Eighth Page

 

Hopes and uncertainty. I had this pain again, my ear, my head, even when I’m trying to eat, to rest, it is there, as it were expecting something from me: reminding me of something I should be doing but I haven’t started yet, and I haven’t started it indeed because I don’t want to, because I don’t like to, but it’s not, and if it is so, well, I don’t know. What I do know is that as the pain it is, and as the pain I’m calling it, it makes me remember some other pains, pains from other times, with other faces, pains I don’t write in this language, but in the language of silence, of loneliness, it must be more is sounding in one ear, at least I can listen to music, in spite of the pain. News, once again, don’t look promising, they look more like unmet goals, like undone jobs, like regret, like past tense full of imperfections, and imperfections we count as I can see, and the government wants us to believe in a reggaeton concert. I doble hate them, but here I am, now listening to hearts break even from Bon Jovi, to me, it is an underrated song, it is as good as any other on the radio, but that’s the beauty of listening to the music when it comes from an artist you had already connected to, and not because the radio is suggesting it. There it is, again, the pain. I better get back to what I was doing, I don’t even want this coffee. That was yesterday. The mood and the vibe are different now. Despite the gray of the day, a few good news have come by to spark a little joy. New music on. I feel like I want to talk about impunity. I think it is a gray area, more like a blurry area perhaps, and each region traces their own borderlines from right to wrong, considering accepted and unaccepted as possible variations, or as second thoughts judgements when it comes to typify whatever we think we can say – and judge – about it. Trying to bring up an example, an action that takes place might be wrong, but not illegal, or it might be illegal, but right. Politicians play an important role in this. Most of the current social problems remain problems precisely for the politicians, but I’m not talking about that. I want to say, somehow, and of course, serve it here, that a certain lack of definition at some laws, defines the idiosyncrasy of a place, or at least influences to a point. I want to believe it, and it might be the reason why, for instance a Venezuelan physician touches you, approaches you more closely, in some cases even dare to a riskier treatment, because in some way he knows that those things won’t cause him any legal issues on his practice as professional, and the patient, mostly, thanks the doctor for that. People are less, let’s say, afraid of hugging, kissing, or standing close to one another, and it is because they weren’t raised thinking they might be violating some legal thing by doing it. Consent has a different interpretation. My point is that societies are not to be evaluated as better or worse, or more, or less developed ones, but as this is here, and that is there. We need to understand that. We need to reach a state in which our culture and the new country’s culture can meet and coexist without setting them apart from each other. Our next generation will surely take that as a gift. In the meantime, as I’ve been saying it all this long; we meet halfway through. This is a throw forth Thursday: we’re going to listen to the music of our teen years, we will rescue those things. We will get tired of social media, we’ll see that is not social anymore, perhaps it never was, but certainly, people will cut off individual conversations. This look-at-me-only approach is showing signs of tiredness. I can feel it. Rock music is there waiting to welcome us all.

 

Busy days are coming up. Trees are dressing their greens. A new home, a new hope. I still need to settle a lot of things but I’m on it. My little Julie, I’m sorry for having failed you. I always thought we would meet again, I always thought I would be there for our last good-bye. I tried to get you here, I tried. I only have this faith that something might happen, but we both know by now that nothing happens, we just make as many attempts as we can until we get things to happen, but it seems that not this time. Not this time and not so many times that I just cry in silence and hope my muted soul for an eventual encounter. You would love our boy. He certainly would love you. There are so many woulds in these lines. Let’s see what science has for us. I wish I could let you know you never left my heart nor will never leave it. Now I better get back to what I was doing.

 

The diary of an immigrant is usually full of expectations, hopes, and perhaps a few existential popups, which come as a result of a constant comparing, and surely as a need to frame all the new within some place built on previous understandings. It is also full of broken promises and unwanted farewells, which add too much weight on any thinking. Perhaps that sort of explains why translating is so hard when talking, when trying to keep up with any random conversation; because the need to say anything must go through the filters of the sentiments and knowledges forced to stay back: that’s where the delay comes from. It’s not that we are retarded, it’s not that we are dumb, it is a whole world full of names, moments and learnings that flows in the unknown, and must be pushed to remain silence: nobody cares, and that is always in present tense…

Tense is this present. A past to remember and hope for. Springtime. How long before things start to work out? Will they ever do in the first place? I want to believe they will. I need to believe they will at least. Coffee. Bitter. It needs more creamer. I love creamer. Creamer is not good according to dieticians, but this hazelnut flavored steam that comes out every time I approach the cup to my lips is quite an event for my silence, for stop thinking about worries and start remembering my desires, in the flesh, in the spirit, but specially in the flesh. I wet my lips with every sip. I wipe them clean with my tongue, a tongue hungry for licking, for a test of skin. I should warn my wife, but we are sad and worried, we need to wait to where our prayers go at the end of the day. Two guitars playing one sound, I must play that song one more time. Time is abstract at this very moment. I’m careless. Not for too long, this is just a pause, not a break, just a pause: a momentum… You’re hanging on tight, baby. You’re giving me strength. I might need a couple of years, a couple of years for a just farewell. God only knows! God and you! Here I stand. A day after the eclipse, a total eclipse of the heart. Not sure if it’s of the heart or to the heart, but in both cases, I guess that a shadow won’t let see that feeling inside for that someone, a someone at the other side of the shadow. What could such a shadow represent in this metaphor?

 

Rainy afternoon. Cubicles have been forced to extra-lights. After a dark morning full of meetings, silences and thoughts are floating from past to future. I got a few of them here willing to become part of a paragraph. Pollen siege. Noses are having a hard time. Too much sugar for the day. I’m reaching the age of body feeling uncomfortable after a couple of cookies. I never thought it would feel so good to go to bed early, nor to be sick after a big portion of dessert. Middle age is hiding behind the pollen, I guess. Summer seems tummy for myself. Goodbye my dear. Thanks for making us happy during that time. You were unique. You picked us. You watched TV with us, stayed with us, comfort us every time we feel down. Always received us joyfully when we got home. You didn’t talk with your tail, because you didn’t have any, but you have this beautiful movement like little jumps from here and there to make yourself understood. I really thought you were going to meet us some day, may be not in this life. Will you be there in the next one? I hope heaven takes you as we did. They will love you as we always will. Let me hug you through these words, let me think of you in my own silence. Windy afternoon, not a Thursday to throw back, it is more like to remember. Back to the trivial. To the pains we mitigate through pills and social media. I keep the sadness to myself. You see. I want to think today that the need for sharing wealth and happiness might come from the fact that sadness is so personal, and so valuable, that no technology has yet been able to exhibit it in any way whatsoever. The pain from the heart is the only one that elevates us from this place, and you don’t care about anything while you are within such an elevation. That’s why media insists on keeping you entertained with each other’s happiness and good times collection guides. Virtual garbage, honestly.

 

Seventh Page

 

This meeting halfway is also halfway lost. Never mind, here we stand. It’s almost time to go. It was a quiet day, a quiet day for noisy times, a quiet self for burning thoughts. I have this in my ears, I have this need to check them all the time. They feel itchy,  specially when I’m stressed out.  I’ve been in the doctor twice already for it: otitis media,  they call it. I’m just burning time, burning time while getting calories. This is the drill. No sugar: how? It is a lot enough quit smoking. Talk show in mute: that’s how I feel when I hang out.  I smile at this words. Night has fallen. Only the led light from the TV is letting us see the living room. Toys and books on the floor. Art can be messy, so words and silences. A pause in air conditioning for breaths to catch. A few kisses to decorate. Fingers want to walk but we just went to sleep. It’s Wednesday now. Cold, but no so much.  The smoke comes and goes as any random post from a social media feed. I wave my hand along with the imaginary melody I’m playing in head. My ears again. The sound of air conditioning is taking its place during this while. Caracas, Caracas again. The Avila and the multiple views.  Message voices upcoming.  See you later!  I was wondering if the times a song is played on the radio has something to do with the money they must be paying for it. Some songs are played so much more than others, I don’t think it obeys to a preference basis. It is hardly unlikely, to be honest.  There is this post repeated so many times, and by different people, assuring that music business has changed, and that nowadays it must be branded through social media: maybe, but I don’t care. I think whoever invests money on social media is who has the say on whatever sort of business gets tried on it. Followers are just that: Followers. The illusion has already been sold and bought by everyone.  It’s simple, we don’t choose, that’s it. Radio plays as told, and any media posts as told, as instructed, along with the trick we are always discovering, or choosing, but not really, and we must accept it. At least they let me still enjoy rock music. Despite of the horrible Reggaeton.

 

Throw back Thursday.   That was yesterday.  Friday, wine out. It’s raining but we’re not walking.  So let’s this flight enchant us with its taste and evocate in silent, as second layers, behind the current talk. Wine in, at home at last. Ghost, always Ghost. What a band! Promises, I think of Cranberries, of Savage Garden. I just can’t keep them. How many times saying “mama-güevo” is enough, by the way? I guess there are not enough times, but at least I can listen to music and regret of the past that is not present, and the present that is not past. What can de we do? As a matter of fact,  doing is a lie, it’s an illusion. All those regrets have brought you here, and here you ate, not there. This world is not made out of if only, but here I am, so here we are… but we can bring up, for pleasure, for stubbornness,  for a need, but in the end it will always be: here I am. I’m kind of drunk. I don’t if I’m just tired. I think I’m just tired. At least I’m not in social media consuming about the princess,  or our prominent contender, who, at the end, has to give up, or pass through, and keep the drama, the anguish, because that’s what politics mean in Venezuela; anguish. Video calls, music is still good. I’m still in charge of it.  I wouldn’t know how to convey this but, when the drums is in its best tempo, guitars are tuned properly,  and the band is just playing at  their best, it is just magical,  and the fact that we can feel it and share it, the fact that technology is also served for such a purpose,  it just makes the world better. I toast to rock music and everything rock music has given us, given me, at least.  Saturday afternoon. Headache is barely gone, it wasn’t a good morning because of it. I’ve been reading a couple of headlines from Venezuela.  The contender has chosen a champion to run as candidate. I may have mentioned that there is this woman who has stood up against the regime for more than twenty years, and finally, the local traditional opposition agreed to let her, not without complaining, be the only contender to represent those who can’t stand the chavismo anymore. This is not a democracy,  so this woman was banned to run in these elections.  For this story, and for so many others too, the magical realism can’t be taken off the narrative; it’s the way we are. The woman, now carrying the hope of practically the entire nation, has named another woman to run in her behalf, this in order to be able to run for the elections, since the government won’t allow her in the first place. Will the mechanism be fair? Of course not. Will this work out? We don’t know, but as a Venezuelan,  I can only hope for the best, and this seems to be our best this year. We have a strategy every year that ends up in failure. This is our new one, so faith is selling at this time, and only time will tell, by the way! Sunday, morning, coffee with hazelnuts creamer after a great cassava arepa with perico. Just great! Traditions, religious ones included, tend to have to do with the place, now that I think about it. In Venezuela,  today is Domingo de Ramos, it is a good day to go to church and bless the handcrafted crosses we make out dried palm leaves. There are no palm leaves here, and the weather at this time is not working out for palm trees. No church and no cross then, I guess. Don’t misunderstand me, that never compromises faith. Faith is here, there, everywhere, in spite of the cynics and the mass information.   There is a happy palm Sunday,  indeed! It’s just me that I haven’t searched enough. It's good to know. So, happy palm Sunday for everyone!