Digging Me (Part One)

B

ut there was something else I wanted to say, something else I had to tell; a story kept for too long which turns my nights into endless nightmares. The exact circumstances are of no importance, though you as a reader may like to know. But then I ask you, should we call a given event differently just because of the circumstances? We may consider it from another perspective, analyze it under a different light, but the essence won’t change. There’s not much time. Or so I believe. How I got here, I don’t know, I can’t remember. What I’m sure of is the way I’m leaving this place, this torment which started before it began.

My life was good, or wasn’t it? I had everything I had always longed for, a nice big house, a fast car, the perfect job, health as strong as steel, and a loving family, a loving family, sounds funny. However, I wasn’t happy. And it’s not that I meant to be cheerful 24/7, but not even a moment’s joy was I allowed. How I realized this, I’m not certain, I just became aware. It was as when you’ve been with your eyes closed for too long and then, when you open them, the bright is too intense and it blinds you. Reality did that to me. I hit a wall, a five meters high wall. But I put up with it, and got over it, or so I think.

It was at night, it was a night’s nights. Not a breath could be heard, not a shadow differentiated from the darkness, and the heath was suffocating me. I had to put an end to it all. Reflection when away for a long time hurts, it startles. I was alive and I became conscious of it. All the years before it I was not living my life, I’m aware now. My senses became sharper. There’s not much time left. As I was going downstairs, it was like descending right to hell, or whatever the way you call it. I descended with hesitating determination, my hands sweating life, my heart pumping crimson blood. The carpet succumbed under my heavy boiling steps. It didn’t take long before I had gripped it. My life hasn’t been the same since then.

If only my thoughts could be hushed. Someone’s approaching…

My Grandma’s Rocking Chair

http://media.photobucket.com

I loved going to my grandma’s house during the summer. It was sited in the entrance of a long forgotten road that led to an analogous town. The house itself was not an outstanding building, it had its years, and it was made of adobe, very rustic. What captivated me were the smells, the sensations, the secrecy all around. Every year I went, everything was at the same time familiar and new to me.  There was not much to do but I was always busy. I liked feeding the hens, climbing the damask tree or the vine, and searching ancient treasures in every nook and cranny. I changed every time I went there; the country side made of me a different child than that that lived in the city. Simple everyday things fascinated me. I remember gazing at my grandmother while she sat in her rocking chair to knit. Sometimes she would sit there for an hour and knit a whole sleeve, drawing charming patterns I would not understand. It was usually at 18:30 that she stood up and prepared something for me and my siblings to eat. However, I would not go after her all at once, for it was when she stood up that I witnessed what no one else ever did. My grandma’s rocking chair started moving to and fro in a steady motion. When the movement began fainting, to my amazement, it would begin again and more intense than before. If someone came, I’d remove my eyes away from the chair only to find, when I set my eyes on it again that it had stopped moving. Each afternoon I sat on the floor waiting for my grandmother to go to the kitchen so I could start the scrutiny of the peculiar phenomenon. Each summer I would do the same. Each summer till my grandmother passed away. When it happened that, my mother decided not to go to my grandmother’s house any longer.

Many years have elapsed since then. I can but recollect the smells, the sensations, and the secrecies, my secret. The rocking chair is at home now, in the parlor. Every now and then, at night, I can hear the creaking sound of the old wood of the chair, and I know my grandmother’s there, knitting beautiful patterns. It is my secret.

She is...

Regarding her nature, many things have been said. Many a man has tried to capture her; none of them could. They just twisted her, shaped her, and turned her into an art. You can hear her clamor wherever you are, at any time –silence only strengthens her-. You can see her moving up and down, in whites and blacks. But mostly you can feel her, don’t try to understand her, or explain her; it’s of no use. She longs to be felt. She’s got shape. She’s wavy and robust, but she’s delicate and elusive. She is intense. Sublime. She gets you on your nerves. She eases your pain or makes it flourish as sorrow. She buries your body and lifts your soul. Don’t look for her, you won’t find her. She’s everywhere, in words and numbers, in the water and in the air, in the Earth and in the Space. What would we do without her?

They call her MUSIC.

This is one of my favorite, if not my favorite, piece of classical music. Aria by Johann Sebastian Bach. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6WZmsDtyYo. I lack the words to describe it, but I can tell you that it produces in me a strange feeling of happiness and sadness. Nostalgia?

What kind of music lifts your soul?

Haiku to Our Words

The restlessness of not finding the precise words for expressing that feeling that creeps up on your guts as the desperation of the man who is underwater struggling for a gasp for breath. The inability to convey a corporeal existence to a wide range of inner and outer experiences due to a rather limited set of words. Doubts, misunderstandings, anger, forgiveness, all feelings bound to our capacity of making ourselves understood.

The leaf that falls down

The words that will not come out

The world passes by.

Even though it’s true that every so often we run out of words, some other times we are seized by an unstoppable flood of words that need to find their way out of our bodies –at least it happens to me- and it is then when we have to let our hand be guided through the sheet of paper whichever be the result. And every now and then I wonder what my relationship with them is, are they mine? What words define me? Do English words belong to me? To us? What about Spanish words?

Sensations nab us

Our hearts start weeping out loud

I hear you no more.

Words are at our service; they can’t limit us, or at least they shouldn’t. We produce them and forget them.

The above short poems are called haiku. Haikus are originally from Japan. A characteristic is that they use a very simple grammar and they should have 5 sound units in the first line, 7 in the second, and 5 in the last one. In Japanese, most of the times, if not always, they have a word that refers to the seasons, in English it’s been changed. I challenge you to write one as a comment in which you express how words make you feel. If you cannot think of one, just share a word you like because of its sound or because of its meaning.

When it’s more than You Can Bear

I usually go through the latest news before writing a new post; if there’s something I’m especially interested in, I define what my thoughts are regarding that fact or event, and then I consider the possibility of hurting somebody’s susceptibility. If the news passes those tests, only then I deem it bloggable.

Today, it was not an exception. I revised the most important events of these last couple of weeks and I decided that once again I would post something we can all agree on. Bullying must stop. You may think “of course, that’s something obvious”, but some other people regard bullying as an issue to which much importance should not be given; alleging that we would be making a mountain out of a molehill, and that the percentage of people who suffer from bullying is too small, thence inconsequential. Then I ask myself, is a 14 year-old kid’s life neglectable? I think not. Nobody’s is. Then, why was he left to die? Jamey Rodemeyer committed suicide. In a way, he was bullied to death; and like him, many others have been and will be bullied unless people’s minds start changing.

And when I say start changing, I don’t mean start tolerating (though is the least some people could do), I mean to start celebrating differences. How difficult is it to see the human being behind a distinctive feature or trait? How difficult is it to accept that in the end we are all equals? With the title of this post I wanted to reflect the inability to put down into words the impotence that produces in me when things like this occur. It’s the twenty first century people!

Sadly enough, it’s too late for Jamey. No words could alleviate his parent’s grief, that’s for sure. Though his mom seems to have found a consolation:

We're convinced he had a purpose on this planet, and it was to touch as many people as he could. [...] I think that was my son's #1 mission in life, why he was put here a short time, was to get that point out. And if I have to carry that for him, I will.

          

They say time’s a healer.

Jamey’s tumblr: http://hausofjamey.tumblr.com/

A blog worth reading: http://www.blogher.com/when-it-doesnt-get-better-more-bullying-another-suicide?page=full

One of a Kind

As the sunshine enters through the window panes, the alarm clock tells you that it is time to get up. Nothing seems to be out of place today, everything’s still, utterly still. While you’re having breakfast, you turn the TV on- as you do every morning- to see the latest news and today's weather forecast, hoping it’ll be a bright sunny day. Strangely enough, all live channels are showing nothing today. After a bit of channel surfing you stop on one of those channels which show exotic plants and animals you’ve never seen before. This time, they are talking about the Geochelone elephantopus abingdoni or Pinta tortoises in common language. What is it special about these giant tortoises, you wonder. Well, besides reaching weights of more than 400 kg, lengths of over 1.8 meters and having a life span of at least 170 years in captivity, there is something that makes Pinta tortoises even more unusual, singular and unique. There is only one specimen left. Lonesome George, as he is worldwide known, is the last of the abingdoni subspecies of Galápagos tortoise. Can you see how exceptional he is now? Vain attempts of matting him with females of other subspecies have been made since the 1970s. It is believed that he already is 100 years old or so but he keeps fit, he should be able to procreate yet.

http://daughterearth.com/blog/2008/10/lonesome-george/

Back to your reality, you realize that you haven’t seen your mother yet, for she is usually up at this time. Fear to become a Lonesome takes over your mind; you let the cup of coffee fall off your hand and go running to your parents’ room. There’s no body there, everything’s ordered, but your parents and your brother are not at home, and the car’s in the garage; where are they? By now you are already agitated, and you eyes are watery; when you reach the front door and unlock it, the first tear starts to roll down you cheek. No signs of civilized life around you while you are shouting your mother’s name in the middle of the street. You would dread to be the last of your species. In the safety of your little room, you frantically look for your mobile phone; it doesn’t work. An overwhelming nausea invades your body, and then you faint.

When you finally open your eyes, your mother’s tender sight is the first thing you see. They have been out with your brother doing some shopping, and as there was a problem with the sewer, they didn’t go by car this time; the street was closed. Afterward, you remember that you didn’t pay the phone bill, and your mother tells you that she will miss the soup-opera because there are some problems with the terrestrial broadcasting. You feel relieved. You won’t have to mate with a subspecies, a chimpanzee maybe?

Your day develops with normality. Lonesome George is kilometers away from you. There are people taking care of him. You don’t have to worry. You don’t even allow yourself a moment to stop and think how he feels. After all he’s a primitive reptile. The last of his kind. Who’s knocking the door?

If you want to know more about George check this link; http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/george.html

Lessons Learned

It’s already been 66 years since the United States dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To commemorate all those that died in that fateful event, thousands of paper lanterns were lit on Motoyasu River in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome, which is near Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Up to date, there have been over 500,000 casualties, half of them civilians, and a large number of people suffer from leukemia and cancer. Then one wonders, after an event as such, why is nuclear energy still produced and fostered?

Not completely recovered from the consequences of the bombing more than half a century ago, last March 11^th, 2011 an earthquake and a tsunami hit Japan, both of them which will be remembered as the most devastating natural disasters that have ever hit the country (at least up to now). But that is not it; as a result of these catastrophes Fukushima’s Nuclear Power Station got overheated, releasing radioactive material to the atmosphere and to the ocean. And it was just a week ago that the first case of radioactive contamination in rice was found.

Acknowledging the dangers of nuclear power, used as a weapon or as a source of energy, shouldn’t we all be striving for the development of more efficient methods of renewable eco-friendly energy? I know there are countries which depend on nuclear power (the US for instance), but isn’t it worth to invest some more money on sources of energy which don’t produce waste?

Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan declared in May that their country will leave behind the idea of constructing new nuclear reactors. Let it be a milestone so that other countries get going with the development of alternative energy. In the meantime the number of lanterns on Motoyasu River will continue increasing in the following years.

Image taken from : http://noticias.latino.msn.com/semanaenimagenes/fotos.aspx?cp-documentid=29985722&page=7