Second page VI

 

The night came. It brought its band with it. Crickets, light bugs, frogs, the wind and the clouds. All moving around, watching the airplanes arrive and leave. Which airplane will give me this I am needing? At least  my kid enjoys them passing by, not now, of course, he sleeps. I go downstairs and take a walk. The moon is announced. Glow. I think again, look up and try to find an answer, but I got some other questions instead.  For instance, why are we looking for answers? Why this impulse for explanations? I always hear this expression: make sense. What if not? Is waking up early, spending ten hours everyday in a warehouse, the kind of things we state as make sense? It doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter because the sense making can turn into merchandise, to then pose at any sort of exhibition and  go available for purchase, and thus grant us the sense, a sense of any need now fulfilled.  That’s why we want, need, wish for and even have to,  pretty often indeed; go shopping. So it is something serious to feel like going shopping and not having money for it. How do we code that? How do we link such a feeling to any of our memories? Buying power might stand for as one of the fewest things you have to counter strike the sadness you can’t take out. Perhaps that’s why politicians love to sell the idea that poverty can be solved from the government, as long as real power gets confided through the illusion of choosing, mostly by an election campaign. We still talk about choosing,  about freedom. Free is an interesting word. The way I get it is a little different in its intention from the word we have in Spanish.  I tend to think it has more to do with the, let’s say,  bypass of an obligation: duty free, free ticket, rather than free life, free time. Even writing it is strange. We all sat in the break room while having lunch, telling us again, these never ending past glories. There is not much to tell about our present life. We look into this symbolic suitcase, where we store those precious moments we show through the talking.  I often remain quiet. I mean, my present is my son, which is my world.

 

There comes another sunset. A few bubbles for my lips. Some kids playing while these words take place. It is the soundtrack of the moment. A moment to look, to remember. Specially a moment to wonder. Am I getting any raise? Will I? The beer gets hot pretty fast. Faster than my ideas, indeed. The way the woman treated me today. Yes. Is it true that such rejection is actually over racist purposes? Will my children have to deal with it? I can’t tell. I was a tourist once. Now I’m a resident. Hope travels and expectations grows like any other tree. We become the gardeners of our beliefs.  Perhaps that’s why we should not take drags of our faith into smoke.  Our faith has traveled too. The smell. The decadence. A couple of what ifs with some why nots around. I’m not that old, you know. My hands never stops following patterns of imaginary beats. My mind is constantly evocating: songs, names, skins I would like to taste, glances I would love to catch; for myself, for my own amusement.  For my fingers to walk by, for my eyes to marble by looking closely. I have to take my glasses off to do that. I am officially stepping into that age when presbyopia and prostate testing are becoming part of any conversation I may have. Nevertheless I allow myself to draw this picture in my mind. I closed my eyes. I look up, and then I start placing these ifs and woulds, then I smile. All these while the notes of a great song is playing through my earbud. Yes, just one, and carefully. Boss may not like it. This is how I’ve found this bearable.  Too many days doing the same thing. Purpose must be solid. Mine actually is. This is just a let go moment. Break is over. Another moment for a few words. Anyone can guess where I am writing and why I have to put it on hold while I get back to work. A mix of scents some of them of good food. Meal time. Few voices saying something; anything. Several quiet glances, glasses off.  I wait. Some smiles over their phones. What could I girl be talking about that a smile is drawn on her face as she writes? Maybe it’s not about what but who, and who suggests somebody,  and somebody suggests that the person is not unknown, on the contrary, it must be someone special. We can affirm that such a smile takes place out of a compliment,  or a funny tale, an invitation, or a proposal. Is the smile a form of consent? We lost the baby, by the way. The one who was coming. I want to believe that he just didn’t want to be in this world. He brought me hope, he brought me faith. He was going to be a beautiful little brother, or sister. God bless you. Please tell God we were here eager to take care of you, to love you as we always will, to do the best for you as we do it for your big brother. Tell God we are sad. Tell God we’ll be waiting.  Another morning. I must have everything done. I woke up a little late. I’m going to be late for work. Grieve. I haven’t had time for it. Perhaps this is why I’ve been writing with this sad vibe so far: I need to grieve. I don’t blame you. You decided to stay with God.  Maybe someday we’ll meet and you will let me know. First break. I got this blurry vision. People are quieter. I guess it is early for them. The sounds of the machines once more: a beat popping up my concerns; what should I do with them? Procrastinate. Money is the only one resource it takes to sweep them away. What about the sadness? I’m keeping it. I want to grieve properly. I want to cry and wonder; to then wish I had, or wish you were,  but specially wish you hadn’t gone. I want to think, if possible, you’re still there, as the little soul I imagine you must be, giving us the chance to make you a new body, so you can join us. 

Second page V

 

A warm afternoon is going by from where I stand. The break room is quiet. I should try this talking feature. Not now, of course, but thus I can see if my pronunciation in English is going somewhat acceptable.  Perhaps that’s why I haven’t got a better a job. What is a better job, anyway? A higher pay? I often compare what I think I deserve to earn with the kind of jobs that actually pay it so, and realize why anyone should give me a chance. I mean, I know I have potential  but how can anyone tell? Actually, how do you prove nowadays such skills?  Scrolling. Scrolling life. Time goes by as I blink. An eight millimeters view, sight. We see the stripes as we live, as we breathe, an interruption that is constantly conquering our focus. Like a light bulb about to go down. Flashes. Flashes of wisdom.  We blink. It’s blurry. We blink again. Characters are others. Is this a film? Is it happening over again? Accents. Words we pick from an attitude. This attitude I kind of hate. We’re all tired. Words turn into sentences but they are not really telling. They are making you remember instead. We want to forget; to pretend, to put our culture over this one. We want to take these memories out so everyone can see them; hear them. What for? For a time to consume. Memories are drags we smoke from Time, and time takes us back to long, to long and miss, so we let sadness out, or anger. At the end, there’s something available, and affordable if split the total amount,  to purchase in the market. Thus we allow ourselves to mitigate unwanted feelings. A trend on social media will work out. At least to trade what we’ve got with what they think we should get, or how, or when. “When” plays impressive roles. Specially in this post-truth era.

Heat. Hot. It’s hard on pants to go off and on. The sound of the machines got this point of synchronicity that it feels like it was a rhythm, a rhythm I accompany by blowing my horn. And with this sort of parade music, I smile at the day. Accents again. Diversity.  A few hours more and that’s it. Many people have come during the last 3 years. Hope is cruel sometimes. Faith fading, or spacing around with every breath. When to expect? What are we trying to accomplish? If we go home, what would we take with us? Children.  Children are the answer.  Children are hope, faith, faith that grows,  faith that gives power, strength.  So we bear this for them. I do, I am, and I always will. For them, for my children. I love when I'm at home and see a toy car in the living room, or a little ball in the corner. That presence is the best decoration, without mentioning all those tiny clothes that just make my day better.

Where should I start? Is it our story something we feel like telling? I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to tell mine,  despite of whatever I may have written earlier, but what I think I’m going to do is giving some examples of several stories. Lines back, I tried to explain what made us move. Now, let’s try to summarize what’s going on once here. Before that, two words popped up in mind: cartoon and plastic; for people, both of them. The first one stands, as I get it, for unproportioned gestures and reactions when it comes to self expression. The second one, to me, is more intriguing.  The second one goes by insincerity, fake. I’ve come to think that being plastic, and being cartoon, have some to do with posing, pretending, have something to do with the pursuit of an archetype. I am a plastic person because plastic people do these kinds of things I want to be involved in. I force myself to it whatsoever. I push myself  hard, and for long,  because the need to belong is stronger than the self understanding. My story has to fit in. I have to fit in. Too many unique people looking like too many more. Perhaps that’s why it gets difficult when bringing a story filled up with some plastic and cartoon to bear. I’m involved as well, why deny it? It is because of my own search that I’ve come to see it this way. So let’s see: two people have just come from Venezuela. This was four years ago. They had to sell all personal belongings: jewelry,  cars, collectibles that were once a sign of pride, since these things were (or used to be) the kind of hobby nice people did for years. Years that went to the void, to the sad section ever made for memories.  A section nowadays so full that they must borrow space from joy. Maybe that’s why every time I bring a good memory,  I feel like I want to cry, who knows! These two people had to sell almost everything because there was no way they could afford an airplane ticket with the money they made. They asked for help. Only few replied. They came to a room. They got help of another kind at first. They felt like they were kids again: so needed for guidance, so lonely. They were supported,  not for much, but they were indeed; to settle, let’s say. I tend to believe many stories begin with the same situation. They got jobs they didn’t like and this is when the process of adaptation starts: what to expect from jobs when you are new arrived in town? These people came from a culture where college is a must. Parents do all kinds of things to have their children graduated.  Venezuela has a very high index of college population.  It is hard for any of them to, let’s say, break the bubble and come out to a world, where such a culture won’t be embraced as a big endeavor, or as an achievement of something to acknowledge, specially when there are a lot of people who don’t even know that Venezuela is not a part of México. But let’s be honest.  Why would they have to, right? The fact that we are making a cultural encounter implies understanding these things and learn to live with them. The challenge here is how to get through it. How to find the best way for it. Most fellow countrymen complain about this. We must understand, like one famous man said, one thing is tourism,  and another one is immigration. We were used to come as tourists; the impact is big. The things we did, and the things we do now,  to get money in our bank accounts,  states a wide difference between them. We’re teaching our brain and heart how to move things from one place to another. When we move out, it’s not just physically.  Back to the couple, they kept working. Started paying back all that money they had to borrow to come. A couple who came from living with each of their parents, to try to build a home which was partial, given the conditions of their country back then. They came with the hope of building it now and, we may say they made it, but it wasn’t easy. They started by renting a room. They started by putting themselves behind the other couple, the one who was renting the room. Good months and bad months went by, So Covid, alongside with all the ignorance that erupted from social media. Mask off, mask on, 6 feet, glasses to divide work stations, curfew, and all that wave of theories and recommendations. We survived it. They survived it too. They made it to their own rented apartment. No more bully, no more critics from a position of power. A new home in progress. A baby who came a year later. Hope. Thick faith that doesn’t fade. Not a drag, not a smoke.