Third Page

 

Pain. Pain is something we use when we need to learn, and along with Art, they both embrace suffering as some sort of vehicle. There has to be pain so I can feel what needs to be done to achieve it. What? Whatever you want the pain to get you for. This is a hot afternoon,  full of commitment. A promise I need to keep, to suffer, to let the pain walk me through.  I am tired but I have my motivation.  Time is not so friendly but it never was, to be honest.  God’s time is perfect; many people state. I want to take some advantage of the language and propose instead: God’s tempo is perfect. Tempo rules the rhythm,  the speed you do what you do. So tempo, as it is interpreted in English, sounds to me more like something it may happen when, let’s say, the right time comes. When is that? God only knows. That’s the point and that is what The Say wants to imply. Another morning. I can be a witness. I can join the audience for whom this show we call sunrise is being performed. I see. I feel. I close my eyes and think: there might be a chance. We might make it. This could be a hard step we had to take. The reward is the fact that we know why we are doing it. I think not everyone knows. That’s why the need for distraction on the phone comes out so often. Slow cook. Baby steps. My stomach is talking. A few hours later, I’m finally home. A beer in my hand. It was a productive day. Empanadas for dinner. Nowadays homemade ones. I wish I could explain it better, but I’m not so sure if You can feel me when I’m saying how great is having Empanadas as meal. The texture on the first bite, the flavor as is being swallowed. It is just something else. Else, else is not well defined in Spanish. I mean “else” tends to play as “more”, so there is no big difference when saying: something more or something else. The way I see it, that places a desire in a different state of intensity, of deepness, of abstraction. Then abstraction can fluctuate depending on the language, thus our capability to picture a scenario, is, in a certain way, affected by the syntax of the language we speak. These very words I have just written, the commas I have just placed. They came out from a Spanish mind thinking,  pretending to send a message in English. I said it before: we meet halfway, so halfway will be good after all.

 

I believe the word is steam. The steam comes out from a hot mug of coffee; always a strong one. That steam comes out making shapes, shapes for my mind, for my thoughts. Those shapes shows up following a rhythm,  maybe from the birds, from the morning. It is a slow movement, anyway. The thing is that it seems like it also has its own language, a kind of language that dances with my silence. Debts invades, always invades. This search for balance is tiring.  I feel tired already. No money for anything when getting paid. That certainty overwhelms harder than any other existential crisis. For this era, money is the one true catalyst for almost every form of thought, idea, wish, whatever comes to mind. Sometimes I dream and think that these words somehow might become any sort of money, and that I could finally get the basic decent life I’ve been working so hard for. I had thought about it already: when I get to a certain number of words, I will go public, posted, published, the method that serves better for any money collect. Then I think twice, I think of a song, and then of a debt, debt invades, always. Debts are the noise of any form of silence. I think again,  like I said, and realize that it is a nice dream, a noble sort of hope, but it is not likely.  Now likely is a nice word, a polite kind to me. It is not likely that I can get a better income anytime soon by only showing my curriculum, and  hoping that somebody out there, in fact give me any chance because he saw something like potential to join me in whatever he is recruiting for. Not likely at all. I was collecting some extra money by working with my car and, today, my car is down. There is Say from my country stating  that when the poor do the laundry,  it rains. It is raining over my hope, over my will, over my self esteem. So I grab a beer from the fridge and stop thinking. They were more than one, indeed. I would like to confess that I’m not sure where this writing is going. I don’t even know if it’s going somewhere. I’m just placing words as a pointless attempt to see myself in them, so I can actually figure out what’s going on with me, and start solving it.

 

Up to this point, everything lies on money I can’t get, despite this sort of double shift I’m having. I want to cry. Cry feels good when I’m like this, but I want to do it alone. I don’t want to explain anything, I’m writing it precisely because of it. One more morning. A cold one. A summer August chill morning. I don’t remember it like that last year at least. I woke up with the same problem I went to bed: the car. It’s very cloudy. It may start raining at some point of the day. I often think about this Guns and Roses song; Estranged.  I tend to see my life as a movie.  I even think about songs at inappropriate situations; in this case, I was just remembering that the song starts by saying: “When you’re talking to yourself and nobody is home”.  I talk to myself pretty often. More often than I want to admit. In a couple of times, someone has asked me something like: who are you talking to? Or You’re getting old, you’re speaking alone already! And that tells me I can’t even control it. So my need for reflection is stronger than my will to appear before others. I can simplify it by confessing I am just getting crazy, but it’s not true, I mean, I am alone. I feel lonely.  I have no one I can try these thoughts and not coming up with those types of answers, the kind I’d rather not listen to such as: don’t worry! It’s not big deal! Like we say in my land (this is the worst) “You are drowning in a glass of water”. I prefer to speak alone then, and I don’t think it makes me a crazy person. Have you ever listened to this Foo Fighters song: I should have known?  It is something else. I never get tired of it. Anyway. Work time went by with a tiny victory.  Let’s see what’s next. Next is now, and now was yesterday, indeed. Today is the tomorrow of that time, a past tomorrow then. A past tomorrow that  tastes some bitter despite the short nice time we had. Time to get ready to go to work.  I’ve been thinking about Deserve, and the impact it has on my people; many of then, or many of us, go around assuming that we deserve better. Why? I mean: why are we still thinking our efforts should be compensated  by some high power, just because we’ve been working hard? We’ve been working hard to get the payment we previously agreed to, and with such payment, we should make ends meet, or stay tight and bear it. Only we don’t want that. We want, like a Say we have; “to shit upper than the ass” (or higher; not sure which one suits better) 

Second page VII

 

I’m escaping. I’m lost in the music I’m playing, not trying to forget, don’t get me wrong; I want my pain right where it is. It’s just a little eyes-closed trip to nowhere, to the sound of the music, to the vibes I never sense but at some point I would like to, perhaps not too much. Not too often, of that I’m sure. But it’s true, I would like to. I’m getting so used to this negativity that I feel guilt when I imagine that. What is that? Wonder on. Evocate. Picture it to see if it becomes true. I was thinking about those people; that couple who came four years ago. I thought of some others too. How their stories start looking the same. Social media does that. The impulse of being part pushes, and pushes hard on everyone to have them addicted. It is amazing how people take their time for granted over the futility of fake news, or trends, that will soon pass, and won’t give them back their time. Time is the currency of life. There is no a single form of achievement, or memory, not linked to time, either as chronology, or as number of iterations. There is time and times, in English. Spanish is different in that perception.  Perception is also a valuable asset in life. We are losing sharpness on it, every time we leave; this virtual consensus, the capability of figuring something out. Another aspect we are taking for granted. Contemplation needs space. Contemplation needs us for time and perception, and we are giving them away for the comfort of a cherry pick pleasure. A cherry pick pleasure indeed may cause long-term consequences. Every time we grant a moment of our own, just to spend more minutes on scrolling down,  brain loses something,  anything. It is just not the same anymore.

 

Have you ever felt like saying something but you can’t just find the right words? Can’t you at least come up with any right word at all? Have you felt this way? It might be that something was taken from you. You lost it that time you spent so much short laughing on the screen; short smiling. Now the void makes you sad. Confused. I know some about that confusion. I was talking to someone and, during the conversation,  every example I made for, let’s say,  explain myself better, it was all about an Instagram joke, or a trend, something always according to some media. There is this clip from the nineties: Something’s Always Wrong. Back then,  it was about TV and Marketing calls. It was so innocent,  now that I see. They were trying to expose, in a way, how the market embraces every corner of interest, to a point that there is, in this case; was, nothing unavailable for purchase. That was then. That was before. Consumption has escalated to further and higher levels. It’s not just what I want to buy, and how do I get debts for it. It is the change of perception. The new reality.  The post-truth era. One day, I was talking to a sort of friend, and he told me something like: New Media; that’s how he calls it, New Media found its way in by bringing up our adolescent era and appeal to a nostalgic sense of a better moment. As adults, we are supposed to be up to the new challenges that come with the age. In the new media, those challenges are reduced to debts. That way, people could think it’s more worth it a spectrum of memories rather than present with future projects.  So they make room for it, and such room is fed with a massive wave of content and trivia, also with all these invitations and interactions, so people can not only boost images from the past, but also ask others to do it as well.

 

I’ve finally found a few minutes early in the morning for a coffee and some contemplation. The sound of the birds and the trees feels as the wind is directing this orchestra; definitely a different kind from the one at work. There is this picture in which you can see the clouds getting ready for their amusement: the passing of light and the sunrise dress. Fauna can tell. Not so sure that we can too but we try, and try, either here, or anywhere else; anytime, all the time, is the important thing to consider. I have time. I have time today, at least now. I pour myself as words into this paragraph, in an attempt to become a message, an idea, a wish I can make happen eventually. Words of hope: I would like to be that, although my sensitivity pushes, always pushes, for words of desire. Desire. Where do you hide it? What are we going to do with this? We see, we want to touch with our eyes. We want to place a sigh right where our minds ask us to be. We must be but, always but, we must be but we don’t know how. That’s why we wish and lie, lie behind our serious gestures, lie through our politeness, lie through our tough attitude… and confess in silence when we are alone. Some people claim they do as will: complain when they should, be gentle when they think they should, argue when they think they should, and touch when they feel like they should. I have a mix of feelings over that. I’m not sure if I admire or despise that. I can’t tell what would I be projecting exactly by experience it,  if it is projecting indeed, or it is just some misdirection to my own disorders. I’m not a lazy person but it is hard for me to maintain an argument,  I mean, I tend to let it go despite I may be right at it. The thing is that I get tired of needing to prove it. Sometimes I keep quiet because I sort of foresee that the other person won’t matter going further with whatever argument he wants to fight for. That need to prevail is exhausting to me, so I give up and accept it even when I know I’m right. What’s being right, anyway? In Spanish, being right has more to do with holding a reason; kind of like carrying some weight, it’s more a possession than a declaration of existence. When someone is right in Spanish,  that person has, or holds, the reason. Actually  Have absorbs Hold in this case, but for translation purposes,  let’s put it as Hold. Something similar occurs with Falling in Love. In Spanish you don’t fall, you, let’s say, enlove, to come up with a word for it. So being right and falling in love, have another taste when changing de language,  for example.

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.