. I hope he remembers it as I do. Now I’m naked in front of the sink, thinking and writing.  Realizing this is too depressive.  I better change the narrative here, I must talk about something else. Yes. Next day. Dark. Still dark.  Bugs are playing their dawn symphony. They always do. It just came to my mind that I am witnessing so many wonderful sunsets every time I go to the second job. The way the sky is painted feels like a gentle touch for my view. I can have that. I can have a coffee now as well. Time pushes indeed, but I wake up early. Someday soon I will also watch the sun emerge from this darkness and greet our mornings with the fade of the symphony.  I’m still working on logistics here. But it will happen eventually. In the meantime,  I get ready for the first job. The one at the warehouse. I forgot to point this out as something worth to mention: that the bugs don’t play alone, birds play along with them. It seems to me that they, the birds, are not part of the concert since the overture,  but they tend to be part of it as the chants go by, they seem to be like special guests, daily special guests. Who are the daily special guests in our life? Do we have any? Is it good to have it? Is it good not to have it? Sun is coming. Darkness is leaving. I’m watching it from a window, while sitting on the couch, so this one won’t count. I would like to count on any special guest, I guess. Nostalgia is a nice word. I like the word that Portuguese has for it: saudade, to long for that you once had, perhaps knowing you’re not going to have it ever again. Like puberty, for example. I remember when the complexity of what we disturb ourselves with, used to lie more onto unfulfilled desires rather than unmet expectations. Now I’m thinking about the lasting of each – and the repercussions, of course – how long does a desire burn for? What happens next after it stops burning? With expectations is another story, isn’t it? We can expect consequences! In the afternoon,  the symphony is mostly played by cars. Those who stop and those who go. That’s the drivers’ concert, which I’m about to join but not yet. I’m still waiting, whispering and sighing, for the day on my shoulders and for the upcoming ones, in this case. Next day again. Less dark, from what I see. Engines got loud that I can barely hear the crickets. A couple of legs passed by. Still summer. We’re getting into the last days. A light blue is approaching from the back of the sky, making its way through the dark tones already posed when looking up. A few and little pinks start emerging from the clouds. I can see them now. They are preparing the sky for the entrance of the sun. Sun is taking it easy; there’s no rush for shining or rising at the moment. A few birds started singing.  It’s a new day, coffee on hand: black and bitter, for an imaginary sweetness. Memories – mine at least – tend to be stored in my mind a bit like photos or videos on the cell phone; if I want one, I have to, let’s say, scroll until I get it. Lately they have been popping up randomly. I would like to know why. It’s involuntary. I’m picking an order at work and suddenly, a high school moment comes like it was something I’ve been thinking of, but it’s not. My guess is that the mind brings these moments out nothing in an attempt to bear the worries. In other words, the mind can’t stand thinking too much about something whose solution is not coming any sooner, or that there’s no way to solve it at the moment. A defense mechanism maybe, maybe a tryout to prevent a possible collapse. I’m forgetting things out of focus lack. Nevertheless here I am trying to break it down to come up with an understanding… with you, with them, with all of us. Could that be a good thing after all? I think it could be what we tend to code as faith; having faith might be an interpretation of how your mind works things out to keep you going. How about atheists? Honestly, that is a form that narcissism adopts on some people. You build your own ego, on many cases, by forcing yourself to a stereotype fitting, or to an archetype already made, to satisfy a market need,  or a political establishment. What we do is to characterize someone we think we can be using such foundations. That works for a time on many, for a whole life to some. But it may stop working, and there it is when we should surrender our ego, and let ourselves embrace any new and fresh aspect for our personality, something that might be a more appropriate fit for the times we’re living. Quite a break through! And quite a challenge, considering the rejection on long-term endeavors.

 

The sky looks like it’s going to rain. There is this mix of heat and cold breeze that feels weirdly nice. I’m inside the car, waiting,  listening to the sound of one of these industrial engines that must expulse a sort of steam, or smoke - I’m not sure - to keep functioning. The sound has a funny variation more likely found in music songs. If the simulation theory is somehow real, how music would exist then? I don’t know. It just occurred to me. Play is an interesting word. A band plays a song while recording it, and fans play that song over and over later on. In Spanish those plays are in fact two different words; two different verbs. So play works out for the listener and the musician. I’m both, by the way. Play symbolizes pleasure; amusement, in every way when it comes to music. I’m home. I can hear the air conditioning.  I can also see myself into the black mirror out of the TV set. It’s not that I see me clearly, but I can see how I feel in that image of myself I’m now projecting. I’m looking at my son while he still sleeps. He is just a little angel in my bed now. I’m blessed. I love the sound he's making with the pacifier. It’s like a drum beat which I want to follow up. Someday he will see me playing and someday he will have the chance to sense the music like I do. That’s my one true advice if I can give any: sense the music. Break every line down of an instrument and try to get the language each one of them is speaking. It’s just a wonderful thing to do. Enjoy it when you can. The day has almost gone by. Supper was huge; great. INow I don’t know if I’m sleepy or tired. I am full, that’s for sure. Full of emptiness? Not now. Full of hope? Not either. Full of food. Today. Tonight. It’s cold outside.  Not like fall or winter, but cold for a summer night. Crickets sings. The sky is dark, a bit blurry because of the clouds, and not as dark as early in the morning, but dark above all. I guess I will never stop getting surprised by the attention unpaid. I mean, I’ve been there a thousand times, and yet, there it is the bitterness showing up like the flame of a lighter when rolling it on. I’m old enough to tell when my words are going nowhere in a conversation, but I insist, I speak louder; which is a terrible mistake. I’m the only one who knows what my words worth but I keep giving them away and leave them in the unappreciated. If someone is not listening to you, stop talking to them. As simple as that. – I heard that from Jordan Peterson and loved it – Whatever it is that we want to say, should not be subjected to disinterest by our stubbornness. Specially if it goes only to please our ego. Not anymore. And yes, That’s why we insist and that’s why we think we need it. For our ego. It hurts, I know. It pisses us off, I won’t deny it. But we have to accept and understand when we are no longer a priority, therefore what we have to say won’t matter. I’m learning how to deal with it. I have come to a point in which I wonder if I have been doing wrong during all this time.  Perhaps I’m just facing the consequences of choosing this life. Now I’m a fool hesitating and wondering, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Add debts to that and you’ll get a preposterous present: my present. Thanks God I have the love for my son. I’m scared that I’m putting too much on him. I don’t want him to feel any pressure. I want him to be free and happy. I can’t sleep. Anger won’t let me. I’m thinking too much. I need to change the subject. Let me try. I need to believe that I am going through this for a reason, and that there will be some sort of reward afterwards. Is it too foolish? I know. It is. Fucking archetype that won’t let me change, and embrace failure and disappointment as something I have to get rid of, and not as a sacrifice for a cause I know is not such. I’m just losing my faith away. I hate the Smoke. And that’s what my faith has turned into: a drag that goes away with the wind, as the cigarette runs out, and then there comes the need of lighting another one, and another one, and another one, until I have no more and start disturbing and talking shit about everyone, only because I need to buy more cigarettes. I have to take care of he kid. The rest are too busy drowning in the social media while having a smoke. That’s another story,  that’s the story of self cheating. Self cheating and victimism have taken on self esteem. I guess I need to find a joke on Instagram, or spy on someone else’s life, to see mine more miserable and blame the world for it. I hope I can enjoy the balcony, or the sunset. At least listen to the music I like. I remember when I was a teenager and I used to do it. I listened to a lot of music. Those were the days! At the moment,  I just want to say a prayer for my boy. It’s a habit. My faith comes back in a different way. Venezuela was once a colony of Spain, that explain our heritage in many aspects as a nation; as people in general. With the passing of the time, there were lots of changes that added features to our idiosyncrasy, but I could say Religion has kept solid since memorial times. Most of us are catholic. Many of us went to catholic schools,  in fact, I’m pretty sure that catholic schools are still among the first choice for parents to enroll their children.  If I were there, I certainly would be one of those. We have to link these sort of traditions to this vogue-like atheism typical of social media. We must understand that there is a coexistence between everything we inherited as population, and anything trendy on those cell phone apps. We also must understand that many things derived from such coexistence, have political purposes; specially the ones related to behavior and beliefs. Pedophiles at catholic church? Yes, sure. But the fact that media implies that such a crime happens out of religion beliefs, instead of a position of power, understanding,  of course, that church is, obviously,  one of those – I’m not denying it – but not the only one, simply makes the difference. A criminal is a criminal for the things he did, not for the institution he believes in. Nevertheless we buy the political narrative, so we embrace the possibility that religion, as an institution, is undermined by the faith, leaving aside the corruption. There are many examples like that. I could state that the vogue of being open mined was use for such causes as well. That’s why we wanted  for a time to be those who, allegedly, understood the path the world was taking. Now in my forties, I don’t know. I think I’ll just stick with jokes. But the damage is already done. The Venezuelan exodus started more or less in 2015, it has not slowed down ever since yet. So now we watch news like: two Venezuelans were capture trying to rob, kidnap, rape, steal, falsify, blackmail; whatever felony you can come up with. Since when the citizenship dictates the law compliance? Since it's convenient for a political say. Then you get used to read it on social media, and then the prejudge is already on everyone’s head. You also read the opposite,  and it's kind of annoying too: the secretary of whoever important person is Venezuelan, the yoga instructor of whoever celebrity is Venezuelan. Don’t tell me that isn’t political too. After a shower and some wine, I have come to realize that job ads are fake. I haven’t figured them out yet but they seem fake to me. I mean, how come it is that there are so many ads, looking for so many people, at so many levels, with so many types of jobs, and no one calls you for a review of your résumé? Really? You’re telling me I’m not good enough to be summit at least? Come on! 

Third page VII

 

Saturday morning. A piece of bread and a mug of coffee, here in the balcony,  yes. I better enjoy the moment. It’s sunny. It’s a good time for giggles and wiggles. I’m just drawing a little smile for my face and a bit of patience for my mood. I think I left something undone and unspoken, but it’s next day and I am a little more into what this next day is going to offer. I worked.  I’m going to work tomorrow too… in the other job; the delivery one. A beer before bedtime: when it's bedtime, anyway? Poor people, yes. I’m thinking about them. I am poor, that’s why this will go public, if it ever does, by myself through a blog  I hold. I’m not sure if any editorial might ever get interested in this as something worth to pay. It doesn’t mean I’m going to refrain from doing it. What the hell! These are my words: my inner war. My dealing with poverty… that’s the thing! Poverty.  Why do we have this need to hide our Poverty? Why? Poor people have projects, dreams, ideas. It’s just that work comes first because bills must be prioritized for living. Everybody must pay to be in this world. And on top of that, we must pay interest – high ones, by the way – for any sort of expectation. Expect is expensive in many ways. I like to believe, from time to time, that we are the fuel of the world, kind of like Matrix, and that there is actually energy for it in every effort we make. It would be great to be compensated for that energy we provide. There would be more healthy people around. More sex, considering the energy there. More laughing,  more reading… if only!  But the poor have to stick with a full time shift, tell the same jokes over and over, and try to find some relief on a glass of liquor, or on the screen of the phone. Others try stronger, but stronger eventually turn unaffordable, because even a bad habit is also hard on (and for) the poor. Sunday: Sunday bloody Sunday. I found a bit of satisfaction on the delivery this morning. Funny, I know. To realize what you're  lacking is a terrible skill. Most of the poor don’t know what’s missing and that is a bless. It's a bless because they can take it on whatever, whoever, and whenever suits them. I’m sad; surely because of the news, or because I couldn’t buy that I saw on Instagram… What about those who think they deserve better? Deserve; again, what a word! I deserve a glass of wine. I worked today. I went out twice on a Sunday while many are just enjoying their balconies. By the way, I should take a look, maybe the sun is setting and the evening might bring some air to promise, to promise oneself better mood for the upcoming challenges,  to promise better being for those who I share my home with, to promise more smiles, to promise never giving up, not even under these circumstances. I have a son to look after while he’s looking at me. Tomorrow is labor day here. In my country we celebrate it on May the first. It’s a big day back there because we have this tradition where the president, orders (yes, orders) all employers to raise the minimal wage over a percentage he decides. This, of course,  is announced on national broadcasting followed by a speech full power for the people, and the eternal big fight they (we, I suppose) are always winning against the imperial forces (meaning United States)

 

It makes me laugh too, I know.

 

I was thinking about those cover letters. I wrote mine. So far, nothing to point out. I’m still trying to figure out  if there’s any other reason why I haven’t got an opportunity, other than being Hispanic. Don’t get me wrong, please. I don’t want to go into politics. It’s a comfort zone people use as an excuse to avoid trying harder. I’m bringing it up because I would like to share what I think I might have said on a cover letter. I believe  it started out as a personal description of myself. Who is that? Am I the one who is placing these words in a sequence for a message? Or the character of this story? You see, I’m not always the guy waiting for the balcony, or the one who complains about his poverty.  I am a multiplicity of events, followed by ephemeral purposes that becomes a narrative, ⁸once mixed all among each other. That narrative is who I’ve been so far. Those events are my thoughts attached to my memories. That multiplicity is my desire burst into breaths  unable to catch, and smiles forbidden to explain. I am more silence than loudness. I am more what I choose not to say. I am what I think, when I realize you are not paying attention to my thoughts. I am what I think of you, when I see your face sunk inside social media. I am each and every  resentment from other times. I am a father above all. Anyway, I am, like we’ve learned in our language; substance and presence. Since English provides us with just one verb for both, then I am for both,  and for everything.  Another morning.  Weather reminds everyone it’s still summer and it won’t be for too long. Black coffee with no sugar: the charm of the bitterness. No good for teeth, to be honest, but teeth and mood won’t ever agree on that,  neither on wine . It’s like when poor people have a great time, there’s then this  feeling of guilt that comes as a remorse: a remorse for feeling good. Again: deserve is quite a word! I read once that brands and gambling targeted poor people to get their money out of status.  Most of advertisements are orientated that way. One is by offering the illusion of easy money just for being lucky, The other creates an archetype and sells it as an example of what great means in life. There is a sense of pleasure already guested in our perception, its purpose is making oneself happy for a little while when buying something we don’t really need. What have we established as needs, anyway? I mean, have we ever done it? How do we know that the will of buying something unnecessary is made up? I haven’t figured it out. I’m just wondering because it bothers me. But, and yes, there is a but. It bothers me when someone else does it. Not when I do it myself. It’s how I found out that when anybody does something we get irritated for, it might be something we carry within as well, it’s just that our ego won’t let us see it, so we look for it on others, and there it is when we start projecting, thinking that we hold any sort of capability for judgements,  when most of the times what we do is a confession. So let’s confess: I can’t stand unproductivity. I hate laziness out of nothing worth to be tired. Another morning. Another morning I wrote nothing. This another morning is not the one before. Busy day, I guess. Eviction letter. Interesting. In this country, you sign a contract for a period, and monthly payments must be done during the first five days. Failing to pay then, you’ll be charged a late fee for the whole month,  and an eviction notice, giving the fact that the month you are late is not over yet. In Spanish, the language we use, for such case is, in a way; let’s say: softer. I guess we see words more carefully, or perhaps we’ve been raised this way that, because we think we always deserve better, we feel offended by pragmatism. We have this sense of being someone that pops up on curious circumstances. If you need a volunteer for a challenging project, fewer, but a lot fewer people, would step forward, but when we feel in some way undermined, or underestimated,  we step up right away, claiming we deserve better because of the many things others should consider when it comes to consider us. How different was back then. We’ve been understanding a few important things through immigration.  The biggest one, from my perspective, is that there are a lot of things that are just different once you arrive. One of them is that your traditions are no quite so in the new country. 

Third page VI

A new week has come. This is my most important week of the year: it will be my son’s birthday.  Everything makes sense and whatever effort has not been hard enough when it comes to him. I just hope to improve it in time. Actually I expect it so. Let’s see what comes along with it next week. For now, let’s just think and enjoy. I want chocolate.  There’s a candy bar machine across the room but I don’t really feel like having anything from there. I’m just waiting for this break to end while these words find themselves a place for this paragraph. I’m at home now. Again, holding a glass of wine, indoors. Hearing the complaints of the house, hearing them like they were said in some foreign language I don’t know.  I just consent with my head pretending I’m paying any sort of attention.  From time to time, I make a little smile. I open up my eyes in an attempt of surprise. Anything that works for looking like I’m following it. Balcony minutes. Not enough. Never enough. I’ve lost space over the smoke. It kind of makes me sad but I can forget it a little bit with every taste of wine, with every kiss on the glass. No glass kisses for a long time, by the way. That’s how a life with debts looks like. Worries comes first, I guess. I guess wrong. No sunset for these eyes today. Next business day, like the invoices. Still dark. Foggy. Less hot than yesterday. Now that I look at the watch, it's time to get indoors. Forgive me the rest of the bands but in Spanish,  Soda Stereo is just the best of the best… the GOAT, like I’ve heard here. I’m listening to them just now. A pleasure for my soul. At least. At last. “Es un delirio de condenados”. Yes indeed. “Encendió mi conciencia con sus demonios”, definitely.  And now that my consciousness is on, I can state, as a figure of speech,  that depression is more a luxury when we come from the underdevelopment. I mean, look where we come from. Seriously? Can we afford to get depressed? It’s an interesting thing to write and argue about. A next day. A hangover next day. Surprisingly, no work today. I asked for a few days off since I thought I was going on a trip. That’s the thing when planning so early. No trip but I still keep the days. I would like to say I’m going to take advantage of it,  and use them wisely, but I know it won’t be so. A procrastinating life, breathing depression from the air and halfway broke, is, is a, is not a, not a promising picture indeed but, I have colors in the sky as a gift from the sun. Let there be sun then. Sunrise is written in English almost like smile is in Spanish: sonrisas then. Let’s go. Let’s hope. Why not, right? Cortisol: what am I going to do with you? Chocolate, I guess. There is a little tiny black spot at the ceiling. It might be a mosquito. It looks smaller than a fly. I guess it is there to get fed from my blood. It is still there. I can see it from we are I am. The thing is that I’m feeling itchy already just because I know it is there, and I find the whole thing a bit funny. Body is already suffering not knowing if ever get to happen. Mind does that. Everything we sense is pretty much perception coded through that we've been storing in our head. What have we stored so far? What have we coded in that space we relate with love? Have we stored suffering there? Now we know why love hurts, right? How about buying food, pizza, for example? We understand that the way we’ve been storing moments, and the feeling we relate them with, somehow determines our character, and by our character, our attitude.  What's the difference between them, by the way?

 

A new Friday afternoon has come. I had a great end of August.  Actually the last day of August is the most important day in my life, and, for the record, it was just perfect. That was yesterday,  just like the song. No work today, no work tomorrow, and not on Monday either. In this country that means no money as well. My worries are now manifesting themselves as boils in my face. I have one on my nose now. That one could mean the rent, for example.  I got an infection in one ear, probably because some other debt I must honor by next week. So stoicism hasn’t worked out pretty much at the end. Today, I drink. What else? Nothing to get profit from, right now. I’m waiting for tomorrow,  for a brighter tomorrow.  Let’s see. Sun is still shining, so we can smile and remember. I was thinking about victimism, and it turns out that it is exactly as the Spanish interpretation:  blame others for your own misfortunes. How should we understand a misfortune in the first place? I mean, is it something derived,  kind of like a consequence,  from any chain of events? Is it just shit happening and that’s it? Or maybe it’s  something we could blame someone for? Let’s assume we could actually blame someone for that thing is happening to us. Then what? How come blaming solves anyhow whatever problem we have to face? The need of not being accountable is stronger that the acknowledgement of the self on it. And perhaps that is because guilt weights more than taking any responsibility. That could explain procrastination. Avoid is an interesting word, also the words that we read from it… avoid a void, indeed! The balcony. I feel like I’m losing it. You see, I don’t live alone. I understand I have to share it, but it sort of bothers me this fact that I feel, it is not being equally shared: victimism again talking through my words. Who cares! Does it matter at all? I don’t think so. I believe I just need a better income, to be honest. I think the rest is just hanging in there, precisely for not being stable enough to purchase anything that helps you forget. I write because I can’t take my car to go out with no explanation. I can’t even have any alcohol outdoors because I’m always the driver. I can’t take the fucking balcony for myself because I’m not the smoker. See. I just need a better income to bear my so made up problems, and not playing victim again anymore. Sorry for taking you here and make you witness an average forty four old man complaining for a life he chose, and trying to blame anyone else for it. Diapers. I’ve changed some. I may have to change a symbolic diaper for my mind. It’s time. I have to talk to the administration office, and tell them I can’t pay the rent now. Let’s see how it works for me… 

Third page V

 

A new today. Same worries. Why did I get those loans? Why did I move to an apartment I can’t afford? Now that I’m putting it in perspective,  it sort of makes no sense. If I knew I wouldn’t, then why I did it, right? There it is: did I know it? Did I really know it? Now it is popping up: we never knew it! We have a sense of knowing it and, by that sense, we have taken most of the chances we now have to pay for. I’m just catching my consciousness: we figure a landscape we see as future, and since we are the painters, we hold every single brush we are going to need; then time goes by and we don’t see any painting. The switch between tangible and figurative is in our head. Our mind simply decides what to believe. I just thought it tangible. As a matter of fact, I replaced If with When, and when never got to exist because, as long as something is conditioned; subjected to, time is relative, and relativeness in time could take a whole life. Now such whole is empty, like a true hole, a void. An existential void we better overcome for our children. Let’s get delusional a little: we feel this whole out of the abstraction, and, perhaps emptiness out of these small concretes we’ve been picking as problems. If we assume that it is so, problems are just part of the big abstract, therefore our being should not be defined by those picks. Let’s call them picks from now on. Evening is coming. A bottle of wine is waiting at home. I’m not working right now. I’m just waiting for someone to go home. No wine yet. I don’t know why my mind is so tired. It’s raining.  Maybe that’s why I haven’t been able to sit on the balcony.  Contemplation is important for thoughts.  I need some music. Not too dark. Not too early either. A new day to wonder. I pushed myself to spend a few unnecessary minutes scrolling on the screen. I guess it’s because of the need to it. How could I help someone if I can’t even refrain from it. I need to read more about it. Meanwhile, wine awaits. Perhaps today paints better but it’s not. Not at all. Here I am, trying to serve a few words holding a glass of Cabernet. Sunrise at last. No work today and I’m worried already but, since I can’t do anything about it,  I’m going to watch the view for the first time again since some ago. It's curious that when reread oneself, days are mixed in the same paragraph. This one is an example.  It adds a bit of neurosis to the statement,  it kind of makes  narrative look like someone who wants a cigarettes so bad but there isn’t any around. The point is, if that is actually how this is perceived,  then this tale going somewhere despite of everything. 

 

I have to take advantage of this moment.  I never have this chance but I really need to get indoors and go to the bathroom, unfortunately.  I’m sure, or at least I want to believe, that I’m not alone when it comes to tell moments like these. There’s always something we have to cut out of the sudden. Including scrolling,  and yes, it is ironic. An uncommon afternoon for contemplation. Worries come and go. I feel like I want to get something to drink but I haven’t made up my mind. For some reason I totally ignore, it seems like I need a sort of approval for everyone here at home, but wait, don’t get the wrong idea, I just don’t want to go out, knowing I may have something else to bring. So here I am, waiting, waiting to ask while thinking about writing. I want to let go something but I’m not sure what it could be. I saw a person at the supermarket. I went to the supermarket yesterday and I, I met a woman, that woman was from the same country I am. It was an interesting encounter because she told me that there was a Venezuelan community near by. I felt like: why? I mean, yes, it's good to know people from your same country, because we can share impressions since we have the same culture. It would be good, it would be fine, it would be… it would make you feel better but, it doesn’t mean that we are going to become friends instantly,  and that is the thing that I want to talk about; that’s what I want to put here in words: we are a very new community, so we have never done this before. Moving out is not in our culture. I’ve said it more than once. I’ve written about it more than once, the fact that we are a new community of immigrants, pushes us – or so we think – to  be like the rest of the communities, and we don’t have to push ourselves to it. I mean, other communities are better organized because they have been doing it for years; for a long time. We might just learn our own process, but this need to keep up grows strong, so strong, that we feel the impulse to compete like this were some sort finals and like there were a price we must win at any cost. No. I don’t think so. I acknowledge the effort but it is a bit rushed.  Time will tell. It is a slow process: another long-term endeavor. And my guess is that, again, this rush could be due to social media: you see, we look ourselves into any mirror, and that reflect we see, despite of any depression, anger, low self esteem, shyness, megalomania,  anything,  despite of anything we see, it's less ugly, or more beautiful; depending on the case, version of ourselves, and that perception fuels somehow our soul, so we keep going, or at least feel like doing it, the problem is when that perception starts facing the outside. It tends to fade in many cases. A way to keep it could be through a plan, a long-term endeavor. And there is our struggle: the now versus the later, the already versus the yet, the present continuous versus the future simple. The screen scrolling  versus the page turning. Where to be at? How often to be on? Which one shall we choose? I choose wine. 

Third page IV

 

An indoors contemplation.  No balcony today. Unappreciated comes to my mind. What is appreciation anyway? Until what point do we expect appreciation when we do something? Is it something we start expecting or is it expected when we start  something? I wonder because I would like to point out, if possible,  what could it be when you stop doing something out of your own personal motivation, rather than for external appreciation, or acknowledgement purposes.  Can we? Or is it all implied? I woke up thinking about it, but moreover; I woke up trying to leave it written in English words. I’m trying here: a guy goes to work. Let’s say he’s not the smartest kind. Actually he has – I could tell – this sort of thing I want to call Lack of attention. The guy seems he can’t focus, so he makes a lot of mistakes while doing his job, which is pick a certain number of packages by request and drop them on a belt for shipping. There was a jam on the belt. It was not his fault. We tend to have some predisposition towards him because he miscounts too often, but with the jam I can say it was not on him. He got hurt in the attempt of clearing it. He got hurt because he tried hard. Where shall we meet appreciation here? Shall his boss acknowledge of his effort? Did he actually do it pursuing such a thing? I wonder. I’m wondering about it. I want to say that what happened to him meant something… to anyone,  or anything, but it didn’t. If we take his case as an example, his effort was not in search of recognition.  He just felt like he could, maybe, that he had to, and if someone appreciated it, that was by chance, not as an acknowledgement of his attempt. In conclusion; appreciation comes out of chance. Prove me wrong! Let’s bring another word: resentment.  Are we resentful? It comes and go, to be honest. Of course,  I’m taking about myself. It comes from time to time because it’s hard to unlearn values you were taught since childhood and for long periods as well. I am too immersed in believing that merit is something we deserve by nature, and that it is actually derived from our efforts. That’s my culture talking. Even now that I know it was made up by politicians of my region, but still, it’s a bad habit,  like smoking, like finding cheap dopamine on my cell phone. I can’t help it. I think I deserve better. Sorry but not sorry!

 

It feels weird not to be working right now. It’s Sunday afternoon, why would I? Because of the bills. Yes, the bills… and the loans! Guilt is something special but why do I feel guilty? I’m supposed to feel relaxed. I’m trying. Actually I’m holding a glass of wine and seeing if the truth of the enlightenment comes in through a sip. You know: in vino veritas. But so far nothing has arrived yet. And after a while, the only thing that has come is the perception.  The perception is, according to something I’ve read,  a projection our eyes take to our brain, so this one can give it a meaning. Therefore what we see may not be exactly the same thing in each head, and that is because, let’s say,  the way we interpret is unique. Unless,  of course, we were one of those into social media, which means zero discernment, and with that being said, written in this case, we may have an idea of where social media is heading us, and what we might be at the end of this story. What’s your story about anyway? Do we have a story in the first place? Of course we do. Is it important? It might be to some, and those some could see us, so let’s be seen through words and be read instead. We would become words, and words can be used in any message. We’ll be messages at the end of any attempt.  Let’s be one of hope, of faith,  and not one that fades into smoke. Let’s be hard to drag but nice to digest. Let’s be more like a dessert. Why? We must be what we want to be. Are we sure of that? Not me. But wine made its work and now I need to sleep. 

 

A new week. Dark still. Machine noise-like. Some air conditioning,  perhaps.  I can’t see the words I’m writing.  It might be the stress. There’s always something failing. Who might we be giving our energy? Our vitality? Someone must get fed on it. We get tired for those people. A life full of must and shouldn’t definitely has to be out of someone else’s need and such need… on us. I want to go to bed, for an hour at least but I have to go back to work. I’m back to my old job, by the way. I just miss the music but for the rest of the things, I’m better here now. I have another job: typical. I belong – not sure if proudly, but I do, I am one of those – to this sort of group of men, who were raised with this belief, that man should do what he must because he’s a man. A sort of burden-carrier-type with no complaints, and only silence and hard work. Am I comfortable at it? Hardly ever. Am I going to change? Not likely.  Writing is pretty much my therapy. I’m trying. I’ve said it before. The thing is that, giving the nature of my being, I have a second job. It’s not hard at all. If I place anything against it, it would be just drama for this comedy. What I want to say is that I am poorly rated at that job, and I think it affects my chances for getting good deals. I do deliveries. The other bad thing is having less time to spend with my son. It is what it is, people say here. I always try to find some minutes to hold him, to tell him that I love him. To let him know he is my world. And someday soon, I expect to find much more time to be with him. I cry of joy when he  laughs. I know what being in love really is because of him. Dark again in the balcony.  A car passes by and some other apartment’s engine has just turned on.  The beginning of a song led by the garbage compactor. The sound I make with every sip of coffee add some too, probably. No butterflies. Break time. A few voices kind of like a bass line. I’m sitting with two fellow countrymen as these words are taking place. I can tell one of them wants to talk. I can see him looking at me but he stays quiet and go back to his phone, pretty often, but not for long. That’s how we are nowadays: choosing worlds; in or out of the screen. I’m on the screen now right after finishing my second job. Again, not a good day. I already wrote a little bit about it, but it came to my mind again: burden-carrier-type… what should I do? How could I embrace it? I’m not making enough on my own, so what am I supposed to do? Now I’m just complaining but tomorrow it will be a new day and due dates are coming: they don’t ask how am I doing. They just come and take whatever we’ve worked hard for, including  the metaphorically speaking: plans, dreams, peace, will; mostly will.