The Revolutionary

Fort the past two weeks I have been living in a quiet world. I have been in the farm, with windy, cool weather, laced with rainy days, and have spent more and more time in my own head. Most of the time I am alone with the dogs (mostly because I take long walks and stay up until past dawn) and have been thinking a lot about a new idea for a story. It is called The Revolutionary, and it is almost completely inspired by my family.

I know that every family (as in the nucleus; parents, siblings, and maybe the closest of grandparents) has its own uniqueness, its own problems and characters, but sometimes I think that mine is a little more peculiar than most. I guess it´s not really that I believe it, but, on occasion, I am struck by how true the idea might be, particularly when I spend a long period of time alone with them, as I have done for the past month. Lately it´s been a recurring theme in the ghosts of my thoughts ever since Sara shared her view on them a little more than a week ago, on Sunday, when we spent all day in bed, exhausted and fucked up and high, talking and staring into space with our thoughts like stars and black holes in our minds. There are very, very few people I like talking to as much as Sara, because she holds the dynamic combination of being of my same age (and therefore often in the same types of situation as I find myself in), being completely, completely different from me, and yet being the person that knows me the most. Far more, I think, than anybody ever has. And, I sometimes think, better than anybody ever will.

On top of her outsider´s perspective on the madness that is the Bas family, with my wonderful Maestre mother thrown in for good measure, I had a moment with my Grandmother that only inspired my thoughts of us even more. It was during one of our family meals; Paella and laughter and loud voiced talk, and there were even more people congregated, since a few of the Bas family had also joined the fray. I was sitting outside in the Spring sun with of few of my Maestre cousins, my Grandmother, and two little Bas children-of-cousins who had previously been running around Uncle Javier´s eclectic ´garden´ and come back with two pairs of tiny little hands covered with tiny little snails. We had all been playing around with them on the table, and I was entertained with my own beautiful little snail and its strange, translucent shell and curious eyes, when Grandma grabs of few of the snails, stares at them, looks at me, jerks her heads towards the children and says,

“Where do you think these sons of bitches have found all these bloody snails?”

I blinked at her and then had to burst out laughing because it was such a Grandma comment, blunt and rough but perfectly harmless in its intention.

The idea for the story, however, really began to bloom from my Father´s recent activities, which have been aimed at causing a revolution in Spain, and that phrase is in no way or from an exaggeration. Actually, today he told me he was completely certain the CIA has been tracking his online movements, and my dad isn´t even a paranoid nut. I just think he really wants to live in a world where creating a fake Facebook account and spreading ideas of revolution on the internet will change the world.

And, more than anything in the world, I want to believe him.

Sometimes I feel detached from the notion, but it has been increasingly clear that we live in an age that screams, that begs and pleads, for change. For real, real change. The economic crisis that has taken over the world isn´t a raining or frogs, it isn´t and earthquake or a volcano or the buildup of 2012. The causes aren´t some mystery, and it hasn´t come from the earth or the sky. It has been us, all of us, our system, our failure, our addiction to creature comforts and the inevitable existence of corruption. And in Spain, we have it bad. I´m not going to get into it, but our ´democratic´ system is different from that in Britain or America, and it is made to breed corruption, because it allows the people in power to be chosen far more by the people already in power than the actual people. And so connections and favoritism plays a heavy hand in our political system, and forgoes the part where the big shots have to go to the townspeople and explain their actions and their consequences. And I´m not a conspiracy theorist, far from it actually, I hate it when people just blame everything in the politicians and are never satisfied without actually knowing what the problem is or how the hell to solve it. But my dad does know where the problem is, and does have ideas of how to make it better. And, most importantly of all, he actually IS trying to make it better, by contacting all the reliable news outlets and movement webpages he can think of. Sometimes I stand quietly in the kitchen and watch him type furiously away at the computer and am so glad to know that I am more like him in character than anybody else I know. Every now and again my Dad and I will scream at each other for three minutes and one of us will storm out and I will fume in my room about what an absolute hypocritical ass he can be. And then a few hours later when we next see each other it´s as if nothing has happened. And not because we repress it (the idea of either my father or me repressing anything is actually hilarious) but because that’s the way we are. Completely incapable of holding grudged, and more explosive than most land mines. And to be honest, I really believe it´s because we are such passionate people. Because we want to do so badly, we want to know, we want to give everything, everything we have for the things we love. I sometimes wonder if passion really has to be so damn loud, so burning, so consuming. Can´t it be quiet? Can´t it be hard and solid like stone instead of some kind of wildfire? But I just can´t picture it. Determination, perseverance, sure. Call it something else, something just as special and wonderful. But not passion. Passion can´t be kept under wraps. And maybe I´m wrong, maybe I´m just biased because I´m such a damn nutter, and if there is a trick to be passionate and not burst every now and then in some wild, foaming, trembling show of emotion and frustration and want, then I really don´t think I´ll ever get the hang of it. And I plan to spend at least a few month of my life in some green corner of the world where Monks live and try to learn to be calm and serene and controllable. Learn how to go against my nature because change is necessary for growth. But I know that maybe one day I´ll be able to be CALM DOWN AND CARRY ON when necessary, but people don´t really change, not in the deepest of insides. My first impulse will always be like this.

But I´m ok with that.

Jesus I like talking about myself on here. The point actually was that today I had a long talk about this revolutionary movement (spurred on by the manifestations going on all over Spain in the face of the elections) with my Dad and Uncle Javier, who are both very wise, and, though they are as different as Sara and I, I can see why they are such good friends.

The talk was a lot about my lack of faith in people VS. what needs to be done. Because, why aren´t we, the young generation, standing up and fucking doing something about all this? I mean, please, anybody who reads this, go watch “The Inside Job” (a documentary explaining the nature and cause of the Economic Crisis) and tell me that it isn´t the most fucked up situation you have ever seen. And usually I am weary of documentaries that are all about going against something, mostly because my bullshit detector has been trained to spot when something is taken out of context to make a point. And to be honest, when I started to watch the film, which began with just snippets of conversation from different people in varying levels of power, I though, here we go, just some out of context, controversial bunch of facts that will leave me dubious and unsatisfied. But, hell no, this isn´t a Michael Moore film (and yes, I know Fahrenheit 9/11 is shocking and revelatory and that anybody who watches it will want to throw a shoe or possibly a grenade at Bush, but there were points in it in which I just though oh please, is this necessary? Breast milk? Lone policemen on the countryside? Just some pick-n-choose cases to make something that is already awful enough unnecessarily more controversial). The Inside Job was factual and progressive and sickening and when I watched it I stopped reading the news because seeing how powerful and untouchable people in power are is like realizing how unspeakably enormous space is, how unimaginably unalterable it is for us. But, today, talking to Uncle Javier gave me hope, made me believe again, because we can always do something. Wars always seem that they will go on forever until they stop.

After that little chat I went to my room and watched The Pianist, which is sent in WWII, and cried desperately during it, like I haven´t in a film for ages. There is scene in which the protagonist´s family is watching as the Gestapo climb up the stairs to the apartment in the building across from them. The German soldiers open the door and shout at the Jewish family they find eating around the table to get up. But one of them, and old man, is wheelchair-ridden, and cannot follow the orders. And so, without preamble, they throw him out the window, to his death. One of the women in the movie screamed, and I sat up straight, clenched my fists trembled and trembled as I started to cry. Because that was real. Maybe not that particular scene, but the idea of it, the level of cruelty, it is not fiction. It is History. And I thought about the fucking mess in Iraq, about the greedy little men in power, about the patients I saw who were wondering how they were going to feed their families now. Is this what we are all capable of? I though. Is this what the human race does? What it has done, and will do again? It suddenly seemed so real. Everything was suddenly so damn tangible, so ugly and apparent and inescapable. I looked at Yuka then, my gorgeous, intelligent dog, sleeping on the bed next to mine, and saw, as clear as a chasm between us, how very different humans will always be from every other species. I felt helpless to really change anything. And it´s ironic, because the original idea of this story of mine, The Revolutionary, is based on a character that wants to do something, wants to change the world, and finds themselves incapable of doing so, only to be shown by their family that we are all responsible for our own world, that the people we meet, the things we say and the ideas we express every day are, in their own right, able to change the world around us. That we do not have to be some great figure, some face on a T-shirt or a name in a hundred history books, to make a difference.

Amazing how I can digress completely from what I wanted to talk about and still make the point I wanted to get across! This blog post has grown in a ridiculously sized monster, and I apologize. It is just that I spend so much time thinking, here. I will lay on my bed and listen to music and just think. And the more I get into my head the more I find it will be impossible to return to society. I just want to run farther and farther into the woods. And it´s not that I´m hiding, I simply feel myself detaching, sometimes. And ever since I came to Spain to spend the year I have learnt how much who we are depends on the culture we are in. Because I may be deemed fairly outgoing in the conservative nature of Britain, but in Spain I´m positively introverted. More times than wanted have I been in a group of people I have just met and someone has turned to me and said something like “well say something!” or “I can tell you´re not very open” and actually my mum told me I´m not naturally very sociable, and my brother said I had grown, over the past three years, to me much more quiet and “mysterious”, the latter of which baffled me completely. And as a knee-jerk reaction I protested, but it´s made me think. Because I like being with people, I love talking, really talking to them, I love going out and being a crazy dancing fool. But maybe I´m not cut out for it. Like I´m meant for something else. And I need a constant dose of adrenaline rushes (lately I´ve taken to helping Yuka hunt rabbits, which may or may not involve me barking, and am setting up something to go bungee jumping. Go figure.) But I also seem to slip too easily into this pensive slash explosive Marina which is such a fucking mad combination I´m really not surprised I feel so inexplicably sad sometimes and yet seem to entertain myself endlessly whilst doing pretty much nothing.

I don´t know what´s up with the doom and gloom that has taken over this blog. I hope it doesn´t seem too gloom and doomy. I´m actually, genuinely happy about everything here. I just talk serious.

Anyways, I have no bloody clue who still reads this or if anybody reads this at all, but I know it´s exam time for most of you so good luck with that. And I´m not adding a ´suckers´ at the end of it because I´m such a wonderful person, be grateful for my magnanimity!!

Ok, almost 9 am. Great. Who needs more than 4 hours of sleep anyways? Not me!

I run on crazy, not sleep.

A soul that leaks

It is raining softly in Spain, and the sound of it calls for the warmest of cigarettes, for the songs of Bon Iver, for in every one of them something is falling; be it rain, or snow, or spirits. I looked out at the gloom and the puddles that glowed in the night, and thought about how people have souls that leak. How it is inevitable, in our skin and in our bones, that we are unable to be satisfied for long. How we can all find something that will fill us for a while, but we soon realize that the feeling of it drips away until we need something more. A new rush, a new touch, a new sense of life. Maybe that´s what evolution meant for us, what our society is built on. Because I often get the sense that, to be happy, we need the sense of going forward. Need more knowledge, to feel more, to be more.

A week ago I had one of those days when I just feel sad, those kind of days that everybody gets, when it´s suddenly apparent that all the fresh air and the pretty trees where fine a moment ago, but you´ve just realized you´re lost, lost in the forest and you don´t know how you´re going to get out. And suddenly you´re scared because you realize that it´s not that you want to escape the jungle, it´s just that you want a patch that you like (at least for a little while) and that´s just…so much harder to find. I stopped and looked and all I saw was that my soul had finished leaking, and there just wasn´t enough pouring in anymore. And I guess I learnt a lot from what was left inside me, because all I felt was alone.

And doesn´t that tell you so much of how we work?

But Sara was there, she is always there these days, and it was perfect because when I started crying, harder, harder than I have in a long while (“Because, God, why can´t I stop my soul from leaking so quickly, I´m scared because if this doesn´t make me happy, and that doesn´t make me happy, then what, where, is it me, is it everything else) she didn´t really say anything to fix anything, she didn´t give me a solution, didn´t even really try and point me in the right direction. She just understood. She just hugged me and got it and I went to my room and just…felt better. And I can´t quite find a word to describe how that felt like. It was amazing, but not in the way that fireworks and concerts and loud laughter is amazing. It was amazing like a kiss at the corner of your lips can be amazing, how a look, or one squeeze of your fingers, or a soft, soft summer breeze can be amazing.

That whole kind of mood seeped into the day after that when we went to see Matt Elliot live. He is a man made of ghosts. The sounds he makes are haunted, are ragged and raw and as animalistic as pain and lust and hunger. The very force of him is overwhelming. Sara and I stepped out of the concert so subdued we didn´t say a word to each other the rest of the night except for good night. No other sound could be made after him.

It was just that beautiful.

Quietly, I have to admit that there is a little awkwardness in my fingers as I type this, because I´ve never really written a real-life sad moment in the blog before. But I think sometimes it´s nice to peek into the softer, the bluer side of people. It makes them seem more human, somehow. More touchable. More here.

Regardless, the truth is that I´m really quite happy at the moment. This week in El Campo has been quite, quite perfect. Perfect because nothing BIG has happened. The weather has been dull and our eyes sleepy, and we have fallen into our most natural routine. Fur and walks and siestas during the day time, and long, long nights all crumpled and stretched out on my bed, listening to music on my silky speakers, having those long conversations that I feed my leaking soul like desert water. It was exactly what I needed. Those moments that you sometimes see in movies that make you feel warm and soft inside, only that they´re now, right here; all of us outside under the stars, laughing and counting comets, the music around us, always.

Those are the kinds of things that make me find myself in the jungle.

I am happy. But, still, there is a line in Song to a Siren that always, always makes the air stutter inside my lungs. That always makes my eyes narrow slightly with the shadow of some soft pain. The strange, awkward phrase always hits that inch too close to home.

I am as puzzled as the oyster,

I am as troubled as the tide.

all tongues and brain

I was just thinking about how I liked that the expression “over and over” repeats “over” twice, instead of it being something like “multioverover”. How the words themselves reflected what they try to express. Which in turn reminded me of the book “1984”, which is the scariest thing I´ve ever read. The book that birthed the idea of Big Brother, about a society watched, and guarded, and controlled, in all the ways possible to imagine. There was a conversation in the book which described how the government intended to produce a new and revised dictionary which´s aim was to reduce human language as much as possible, to the most basic of words. Eradicating adjectives, expressions, synonyms, in order to contain not only the capability of speech, but of thought. Our capacity to form capable opinions, and the arguments to support these, would be cut down to what they gave us, and at the same time any rebel would be quick to catch because, necessarily, they would have to search for those absent syllables in order to find what was missing in that freedom deprived world. The very idea of it almost made me sicker than that scene in “American Psycho” in which he kills the beggar and dog, almost making me stop reading because it was so wrong, so wretched, and at the same time so real, with that dispassionate and aloof tone that Bret Easton Elis uses so well to describe desolate souls and nauseating actions. But I´m getting distracted again by my own course of though…again :). We can call it “scenic route writing”. (Ps. There´s a cat meowing non stop outside, with that kind of low tone that makes me think it´s stuck somewhere, possibly (judging by where the sound is coming from) the roof of the building opposite mine, which limits my cat-hero abilities considerably. Damn, where is a radioactive spider when you need it!?)

Back to point A. The whole idea of language being able to control us only highlighted how important it is to human kind, an idea I thought about a lot when having lectures related to language acquisition last year. They showed us studies, with subjects as young as fetuses and infants (by measuring how their sucking and heart rates altered when noticing changes in their environment, and so being able to see what changes they could actually perceive and, more interestingly, which changes they were most interested in, judging by how long the heart rate/sucking acceleration lasted.). These studies revealed our preference to complex sonorous stimuli, our categorical perception, which leads us to selective recognition of phonemes in any language to start off with, and then specialize in our own. We also studied how vulnerable the development of full language capabilities are to damage; how the scars that early trauma can cause in language development can be deep and ugly. Our brain needs nurture and time to settle fully in the intricacies of language- we have built networks around, with, the use of it. Even deaf children with speaking parents develop crude sign language (much like a “normal” baby sounds out different sounds before forming words) even if they don´t have specific models to copy, but instead simply out of an innate necessity to communicate.
From our fist breath, do we understand how important words are? The shape of our thoughts, the vessel of the meaning in our actions, our friendships, our need for clear declarations of love (or hate, or any other emotion).
Of course, I´m not saying that pictures can´t speak, or actions express. There are moments made for silence (that night made of thunder). And yet I can still taste how important words are, how, at times, necessary. I can lose myself in visions, and find myself in moments, but words are a search, a struggle, a means of release, art, beauty, and the energy they create is necessary for my existence. Some days they are what let me breathe…
I think about that study in which keeping a diary lead to a lighter soul. About that paper suggesting Schizophrenia might be the price we pay for what language puts our brain through…

Wow, I really didn´t mean to go on about the whole psychology thing so long. I just meant to breeze over a few points, but that just came rushing out. Glad I remember so much of it though, considering how shitty my memory is!

Jesus, I can´t believe I´m awake. I know I´m repeating myself, but there really is something about nighttime that does something to me. For the last three days I´ve been completely exhausted for practically the whole day, due to my change in placement location, which, due to the commute (walking + train = 1.4 hours one way) I have to wake up at six which, if you know me, is seriously not something that comes natural to my being. Therefore, in theory, when nighttime comes I should jump into bed with a whoop of relief and fall asleep as my head hits the pillow. Instead, however, I force myself to bed at 10 30 (ok, with my laptop to watch one episode of internet TV, but as the Softer World author says, “Whenever people judge me for how much of my time I spend watching TV and horror movies I wonder if they've ever even been happy ever. EVER”) and, tossing and turning and sleeping horribly I may clonk out way past twelve because it´s like my body just can´t accept that it´s sleeping the whole night through instead of, you know, a bit of night and most of the morning. And, therefore, even though, being 5.05 am, I´ve been awake almost 24 hours, I am still writing. Definitely editing and posting this the day after tomorrow, on Saturday.

Which is my cue to leave, even though blog post madness has hit me hard. (Haha, that reminds me about the paper I read today about addiction to social networks. Maybe that can be the sequel. The Social Network: The Addiction. Muahaha, first step to getting rich, fast: Be Me :P)
And with that overgrown parenthesis filled with typical Marina nonsense, I´m off to...I would say sleep but why would I lie? Listening to music and staring into space it is.
Phantogram: When I´m Small, and then maybe a little bit of Massive Attack: Paradise Circus...then I´m smelling some Beck: Everybody´s gotta learn sometime, coming my way. Then to finish on a high note, Wax Tailor: Que Sera, and for a low note, Tim Buckley: Song to the Siren. Actually, I think I´ll start with that and work my way up.
Join me :)

Crickets are not dreams

The other day, Jenny (a beauty of the gypsy kind) told us about a dream she had. Deep within her sleep she sat to listen of a myth of old, where dreams were confused for insects. The story, with only a tiny bit of my embroidery, went like this.

Hidden between mountains lay an ancient village, which´s rural calm was one day interrupted by a sudden storm. Of course, in midst of nature, such phenomenon was not uncommon, but this was not just any storm, for between the drops of rain that fell, also came crickets. The villagers, amazed, stepped out of their houses to look upon the scene of water and crickets singing upon dust and stone. As they watched the miracle happen, they all began to make wishes. Each green creature became a hope, each tiny body a yearning. The storm, of course, did not last forever, and as the water drained away only the crickets were left, a flutter of legs and wings across the earth. And as spring blooms out of a rainy season, so did the desires that were wished upon the crickets of storm. One by one, hopes and miracles were granted out of rain and thin, fragile legs that skipped mystic symbols into the dirt. With each dream that came to life so did the conviction that the crickets which had rained upon the village had come from the Gods, that their being and race was holy, sacred. The myth grew with time and the telling of tongues, collecting awe and worship, until crickets were revered as Demi Gods. But this idea did not last forever. As the dream ended, Jenny was told of an old, wise monk which looked upon the story and did not awe, did not worship. Instead he said,

Crickets are not dreams.

The truth was that the crickets had fallen from the cages where they had been kept in, hanging from roof edges and front porches as the heavy rain of the storm battered their wooden frames.

The moral of the story, Jenny said, was that one must never assume that just because two events are coincided, one must cause the other. In real life this is an idea I believe in, and which is even studied in social psychology. Just cause violent children have watched violent TV does not mean that the latter caused the former. Maybe violent kids look for violent things to watch, and all that.
But, as she explained her conclusions and moved on, I was left a little unsatisfied; something was missing, something was wrong. After all, the wishes of the villagers had come true. How was that explained, even if the crickets were not those made of dreams?
So, I added a little more to the story. Sometimes people need crickets to fulfill their dreams. Not their magic or power, but simply the cricket: the illusion of a miracle, of something beautiful and capable of making your wishes come true. We are in control of our desires, dreams, and how they are realized. Once in a while, though, we need a cricket to help us along. We must always remember, though,
Crickets are not dreams.
We are.

And yes, ok, I have to admit that I have totally upped the cheese since I came back. Maybe a cynical post for next time? Some doom and gloom for dinner?
Or maybe I don´t care that I´ve gone soft. Vaka by Sigur Ros is in the air…
What a beautiful sound.

Brink

I love living my life in moments. Few, half made plans, there more for the anticipation (your biggest fears lie in anticipation, but so can great pleasures).
Waking up on a Saturday morning at one, opening the window to cold, fresh air and a cascade of Spanish sun, curling up on my chair with some green tea, a blanket, and a light tasting cigarette and reading Bad Science as I listen to Ratatat and Eliza Doolittle. Hello World, my dreams were fragmented and thrilling tonight, but this is sweet and perfect on my tongue.
This is a comforting and fitting aftermath to a Friday nighs, which always have a special air to them. The working week has ended, and here starts a small capsule of calm and tender days or intense action, apart and away from the five days preceding them.

Yesterday night my flatmates, Jenny and me watched ´Run Lola Run´ and ´The Dreamers´ in the dark. Two very good films, each in their own, different ways. We ended up in Sara´s room, a forest of green, an echo of a far away patch of Amazon, with its warm, humid air and corners filled with leaves. LauraJennySaraandMe sprawled across her warm bed, and in the gloom Sara and I lit up cigarettes as we listened to soft, sad music, telling us through sounds and rough noises of other lives, other pains, other dreams lived, other moments and people cherished. When I closed my eyes and took a drag the world beyond my eyelids would light up for a moment before falling to darkness once again. I lay there until the music ended, Sara´s head on my lap, Jenny against my arm and shoulder. Together, out at sea in that deep, dark music, salt and sand just a tremble away.

It is already turning out to be a good year. And so it should, judging by the way it ended, for these Christmas holidays have been one of the best. New Year´s swim was, once again, different from any other year. Despite being surrounded by sunshine filled days, the last of the year was gloomy and rainy and cold, but man did we make the most of it. At Guille´s suggestion (mi hermano fiel) we stripped to our bathing suits in the car, and rode around like that, grinning out of the windows, my uncle, at the wheel, donned in sunglasses as if it were the middle of summer instead of a dreary December day. When he parked the car we all sprinted out together like mad people towards the sea, as if we just couldn’t live another day without its waves, without its cold, wet touch. Laughing hysterically we threw ourselves in the freezing water- 3 drips (11 for Guille, he ´feels´ a different number each year) and then out, towards towels and then the most ridiculous bikini shoot in the history of photography. That night we had our typical multi-platter family dinner in El Club Social (The Sunday paella room, really) before we all went to mine and with the aid of Belen and my pre-made playlist of old, lets do the twist, music, we all danced longer than any of the previous years. When the adults were worn out and us younger generation simply active and tipsy we collapsed in my room and Guille played us his music on the delicious new speakers I bought not too long ago as we smoked cigarettes and a hookah and talked deep into the night. Those moments are so intimate- Paloma hugging me closely, I love you so much, as we understood and came together, the sound waves around us making our tongues and thoughts in tune with each other, so that we all sung together silently; family, family.

Then, of course, there was the night at the beginning of January. We had taken to playing Mario and Wii Party every night; watered down competitiveness and howling laughter through hours on end. That night, however, after the play, Sara, Guille and me spontaneously decided to take the shrooms we had in store. And so we did. We took my speakers to Sara´s house, far away from adult ears, set up the candles and the noise and chewed on the earthy, disgusting mushrooms as we lay about the living room with Lola and Paloma, our little cousins, which I love all the more for how they understand us, for their open minds. Not taken by the either extreme prejudicing or holification of drugs; that they are simply something one can do if they are right minded, if they understand that it is about enjoying a moment, a different experience, that it is not a loss of control in the worst sense of the word. That it is like going to see the amazing beauty of a slightly dangerous pocket of the word, and that if you are good-vibed and sensible then, its gonna be ok. And, oh God, was it ok. Everything was so beautiful. I cannot, and don´t really want to, explain the full experience of that night. It was simply one of the best I have ever had. Not that I have not have innumerous other amazing nights, but this was just one of them. All my thoughts we so clear and wonderful, they all rang without a doubt, were fact of life, of how everything fit together, of how things were, were. Everything was love and harmony, the chaos turned into the colours, the music was alive. Guille and I connected in a way we had never before- barriers down, we finally saw, understood. All basic space and other minds and art and mi familia fiel. I couldn´t stop shaking my hands to the beat of the music (if you´re fond of sand dunes, and salty air) And my lips wouldn´t stop speaking beautiful words, immense ideas compressed into sounds- at the brink, the brink of things. Sara clung to me and cried, howled, all through Loveology. We were all so happy and together and intimate in that little space that I still wonder if time stopped for us and left parts of us there forever, in that beautiful word. When it dawned we stepped outside and were met with an abandoned world. The red sky, the scraps of wood on the dusty floor, the shapes and colours of everything so clear, cutting, stunning. We walked in that world that had ended for us, survivors (Supervidores…super…vidores…Supervidores!), not being able to feel even the slightest bit alone. In the end we all hugged so hard that my glasses fogged up from the warmth of us, and as we parted and each went to our own house Guille hugged me again, true siblings at last, the most precious thing I took from the whole experience. And it didn´t even end there. For hours after everything was more beautiful, vivid, alive, and when I closed my eyes all I could see was a shifting, wonderland world of colours filled with snails and mushrooms and purple trees. And just like that, with Jeremy curled beside me, and my mind alive with beauty, the night ended.

When I look back on my life, these are the things I will remember. Not the amiable, friendly stretch of days which were good, but uniform. My life will be made longer by these few, intense moments, for 6 months seems much more if filled with glassfuls of memorable instances, instead of a calm sea of same. So that is what I have prescribed myself. Longs walks to see new parts of the city. Plays and concerts and foreign movies. Moments with tea and ash and the fresh taste of orange between my teeth. And the best of company.

Happy new year, everybody. Make the most of it- only you can. :)