Second Page

A first break. A break that goes  fast and only with coffee. No food. This is the moment in which I should contemplate and place some thoughts. I kind of feel inspired by some of my workmates.  The way they keep joy and enthusiasm despite the routine is admirable.  I'm not like them but the truth is that somehow they make me forget about my situation for a while. I came up with this because I kind of forgot what I was going to write about. People need to deal with problems everyday; I believe that half of those problems come as a consequence from pretending, to a  certain point, something we are not. The other half tend to be more about knowledge or experience on certain situations.  For example,  many people confuse arrogance with honesty, claiming that they act like that because they are too honest and therefore they can’t lie. This, let’s say, type of  honesty, is hypocrisy. When someone approaches claiming that those hard words he said were meant to be out of honesty, it's not. It's just an ignorant ego stealing space and time with a poor justification, the thing is the conviction,  the one making you stick with that idea of some righteousness learned from an old movie, the kind of movie in which the main character can take a whole city to the ground just to prove that the villain is wrong. I guess the mind works kind of like: when something is missing, a word, a concept, a place, even a feeling, the brain takes whatever closest it can get. Pretend, yes. There is always something we take for granted based on those things we ignore. However what I want to bring up is if we ignore it accidentally or we choose to ignore it.  What in us might determine it? I guess it's our will... But what if I say that those drags of smoke might be what brings faith and will to the same thought,  to the same reflection?  We should acknowledge it: every promise falls into our convictions and we carry it through the smoke. Maybe that's why it fades; because of the anxiety.  Yellow teeth resembles so many promises that couldn't be kept. So the fingers. Specially our hands. How far has this metaphor changed from its meaning. In my hands, in my arms.

 
We keep the faith, and the will, somewhere in the air, in this room, and at this time.  How about health? Health seems to be more like a concept rather than a name. It varies over the years and the places. Covid-19 has clarified that pretty well. In fact, Covid-19 has shown the world that religions don't have the exclusive on closed-minded fanatics. We have always put science in a higher place over any other form of thinking, so these times have brought more angles and perspectives on that. Due to my age, I have had the chance to see the establishment of the cell phone in our society.  I remember when SMS messages came up for the first time and how was, from my angle, their impact back then. I remember it started out kind of like Twitter did: with a limited number of characters and no symbols such as emoticons or gif files at all. It was about the plane text. Sometimes I think about it and wonder whether inventors (tech inventors, I mean) hoped that society would get communicated by the establishment of the text message. Did any of them ever consider the grammatical implications? There is this uncomfortable thing with the information as well: I mean, first, this sort of no-grammatical-considerations veil to cover indeed this another veil which is the veracity of the information. I believe it started with the email, sure,  but when I try to set my own block of thoughts, I might see a pattern,  a route, a path for the information to get deconstructed in data, so thoughts may lose purpose afterward being conducted on a wave of post-truth.  What are thoughts without grammar? Words, words served for multiple puzzles. Do you know the puzzle you’re solving through your words? 

First page VI

Another toilet morning. A holiday’s next day has begun. Today It’s a holiday in Venezuela. Some noises come through the walls as they had their own language. It’s like If there was a kid playing with his blocks and they were the building we live in. Building is a fine word for describing these type of structures. A few days have gone by. I saw something good on social media: the four missing kids in Colombia were found alive. The reported was about to cry while giving the news and I just cried myself while watching. That was a couple of weeks ago. A month, perhaps. Good news to bring up. It's like the reporter then said: this is full of hope, and I agree with her. God bless those children! I wanted to phrase a little bit about faith again; Smoke Faith, as I've named it. It occurs to me that if I'm going public with these words I should go back with this idea and deal with it over and over until I have pleased myself out of explanation. Supposing it makes any sense at all. So here it goes: I kind of forgot what I've written so far about it, but I'm pretty sure I'm not getting far from the idea. Smoke Faith: I hate the smell of the smoke. I used to love it. I mean, there was a time in which I related that smell with having a good time in so many ways. Now I feel different about it. It's not that I really hate it. It's just that it now recalls worries and I think I’m some fed up with that. Push. Someone pushes for whatever reason his ego demands, and when such a push comes dressed up as faith, it could be hard to get a better perspective. The thing is that it normally fades but does not fade away. Something remains and it can grow again, like the smoke. After all, we're made out of dust. Dust. Dusty. What is the substance of my beliefs? Time is sand in my hands, Cerati sings in my head. I'm not even listening to the music I used to. I used to be this kind of person who recorded tapes from a selection of different albums. That implied, if you guys can recall, taking the time for each and every song and listening to them completely while being recorded. I guess that's why listening to such self selections hasn't been something that people who work a lot could do. I guess that's how the remote control got its reign, a reign now conquered by social media. I guess that's why I've become one those. I've been conquered too.

Now it's the time for short answers: now the self selection is more like; a bunch of yes and noes along with this frustration that comes from not choosing properly when to accept or refuse. Overtime. Overtime? Yes. Sundays? Yes. Night shift? Yes. Do you actually get some rest in the morning? No. Mail. Letters. Letters asking for payments you didn't know you had. Dates due, of course. You must call, and then rest. Can you? And yet you just keep thinking about that song, the one that makes you remember and evoke. Technology paid back al least with that. By letting us Nostalgia. Close your eyes. There's no time to listen to it entirely; live version has this solo but you just get interrupted: some message, something you forgot besides the debt. Now they are two calls and your English is not good enough to complain properly, so it will be more of short answers, and in the end you couldn’t get any rest. Is that too often? To my taste, yes!

Thus a new day comes and go by immersed in the routine. A bath, a shower, a sunset without a view. The worries that visit and don’t want to go. I've managed to listen to a couple of songs, awesomely, and by accident; I listened to them both entirely. Now I feel guilty about it. Why? Why sometimes giving yourself a little pleasure feels like you're doing something you shouldn't? Time to clock in. “When the doves cry” from Prince is playing in my earbuds. Let's walk. Music down. We're not allowed to play music on equipment nor using the cell phone. Breaks: one and two. What is this tiredness? Is it something mind-over-body thing?? It could be the smoke; the faith fading into a smell all over our clothes. We breathe it, so we feel it even when we are naked. Naked we want to be. Naked of prejudices to obey peacefully and get through with this we have. What do we have, I wonder? We have debts for balance, but we never get Naked from it. That's why the faith is just smoke. Let's drag us out. I was in this endless wondering every time it comes to talk about our life in Venezuela: this bittersweet taste for memories. What we're longing; feeling nostalgic for, and immediately after, the reasons that made us move out. I guess this is what being an immigrant is about: never stop missing and never stop resenting. Will my kids get this in the future? Who knows!

About Get. Get is an interesting word. Spanish language doesn't have it like that. For Hispanics the word get is expressed through several different words that, taking them closely, they may not mean get as it is English. So when you say: 'I got you' in so many talks, that is not exactly something we use in Spanish language. With that being said (written) I may not be getting this and you may be getting it different. However we meet halfway, and it turns out that it actually works pretty decent for both sides of the tale. So in my halfway message and your halfway eyes, I want to serve these words as a claim to this life we wonder if we ever chose but we now have to deal with. I'm not going to lie, I feel very lonely. This life as an immigrant has made me see through angles I would have liked not to meet. Sometimes the body may learn from theory and not by living the actual experience but I need to keep going. My son needs it, the upcoming one needs it. So let's face it. Let's fight another day. I am constantly wondering what is this thing that sort of controls me? I am sure that there is something out there that holds you back and make you refrain from letting yourself go and do what you know it's best for you: I think twice to check if what I'm about to say may be offensive to someone. I mean, why? Why am I programed this way? Who planted this need of considering everything? Am I someone's pet? If so, that person don't like me that much. During moments like this, my mind works on an attempt of putting pieces together: blocks of thoughts, parts o a certain memory; pieces from a past time or doubts born from the hesitation, from a blurry pictured future; pieces that I can switch when I come around, moving pieces from one place to another, in some way: decorating, something I remember I would have liked to do along with a short list of things I have to buy tomorrow, which is when I get paid: get, bringing back to an eyes closed vision that time in Paris, in Lisbon, and smile. I want to take my children there. Drums, drums playing. Everything comes with grooves and beats. I can’t function otherwise. I miss playing the drums, by the way.