Fifth page V

 

Sunday morning.  Children programs on TV.  Expectations waiting on a line of service.  What to think about first. Yes, next week. End of month is coming, Halloween along with it. Let’s disguise what we do from what we think, and, go to work without so much complaining.  But today it’s Sunday, and it’s sunny. Not now. It’s Monday already. Not much network for social media.  I’m going to think it is a good thing, despite of the work. Music is here: ABBA for now. Let’s shuffle.  Boxes are coming, kind of dancing this disco I’m playing. The soundtrack of an industrial scene with no other purpose but inoculate the thought, that while music is being played,  the progress keeps going on. Progress is an interesting definition,  and the circumstances we bring it up to talking are even more interesting. How hard is to feel oneself understood! I believe that rather than happiness, the pursuit is for peace. Maybe that’s what happiness means after all: be in peace with the universe you have procured to yourself.  I’ve been climbing through these branches of decisions and consequences,  looking for some peace; self glorification doesn’t seem to be around, and it is hard to keep it, to achieve it. There’s always a misunderstanding I feel the need to clarify.  It is just tiring. Perhaps that’s why any attempt regarding peace is mostly related to afterlife.  Life won’t be peaceful,  seems to be the message. Perhaps afterwards.  Not while living.  So let’s live and hang on. Some people see life as a journey to experience,  some others as a path of obstacles to get through. Here I am, writing when I’m supposed to feel sorry for myself, but why? Just because things don’t work out as expected? They never do, they never have, and they never will, so let’s just celebrate I can kiss my baby boy within two hours, well, three hours, actually. Perfect day from Lou Reed is playing; in our Spanish we would say sounding, instead of playing, playing is tricky for translation.  So my feelings for this confession. Only the good die young from Billy Joel, Regret from The Winery Dogs, right after that. Duties came back, let’s keep the mood, I need to. I wasn’t sure it was going to work, and it did. It did indeed. Now it’s Tuesday. Time is running out for getting early, and, as a matter of fact I came late. One of my supervisors – because I have more than one – sent me a message, stating that my name had showed up multiple times on the attendance report for clocking in late. That’s another cultural difference here: to Venezuelans, five, even ten, moreover; twenty minutes late, it is still considered on time. I came here three minutes after, just three minutes after, and I have to ask for an apology over such sort of abuse.

 

I think it’s time for reading a little bit. I’m kind of watching,  because where I stand allows me so, some of the  women of the warehouse doing their job. It just looks hard from this perspective. I wonder how, also why, such vigor goes for… Is it for paying a hospital bill? Some children education? Perhaps some loved ones back home where they come? Who knows! I wonder because of their faces: that mix of desire hiding behind the weight of the must and the have to do first, along with the blush of the tiredness; add a shy smile on top of it. Sometimes this mix turns into bitterness, and then a come around to hurt each other; to envy, so the smile fades out of tenderness,  to show up over someone else’s sorrow, and all that, in the end, it’s just for nothing really, but how could we step into such stream of sensitivity? I mean; is it something we want to find out, so we can, later, help heal? To get there, I think, we must see this kind of feeling, as something to get over, then we think about healing somehow, but it doesn’t have to be that way, it may not be considered a wrong thing at all. As a matter of fact, such feelings have the same right to stay there just like those we think positive. Maybe that’s what makes guys see these women attractive in the firstplace. Maybe this bitterness works out pretty good in bed. Maybe this has been so for centuries, so we’ve been born from it, and that’s why it seems to be kind of hot, I don’t know, but I like to wonder. Thursday.  Throw back Thursday, as the hashtag goes. In a subtle way, social media has imposed it to a point that many – myself included – just can’t help thinking about a memory to share on whatever platform. So if this works as such, why not using it for that purpose? At least for a day; for today… I close my eyes. I think about all those things that brought me up to this moment, the songs I still listen to, specially now that the chance to work along with them: Invisible touch from Genesis is sounding, playing; whatever you want to call it. This song places me back in Puerto La Cruz; I was around ten. We moved there for some reason I can’t recall, but the thing is that the song took me there and now I smile because of it. A nice throw back. If only I could have a glass of wine here at work; at this very moment,  it would be great. I would cry out my hidden sorrows, I would dance alone. Nobody would even care… The boxes stand alert, they await for the full lanes to get clear, so they can continue their march towards their packing. The music is still on top. I think I have already written: it but, what the fuck! Right?: this band I found out about: – Ghost; – they are good, really good. 

Fifth page IV

 

Thursday. Hispanics tend to confuse it with Tuesday. Second language things. Sunny. It’s sunny. We’re all outside for a luncheon. Employees appreciation, they call it. It wasn’t that bad, I’m full, actually.  There’s a cookie in front of me and I feel I can’t eat it. I’ve just had enough for now despite I do like cookies. Well, not really; I love chocolate chips cookies. I’m not interested in any other. Raisins,  for example; I hate them, but  the one here it’s a chocolate chips one, so I think I’m going to eat it and feel regretful later… and so I did, and so I feel. I had’t had such a perfect time before for writing, only that I have nothing to say. I’m wordless, and worthless I feel too, because now I regret from having that extra cookie. Mind what we eat it’s perhaps a prominent metaphor for understanding our impulse over other things. We know we shouldn’t have this much sugar in a day. We’ve learned and studied a lot about it, and yet, we fall in temptation and feel remorse after that. So remorse is our thing here. I could also say we like remorse. Specially immigrants, immigrants’ stories are nothing but an exhibition of remorse in a thousand forms. There must be a lot of it in this very text indeed. Sorrows. Sorrows too. As I may have mentioned ut supra, in some way we learn how to live in constant grief, perhaps remorse is an ingredient that our grief sometimes asks for; then we cry, we think, we pray, and keep going. I was making my breakfast. I have to go to work. Bas news. Someone back home is in great pain. Doctors already said to expect the unavoidable, so here we stand, far from a hug, far from holding each other and feel the warmth that, only someone who cares about you can give you. That’s another burden we have to carry: all those goodbyes we never thought we should have said since we might not have another chance. Only that hope doesn’t work that way. Hope, hope keeps us believing, despite any adversity, that someday, and somehow, we'll meet again with our loved ones; those deeply missed because of the circumstances. We've become good at hiding it from the outside by choosing these sort of poses, specially those that makes us, to a certain point, and from a very certain perspective, look cool and nice people. I wonder how the nationals see us. I don’t,  really.  I don’t care. It is what it is: a process in  development.  We must be patient to ourselves. Let’s all hold on and go back to work. Back in the balcony.  Not for too long. In fact I just sat and went away. Wine is back, also the balcony at night. It’s cold. It’s a bit disappointing,  but that’s the way it is. Social media is coming first. There is this sort of club of prominent Venezuelans, which seem to – from what I see – dictate the path we all should choose, if we want to be seen as cool guys. This group is composed by, more or less, actors who came late when national television was worthy, middle-high-class guys, who found themselves out as comedians, personal trainers, and some allegedly artists, whose art is known precisely because of their social media impact. These are our mentors. Not knowing them places you aside from the coolness, which is where I stand, by the way. So I’m doubly lost here: I’ve lost touch and interest. These mentors are also called influencers. I know this is happening all over the world, but I’m talking about those from Venezuela, they have gone to a point where even their routines, since this is all public access, have become in pretty much the main topic of conversation for so many; let’s add Reggaeton as music taste to that. Wow! What a combination! That’s why I feel so lonely in my island of uncoolness and Rock music, and I’m not going anywhere, but on the other hand, everyone is welcome to it.

 

Saturday. There’s something beneath one of the heaters of the stove. I could tell for the smoke when I was trying to boil some water. Smoke saying good morning,  I guess. I was writing about our influencers; the cool ones, on one side. There are also the politicians, on the other side, and the analysts of whatever happens in our country. This is pretty much how our social media is fed. I think that, for those abroad, following these people, despite the pursuit of the nice and cool, in a way it could be also a sign of wishing they were there, and perhaps in order to evolve, this is one of the necessary steps. I guess I’m not a part of it because I don’t want to, but at least I have the pleasure to write about it. Who knows! Maybe someone different than me will need these impressions in the future. I just feel the need for saying it now. I’m always confused but I’m working on it, or at least I tell myself so.  Saturday morning still. A boring voice from a testimony is filling my hearing space with a personal life I don’t know. What amazes me is that such a story get to be interesting to someone, to a point that I have to listen to it just because I insist to be in the wrong place. I guess it’s part of life. I have this void, again. It comes and goes. It’s not like I manage to fill it up and gets empty again. It’s more like rain: when it shows up, I fall into it and feel lost for a while. That while is now. There was an interesting posture over Open Source when it comes to news, but I just forgot it. It went more or less as some sort of reactive, kind of like in blood tests, to see how the news behave and what sort of opinions pops up because of it. In some way that’s the thing with the news, but the article was trying to make a point regarding printed newspapers and distribution rights, along with intellectual property. Who do we answer to, anyway? More than one would claim no one, but it’s not true, I mean someone, or something owns us, why do we feel the impulse to belong? Maybe because some entity made a campaign for it. At least that’s what I need to believe, if I want to understand that anybody’s private life, just because whatever he does, or whoever he sleeps with is uploaded (by him, by the way) on social media, get to have several people somewhat interested – and eager – in knowing further details. It occurs to me, now that I’m writing about it, that this could be part of the nostalgic wave it is now in vogue. We used to be that eager for gossips back in schools era. Somehow this kind of information evocates it so. Being an immigrant, among a lot of things, is about longing and remembering other times, perhaps more than others, and we get so immersed in it, that our world of impressions is reduced to a cell phone screen. 

Fifth page III

 

Friday.  The black mirror in front of me. I don’t get to see me. I’m below its reflection.  I can see the painting on the wall and the lamp. A mirror is always good for putting thoughts in perspective.  You see, the painting and the lamp are actually on my back, but I can see them on the screen of the TV set now that is off. In a way, this might tell us that there could be anything behind us, either by chance, or by choice, and make it reflected right in our front, so we can take a look at it, stand up (and for, or against, why not) and see ourselves in it as well. Thus we can think again,  think again but not overthink, overthink is more like a condition,  and it triggers our neurosis,  which it’s already there, I know, specially on people used to the chaos, used to crisis, shortages, or whatever not-good-at-all sudden thing out of our foresight. I’m relaxed now. I have to go to work but I’m still on time for it. My neurosis levels are low for the moment,  unlike my hope; which is up high and I’m smiling while writing it down. First break. Everyone on their screens. To be honest, what else can we do? We kind of feel some pressure on being more social but there’s this endless carrousel of media material that keeps us looking nowhere else. Today, there’s no point on debating it. It is what it is. Break time has ended. We’re leaving early today. No payment for those hours. Let’s go back. A little something about our neurosis: we have this urge for an answer every time we send a message. It’s this tiny emperor-like pose we tend to adopt on waiting. We just can’t wait anymore. This has flourish in some way, I guess, because of the constant scrolling. For instance, I usually leave at 3:00 PM, not today, but the rest of the days I do so. Right at 3:0l PM I’m sending my wife the first message asking her how close she is from picking me up. That’s how we work on waiting these days. However,  when it comes to answer, that’s a whole different story: we want to be understood,  we want that the fact we might be busy stays implicit over the waiting time. Only that we feel impaired for switching roles, therefore no sympathy for anyone, on anything,  specially when scrolling on the screen of the phone. This is the society model nowadays. Many of our memories will just be left to an app feed, and some of them will just fade as the thump moves down, all that in no more than two, three seconds. I’m getting used to watching people looking at their screens.  It’s a terrible feeling: knowing you’re alone among people.  Loneliness has changed. Saturday afternoon.  Sunny after a rainy morning.  A few airplanes have gone by. I could tell for their sound. Long naps are plan killers. Don’t ever plan anything before taking a nap. There’s the balcony, for myself, but there’s a stronger force having me indoors: the power of the hesitation. I could grab something and prepare it for dinner, but I guess I rather hesitate and let time burn over the uncertainty.  Everyone else is still sleeping.  That’s why. The TV is on but there’s actually nothing running since it is an app for streaming.  There are just some figures moving back and forth and that’s it. Hangover: interesting word when it comes to translation. I mean, hang, as in hanging,  and over, as in entirely, it is like floating on your own after being drunk.  It’s an interesting way to see it. In my country we call it mouse, like Mickey,  and everyone understands it. It is actually a verb, so to make it somewhat possible in English, it would go like I am enmoused, or I have mouse, like I have fever. I don’t know where it may come from. The thing is I feel like I am enmoused still, or I’m still having this hangover, and I have to go to work. As a matter of fact,  I’m ready to be taken there, carrying all this bad disposition and headache, Wine was on Saturday,  it’s Monday but  I just had too much. Let’s say I had enough to spend the whole Sunday on recovery, but Sunday didn’t last enough for it. I had my first break already. I still feel a bit bad. I would say I won’t drink like that again but we never know, at least I can tell myself I hope not to since I’m wasting beautiful time. Let’s take out the garbage and take a shower. I’m home. It’s fine now, and cold too. I read a good article about the decay of the so called Venezuela se arregló. In order to bring up some context, it was a slogan promoted from the government, through its network of allegedly social media influencers and presumably famous people, who still live (and work, doing I don’t know what) there. The government,  let’s say, understood that whatever illusion we may fall into, must come from social media. Thus they made a whole world inside of it, and they made it so deep, that people abroad, specially young people, including people of my generation too, have started to believe it. Nostalgia pays great deal, I have no doubt about it, and,  added to Hope  both combined, it’s more a kind of strong drug, a drug many Venezuelans are getting addicted to. And just like that, there are many spellbound through their phones getting the latest news of this cool Venezuela nobody got to see back in the day.

 

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve seen and had a lot great things; great times, things that, obviously,  trigger our Nostalgia,  otherwise resentment would have swept it all, and I thought it did. I mean, when I was still there, there were a lot who ran away already, and the common grounds for most of them used to be hatred.  An annoying hatred,  to be honest. At that time, I felt more like: go live your life and leave us alone. Now I kind of understand it. I still have my doubts, but certainly it is a process of several and diverse steps. After a while, I became part of those who left as well, and I deal with the pain that what, and who, I missed and left constantly cause me, but also the joy, the joy of being away, of starting over, of a another chance; because there’s joy after those complaints, and a new life ahead too. Only that there’s also a lot of sensitivity, sensitivity born out of such runaways. New resentments have been coming up towards this make believe the government managed to establish… only for a while, That’s what the article was about: that the illusion is fading, like the smoke. Yes. Nevertheless, there must be something going on. It is too much coincidence that this kind of news were brought up in a moment of important political decisions, but on the other hand,  we’ve been fed up for more than twenty years with important political decisions, and here we are, still waiting, with our smoke faith with nothing but disappointment to recall. Third  break, ninety more minutes, and that’s it for the day. There’s a lot going on these days. Some voices are blurring me, and I can’t focus on these words I’m writing about. The room got quiet again. I can think and evocate, close my eyes a little bit and pretend I’m resting wonderfully.  I let my hand go over my neck in an attempt to get some relief but I can’t just let myself go since I may fall asleep and we’re here to work. The vision, my vision, gets blurry. Voices are rising loud again. I want to go home. I hope I can get some rest when I get there. I’m going to need it. Big day tomorrow. Several duties only for a day. I’m still at work, half of an hour to go but it is not now yet. I should use this time more wisely,  but I can’t.  Inspiration doesn’t work that way but at least it will find me working. I believe Picasso said that. We need to keep breaking down our process until we get to that point where we can state, once and for all, that from here – the place once found, whenever that may be – it’s where we can start over, thus help each other, and grow strong as a community. Sometimes I think it won’t be something from our generation. So let’s just help the next ones. I hope this sort written confession statement diary fiction story helps someday, sometimes, at some point. Meanwhile,  let’s keep on letting it go. Time to get a broom and sweep, not fly,  I’m not a witch. I’m home now. I hope I can get some rest right now. 

Fifth page II

 

Time for bed. Not really sleepy, but old enough to get some sleep just by laying down on the bed. That’s kind of like a superpower; the working class superpower: postpone the tiredness until reaching bed time. See you soon, maybe tomorrow. It rained. It looks like it rained last night. Not when I was writing, but it definitely rained. The sunshine is making its way through the clouds. The yellow  and the light blue are trying to put the gray behind,  the white is helping. We could say the sky is dancing, the sky is dancing the song of the birds. Saturday morning. The balcony,  the coffee, this time a little sweet because of the other creamer. I love it, and I can’t help it. Time for a couple of duties. Somehow the sun touches in a gently way the window when it’s shining. Now I can see it. I hadn’t seen it before. Actually I can’t remember myself at home in the living room at this time to acknowledge it. I could say it is something new for me. Led lights are like, making us forget the yellow times; television included. Most of the lights now tend to be white. Late. When we’re late, everything falls apart. What we have left is to make it up for the rest of the day. That’s some sort of a lifestyle. Elvis has left the building. Making it up for rest of the day. A constant improvisation. Monday, Monday. Dark and cold. Autumn is here. Balcony times will be left for memories,  or some other moments during daylight.  Not now. I don’t see it like a spot for writing at this hour, so I’m back to the living room. Indoors,  carpeted, among the mix between some yellow and the white lights. This month is working out, November doesn’t seem too cruel either.  I guess hope is doing its job, at least emotionally, and that’s fine for now. War news are back again. I used to read and think much more about these themes back in Venezuela.  I felt something like: a man of my standards, should know about these things. Geopolitics,  some people call it. Now my standards are others, so I just think about it and smile, not at the war; that’s terrible, at that ten years ago me who’s should be gone by now, or perhaps confided to my memories, and for evocation purposes only. This could work out as some interesting story title: for evocation purposes only. It could actually be an immigrant slogan. At the end of the day, at the end of the shift, that’s what we normally bring up to a conversation: our past life, for evocation purposes indeed. Sighs after that as needed. There’s some irony, and it's kind of like a metaphor came true, the fact that these words take place while I’m about to wipe myself up, I mean, I have to stop talking (writing) about evocation and sighs to clean my ass. This is a very loud and clear message from Life and it’s time to go to work too, by the way. Here I am, enjoying my horizontal projection; that means: same salary, different work. I’m back to that where I can listen to music out loud but there’s no signal for losing myself over social media. Maybe I will be able to write more, I may even try to read some. I have a book in my bag, we’ll see. I’m a little over the thirty thousand words; a bit more, surely.  I went public. Nothing happened,  as I expected. Why would anyone read it? Reading is a very selective thing to do. Those who normally do it, don’t read just anything. There must have been some recommendations beforehand  at least. This is just left to chance, I guess. If something happens to me, the story won’t be complete. It’s a  bit of a dilemma. A no worth dilemma,  but a dilemma whatsoever and after all. A delusion. A delusion I intend to keep, to embrace. There are much more words to add. So let’s keep going.  I just had a great lunch. I love when my wife cooks for me. Now I’m here, listening to Corazón Delator, and getting a nice vibe when he says Los vestigios de una hoguera, because there was fire in that passion, and there they are: the vestiges, denouncing a heart aching, burning, for a love gone. I don’t think a love gone would be a subject during this story. I don’t know.  This immigration wave pours some spice tragedy-comedy sense on it. I was talking to my wife about it. We do suffer, we’re all genuinely in pain for what we left and who we left. It’s just this south-american way of ours, that we must make up a joke out of any disgrace, and therefore get a laughter instead of sympathy. Nevertheless, I don’t think it is sympathy what we’re trying to get from the rest, so maybe the this humor of ours, is not just part of the way we are but more, more than that.

 

Indoors. Bathroom. Weather doesn’t seem to be as cold as yesterday but our mood seems to be bitter nevertheless. This is the kind of town, and routine,  where you need a car for everything,  for anything.  This is not the kind of town where you can take a walk to the bus stop and wait for a few minutes, and perhaps coincide with someone a few times during the month, so you’re able to start a conversation and eventually, get to know each other and finally, stop feeling alone. This is not that place. This is the place where you enter in a seemingly endless loop, by doing the same thing over and over to a point of losing track,  any sort of track. Whichever that may come first. For instance, losing track of memories: ask the same question every time, because you just forgot about it, for an unknown reason, by following this loop I’m talking, of course, you just forgot any of the answers, so you ask and ask like an ever repeated song. Track of time, lost too, prompted to lose it at first, by the way. As it happens, it turns out that you remember what you asked, only not when you did it, so the same words come and go throughout your head; your being, and we start using the same, even for opposite things, and laugh or yell because,  just as toddlers do, we don’t know other words. I heard something about the brain and its condition of use it or lose it, and, we might be losing it. A rolling belt, in a way, very much like those in airports that carry people’s baggage from one place to another. An old rolling belt and its continuous sound. A sound of movement and going nowhere. A sound that comes back where it starts. A cycling sound, a cycling song for the bored and the tired. I’m hidden among the boxes; watching, listening. It’s break time but I’m not hungry. Let’s go down and see the others eat. The day just went by. Wine checked. Good news on one side and some hesitation on the other. That’s how life is. Bed time. Not sleepy. Let’s see. There’s a promise. A promise of progress,  of commitment. Hope finding its way but trust is losing its track. What’s the track of trust, anyway? We get used accept.  But there’s the promise, the wonder. Elvis would say The wonder of you. Who is that you? Is it really you? You may be someone else. Wonder has several approaches. Let’s wonder why. Let’s be wondered by. Now in bed, I want to evocate, I want to imagine, to imagine and touch.  Is it true? Are you for real? Will you wait? Will you miss me? Who knows. Delusion has several faces. Wine is gone by now. Noises. Noises from silence, from the night. From my will for sex. Sex is absorbed by wine sips. Several  glasses for reflection. Am I going to be touched? Good night if not. The garbage truck and its solo under a rainy day. Still dark. Obviously indoors. Only hearing and having this sort of hangover. Things seem to work out. Two love stories came to my understanding. The first one is about a couple, that in order to remain legal, they must join a third party, so to speak. I guess it is the real life version of Sandra Bullock’s romantic comedy: in this case certainly not romantic, nor funny, but a comedy hereinafter. Again, we’re looking for laughter rather than sympathy. The second one, the second couple. This couple got together again in Venezuela after being away from each other for a little while. Only that they went through different things after that while abroad.  Now they are back when they started, surely with a way different mind. This is more a tragedy but it won’t be taken seriously,  so it will become a comedy,  for the amusement of who they left behind at least. Home. Shining afternoon.  Let’s take a nap and get good vibes. We did. We ate out.