Sixth page II

 

Still Sunday. A headache is dancing me around. I blame it to the coffee, so far forty hours without it. I don’t know if it was precisely the coffee,  the one that triggered all this pain I’m dealing with. I have to hold on to it. I came to work. For some reason I believed  I was summit in an attempt of a foreseeable possible promotion,  since I was told, or so I thought, that it was about a very small group for a special drill of the new system. I was wrong. I was wrong. I don’t feel any disappointment because of it. Maybe for the headache,  I don’t know. It’s just that I am a hopeful person, and I pay it really bad. Not for this, please. This is just silly. I pay it bad for a bunch of other things; few of them implied in this confession. I look at the screens while placing my fingers on my forehead, moving them as though they were walking; back and forth. I wonder. Today it was good to cry some. I did it earlier when I was with my boy alone. I looked at him through the review mirror. I was watching his innocence when he smiles. I always thank God for granting me such an honor: the honor of parenting him. A day like today but four years ago, a couple I know too well was walking for the last time on Venezuelan soil. There must be some picture of them right by the Cruz-Diez mural, which became very famous for those who left the country as a tribute for all lived. Some people did it to pose just because it was trendy, but the true is that time is really serous and takes things seriously. We learn that lesson slowly, and we learn it well. Many people thought that it was temporary: temporary for a very few. A lot of us still remain abroad, trying to figure this path out, and not considering any chance to go back at the moment. November: for us, this is the Christmas prelude, and I think I should try to explain it in order to provide some context. To almost every Venezuelan, Christmas is not just a holiday, like perhaps to other nationals, to us it is more like a season, and it starts on November. In our culture, also included in our legislation,  people get up to three months of their salary (some others even more) during this – let’s call it – season, as a figure of something we call utilidades, which are granted by the private sector, and aguinaldos, by the public sector. I can’t say how long this system has worked out for, but I can state that everyone goes crazy on this season because it’s time to celebrate and spend all that money, and of course, forget about all those problems you’ve been having during the year; all those things… for next year! The impact of not having that anymore has grown so big, that people nowadays become resentful, so the once time for celebration became now time for resentments. I was talking to my wife about it, we were thinking of those friends and relatives still there and remembering how their mood changes this time of the year, considering too that to those, now overseas, this season has another type of impact, and a very hard one, by the way, starting by realizing that it is not a season at all, that it is pretty much one day; one night, and that’s it. That all that typical joy, coming out from not having to work hard, or the constant hanging out, has just gone.

 

A Wednesday to remember. We tend to make promises when we feel happy, when things go great at the moment. It’s the illusion of progress embraced by hope: hope is magical. Some people might claim Faith over hope, but faith flirts too much with politics, so it is prone to become demagoguery in several ways. Fascism takes it share too, it makes some people question about it, yes, our faith; these faith of ours, as though it flew outside,  outdoors, out there. Throw back Thursday, once again! Throw away remembrance, in this case! I was checking on this Serial position effect, and specially, its curve, and I thought I might find my answer there. I’m not sure I did, but I thought It was worth to tell why. Why not, right? I went downstairs to start the car, so I can heat it up for five minutes while I go back home to finish getting ready. I went to the car again and drove off to work, it was almost time and, and, right there: at work, I realized I didn’t get my bag with me. It was already too late to go home again and get it, but the thing is that this is the – I don’t know – the thousandth time it's happening. Now it’s more a concern than a joke. That’s why I was trying to please myself by searching some random diagnosis, and keep thinking that it’s just normal, and I’m stating this because I just saw, that there was actually a path between a joke and a concern, and that is back and forth  by the way. Milan Kundera prompted it beautifully on The Joke, indeed. So let’s bring up all those jokes in our lives: first and last ones, because the other, and it makes perfect sense, the other indeed. So let’s bring up all those jokes of our lives: first and last ones, because the others, and it makes perfect sense, the others are just prone to be forgotten,  specially if the amusement won’t pop up the laughter we, the immigrants, as concern entertainers, seem to be looking for. I could also guess that this explains our devotion for sharing how we got away with things we’ve lived; because that’s the prestige of every act’s resolution: telling we got away with it! That tunes up the tone we show when talking about it, even the sort of body language we use with our movements, when it comes to explain it; kind of like a hip hop artist: Yeah, and I got away with it! Part of the process, this is not meant to be resentful… nor mean. We keep on offering these conclusions in order to dig deep, until we reach such a narrative everyone can take advantage of. Specially our soon coming second generation. There will be a lot of things they need to understand,  and don’t get me wrong, this we're reading here it’s not a knowledge source at all, but it certainly aims to offer an idea of search,  from those who, while in first generation still, already questioned about the entire moving out. This is a lot of things, also an adventure; a personal journey for each one of us, and we might find our paths crossed at some point in this culture. We have to place our thoughts of it somewhere. This is my somewhere: Hidden gems is sounding and it is refreshing… I feel like playing it again! Yes, I’m at work but this is my last hour of the day, somewhere is complex…  

Somewhere is

sometimes someone,

and there it goes

something for

nothing but everything;

every time. 

Sixth Page

 

Still Thursday.  Still at work. There’s no much time to leave. A friend of mine sent me a picture of our high-school; it was a photo of the entrance. I’m mot sure it looked like that back then but as he commented at the bottom of it: I can even get the smell of new notebooks and sharpened pencils. I had already said it: throw back Thursday for these lines. There are some other kinds of lines I remember, but not for throwing back at all. When it comes to evocate,  I have a preference for dermis, so I can touch my lips with my fingertips and remember. Duty is calling.  I’m almost done.  Home. Time to go to bed. Friday is announced. Two glasses of wine to close the day and check its balance. Hope makes me think everything will work out. Saturday morning.  We were talking about some people we’ve been seeing, and how this sort of friendship went away for no reason. Actually there were reasons indeed,  and that’s what I wanted to break down if I don’t forget it first. The thing when your passion is not on the same page your duties are, is that the time’s equation doesn’t fit right; properly: duties always come first, passion tends to be, at most, and unavoidably, our second best. Sometimes off sense, and not counting when it’s off inspiration. Then passion must conform itself to have a moment upon chance. That’s its best opportunity.  Opportunity is quite a word, specially for immigrants. Back to the friendship, it’s important to bring up that an immigrant is always in a – let’s say – survivor mode on,  thus anything can be potentially prompted for taking advantage of. And that means, or at least it's what I’m trying to express,  that whatever experience at (or with) about  anything worthwhile to tell, it may be heard alongside with this encrypted, and hateful message to me, which sort of states that: if he had it, I must have it too, so we never know actually when we are just heard, if ever at all. It could be a misunderstanding,  I have never discarded it, but intonation; intonation and body language, they hardly get wrongfully understood. 

 

Monday. Not much to do at work. And at this time of the year that’s kind of worrying,  considering that bills don’t go down because of it, and with such thoughts I’ve made it to the next day. A new routine starts today. I was watching some media. I got really nothing from it. I tried to stop between the conflict in Gaza and the political situation of my country: the one true contender has been finally accepted; officially accepted,  by the people. I was reading that it may not be so due to some disagreements that were not taken in consideration,  along with the constant legal repercussions that many people insist to bring up. That is, just for the record,  that the woman in question is not entirely free from the government restrictions, who still insist on an imposed sanction several years ago. The media, the social media, through these influencers, and opinion heroes, are squeezing the topic up to a point I started losing interest. I feel bad for it but I can help it: an issue, a problem, any social matter, should not be brought up for perpetual amusement and constant losing of focus, specially when it comes as news, moreover when it’s about what’s going on back home. That is like a drug, it is making us come back to it over and over without a stable criteria. We love today, we hate tomorrow: the post-truth era at its best. It’s exhausting, really. We have work to do and a life gone distant from it, despite how bad our hearts won’t let it go. A big worry is getting smaller, that means it’s getting close to overcome. I’m not taking it for granted but certainly I have some sort of a plan working on. Thursday,  throw back Thursday once more for this narrative. We made to Saturday.  Heartburn and nausea; an unbeatable couple to keep one up and away from bed. It hasn’t been a night to rest. I can’t stop thinking about my worries, specially while sitting here, and perhaps this is making the pain worse. I don’t know. This life, this routine we end up following (thinking it will get better someday) has this feature I’m listening to quite often: use it or lose it, and of course, it applies to resting as well. Today it won’t be like: well, I haven’t slept enough, let me rest for the day. No. It doesn’t work that way. There are several things that must be done during the day, and their due time is now. I guess I’ll rest tonight if I feel better. Two songs come to my mind: A hard day’s night, and Sunday bloody Sunday. That’s how I summarize the day so far. I’m still having twists in my stomach every time I get sip of water, for example.  Perhaps I should go to the doctor, but I have reached this point in which, if the pain won’t get worse, I will just bear with it. There’s no way I will pay anything for something gone after a couple of days.