Third page VII

 

Saturday morning. A piece of bread and a mug of coffee, here in the balcony,  yes. I better enjoy the moment. It’s sunny. It’s a good time for giggles and wiggles. I’m just drawing a little smile for my face and a bit of patience for my mood. I think I left something undone and unspoken, but it’s next day and I am a little more into what this next day is going to offer. I worked.  I’m going to work tomorrow too… in the other job; the delivery one. A beer before bedtime: when it's bedtime, anyway? Poor people, yes. I’m thinking about them. I am poor, that’s why this will go public, if it ever does, by myself through a blog  I hold. I’m not sure if any editorial might ever get interested in this as something worth to pay. It doesn’t mean I’m going to refrain from doing it. What the hell! These are my words: my inner war. My dealing with poverty… that’s the thing! Poverty.  Why do we have this need to hide our Poverty? Why? Poor people have projects, dreams, ideas. It’s just that work comes first because bills must be prioritized for living. Everybody must pay to be in this world. And on top of that, we must pay interest – high ones, by the way – for any sort of expectation. Expect is expensive in many ways. I like to believe, from time to time, that we are the fuel of the world, kind of like Matrix, and that there is actually energy for it in every effort we make. It would be great to be compensated for that energy we provide. There would be more healthy people around. More sex, considering the energy there. More laughing,  more reading… if only!  But the poor have to stick with a full time shift, tell the same jokes over and over, and try to find some relief on a glass of liquor, or on the screen of the phone. Others try stronger, but stronger eventually turn unaffordable, because even a bad habit is also hard on (and for) the poor. Sunday: Sunday bloody Sunday. I found a bit of satisfaction on the delivery this morning. Funny, I know. To realize what you're  lacking is a terrible skill. Most of the poor don’t know what’s missing and that is a bless. It's a bless because they can take it on whatever, whoever, and whenever suits them. I’m sad; surely because of the news, or because I couldn’t buy that I saw on Instagram… What about those who think they deserve better? Deserve; again, what a word! I deserve a glass of wine. I worked today. I went out twice on a Sunday while many are just enjoying their balconies. By the way, I should take a look, maybe the sun is setting and the evening might bring some air to promise, to promise oneself better mood for the upcoming challenges,  to promise better being for those who I share my home with, to promise more smiles, to promise never giving up, not even under these circumstances. I have a son to look after while he’s looking at me. Tomorrow is labor day here. In my country we celebrate it on May the first. It’s a big day back there because we have this tradition where the president, orders (yes, orders) all employers to raise the minimal wage over a percentage he decides. This, of course,  is announced on national broadcasting followed by a speech full power for the people, and the eternal big fight they (we, I suppose) are always winning against the imperial forces (meaning United States)

 

It makes me laugh too, I know.

 

I was thinking about those cover letters. I wrote mine. So far, nothing to point out. I’m still trying to figure out  if there’s any other reason why I haven’t got an opportunity, other than being Hispanic. Don’t get me wrong, please. I don’t want to go into politics. It’s a comfort zone people use as an excuse to avoid trying harder. I’m bringing it up because I would like to share what I think I might have said on a cover letter. I believe  it started out as a personal description of myself. Who is that? Am I the one who is placing these words in a sequence for a message? Or the character of this story? You see, I’m not always the guy waiting for the balcony, or the one who complains about his poverty.  I am a multiplicity of events, followed by ephemeral purposes that becomes a narrative, ⁸once mixed all among each other. That narrative is who I’ve been so far. Those events are my thoughts attached to my memories. That multiplicity is my desire burst into breaths  unable to catch, and smiles forbidden to explain. I am more silence than loudness. I am more what I choose not to say. I am what I think, when I realize you are not paying attention to my thoughts. I am what I think of you, when I see your face sunk inside social media. I am each and every  resentment from other times. I am a father above all. Anyway, I am, like we’ve learned in our language; substance and presence. Since English provides us with just one verb for both, then I am for both,  and for everything.  Another morning.  Weather reminds everyone it’s still summer and it won’t be for too long. Black coffee with no sugar: the charm of the bitterness. No good for teeth, to be honest, but teeth and mood won’t ever agree on that,  neither on wine . It’s like when poor people have a great time, there’s then this  feeling of guilt that comes as a remorse: a remorse for feeling good. Again: deserve is quite a word! I read once that brands and gambling targeted poor people to get their money out of status.  Most of advertisements are orientated that way. One is by offering the illusion of easy money just for being lucky, The other creates an archetype and sells it as an example of what great means in life. There is a sense of pleasure already guested in our perception, its purpose is making oneself happy for a little while when buying something we don’t really need. What have we established as needs, anyway? I mean, have we ever done it? How do we know that the will of buying something unnecessary is made up? I haven’t figured it out. I’m just wondering because it bothers me. But, and yes, there is a but. It bothers me when someone else does it. Not when I do it myself. It’s how I found out that when anybody does something we get irritated for, it might be something we carry within as well, it’s just that our ego won’t let us see it, so we look for it on others, and there it is when we start projecting, thinking that we hold any sort of capability for judgements,  when most of the times what we do is a confession. So let’s confess: I can’t stand unproductivity. I hate laziness out of nothing worth to be tired. Another morning. Another morning I wrote nothing. This another morning is not the one before. Busy day, I guess. Eviction letter. Interesting. In this country, you sign a contract for a period, and monthly payments must be done during the first five days. Failing to pay then, you’ll be charged a late fee for the whole month,  and an eviction notice, giving the fact that the month you are late is not over yet. In Spanish, the language we use, for such case is, in a way; let’s say: softer. I guess we see words more carefully, or perhaps we’ve been raised this way that, because we think we always deserve better, we feel offended by pragmatism. We have this sense of being someone that pops up on curious circumstances. If you need a volunteer for a challenging project, fewer, but a lot fewer people, would step forward, but when we feel in some way undermined, or underestimated,  we step up right away, claiming we deserve better because of the many things others should consider when it comes to consider us. How different was back then. We’ve been understanding a few important things through immigration.  The biggest one, from my perspective, is that there are a lot of things that are just different once you arrive. One of them is that your traditions are no quite so in the new country. 

Third page VI

A new week has come. This is my most important week of the year: it will be my son’s birthday.  Everything makes sense and whatever effort has not been hard enough when it comes to him. I just hope to improve it in time. Actually I expect it so. Let’s see what comes along with it next week. For now, let’s just think and enjoy. I want chocolate.  There’s a candy bar machine across the room but I don’t really feel like having anything from there. I’m just waiting for this break to end while these words find themselves a place for this paragraph. I’m at home now. Again, holding a glass of wine, indoors. Hearing the complaints of the house, hearing them like they were said in some foreign language I don’t know.  I just consent with my head pretending I’m paying any sort of attention.  From time to time, I make a little smile. I open up my eyes in an attempt of surprise. Anything that works for looking like I’m following it. Balcony minutes. Not enough. Never enough. I’ve lost space over the smoke. It kind of makes me sad but I can forget it a little bit with every taste of wine, with every kiss on the glass. No glass kisses for a long time, by the way. That’s how a life with debts looks like. Worries comes first, I guess. I guess wrong. No sunset for these eyes today. Next business day, like the invoices. Still dark. Foggy. Less hot than yesterday. Now that I look at the watch, it's time to get indoors. Forgive me the rest of the bands but in Spanish,  Soda Stereo is just the best of the best… the GOAT, like I’ve heard here. I’m listening to them just now. A pleasure for my soul. At least. At last. “Es un delirio de condenados”. Yes indeed. “Encendió mi conciencia con sus demonios”, definitely.  And now that my consciousness is on, I can state, as a figure of speech,  that depression is more a luxury when we come from the underdevelopment. I mean, look where we come from. Seriously? Can we afford to get depressed? It’s an interesting thing to write and argue about. A next day. A hangover next day. Surprisingly, no work today. I asked for a few days off since I thought I was going on a trip. That’s the thing when planning so early. No trip but I still keep the days. I would like to say I’m going to take advantage of it,  and use them wisely, but I know it won’t be so. A procrastinating life, breathing depression from the air and halfway broke, is, is a, is not a, not a promising picture indeed but, I have colors in the sky as a gift from the sun. Let there be sun then. Sunrise is written in English almost like smile is in Spanish: sonrisas then. Let’s go. Let’s hope. Why not, right? Cortisol: what am I going to do with you? Chocolate, I guess. There is a little tiny black spot at the ceiling. It might be a mosquito. It looks smaller than a fly. I guess it is there to get fed from my blood. It is still there. I can see it from we are I am. The thing is that I’m feeling itchy already just because I know it is there, and I find the whole thing a bit funny. Body is already suffering not knowing if ever get to happen. Mind does that. Everything we sense is pretty much perception coded through that we've been storing in our head. What have we stored so far? What have we coded in that space we relate with love? Have we stored suffering there? Now we know why love hurts, right? How about buying food, pizza, for example? We understand that the way we’ve been storing moments, and the feeling we relate them with, somehow determines our character, and by our character, our attitude.  What's the difference between them, by the way?

 

A new Friday afternoon has come. I had a great end of August.  Actually the last day of August is the most important day in my life, and, for the record, it was just perfect. That was yesterday,  just like the song. No work today, no work tomorrow, and not on Monday either. In this country that means no money as well. My worries are now manifesting themselves as boils in my face. I have one on my nose now. That one could mean the rent, for example.  I got an infection in one ear, probably because some other debt I must honor by next week. So stoicism hasn’t worked out pretty much at the end. Today, I drink. What else? Nothing to get profit from, right now. I’m waiting for tomorrow,  for a brighter tomorrow.  Let’s see. Sun is still shining, so we can smile and remember. I was thinking about victimism, and it turns out that it is exactly as the Spanish interpretation:  blame others for your own misfortunes. How should we understand a misfortune in the first place? I mean, is it something derived,  kind of like a consequence,  from any chain of events? Is it just shit happening and that’s it? Or maybe it’s  something we could blame someone for? Let’s assume we could actually blame someone for that thing is happening to us. Then what? How come blaming solves anyhow whatever problem we have to face? The need of not being accountable is stronger that the acknowledgement of the self on it. And perhaps that is because guilt weights more than taking any responsibility. That could explain procrastination. Avoid is an interesting word, also the words that we read from it… avoid a void, indeed! The balcony. I feel like I’m losing it. You see, I don’t live alone. I understand I have to share it, but it sort of bothers me this fact that I feel, it is not being equally shared: victimism again talking through my words. Who cares! Does it matter at all? I don’t think so. I believe I just need a better income, to be honest. I think the rest is just hanging in there, precisely for not being stable enough to purchase anything that helps you forget. I write because I can’t take my car to go out with no explanation. I can’t even have any alcohol outdoors because I’m always the driver. I can’t take the fucking balcony for myself because I’m not the smoker. See. I just need a better income to bear my so made up problems, and not playing victim again anymore. Sorry for taking you here and make you witness an average forty four old man complaining for a life he chose, and trying to blame anyone else for it. Diapers. I’ve changed some. I may have to change a symbolic diaper for my mind. It’s time. I have to talk to the administration office, and tell them I can’t pay the rent now. Let’s see how it works for me… 

Third page V

 

A new today. Same worries. Why did I get those loans? Why did I move to an apartment I can’t afford? Now that I’m putting it in perspective,  it sort of makes no sense. If I knew I wouldn’t, then why I did it, right? There it is: did I know it? Did I really know it? Now it is popping up: we never knew it! We have a sense of knowing it and, by that sense, we have taken most of the chances we now have to pay for. I’m just catching my consciousness: we figure a landscape we see as future, and since we are the painters, we hold every single brush we are going to need; then time goes by and we don’t see any painting. The switch between tangible and figurative is in our head. Our mind simply decides what to believe. I just thought it tangible. As a matter of fact, I replaced If with When, and when never got to exist because, as long as something is conditioned; subjected to, time is relative, and relativeness in time could take a whole life. Now such whole is empty, like a true hole, a void. An existential void we better overcome for our children. Let’s get delusional a little: we feel this whole out of the abstraction, and, perhaps emptiness out of these small concretes we’ve been picking as problems. If we assume that it is so, problems are just part of the big abstract, therefore our being should not be defined by those picks. Let’s call them picks from now on. Evening is coming. A bottle of wine is waiting at home. I’m not working right now. I’m just waiting for someone to go home. No wine yet. I don’t know why my mind is so tired. It’s raining.  Maybe that’s why I haven’t been able to sit on the balcony.  Contemplation is important for thoughts.  I need some music. Not too dark. Not too early either. A new day to wonder. I pushed myself to spend a few unnecessary minutes scrolling on the screen. I guess it’s because of the need to it. How could I help someone if I can’t even refrain from it. I need to read more about it. Meanwhile, wine awaits. Perhaps today paints better but it’s not. Not at all. Here I am, trying to serve a few words holding a glass of Cabernet. Sunrise at last. No work today and I’m worried already but, since I can’t do anything about it,  I’m going to watch the view for the first time again since some ago. It's curious that when reread oneself, days are mixed in the same paragraph. This one is an example.  It adds a bit of neurosis to the statement,  it kind of makes  narrative look like someone who wants a cigarettes so bad but there isn’t any around. The point is, if that is actually how this is perceived,  then this tale going somewhere despite of everything. 

 

I have to take advantage of this moment.  I never have this chance but I really need to get indoors and go to the bathroom, unfortunately.  I’m sure, or at least I want to believe, that I’m not alone when it comes to tell moments like these. There’s always something we have to cut out of the sudden. Including scrolling,  and yes, it is ironic. An uncommon afternoon for contemplation. Worries come and go. I feel like I want to get something to drink but I haven’t made up my mind. For some reason I totally ignore, it seems like I need a sort of approval for everyone here at home, but wait, don’t get the wrong idea, I just don’t want to go out, knowing I may have something else to bring. So here I am, waiting, waiting to ask while thinking about writing. I want to let go something but I’m not sure what it could be. I saw a person at the supermarket. I went to the supermarket yesterday and I, I met a woman, that woman was from the same country I am. It was an interesting encounter because she told me that there was a Venezuelan community near by. I felt like: why? I mean, yes, it's good to know people from your same country, because we can share impressions since we have the same culture. It would be good, it would be fine, it would be… it would make you feel better but, it doesn’t mean that we are going to become friends instantly,  and that is the thing that I want to talk about; that’s what I want to put here in words: we are a very new community, so we have never done this before. Moving out is not in our culture. I’ve said it more than once. I’ve written about it more than once, the fact that we are a new community of immigrants, pushes us – or so we think – to  be like the rest of the communities, and we don’t have to push ourselves to it. I mean, other communities are better organized because they have been doing it for years; for a long time. We might just learn our own process, but this need to keep up grows strong, so strong, that we feel the impulse to compete like this were some sort finals and like there were a price we must win at any cost. No. I don’t think so. I acknowledge the effort but it is a bit rushed.  Time will tell. It is a slow process: another long-term endeavor. And my guess is that, again, this rush could be due to social media: you see, we look ourselves into any mirror, and that reflect we see, despite of any depression, anger, low self esteem, shyness, megalomania,  anything,  despite of anything we see, it's less ugly, or more beautiful; depending on the case, version of ourselves, and that perception fuels somehow our soul, so we keep going, or at least feel like doing it, the problem is when that perception starts facing the outside. It tends to fade in many cases. A way to keep it could be through a plan, a long-term endeavor. And there is our struggle: the now versus the later, the already versus the yet, the present continuous versus the future simple. The screen scrolling  versus the page turning. Where to be at? How often to be on? Which one shall we choose? I choose wine. 

Third page IV

 

An indoors contemplation.  No balcony today. Unappreciated comes to my mind. What is appreciation anyway? Until what point do we expect appreciation when we do something? Is it something we start expecting or is it expected when we start  something? I wonder because I would like to point out, if possible,  what could it be when you stop doing something out of your own personal motivation, rather than for external appreciation, or acknowledgement purposes.  Can we? Or is it all implied? I woke up thinking about it, but moreover; I woke up trying to leave it written in English words. I’m trying here: a guy goes to work. Let’s say he’s not the smartest kind. Actually he has – I could tell – this sort of thing I want to call Lack of attention. The guy seems he can’t focus, so he makes a lot of mistakes while doing his job, which is pick a certain number of packages by request and drop them on a belt for shipping. There was a jam on the belt. It was not his fault. We tend to have some predisposition towards him because he miscounts too often, but with the jam I can say it was not on him. He got hurt in the attempt of clearing it. He got hurt because he tried hard. Where shall we meet appreciation here? Shall his boss acknowledge of his effort? Did he actually do it pursuing such a thing? I wonder. I’m wondering about it. I want to say that what happened to him meant something… to anyone,  or anything, but it didn’t. If we take his case as an example, his effort was not in search of recognition.  He just felt like he could, maybe, that he had to, and if someone appreciated it, that was by chance, not as an acknowledgement of his attempt. In conclusion; appreciation comes out of chance. Prove me wrong! Let’s bring another word: resentment.  Are we resentful? It comes and go, to be honest. Of course,  I’m taking about myself. It comes from time to time because it’s hard to unlearn values you were taught since childhood and for long periods as well. I am too immersed in believing that merit is something we deserve by nature, and that it is actually derived from our efforts. That’s my culture talking. Even now that I know it was made up by politicians of my region, but still, it’s a bad habit,  like smoking, like finding cheap dopamine on my cell phone. I can’t help it. I think I deserve better. Sorry but not sorry!

 

It feels weird not to be working right now. It’s Sunday afternoon, why would I? Because of the bills. Yes, the bills… and the loans! Guilt is something special but why do I feel guilty? I’m supposed to feel relaxed. I’m trying. Actually I’m holding a glass of wine and seeing if the truth of the enlightenment comes in through a sip. You know: in vino veritas. But so far nothing has arrived yet. And after a while, the only thing that has come is the perception.  The perception is, according to something I’ve read,  a projection our eyes take to our brain, so this one can give it a meaning. Therefore what we see may not be exactly the same thing in each head, and that is because, let’s say,  the way we interpret is unique. Unless,  of course, we were one of those into social media, which means zero discernment, and with that being said, written in this case, we may have an idea of where social media is heading us, and what we might be at the end of this story. What’s your story about anyway? Do we have a story in the first place? Of course we do. Is it important? It might be to some, and those some could see us, so let’s be seen through words and be read instead. We would become words, and words can be used in any message. We’ll be messages at the end of any attempt.  Let’s be one of hope, of faith,  and not one that fades into smoke. Let’s be hard to drag but nice to digest. Let’s be more like a dessert. Why? We must be what we want to be. Are we sure of that? Not me. But wine made its work and now I need to sleep. 

 

A new week. Dark still. Machine noise-like. Some air conditioning,  perhaps.  I can’t see the words I’m writing.  It might be the stress. There’s always something failing. Who might we be giving our energy? Our vitality? Someone must get fed on it. We get tired for those people. A life full of must and shouldn’t definitely has to be out of someone else’s need and such need… on us. I want to go to bed, for an hour at least but I have to go back to work. I’m back to my old job, by the way. I just miss the music but for the rest of the things, I’m better here now. I have another job: typical. I belong – not sure if proudly, but I do, I am one of those – to this sort of group of men, who were raised with this belief, that man should do what he must because he’s a man. A sort of burden-carrier-type with no complaints, and only silence and hard work. Am I comfortable at it? Hardly ever. Am I going to change? Not likely.  Writing is pretty much my therapy. I’m trying. I’ve said it before. The thing is that, giving the nature of my being, I have a second job. It’s not hard at all. If I place anything against it, it would be just drama for this comedy. What I want to say is that I am poorly rated at that job, and I think it affects my chances for getting good deals. I do deliveries. The other bad thing is having less time to spend with my son. It is what it is, people say here. I always try to find some minutes to hold him, to tell him that I love him. To let him know he is my world. And someday soon, I expect to find much more time to be with him. I cry of joy when he  laughs. I know what being in love really is because of him. Dark again in the balcony.  A car passes by and some other apartment’s engine has just turned on.  The beginning of a song led by the garbage compactor. The sound I make with every sip of coffee add some too, probably. No butterflies. Break time. A few voices kind of like a bass line. I’m sitting with two fellow countrymen as these words are taking place. I can tell one of them wants to talk. I can see him looking at me but he stays quiet and go back to his phone, pretty often, but not for long. That’s how we are nowadays: choosing worlds; in or out of the screen. I’m on the screen now right after finishing my second job. Again, not a good day. I already wrote a little bit about it, but it came to my mind again: burden-carrier-type… what should I do? How could I embrace it? I’m not making enough on my own, so what am I supposed to do? Now I’m just complaining but tomorrow it will be a new day and due dates are coming: they don’t ask how am I doing. They just come and take whatever we’ve worked hard for, including  the metaphorically speaking: plans, dreams, peace, will; mostly will.