Fifth Page

 

October. Another morning.  Indoors for now.  I haven’t gotten up early enough during this week yet. I still haven’t been able to serve few words for this text. I have carried enough weight. I have done it for quite a long time, I think.  I haven’t paid any attention to the sunrises, or the sunsets lately. I haven’t even placed my thoughts on a chain to at least understand them. I talked to a friend; that I did. I was trying to share my worries with him; he’s still in Caracas, with all that it could mean for us; for them, and for everyone somewhat attached to it. I was trying to get some perspective, and I think I did it after all. He made this point that the fact that I was one of those out of the country, for the ones who remain there, there wouldn’t be any sympathy towards us – at all, from what I see – on any of our concerns. Somehow leaving the country breaks something to a point in which we start sounding strange to them and the other way around as well. During that strangeness, we found out about  feelings we prefer we hadn’t had, now we see different,  we see each other different, and now that I’m writing it, I wonder if it’s something that just came out and burst because of the distance, or if it was always there; if it was there held by the courtesy of the hangouts, and the good times together. Third break. It’s late already. Low season, they call it. Time to go back. I got something to write and thus link a little bit all this. I hope not forgetting about it. Alright. I was talking to a guy from work. We were comparing our countries, the bad things, such as government,  culture,  underdevelopment things, third world things and, we got to a point in which we realized that, aside from certain places in Europe; where else in the american continent you live in a place in which more than three languages, all from different places, share the same neighborhood,  and actually can greet each other as neighbors, if not here, and moreover,  if such  diversity is well understood, and somehow accepted,  how come this government wouldn’t interfere in other countries’ affairs? We got this conclusion that mostly left-wing-like and halfway-informed people, tend to be the ones who despise this country over public opinion matters. Most of their claims are based on opinions and perspectives from centuries ago. It’s a petty that those are the kind of people who rule our countries, and convey such a resentful angle on schools. We become adults hating a system we haven’t yet understood.  So there’s this pride, born out of the failure, compelling us that our sorrows are not on us. And it could get more serious as we take it further. I mean, we develop hate as a feeling that can be indoctrinated, from politicians in power, through the educational system, and that embraces (or implies)  love as the logical immediate opposite, therefore it might be indoctrinated as well. This make the love-hate path a place that we can transit back and forth,  and back and forth we let our faith – and idiosyncrasy – grow. We become back and forth believers with back and forth foundations and thus our confidence, and thus our Morality. Unless you're one of those who had high class education, which I don’t know since it's not my area. Never was indeed. Friday afternoon.  Home. Indoors. I’m going to see if I can take a nap. It was great. Now I would like to come back to bed but my boy is like, so very awake. I guess I’m going to have to wait. Let’s see. Friday night. Wine is gone already. I got some complain about it. I just thought one bottle was enough. I still think so. But I accepted it. What else can I do! It’s coffee time now. I think it’s good after the wine. There’s no work tomorrow.  I need to do a lot of things but I keep procrastinating them. I’m glad I could talk with another friend; one who left Caracas too. I guess we are unavoidably picking sides over this undeclared feud. When I started this story, I was so convinced otherwise, now I feel like I have to take back on several things. The life abroad is affecting me, changing me, as these words take place over this sort of story. Our story. Our version, and conversion. I’m sure I have mentioned it before, but this is a cycle, a spiral through which we’ll have to step on the same thing over and over; kind of like Nietzsche’s eternal return, so let’s bring it on again: once you decide, by force or by choice, to become an immigrant,  you have to start from scratch; everyone knows that, but it also implies, and I want to emphasize it, for some narcissistic reason perhaps, but I feel this need to place it in words, that it implies start over being poor, even if you never were, a new immigrant is a new poor, and as a new poor you have to learn things from there. I have learned some, and I’m fine as poor until I get to talk to another Venezuelan; specially anyone who decided to stay.  

Fourth page V

Waiting is the hardest part. Meanwhile Instagram is firing me with all these debt relief programs. I am tempted,  I’m really tempted. Sometimes I fill out the whole application and then I regret and take it back. The cost of living is the cost of life. I’m overwhelmed by my thoughts; the things I could do if, if only, but just only if, but no, not so far at least.  I need to figure out why I have this sense of remorse for things I didn’t mean to. It is so tiring to explain myself over the intentions of whatever I’ve done. It weakens me. Explain my intentions feels like I did something wrong or bad and I must justify it. If it’s bad, it’s fine, someone needs an explanation,  but what about those things beyond control. I came to pick up someone and that someone is not ready yet, do I have to feel bad for this time I’m waiting? I know I don’t, but I do, and I need to understand this impulse for explanation. Nobody cares, it doesn’t matter. I have to put this in different perspectives.  Meanwhile I remain regretful for not knowing how I should have done this or that. I can’t have a problem everyday,  please. There’s wine waiting. I just wish to be at home already. Why wine forces people to say things they can’t keep as true statements. It gets boring. Annoying. I gave it all. It is amazing. I am sure, completely sure, I gave it all, and I gave it all for nothing.  It’s hard to accept it. It was for nothing, but let’s leave that for later. Now I’m just waiting to get some sleep, to find hope elsewhere, perhaps focus on my boy’s voice; my boy’s smile, and stick with it. Nothing else matters, I guess, and I remain poor; that’s important to bring up; when you are poor, daily things become a drama. Rich people convey their art through higher states and dimensions, the poor, on the contrary, they play like they reach such a high level by exposing their miseries. We feel this need to tell everyone how bad we want to feel understood, ad we want to do that in a world where nobody cares. A whole drama. What are we going to do about it? Drink and bear. Next day tends to be next in several ways. Who knows? It could be my lucky day. Saturday morning. Gray like rain is coming anytime. A bit chilly but nothing unboreable with a sweater on. Coffee, balcony and birds singing; louder than other days, by the way. I can hear a few steps around. I was given another chance, that’s how God works. I must honor such a trust vow somehow, and I need to find the wisdom for it. My thoughts are not wise, and my ideas are not profitable in any sense. These very words won’t give me nothing to bring to my table, and yet I still come here and write some for my own realization. I wonder where this impulse; the insistence, comes from, given the fact that I am not the pushing kind. I’m more like introvert, I have this sort of condition that hits me every time which is called – I looked at it – over-explaining, and it is actually a trauma. Apparently we develop this when we are constantly made feel a fault. So we grow up always in search for approval. I’m not totally sure if that’s my case, but now I know it is an issue, and as such, I must take a look at it at least. Nevertheless I just go on with my things and it seems that today (and tonight) there will be wine and eat out. And I will get sad again for sure: what a cycle! But we are not there just yet. Let’s rise ad shine despite the gray.

 

Still loving you is just an amazing song, just like Comfortably numb. The solos, both solos, accompanied with a glass of wine, to listen then Stairway to heaven, the live version from The Song remains the same; watching my boy playing with my mom’s phone. This is my hallmark. My wife is coming to add some love to this scene. Now it’s time for thoughts to fly across the oneiric world I may create for them to flourish, thrive, or burst, depending on the dream. Tomorrow will be another day. Another Sunday. Let’s see. Let’s see indeed. Sunny, a bit chilly and quiet, except of course for the birds, and an airplane, which is coming right away, followed by the sound of a car running slowly: this is the song for those already awake at this time. I’m starting to get the sound of the elliptical machine too, I think I have mentioned at some point. I have a coffee, creamy but not sweet. Not sweetener for the first one I’m trying to state, and it has worked out pretty well so far since I started it. These sort of rituals, now presented as routines, help me – us, I believe – understand a bit more every time about my space-time relation with the environment I’m surrounded by. Birds’ singing is fading, for example,  that means more people are coming out, and that the morning is on for everyone. Indoors time, coffee is not over yet. I got this cool Star Wars mug with light sabers design, which shows the sabers on while the liquid inside remains hot. It’s a pretty nice thing to have. It was a gift from a good friend last summer,  not the summer just over but the one from last year.  I met him during a trip. We had a great time. Back in the balcony. Quiet, as I’m not used to. Another coffee, same mug, it became my everyday mug at home ever since. The weather can’t be nicer: sunny but not hot. I think I’m just giving myself this time for contemplation, I actually have nothing to write about, I mean, I’m always wondering why and how on several things floating inside my head. Some of them I just don’t know how to let out, but it’s not something I want to write about just now, maybe later. Later is not just yet. Later could be now, but I remain wordless for my ideas to become Text. Farewells are hard. I’m still trying to serve something about it, but not just yet I think. I’m still in the process of understanding some moves from certain people. In the meantime I would like to wonder why the exchange of own time over work done has this tendency for unjust? How do people actually realize they are doing more than what they get paid for? What is that thing that triggers our perception and takes us there? Because once there, there’s no turning back. It is kind of cruel in its own way. But now wine has done some damage, to the point of dizziness  and will for confessing. There’s coffee, decaf, because of the hour, but enough to withhold this impulse on over talking. We call it ultra petita, in law school. Everyone is in their room, so there’s no audience for uncomfortable confessions based on wine. Let’s get quiet, tomorrow it will hard and we have to work too. The air conditioning is going crazy with this weather.  So I am. Let’s just go to bed. No balcony, too early, early Monday. A farewell is coming. We must be on time to stop by and keep going.  Things look slow at work. A tense calm followed by the uncertainty of what will happen in the next few days. Supervisors don’t say a word. There is this sound I can hear and, I might guess, it is someone mopping the floor, there is a bucket falling down from some stairs, or so I hear. Two guys laughing and telling each other a story, a story I don’t care, but I have to listen to it. We should close our  ears the way we close our eyes. Some things are just worthless to listen to and yet we have no choice for it.  It’s not like when we don’t want to see something. The Power, wearing any of its faces, takes advantage of that. Power tends to find the way to get to our ears and makes us listen to those things we don’t want, and does it as many times as necessary, until we assimilate it, and then be pushed to believe and accept,  because, eventually,  we all accept it. There are plenty of examples throughout history. It happens with music too. What people call music nowadays is incredible. Most of the music I like comes from a joint effort of minds working together in an attempt of expression, and that doesn’t mean they must say something in a song. Sometimes it has more to do with the way they play the instrument,  or that, plus the musician put in a specific part of the song. Having that, getting that, it’s just sublime, provocative,  

Fourth page IV

 

Read a book, listen to a whole record, go on and watch a movie. Go ahead a pick one by chance, something,  someone you’ve never heard before. Give it a chance, give yourself a chance to go on something you never saw on social media, and then sense it. Make your own impression about it: a terrible movie, a boring record, a very bad novel, place, time, picture, exhibition,  it won’t matter because, each and every single one, will grant you with a piece of space for your thoughts and perception to float, to flow, so be it. Afterwards you pick a place and sit, talk to yourself and smile (or cry) alone. Then get your shit together and get a job, or go to work if you have one. It doesn’t sound like a plan to you? You can always go back to your scrolling, just give it a try. I try. I read some today. It felt great. It felt like a trip when you pay nothing ad you can get anything. O want some delusion here: there is this girl gone crazy for a guy. I haven’t seen that before, I mean, I have lived a life where women always have the say; watching that is really impressive to me. Sunday night. To some, we are in autumn already. Yesterday it rained the whole day. It was kind of like an entrance for the pumpkin season, but today, tonight, summer says goodbye on some fresh air despite of the dark. Tomorrow we’ll see. I feel like I want some coffee. And I had it, as I’m having one right now. It’s cold, the weather,  not the coffee, but a cold summer-like, which means there’s no need for any sort of coat. Friday and Saturday were colder. Almost no stars in sky, I can’t even see the moon. It’s thick, I don’t know, not Foggy, but dark blue gets me this thick sense. If I could get a piece of it, – a piece of sky – at least  a piece from the one I’m starring at now, it would be thick. Lamps on the streets are on. Lamps of the apartments across; not. Is it too early? I don’t think so.

Light bulb of the balcony needs to be replaced.  Dark and cold became friends. I could join them by wearing some coat but I guess I’m opting stay indoors out of my lack of mood. Why?  I guess – again – because bad news tend to hit harder lately,  not because of their impact; their impact is something different to place in thoughts: that requires a different angle.  I’m talking about how often, or how many, depending on my will to count them, or pay attention to them. I tried counting first, it’s just not working,  I mean, I get tired of it. There’s some weight to carry while thinking about them, and, during this traffic jam of thoughts, the effort of counting them, let the others vanish too soon, so there’s a little spot for reflection; and I need to come around. Light bulb replaced. This one is white, it gives you this sense of office now. I think I like it better in yellow. The yellow light gets me, I don’t know, warm, takes me back in time, takes me to Caracas,  on 1985, or 86, when I was in our elementary school. This one, on the other hand, takes me to an office, and I just realized I miss them both. Break time. Breakfast time but since fasting, the break’s got to wait a little longer. A little longer I must wait indeed for some news to come. And they will. I just need to give myself to delusion meanwhile: I see you see me, I see you see me behind that I-don’t-care-about-you gesture in your face. I know anger can be a mask sometimes,  a suit we feel like we need to dress due to the this fear of exposure.  Feelings must be kept in the mouths of silence. In the steam that comes out and rests around the glass right after a sip of wine. That moment, that look up trying to find it, and not getting it yet… that look down trying to let it go, and carrying with it still. At home. Quiet. Walls speak: a TV on, at some other apartment, a video on the phone perhaps. I feel like I need to shave but I tend to drop it right before the bath. It’s like this nutrition program: I just had an Ice cream that I shouldn’t have had.  Let’s play Depeche Mode for this moment and enjoy the silence. There’s plenty of time for whining in words (written thoughts) specially during this story, a story nobody cares, to be honest. 

 

It was just the perfect opportunity, and I just wasted it. Why? Well, here I am: the car won’t start. It was like that since yesterday evening.  I made here to pick up my mom and then it didn’t start anymore. Two people came for help. The first one tried to start it. He really wanted to help and I just felt and feel graceful for it. If you hesitate of God’s existence,  think again. Unfortunately,  it didn’t work out. I joined one of these car companies that provides roadside assistance. They never came. I got a call from them at 1:00 AM. I saw it at 5:00 AM. I was already at home thanks to the second man who stopped by and tried to help as well. Since he could not get the car started, he offered himself to take us – Mom and I – home. Like I just said. God is there. I’m in the workshop now, but let’s go back a few hours. I texted my boss to let him know I was going to be late today (which I’m still, and I guess I will be for the rest of the day) He didn’t answer but I assume he got the message. I got to the parking load where I left my car, right where I picked up my mom yesterday. I tried again, maybe 20 times more, and nothing happened. I called for a tow service. The second one was the one who took me to the workshop I’m used to take my car. The guy there refused to check the car, he claimed they don’t do that, so he suggested another workshop, and we went, and there was no one there. I told my tow driver: I’m lost, I’m not from here, I don’t know what to do, Do you know some place where I can take the car? He made a call, got a number. I called, and here I am, writing while waiting. Unfortunately I didn’t bring any boo and it was actually the best chance for it. I’m going to leave my whole salary here. Taking care of a problem means delaying another, that’s how life works for me, for us, I took my boy in my arms yesterday. I took a bath with him, I started to cry, he started to laugh and that made me think about God again. I have one of his angels right in my arms, so hope came back again. Today I feel broke – I am broke – but this story is not over. For now, let’s just state that I wasted the perfect opportunity for a good read, but on the other hand, I got a good one for writing. I don’t think I’m going to have one like this for a long time, but who knows! I’ve written a lot so far, despite the fact that no one is going to read it, my son will, I know, so it will worth at the end. Let’s still wait and do what most people do in cases like this one: scrolling up and down on social media. 

Fourth page III

 

My little man is still sleeping. I’m loading myself up of hope thanks to him. And it’s real, you know! Today it wasn’t that bad with the deliveries. I had it in a good pace. Still cloudy, and raining. It’s a bit chill too. I’m on the floor, on the carpet. This type of apartment has a carpet all over the floor. So here I am, with my little man, which is climbing the sofa over and over while I watch him and smile. I feel like I want a glass of wine but my wife and I decided to take a break (it’s Sunday) but who knows, she just went to the supermarket. Let’s see. She came back empty handed. It's time for a shower. The walls of this apartment sound like there were someone else taking a shower behind them. They talk, from what I can hear. We never feel alone. Actually feeling alone is more prompted towards being with people who don’t care about you, rather than being by yourself though. Chill. Bad mood around. It’s Monday but that doesn’t make any different from whatever day. That has more sense back home. Tuesday: dark, chill, black coffee on hand. There was a store in my dreams. I don’t remember what it was it about. Still early. I thought I could have a bit more of something to state, or wonder about and writing it here, but I just remain silent in every way. I don’t know what to do. There is this strategic move I should be smart enough to make it, but it overwhelms me. It’s like it is further from my capabilities. I hate it. I hate hesitation from myself. I feel bad enough already when realizing I’m repeating the classic pattern of not being with my boy, only because I have to work. That’s enough from a punishment. Sometimes I think that if something ever happens to me, these words won’t go public. I’m halfway from whatever goal I set up in my head, but I’m not sure how long will it take me that other half. I guess I have to honor my roots, go public incomplete, and keep going with the flow. Going with the flow is actually what I’ve been doing so far. The flow has taken me to work more and more. The flow has me worried about the car and the debts.

 

Yesterday,  I just felt tired for delivering. I forfeited it. I felt more like going published and so I did: I started posting this tale. I thought at first that I was going to slow down this impulse I’m having for writing, once I get to post the first page, – or chapter, whatever suits best – but it turns out that I’m still on it. I want to keep placing our thoughts as part of this narrative. Dark; We better get used to it. From now on, every morning is going to look as it looks now, only colder with time, and it will remain so until next summer; not even next spring, I think. More black coffee then, and more clothes for having some time here in balcony: yes, the balcony.  In order to keep ourselves writing, light must be on. That makes us one of these yellow ships floating in the dark. Like the one I’m in front of, like the one whose silhouette I have wondered about. Two more I can see at the back. Two little ones I see coming closer; it’s a car, and then another one: people going to their jobs, or just parking outside, until the school bus picks up their kids. This is the type of complex with gate bars at the entrance, we get a special magnetic key to enter, and there is a sensor that opens it when coming out. It has its timing, I guess for safety purposes; it takes a few seconds to open up, that means we have to wait to go out. If it’s not six thirty yet, you will have a few cars on your way out from those parents waiting for the school bus. It’s better to wait until six thirty five. Anxiety doesn’t like that. Anxiety is always interesting. It is always good to bring up. Clear, it’s clear: dark, but clear, the lead voice is on the engines. We get this sense of factory, of production lines, while having a coffee. I guess working is always in our heads. I was talking about that yesterday: working is so present on songs’ lyrics, not like in my culture, that there are songs for not working actually. On the other hand, it came to my mind these guys from On The Road; I think they don’t work in the story. I don’t remember it well. That’s why I tend to refrain from quoting, since I may mix references. We better stick with each other here and leave the wise ones alone in their pages. Again, dark and clear with machine sounds. A Slipknot song we could evocate out of this sensing. The coffee is a plus, weather is not warm at all. Evening at last. Nothing special to bring up, maybe a couple of things to break down. Illusions pops as wine fades, my mouth tastes the last one while my mind plays with the first one. Let’s declare: better times are coming, despite the desperation. My boy plays with his pacifier. I wonder and realize in the meantime. Hope has its own language, then I smile. I forgot if I’ve ever mentioned it, but we live near the airport,  so every few minutes we get to see (and hear) the airplanes. When it’s dark, kind of like now, airplanes look more a bit like spaceships, or so I see them, and they add some momentum to this sort of symphony I whiteness every time I sit by myself in the balcony. If this were a rock song, the airplane passing sound would be the epic drum fill, like the one in Tom Sawyer. It doesn’t look that dark today. It’s a bit cold, but enjoyable. First break with no eating yet. I was thinking about the word break: it is so not our culture, just like this combination: go by. I don’t go by the standards you break down for me. I have my own way, and expectations will met in both. This would be the kind of sentence a machine translator might not help you with. I just checked it on Google, and it turns out that it actually works pretty well. I’m heading to the obsolete. Let’s get there in good mood then, it will be unavoidable,  so why worrying or getting mad, right? A gray rainy Saturday. It doesn’t seem to be a joyful day. Let’s see. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t, but real life tends to be less dramatic. I had a bit of wine. I didn’t feel like having more, not even as usual. One glass, one glass was fine yesterday. Today looks better out there. It looks more for a nice walk. It’s Sunday. Again, let’s see. Now that I live in an English speaking country, I’ve been getting more than I used to from songs and movies. I’m not going to lie, remember,  we meet halfway, but what I’m trying to say is, that although I don’t get to understand fully like a native speaker,  I get more every time, and that more is putting me in a position of – I guess – realizing that there are quite a lot of songs whose message is leant to express the feeling while high, or on something stronger. I have nothing against it, but it makes me smile from time to time when getting it. By the way,  there’s something I need to leave here. I don’t remember if I already had done it, but just in case, here I go: we need to work more on our capability to give space to our thoughts to flow. Thoughts need to flow. They need space. A good way to make that space bigger might be by reading more fiction, so we train our head to create platforms on which we can develop our stories, or whatever we may be getting from a lecture: the more, the better. A bigger space helps us get how tiny things can be and therefore realize that not everything, in fact; almost nothing, is about us. Two people whispering around, for example.  They might be talking about anything, not exclusively about us. That is important.  We tend to spend too much energy on others, on things we think they are about us, and that’s because our platform (if I can call it so) is not big enough to let those thoughts vanish on the oblivion. It’s like smoking in a closed bedroom. We’ll get intoxicated, and so will happen with thoughts. Let’s make them a bigger room, a bigger space. That might work as an antidote for the excessive scrolling – and depressing vibe – on social media. I made an experiment on myself.  Too many people having the greatest time everyday and every time… honestly,  that is just sad. Imagine the pressure we get to be under, that we have to share only good things. Imagine spending your day, looking for something great, something that may last no more than ten seconds, most of the times, in an attempt to marvel  several people’s eyes who just don’t give a fuck about you. And on top of that, living with the anxiety that comes out when others post nicer things. The never ending comparison match.