Monday 20 June 2011

Let's find out.

All these plans are getting to the realisation stage.
Allow me to tell you how weird it feels to open an envelope and see how two slim numbers reflect all the stress and hard work of a course.
There I was this afternoon, standing in front of a piece of paper I hardly recognised. I tried to go through the intro and the conclusion once again, but I am still sore from the painful process that was to put all those thoughts on paper. I am sore from the mornings that I got up too early, grabbed my coffee and went straight to the office to write. I remembered all the hours I spent in front of the computer, debating with myself, fighting with my clumsy writing, putting in order all the information I gathered during the research period, putting myself together and leave my life aside, let my love leave without saying a proper goodbye. All that to find a little inspiration, a bit of magic that transformed the acquired knowledge into a project.
Today I am still seeing all the weekends I spent in front of the books, my evenings gone with the wind, thinking of the best argumentative lines.
Not just this London adventure. Today, my foreign effort is culminating its first stage and it has materialised in the fulfilled challenge that one day I decided to take long time ago, when, still a child, I decided to pack my cases and and discover my ways of opening the world's secrets.
I am not ready yet to stop and have a closer look at all this. But I feel proud of that person who pushed herself to go ahead, even when the goal seemed too far and the obstacles too overwhelming. I just decided to go on. Maybe then I knew that one day I would be able to look back and wonder at the little marvels of that world I couldn't have imagined.
Today I feel that life still goes fast. I am taking impulse to keep moving, because I just want to know how September will look like. I am so ready to pass to the next stage that this impatience is making me miss the important moments. This moment of getting to the point where all was gonna end when 4 years ago all was just about to start.
Right now I see myself facing many questions that come from all directions, but the most challenging ones are those that arise from my mind and interrogate me about personal and professional aspirations.
I don't think that now there is time to give time. The present calls for action, because looking for excuses is something that belongs to the past. It does not satisfy me to don't know.
So..let's find out.

Saturday 18 June 2011

What reality could possibly offer better than this?

It seems that I still have some capacity to laugh at myself so, why not doing it? It's a healthy exercise to keep the self esteem...or to indulge it somewhow.
It's a kind of twisted gift to know your weaknesses and most stupid mistakes and keep on repeating them entirely consciously.
Actually, I wonder what for we do have a conscience if it does not stop us from committing these little faults. It cannot be that our learning process is so retarded. So I choose to believe that the reason of our clumsiness derives from our love for the known defeat and our masochist longing to taste it, like if its sour flavour was the only thing that could prove how right we are in being wrong.

Never mind. I guess I just have fun being wrong. I'd like to find someone who, just for once (for Pete's sake, just once), was there even when that happened, just to make me feel a bit less stupid. But it must e true: I ask too much.
The truth is that I might not know or have any other way of being. I am the stupid and senseless mistake doer. The idiotic trustee.
On the top of that all I am watching one of my favourite movies with one of my favourite lines ever. I took those words as a personal credo from the very first moment I heard them: "Your heart is free; have the courage to follow it". You know which one I am talking about, don't you?
If not, google is always happy to help.
Some things are too good to be ignored. It's funny they always existed in us, but heard them aloud brings them to light, reassuring us in our stubborn believe of a belonging to a selected club of humans that feel and dream in similar ways. And when it happens, we obviously feel in tune wit the Universe.

But I guess this is it. Why to expect anything else? How naive from us to think that people we love have the capacity to read our minds, to guess our deepest desires, even when they are so simple. .. Even when they refuse to answer a simple question.... We just wish they did. We just wish they loved us back; even for a little while. The problem is that not always we fail for those who can or are able to do it. Such is life.
But, to be honest, making things easy is not an attractive rule for this game, simply because the game would become unworthy. When gambling we can loose it all. It's a possibility we must be ready to face.
The question is... Do we ever get tired of playing?

PS. Thanks for never answering to my questions. Wondering leaves room for specualtion and imagination... For arguments....And, eventually, obvlivion (what a pity. It could have been such a good one. Did we care what they thought?). In the majority of cases, that's more than reality could possibly offer.

Friday 17 June 2011

Forever S.

I cannot pretend. Not even to myself. Who am I trying to fool? I do belong here, where a missing feeling can be cured by simply pressing play and letting your voice take me back home; where home is not so far away.
I carry that bloody country in my blood, in my thoughts...it's me. It's in my heart. It over takes all my self, leaving no space for anything else. It's axfisitating, like the greyness that today covers all: The sky and the hopes as soon as you turn the paper pages...From section to section, all their words talk about a sinking ship. They are like tenacious lyrics, repeating themselves till we come to take them as prophecies impossible to avoid. Too bad if you do not believe in destiny, because the future is foretold and there's no place left to run.
And in this agonizing atmosphere where the future is as black as the better Stone's song, I feel like playing the violin, as if I was one of the Titanic musicians, letting go and remaining till the end is night.
All these years walking on my line to find a way back, and I just came to realise that there is no way back. Every day I spent away from you, took me closer to a goal where your name is not inscribed, though it remains in the background like a promise to be fulfilled. Will I be ever able to go back to you? Have I ever left you?
It tortures me to hear from alien mouths words that hurt and degrade you. And when that happens, all I want to do is to slain the throats of those who dare to treat you like that. There are some lines we trace that none should cross. There are some lines too difficult to erase, some sacred sacraments in a godless world that had lost its faith that none should question.
And all I've got right now is my faith in you. I embrace it like a loaf of wood in the largest of the oceans where I found myself cast away.
I'll go with you if you decide to go down or if the rest of the world wants to take you there. Never mind how down. I'll follow you till the end. I am as much as your child as you are mine.
I want them to love you like I do, to see you with my eyes. But I find myself unable to transmit this energy that bounds us together. The way we belong to each other...I should wish this pain to none. I feel envious and pride of the pleasures you give to those who know how to find and understand you. We do not need anyone else.
I do not have the patient to explain the paradise no longer. Forgive me if I ever doubted you. Your soil is all that makes sense when everything else has lost its meaning.
Even for this nomad soul. Even for an eternal pilgrim, there must be a place called home. And that's where we are heading, never mind we are far in a physical distance. Home is you, it's here and now.

So if you ever felt like that, sing it to me once again. With that voice of yours like no other. Talk to me about love, like only you understand it and feel it, with that passion we do not know how to live without. They'll take it all, but we'll never surrender it. So, till you allow me to be yours, I will be yours forever.

Thursday 9 June 2011

Jackson

Jackson.
This song was in my head all day long; I couldn't stop singing it.
It obviously made me think of you. How curious...My memory fighting against the inevitable oblivion,, stubbornly resisting against it.
I wonder if I still exist in your mind; if, by surprise, I appear in any of your thoughts at any point of your days or nights, when you less expect it, while you prepare to go to work or when a random song plays on the radio...; most probably you have forgotten about the short distance that played against us since the first moment we met. You might have forgotten about me. If that's the case, nothing of this should have sense. But, the problem is that all this refuses to leave me in peace. It throwed me up to heaven and now I am in my solo crashing down to the ground.
You'll never know how hard I tried to kill that distance that ended up by killing me. You won't know how much I fought the fear to cross the border of few steps that kept us apart. Such a small distance...I would never had guessed it took all that courage to face and defeat.
But that's a small confession for a dangerous mind that will dare to keep it secret, away from suspicion and bad judgements. That's a confession for time's mind.
Of all the few moments we shared, I do remember one in particular: You, pressing your head against my shoulder in a very sweet gesture that made me want to hold you and never let you go. That moment, like all good and magical moments, lasted only for a whisper, but i knew I'll always remember it.
When it passed, I thought my eyes had revealed to everyone in that room the brutal desire I felt for you. I thought it was obvious, because I felt my soul flooding the air, stopping time, crashing the words they were being freed in the space. It seemed to me that the beating of my heart was marching like crazy, calling to war...But none moved. Not even me. I got paralysed. I was scared to break the spell, to bursts into flames ignited by your lighlty touch... That's how much I needed...That's how much you gave me with don't even knowing.

Some times my hands long so bad for your touch that it hurts and nothing or none can save me from that pain. I have to breath calmly into the night and embrace that memory, sing it a lullaby till it goes to sleep and allows me to rest. Some days I miss you so much that...I just wish you were here. And there's nothing I can do about it.

Sunday 5 June 2011

La Union

Dice un articulo de El Pais que, segun las encuestas, la mayor parte de los ciudadanos de Espana apoyan el movimiento de los indignados; si seguimos leyendo el articulo tambien se menciona que dichas encuestas reflejan la incredulidad de la gente en que el movimiento se radicalice y concluye con que, en muy poco tiempo, nadie se acordara de que estas manifestaciones existieron.
Supongo que las encuestas tienen su parte de razon, pero los politologos sabemos que de ellas no se pueden sacar conclusiones definitivas. Sirven para apoyar ciertas conjeturas, pero los resultados no pueden generalizarse ni tomarse por verdades concluyentes. Nos dan una aproximacion a la realidad.
Por eso, aunque no es definitiva, me asusta esa sensacion de derrota, de abondono, de abulia que parece ser que es lo unico que arraiga en esta Europa tan moderna de la que todos queremos sacar beneficio pero muy pocos estamos dispuestos a aportar constructivamente aquello de lo que carece: Alma social y conciencia humanista.
Cada uno de los paises que componen la Union tiene un pasado riquisimo en heroes y villanos, y cada nacionalidad soberana presume, con cierto henchido orgullo, de que los suyos son los mas sabios y los mas sanguinarios; no importa las cualidades que se pongan en tela de juicio. Lo que hay que dejar bien claro, acentuadolo hasta la quinta potencia, es ese MAS ridiculo e inutil que pnsamos nos situa en un lugar privilegiado en la escala de popularidad y prestigio de esta Europa que cada vez me hace dudar mas de su apellido que la nombra Unida.
Si esta Union nacio de un impetu de hermandad y prosperidad, se esta torciendo su rumbo, al pujar sus timones en direcciones opuestas.
La solucion no puede cocerse exclusivamnete en Bruselas. Esa masa burocratica de expertos, no son como los dioses del Olimpo; se equivocan a pesar de que las intenciones sean buenas; a veces nos engagnan piadosamente porque han bebido y conocen que el despotismo ilustrado esta justificado para poner en marcha ciertas politicas. En ocasiones son Maquiavelicos y en otras benignos monarcas que se alardan de ese espiritu democratico inyectado por Monet.
Respaladan su insuficiente transparencia en la publicacion de sus decisiones. Pero, a caso un ciudadano no educado o motivado, bien sea Sueco, Espanol, Polaco o Aleman puede realmente entender las tramas Bruselianas que deciden nuestros destinos entre bamabalinas, dandonos un guion demasiado complejo para que entendamos nuestro papel a desempegnar? Como afrontamos esa ignorancia? como alimentamos en el individuo comun el deseo de construir, de ser parte, de ser sujeto y no mero objeto?

No somos conejillos de indias!!! Somos personas que queremos y tenemos el derecho a disfrtuar de la vida que nos han vendido. No somos idealistas o ilusos por querer y creer en que la abundancia de este lado puede ser compartida.
Somos humanos. No solo estamos para recibir ordenes y pagar las consecuencias de los errores. Pero tampoco etamos aqui exclusivamnete para recoger los frutos. No estamos exentos de responsabilidad, mi intencion no es la de poner la culpa en la cuspide de la piramide.
Si en verdad quermos que le barco avance, requerira esfuerzo y dedicacion. Conllevara alguna que otra alegria en medio de muchas penas. Pero todos estamos a bordo, y de todos depende que llegue a ese puerto que visualizaron nuestros padres. Para ellos, nosotros y los que estan llegando y llegaran.

Que pensemos que la indignacion se extinguira como si fuese una llama predestinada a perecer en los vientos de la adversidad, es aceptar un derrota sin darle a la victora una sola oportunidad.
Valemos mas que eso. Que les quede claro. Que nos quede claro.
Raquel

Saturday 4 June 2011

A weird dream...But is still London.

I woke up today after having the weirdest dream ever.
I need to experiment more with alcohol drinking, because this kind of dreams only happen after several glasses of wine.
Anyway, in my very vivid dream a couple of Indians were declared English Royalty, and what it was weird was that English people seemed to accept it. I mean...Suddenly things were all so different in London. The city looked more like Bombay, and all I was concerned about was Buckingham Palace! Were they gonna turn it into a Taj Mahal thing? What happened with William and Katie? Weren't they gonna fight for their rights? How people could accept as king and Queen someone who did not belong to the Royal family? From one day to the other, everything went "East": Tv, food, dressing codes...
Suddenly I am on a plane towards America. And I am concerned about the amount of hours I have to spend inside there, but I get to meet a business man from Denmark who is complaining about the crisis and does not stop calling his colleagues at the bank to keep an eye on his finances. Somehow I get friends with him and explain him I've got plenty of friends in his country, so he starts calling someone over there to ask if they know those people.
A friend of mine is also there, asking me how I am doing, and three seats ahead of us, a group of Southern Spanish boys that are in their way to NY to keep on working in this toy's shop, throw me a teddy bear, and my friend tells me to stop flirting with them.
Then, another male friend of mine, comes and join us. He's wearing a taggy woman's dress and starts flirting with the Danish guy...So I start to ask him what the fuck is he doing. 5 minutes later they disappear into the bathrooms.

And then,...I think it was something else, but I cannot remember it. I woke up.
Today is Saturday and London still looks like London.
In the news, more or less the same stuff. Well, Nadal made it to the final of the French Tournament, and he'll measure his strenght with Federer. Another unique final between the greatest!!!
I feel weird after having finished my University. After 4 years mentally attached to this duty, to deadlines, articles to fight with, critical thinking merging from the nothingness to never let me go, finding a completely different universe, meeting very interesting people who showed me where my passion really lies...It's weird to wake up today and find out that that process has been partially and officially completed.
Now, instead of writing about strange dreams, I should be applying for a job, looking for a flat or a plane ticket somewhere exotic. I still feel that so many things in my life are waiting for me to do them... I don't want to waste my time, but I don't know where to start from.
I keep on telling myself that after the foreign uni replies, things will be different. And they will. Whatever their answer is.

So by now, I've decided to continue my reading of all the stories that patiently waited for me all this time. I am going to SA with Vargas Llosa and to Kenya with Blixen.
I've decided that I need to focus this energy and keep going, keep moving, as Robb told me yesterday in the same pub where we went for "victory" drinks after our first last exam of the year...Amazing, but time brought us back there 4 years later...And we raised our glasses to cheers for that!!
Not even one of us was the same... We seemed completed, happy, proud and anxious to find us in the next stop of our lives.
I am ready for the ride!