Mist

In the sweet way that goes from the dream to reality, she opened her eyes and whispered: "Please, let him stay". A golden light hurt her pupils and made her iris looked more deeply green. She was lost in those nice seconds of mist before completely wake up and get concious of the reality that surrounded her. She moved in the bed and felt warm and secure, the kind of comfort that one feels when knows that has won the battle to the cold of night. And immediately, she thought of him and smiled. But this didn't last much, she remembered he's told her he had something to tell her, and concern caught her heart, ending her morning happiness. She had to meet him... where the sea touches the land.

She didn't want to get out of the bed and face the cold, she closed her eyes and stayed in bed for some minutes. After all, she wasn't sure wether she wanted to get up or not. But finally, she withdrew the blanket and the cold stroke. She approahces the window and looked through. The sea was calm, the sun shone, drawing figures in the water. The beach was deserted. It was a beautiful picture. And the sound of the waves... where the sea touches the land.

She took some fruit as quickly breakfast and got dressed with a simple long, beach white dress. Then she contemplated her mirror. Darkness shining on her chest. Pale face, green eyes, or maybe sea eyes, with those black circles always below them, Long hair, tired brown with golden streaks, like the light which had lit her eyes. It was rought and tangled. She tried to brush it and decorate it with shells and corals she has taken... where the sea touches the land.

She went out of the hut, to the shining sun outside and walked down to the seashore. The stones scratched her bare feet, and so did the frozen water. She was surrounded by the smell of the sea, its salty kisses and its sound, which got into the last corners of her heart. Her eyes got lost in the infinity of ocean, the eternity. She loved the sea, wish she could take a boat and got lost there forever, passing the nights contemplating the way the moon shone over it, its depth, its notalgia, its sadness. She usually passes hours looking at the feelings which the sea woke up inside of her, like if she would have lost something irrecoverable, something only the sea could bring back to her, but she didn't know what it was. She stayed like that for a while... where the sea touches the land.

She looked at her left and there, in the distance, he was standing, waiting for her. She walked towards him, the waves wetting her feet, the wind tousling her hair, waving her dress which let guess her figure. She carries the darkness in her chest, knew he had to leave. As approaching him, she felt the soft vulnerability that comes in the tenderness. When she got by his side, his gaze was lost in the ocean, like hers only some minutes ago. The wind stirred his hair. Then, he looked at her:

- I don't love you now.

- I know.

She wanted to tell him the truth, so came closer to him and held him slowly. Then rested her head in his shoulder and whispered in his ear:

-I've been lonely for so long and been hurt so deeply. I walked alone this beach during many years, looking at the sea and wondering when I would met someone who accompany me. And now that I've found you, you have to leave... Don't do it, please, I love you. But I know you won't listen to me, so if you could only make one last thing for me... I just want a kiss, the last kiss.

He looked into her eyes, while her heart was breaking. And then he kissed her... where the sea touches the land.

She was lying on the sand. Her tears mixed with the salty water. She retained some sand in her hand and then let it go through her fingers. Many years had gone by since he had taken the boat and got lost in the horizon. Nobody else had visited her in that time. She stretched her arm and drew the shape of a heart. The waves erased it. Some day someone will find her and take her away from that place... where the sea touches the land. Where the dream touches reality.

The last kiss was so long ago, she doesn't remember it anymore. It got lost in the mist.

Becoming a new self

She liked driving at night. More exactly, she thought she would like driving at night, because she's never tried. The speed, the dark, the lights of the other cars, the music filling the silence...

Her father were driving them home. Both of them were quiet, they didn't talk. Actually, she rarely talked to her father about important things. Some other person would think that then they didn't know each other very well just examining their relationship, but it wasn't true at all. They didn't need to talk because both of them were the same way, they could understand each other and words weren't necesary.

The radio was tuned to a rock station. They were approaching the village.
A new song started to sound. Maybe it was 'Speed of light'. She turned up the volume and looked away through the window, letting her go inside her mind, getting lost in her thoughts and soon be drowning in the current of her thinking.
The moon was up in the sky. Venus was at its right, shining. She always got blue when she looked to the sky at night, felt a kind of longing because she couldn't stop time and keep that instant forever.
She rested her head in the car seat and then her thoughts flew away with him, wherever he was, and her heart ached.
-Are you falling asleep?- asked her father.
-No- she answered, bothered by the interruption.
- Then, what are you thinking about?
-Nothing- she lied and moved in her seat.
She has completely lost the curse of her thoughts and didn't feel like starting again. The moment was over.

As they entered the village by the principal street, she felt a strange sensation of irreality. The town was decorated with all the Christmas lights and stuff, in the same way it was for the summer celebrations. And it seems to her time hadn't passed since then. Or that time had passed so quickly, because in a moment a lot of memories of the summer came to her mind, as vivid as if they would have been engraving in her mind yesterday.

Before leaving town to start her new life, she had thought sadly that, when she came back, she wouldn't be the same person who left. The places and people there will remain the same, but not herself. And it seemed to her that in that moment, by watching the Christmas lights, she's just realized that it's happened. She wasn't the same person anymore. She's become a new self.
Autumn was the season when things happened, was a season for change, and during that autumn, a lot of things has made a difference for her forever. During some time, she thought she was waking up to life, she felt comfortable with her life for just the first time, future seemed nice and she got great expectations in what had to come. The obnoxious sensation that she was wasting her life, the emptiness and the loneliness had almost dissappeared. If someone would have asked her, she would have answered that she was happy, a little happy, but enough. Life smiled at her. She had tried to forget the past during that time, to pretend that it had never existed, to erase all those memories quickly and hold on to her brand new hopes. But now she wasn't that sure, in a few weeks all had turned into dust in her hands. Now she was sad like never. And the past, with its misery, still remains. Now it seems that days had passed but her life had stayed on hold. Now she couldn't close her eyes to her past.
What had changed inside of her? And when? She didn't know. But she didn't feel like herself, she was a new person. She had just left behind all of her fantasies and ideas about the world and go out into it. Had left behind that person forever. For a while she had been the owner of her own life. Simply, she wasn't a child anymore, she was an adult person, with adult problems. A part of herself that still loved the child, closed her eyes to this fact, but couldn't help that something inside of her would died in that moment, with a little pain. And that was all, a little pain and you've said goodbye to many chapters of your story.
That night, when she was in bed, she cried for her old self, the life she's left behind, for her broken hopes, for the future that was uncertain, for the cold she felt not in her body, but in her soul, for him and for her.

"I enjoy being with you"

Many years had passed by since the last time she felt that way. The last weeks without him had been terrible, and she experimented a brutal longing that came directly from the core of her soul, mixed with a sharp pain. She wanted him back at any cost, but was afraid. 

What did she wanted from him? Definitely, she appreciated his friendship, but wanted more. She wanted him to stay by her side forever, to tell her that he loved her because of the way she was, that she was special in his world and in his life, a future together... She closed her eyes and dreamed away with all of those sweet words.

The biggest of her fears, the darkest one, feed during many years of isolation and loneliness, was that people would laugh at her feelings. But the little happiness that during years she had built carefully was stumbling, hanging in a wire, as she realizes the poor faith she had in herself was fading away quickly. After some days of deep thinking and gathering enough courage, she took an irrevocable decision: she had to tell him about the way she felt. Any other thing would be unbearble.

So after a day of being with him, talking and laughing, when they were leaving the building, as always, in the cold, dark autumn night, when they got to the point where their ways followed different directions, she spoke her heart out because, for once in her life, she hasn't prepared at all her words.

- You and me, we could be ok again, don't you think? I don't know... I miss you - she said this almost without thinking and all relaxed. It was like if she was in the edge that separates dreams from reality. She has nothing left to lose and looked down, waiting.

His face may looked confused for a second. Then he stopped, looked at her and in his face was drawn the smile he used when he didn't know how to say 'No', which occurs usually. Then said:

- I enjoy being with you.

She looked up to find his eyes and they were lit by the flame that beat inside of her heart and smiled widely.

-So do I... - and then, ducking her head and looking away, she whispers, with the strengh she had left - But I miss you, I don't know...

When her eyes looked up again, she found he wasn't by her side yet. Instead of that, he has surrounded her and was about to leave. He was about to abandon her there without even saying 'Goodbye', there, in the cold, in the darkness, with the snow falling around her, with her head ducked and an apocalipsys inside her heart. "He's just laughed at your...". Blocked thought. It could not be possible. At least, she waited for a word of encouragement, of consolation, he saying 'I'm sorry' or  'I wish I could love you like you love me'... anything. But not running away from her like that, like if she and her love were wortheless. For a second she felt humiliated. That apparent indiference hurt like a million needles stabbing into her body. She couldn't let him go without saying anything, so she held up her head again and asked him:

-Do you leave?

-Yes.

-Well, see you tomorrow.

-Bye.

And he crossed the street and got lost in the distance. She stayed for a while and said to herself:

-You are a perfect and pathetic idiot.

Then started to walk up to her place. Her mind was empty, there wasn't any thought inside. For some minutes, her mental activity reduced to some basic funtions. The only things she could feel were those coming from the outside, like the cold, the darkness, her red nose, the brown leaves that crunched as she stepped on them and how, in a misterious way, her brain was capable of order her legs to coordinate and walk. Then, the rythme of her breathe started to speed up as pain began to spread to all parts of her body, with her heart as core. It wasn't a pain that she had experimented before, it wasn't lacerating and violent, but serene, like the inevitable, like the moment when someone realizes there's no hope left anymore, there's no scape, there's not a meaning in life no more. And, as nothing can be done, there's no need of a violent pain. But this one was worst than every other pain she had ever felt, was made of darkness, was black and cold like a winter night, was quite like the eternity of universe, it was lonely like having a glass of whiskey and reading a Murakami at four o'clock in the morning during a sleepless nights, like contemplating the stars in a deep summer night with no one by your side. And was breaking her soul. She didn't have enough tears to cry out the depth of her sorrow, but felt them crowding her eyes. She wouldn't let them out yet, she didn't wanted to, but one scape and drew a furrow on her cheek. When she got to her home, she found she didn't feel like going inside, she wanted to feel the cold, wasn't sure why. So she kept on walking, really, really slowly, without any direction.

"I enjoy being with you"

Those hard words crowded her mind. They sound like a death warrant. She couldn't believe that with those five words, all was over. Everytime she thought about them, a new stab was made to her heart. Once she had walked those streets hand in hand with him, and now it didn't exist anymore. Only a bunch of unbearble memories were all she had left.

When she felt 'better' (in the case that was possible), came back to her home. There, in the fridge, there was a box of chocolates that she had planned to give him and had been left there for all those weeks, just in the case he would had come back. "You're a stupid". She took it away and ate the chocolates while she listened to her dark songs and read a letter where she had written for him, about her feelings. He will never ever read that letter. Never.

A culture of seven-year-olds

Some time ago I wrote here that the things people post in social networks "are just poor attends to reaffirm themselves and feed their ego by showing off". Today I've run into this comic that illustrates it greatly:

The worst problem of modern man is the loss of identity in a world that constantly confused the things we really want with others that we're made to want.

I still loving you

Time, it needs time

To win back your love again
I will be there, I will be there
Love, only love
Can bring back your love someday
I will be there, I will be there

I'll fight, babe, I'll fight
To win back your love again
I will be there, I will be there
Love, only love
Can break down the wall someday
I will be there, I will be there

If we'd go again
All the way from the start
I would try to change
The things that killed our love
Your pride has built a wall, so strong
That I can't get through
Is there really no chance
To start once again
I'm loving you

Try, baby try
To trust in my love again
I will be there, I will be there
Love, our love
Just shouldn't be thrown away
I will be there, I will be there

If we'd go again
All the way from the start
I would try to change
The things that killed our love
Your pride has built a wall, so strong
That I can't get through
Is there really no chance
To start once again

If we'd go again
All the way from the start
I would try to change
The things that killed our love
Yes, I've hurt your pride, and I know
What you've been through
You should give me a chance
This can't be the end
I'm still loving you
I'm still loving you, I need your love
I'm still loving you



I still loving you from Love at first sting (1984) by Scorpions

Lithium

Now I understand why you wouldn't look into my eyes. Now I know you weren't true, you kept dangerous things hidden. I know the reason of your lovely laugh and your sudden blue. I know why you never thought about me and my feelings. You were too busy trying to figure out yours first. Why didn't you trust me? Why didn't you tell me about it before? I fear I hurt you when I never meant to. I feel betrayed. Once you told me you loved me, and now there's nothing left of that. Did you lie to me? And I don't know if it's just another one of your crisis or for once you're telling me the truth. The worst is that I still loving you. I can love you over all those things you've hidden to me. Maybe you fear I would run away from you? I know you've felt alone for a long time, so have I. And I cannot get used to the idea that you're going away from me forever. I need you, don't you see? My love is true, I can go on with this after all. You can trust me, you're important to me. I've never had met someone as amazing as you before. I don't need to pretend that I'm person I'm not. With you sometimes I still alone, but without you I can't be. And I would leave everything to go back to the start and make things right this time. But I know I can't. It's all lost. And my heart is dying.
All the feelings you took away are coming home again. Darkness surrounds me, getting stronger. All my old ghosts are here to start the haunting again. Apathy and bitterness quickly find their place again. And the devastating feeling of being completely alone, with no one who understands... I don't know how to find a way to carry on with this. I just want to sleep and dream of us.

About Orwell, Google and Big Brothers

A while ago I've entered Google Play in the mobile phone to check out the new apps and install some updates. When I was looking for something interesting, between the contents offered, there were some of those personal recommendations sections. And I find scaring that, actually, they fit exactly my interests. I'm not comfortable with the idea that Google knows me better than real people who know me. So I've started to think...
Internet companies which asks the users to give some personal data in order to be able to use their services don't give the user freedom to choose. They offer a unilateral contract, you take it or you can't use their service. It's the same that a work contract in a company: you accept their conditions or you'll starve. But you're not given the opportunity to negociate, to impose your own conditions. Is this freedom? I think the answer is pretty clear: no.
So, today nobody can live without a mobile phone or without an email account. All users must accept the Internet companies conditions and share personal data with them. Most of people do it without think about it, they don't realize the risks behind it.
But if they visited the Google adds section of their profiles, maybe they'd get a bit worry. There, based in the sites you've visited and other data collected about you, Google tells you your age, your gender and a top-ten of your interests. And how do they used all this information? Today, to show you ads of products which you may be interested in... but tomorrow?
Another social phenomenom that I don't like much are social networks. Apart from the fact that most of the things that people publish there (with notable exceptions) are just poor attends to reaffirm themselves and feed their ego by showing off, there everyone can have a look through a window to someone else's life, everyone can watch everyone and know where he's been and what he likes or does. Apart from that, data collected in social networks and other Internet services can be used to make marketing researches, social engineering or data mining over population servers.
Apart from all that, a lot of Internet companies let some countries security agencies to acces the information they have about their users and even read the messages they send. And, although security is something necessary, it seems to me that we're changing privacity for security. And since privacity is the ability to choose what we want to hide or share about ourselves, it's an expression of freedom. So we're changing freedom for security. And what is this? It's a characteristic of a totalitarian system. Of course, by 'totalitarian' I'm not just referring to a dictatorship, for example. A system can be totalitarist in other ways just when it cuts individuals freedom or their ability to develope theirselves in the way they desire. Or they have a great control over individuals.
A big part of planet population data in hands of a few companies, unilateral contracts, people constantly watching and be watched by others, personal comunications being analyzed, security cameras everywhere, where everything is registered... makes a person always wonder wether he's being watched or not, what he has left of his privacity. This reminds me a lot about Orwell's 1989. But here Google has turned into the Big Brother and one wonders when will be the day when we'll be watched at our own home, just in the case someone 'comits a crime'.

The kingdom of loneliness

Loneliness has always been my longtime friend and my closest enemy. As good lovers, I enjoy being together most of the time, but sometimes we fight and I get fed up of it, until I wish I could put it out of my life forever. And it makes me wonder wether there is something wrong with me.

Why do I love being alone? I’ve analyzed it hundreds of times to get to the ‘conclussion’ that it is because a complex sets of reasons. In first place, I’m a really introvert person. That means that I need to be alone a big part of my time and I get tired of social interactions. Because of this, as I’m not used to be with people, I may be a little shy at first. Thus, my social intelligent is not much high.

This is the most formal explanation I have. This is the one I’d use if someone asked me about the issue, and the same I tell to myself to calm my heart and keep the worries away. Sometimes we end up beliving our own lies. Because, honestly, although the above reasons are a part of the whole thing, there are other ‘better’ explanations which I don’t feel much comfortable with.

Well, most of the times, I don’t talk to people because I don’t want to. Because I choose it, not because I don’t dare to. Or maybe is a mixture of the two things: I don’t want to and don’t dare to either. Since I was a little child, I’ve been afraid that people hurt me. At an early age, I fear physical damage, but, as growing up, it turned into emotional damage. I remember a lot of bad experiences about my first days at school and the rest of the children. As a kid, I never understood the fights, the insults and why my class mates would act bad with each other. I’ve always hated conflict, it doesn’t go with me. Then, when I reached primary school, most of my mates developed a kind of prejudices about me because I always got top grades, until the point I had a few issues with them, and all that rejections affected me and I have develope a great fear to be rejected. I remember it was then when I started to learn that it may be better if I kept my mouth shut.

But apart from these bad experiences, most of people don’t interest me. And I don’t prented to be haughty. I wish with all my heart I could find people more interesting, but it’s really hard for me to set a connection with them. I just don’t know what I have to do to get it. I never find new people who share interests wih me, who can understand me. And, as an answer, people aren’t interested in me either. When I met someone new, he never stays. He just talks to me at the beggining and then walks away and only comes back if he needs something from me. I guess I’m not an easy going person… I have to recognize that I have stayed away of many people that offered me their friendship, and sometimes I feel regrets about it and I start to think that I was unfair with them.  Anyway, once I decided to take the risk and get someone into my life, he has all my loyalty. If some friend of mine has ever needed something, I’ve never turned away, I’ve been always there. When someone becomes important to me, I don’t mind sacrifising myself for him.

But all this can’t make me stop feeling alone. No one knows how alone I’ve felt, the slepless nights I’ve spent thinking about all this, the wasted tears, wondering if some day I would find someone like me, someone who can understand me, someone that can see through the surface. Because I think that loneliness can turn into the worst feeling of all, worst than a broken heart. And it gets deeper and deeper inside of you everyday, until it reach your bones and fills your body with a bitter poison. It feeds with your hope, until you can’t believe in anything.

Anyway, maybe I’m being a bit excessive here. I enjoy being in my own most of the time. There isn’t something better than self-acceptance.  But loneliness is a double-edged sword and sometimes it ends up hurting. That’s when I get down and start to think about all the things I’ve written about above. Anyway, I would like to meet someone whom I had things in common… Until then, this will still be the kingdom of loneliness.

Automat

Automat (1927) by Edward Hopper


Why is she all alone? Behind her, the city has dissapeared and for once let see what it hides: emptiness. Only the reflection of the automat lights stand out in the dark. 
Her eyes are down, straring at the coffee cup. Maybe we could think she's sad, but if we look closer, her expression doesn't say that. She seems to be very calm. Do her lips draw a grimace of displeasure? Or is it dissapointment? Perhaps tiredness? She may be lost in her thoughts.

We have the feelings it's late at night. It's easy to think that the rest of the local is empty. The only client is this woman. What is she doing having a coffee so late? Perhaps she was dreaming when her ghosts got her and took her away from her sleep. Abscence and desolation found a way to her heart in the silence of night and she couldn't go back to sleep, so that she decided to go for a walk in the lonely streets to get those thoughts out of her mind. As it was cold, she entered the automat to have something warm and wait for the sleep to return... 
But, why does it have to be late in the night? Maybe it's just a winter evening, when sun sets early. In the automat there can be other clients and she may be waiting for someone. Probably, her serious mien will be soon lit up with a smile when her lover arrives. Or maybe her heart is broken and she's looking back at her memories of him, imaging a date that never would be. Or maybe she's just at this automatic waiting for love to come into her life. 
But, why does she have to be waiting for someone? Perhaps she's just leave work and she has came to the automat to have a coffee before going home. Or maybe she works at night and wanted to have something before. She's taken off just one of her gloves, so we can think she's leaving soon or she's just arrived. Or maybe she's a clueless person and hasn't realized it. It must be cold in the automat to wear that big coat. But there's something on in that leads us to think it's warm and comfortable, something that makes us want to take it away from her and wear it...
But, why does she have to be there for a reason in particular? Maybe she just felt like having a coffee. Perhaps she likes to be in her own. She's one of the few people who has enough courage to look at loneliness into the eyes, who doesn't fear to be completely alone. But nowadays, this is really strange. All people always need company, need someone to talk, maybe to hide the fact that they're empty, maybe because they don't stand theirselves. They fear to see what will happen if they're alone. But not this woman.
What she can be thinking about? She may be entertaining with worries of everyday life. Or she may be remembering other times, when things were easier for her, when the sun shone and, outside, it wasn't so dark. Perhaps she suffers for all the dreams she's dreamed and never became true. She could be running away of that life to start from scratch in a new place where her mistakes will be forgotten and, in her way, she's decided to make a stop to rest in the automat. Or maybe she's just trying to find a meaning to her life.

We could imagine hundreds of stories. The woman's face challenges us to find her story. The feelings that this picture express clearly get in our hearts, but we still can't describe them. We can't name them. Is it loneliness? Isolation? Even nostalgia? There's no need of words, an image is better. And to describe all those difficult feelings, this picture is perfect. Should we recognize ourselves and our era in it?

The vague "she" of all the poetry books...

"She was the amoureuse of all the novels, the heroine of all the plays, the vague 'she' of all the poetry books."

These words are enough to describe, in all her complexity, one of the best built characters ever, a character that has always amazed me: Emma Bovary.
The other day, I ended up thinking about this book again, which led me to revise a kind of essay I wrote about the book some time ago (I enjoy writing kind of 'analysis' about the books I read).
I'm not gonna post the whole thing here cause it's three pages long and maybe can be boring, I'm just going to write a little summary about my thoughts on the book so far.

Madame Bovary, written by Gustave Flaubert, was published in 1857 and it was' a reference for the literary realism. As it is a master piece, it's possible to look at this book from different sights: it can be taken as a critique to romantic novels, it can be a reflection about life and happiness, a complaint to provincial French society in the XIX century... But anyway, it always remains a good story, although it's a really, really sad one. It brings the reader the life of an exceptional woman whom the collision between her fantasies and reality lead to destruction.

One of the aspects of the book that first caught my attention was the great influence and the important paper that literature plays in Emma's life, until the point she can be described  through it. Indeed, at the begining of the book, the author provides a few details about Emma's personality, only vague references to her dreamy character, which are almost unnoticed.
It's not until chapter five when the writer gives a description of Emma, her hopes and her dreams, but not in an usual way. To describe Emma, he takes the reader to the past, to the childhood and teenage of the character when her personality was forming, and talks about her readings, almost of all them romantic novels, that filled her time back then. This love for literature combine with her confinement in a convent during those years, formed in Emma a concept of the world that would crash against reality over and over. 

So, when the story starts, Emma is a naive young woman who dreams with great passions, luxury and romantic adventures. So that she agrees marry Charles because she thinks he would bring her all of those things. But she's wrong, Charles Bovary is not a very exciting person and his cultural level is lower than Emma's, so that soon she starts to be fed up and realizes she's never been in love with him:
 
"Before her marriage she had thought that she had love within her grasp but since the happiness which she had expected this love to bring her hadn't come, she supposed she must have been mistaken. And Emma tried to imagine just what was meant, in life, by the words "bliss," "passion," and "rapture" -- words that had seemed so beautiful to her in books."

After this first collision between her expectations and reality, Emma adopts a conciliatory attitude and tries to produce inside of her feelings like the ones that appears in her books. In order to do it, she tries to recite passionate poems to Charles,  be a model wife, etc.

Maybe if things had gone on other way, she would had kept that attitude, but then something happens that changes Emma forever: she attends a dance at marquis of Anvervilliers' house. There, Emma sees that the world of luxury about which she has read in her novels can exist, although it's far away from her, and also the passionate love that she glimpses in the figure of the viscount. Since this moment, Emma abandons her previous attitude, which is replaced by a deep feeling of insatisfaction with her life that leads her into a period of major depression.

"But her life was as cold as an attic facing north; and boredom, like a silent spider, was weaving its web in the shadows, in every corner of her heart." 

These feelings, mixed with the imposibility of reach the world she dreams with, sets in Emma the need of recreate around her the romantic fantasies from her novels. This is reflected in her obsession with buying luxury products and in her relationships with her lovers.

Of course, in her adulterous  relationships, Emma doesn't look for the joy of loving antother person, she just wants to experiment the excessive feelings she dreams with, so, when the passion of the beginning of a relationship ends, the feeling of dissatisfaction returns to her heart and she starts to abandon the relationship, that eventually becomes a burden.

Regarding the relationship of Emma with her first lover, Rodolf, it is clearly based in a lie, because Rodolf's feelings aren't true, he just wants to make her his and Emma, blinded again by her fantasies, doesn't realize it. Rodolf is an intelligent man used to deal with women, so that with only look at her, he guess what she's lacking, and use it to take advantage: 

"Poor little thing! She's gasping for love like a carp on a kitchen table gasping for water."

So he says to her all the things she was dying to listen, making her fall in love. During the time this relationship lasts, Madame Bovary becomes more and more daring and vivacious. But all ends because of a new crash between Emma's desires and reality: when she plans to run away with Rodolf, like in a romantic book, he decides that she's going too far, and abandons her, breaking her heart and leaving her in the same hell in which she lived before him.

The adultery that she comits with León is more sentimental, because both had been in love with each other while León lived in Yonville, but this love doesn't come to light until they meet again in Rouen, once León has overcome his shyness. León and Emma were destined to love since the beggining. This is because León is a male version of Madame Bovary: as her, he loves literature, poetry in his case, which for him is a way to scape reality:

"Noble characters and pure affections and happy scenes are very comforting things. They're a refuge from life's disillusionments."

León, as Emma, has a romantic personality and also miss the great feelings and the life in the city. While living in Yonville, León is too innocent and inexperienced to tell Emma about his feelings:

"He was in agony trying to think of a way of "declaring himself" to her. He was constantly torn between the fear of offending her and shame at his own cowardice; he shed tears of despair and frustrated desire."

But, as he is man, he has the chance to reach the world he had dreamed with and moves to Rouen, leaving Emma. There, he contemplates the shadows of that kind of life and gets enough of it. When Emma and him meet again, he's not that naive any more, he has known other women and has changed a lot, so immediately Emma and him start a relationship. But it is too passionate since the beginning, thus it wears out quickly. 

Emma's tragic ending occurs when the romantic world she was trying to recreate crumbles around her: hounded by debts caused by her exorbitant purchases and abandoned by her lovers, she just have to face the truth: the excessive feelings and the luxury that appears in her novels aren't possible in real life, at least for her, so that she decides that, if she cannot live like the romantic heroine she wanted to be, it's preferable to die like one, and kills herself by taking arsenic.

Therefore, as has been shown, literature has a major influence in Emma Bovary's personality and contributes to form in her a wrong concept of reality that crashes with the truth. Thus, literature is in the center of the development of the plot of this work.

To put an great end to this post, between all the interesting reflections that can be found in Madame Bovary, I would like to highlight this one, which seems to me shows the essence of the meaning of the book as a reflection about life:

"No matter: she wasn't happy, and never had been. Why was life so unsatisfactory? Why did everything she leaned on crumble instantly to dust? . . . Besides, nothing was worth looking for: everything was a lie! Every smile concealed a yawn of boredom; every joy, a curse; every pleasure, its own surfeit; and the sweetest kisses left on one's lips but a vain longing for a fuller delight."

Sweet poison

When I was young, before meeting my first love, I used to think that love was easy. I saw couples around me having problems and breaking up and I wondered why all that happened to them if they were suppossed to love each other. Back then I used to think that love was enough and that when I met the right person, we would't have any of those problems cause I would give my heart to him fearless. As I didn't know anything about real love, my concept was based on the stories I read in books and so... And how wrong I was.

Years later I realized love is everything but easy. Because it is poisoned with fear, distrust and pain.  I tried to do all the things that I used to plan to do when I dream about being in a relationship, I tried so hard to show him that I was willing to give him all I got, to give him my heart without any reserve... but all my childish dreams about love went away forever. Because it's not that easy. Love is pain and distrust, a bitter yearning and a few moments of the greatest of hapinness.

When you're going to speak out what really is in your heart, your words get trapped in your mouth because you're scared, little things without any importance become big problems in your mind, you walk like a blinded person, dissapointment hits you over and over, you live guessing and preparing for the worst... and all this just for a little amount of happiness if it's compared with the amount of pain. But, after all, I can't help thinking that it worths it.

When you feel it

Sometimes, between the crowd, between the people without a name and face that pass by you everyday without changing anything, between the people you've never felt interested in... you can meet someone special, someone that makes a difference for you. Someone that gets you to forget the pain you've been through and all the loneliness you've felt.

But you fear trust him, because a few people in this world worths it and you don't know if he's one of them. As feelings grow inside of you, your fear becomes bigger and bigger. You don't want to go back to live the way you used to, you don't want yesterday to become today again. So fear and doubts take over you and, as a defence, you hide your true feelings. Today people never talk about important things, never show their true thoughts and feelings, hide their true self under layers and layers of superciality. And all because of the fear of being hurt.

Then start to think that, when you feel something special for someone, nevermind the doubts, the fear, if it is too early to say it, if he hurts you... you have to take the risk and open your heart, because in any moment you can lost that person, he can walk away from your life and you'll never have another chance to say what was really in your heart. Many people, even I, just hid away their true feelings, lost that chance and still wonder "what if...?".

And when you decide to take the step and do it, it's a wonderful moment. For once you can experience the joy and the excitement of walk with you heart in your hands, you feel you have nothing to lose cause you've given it all. And, after all, maybe you'll find trust.

There's not a right time to say "I love you". Just when you feel it.

Anonymous authority

Where is the authority? Who is the authority? Against who will you revolt?

I was reflecting about the paper played by authority in social structures across the history till I get to the conclussion that, in nowadays society, it has dissapeared, at least from a traditional point of view.
When it's analyzed, in past systems such as feudalism, absolutism or in the early years of capitalism, there had always existed a figure that represented the authority (the patron, the king, etc.) and individuals could choose wether obey or not. If one decided to revolt, he could do it against a real person, against someone and, eventually, if many others decided the same, they could make fall that authority and the whole system behind it. But nowadays, is this a posibility?

Who is the authority in modern society? Some might answer the public order forces, but those just control that people follow some coexistence rules in most of the cases, they don't tell people what they have to do, they don't determinate their life. Maybe the authority lies on politicians, bankers or directors of big companies. This can make sense at first, but if we look at it closely, then will notice that this groups haven't a different life from people belonging to lower groups, they only have more buying power, but live inside the system like any other. So, where is the authority then? The answer is pretty simple: it has diluted, has dissapeared, has turned anonymous... the authority is the system itself. We've invented an economic macro-structure and become slaves of our own creation, even the top social groups. Day by day, we get up, go to work, buy things we don't need, go to have fun to the same places and, at the end, this doesn't make anyone happy. Then why do we do it? Because it's our 'duty', but we are not told to do it. We've internalized the system demands till make us 'ours'. Blinded by alienation and conformity, we can't realize that we're trapped inside a macro-structure that has scaped from our control and become a monster. Its aim is the development of economy, but what is the goal of this? Towards what does society walk? This question hasn't got an answer, because, after all, the system is completely irrational, it only grows wildly, without any real purpose. And, obviously, this situation cannot continue indefinitely. A structure in which humans are means to an end will destroy us. But the most devastating conclusion is that there isn't any posibilities of change because, if the authority has become anonymous, nobody can revolt agains nobody.

I've described here one of the problems of modern society in a superficial and informal way. Obviously, it is much more complex and many other reasonings and conclusions can be applied and obtained, but it wasn't my aim to show all of them here.

Salad days

Long summers by the sea,
the sun shining in your eyes
like your new heart,
your new hope.

Salad days,
a white rose in your hands,
happy hours passing by
while everyone smiles at you.

But once you were told
the world was so cold
and you will find
it's true.

We all kill what we love
and what we love kills us.
Even our best feeling is poisoned
so, what hope can you have left?

Salad days went away
a lot of seasons ago.
Your white rose
now is withered.

All you have left is
a brutal yearning of yesterday
when the world was warmer
and life was easier,

When your heart
didn't show scars.
Before all your myths
fell.

Once you were told
world was so cold
and you've found
it was true.

We all kill what we love
and what we love kills us.
Even our best feeling is poisoned
so, what hope can you have left?

Regrets for unspoken words

She's just a girl with so much things trapped inside herself. A spiral of rage, sadness and bitterness nests in her heart. She's like a shadow, no one notices her, no one suspects what's in her mind, no one would say she's a complex being with complex feelings. Because she always remains in silence. People tend to think she's innocent, but she's not. And it seems to her she never will fit in anywhere.
He is sitting next to her, on the ground, talking. He has an extraordinary intelligence, but he's suffered a lot. Nevertheless, he's quite self-assured. He still talks. In one moment, she holds her head up and stares at him, because he's describing exactly the way she feels. She would want to tell him she thinks as him, but she remains in silence. The arguing ends and he gets up from the ground, hurt. As she looks at him while he's walking away, experiments the urge of running after him, of shouting at him that she understands him. But she remains on silence while her heart bleeds.
When he's gone, she gets up as well and made her way back home. Dark thoughts crosses her mind. Halfway, it starts rainning. She doesn't have an umbrella, so she walks under the rain, alone. Her tears mix with raindrops.
                          
                             *******
She's sitting in a waiting room. He approaches her and takes a seat by her side. They start talking. They hadn't talked before, but for one time she breaks her silence and feel comfortable. She's dying to tell him about what he said some days ago, but she's not brave enough. Anyway, he's able to see into her eyes what other people can't and realizes her soul is like his. Other people join the conversation and she hides in the silence again. After some minutes, he walks away again.
                             *******
She stands up inside the plane. He's sitting in the next row. There's an empty seat by his side. He looks back towards her. Their eyes meet. She's dying to sit next to him, but remains quite. She hasn't enough courage and takes her seat again.
                           *******
They're waiting for their suitcases. It's time to say goodbye. Surprisingly for her, he walks towards and hugs her while he whispers in her ear: 'How good you are'. For a second, she feels something moving inside her heart. Then he walks away from her life forever. Only emptyness and regrets for unspoken words are left in her heart.

That strange taste of yours

Today I've taken my parents to the mall. Don't think I like those places. At the contrary, in my opinion their the most disgusting thing of advanced capitalism, because it is like: 'I'm bored, what we could do? Let's go to the mall and wander around looking at shops and buying stuff we don't need at all'. Pathetic. Nauseous.

But sometimes you can't avoid going. My parents wanted to print some photos of a holidays and they needed me to operate the machine in the photograph shop. When we've finished and was walking towards the exit, we've passed by a stand where they sell rock stuff, from bands t-shirts to old vinyl records. I've stopped and started looking between the cds labeled under garage/ punk rock, while my parents stood watching. As I expected, there wasn't much underground stuff, but I've found a box with some albums of The Clash that seemed cool. When I was examining this box, my dad has approached me and asked: 'What is that?' And I answered: 'The Clash'. And he's said: 'Pppfff...That strange taste of you for everything'. The woman in the stand was listening with interest our conversation. I've left the box and joined my parents outside.

I'm sure my dad has no idea about who The Clash were. In their heydays, my parents were just two 'discoteque kids' who only listened and liked the mainstream hits of the moment and can't think that music can have an artistic or social value or can be independent from the industry. They are the kind of people that say they like a band when they haven't even listened to a full album of that band. The thing is that they think they know a lot about music, and I'm not gonna be the one who show them their error cause, who knows? Maybe they're right.

My dad comment on my music taste has brought me back to the days of my teenage when I used to torture my parents with my rock music. They said I was going to kill them. And they just listened to the half of the music I liked, cause I kept punk for myself. I still don't want to think what my mom would have say in those days if she would have found out I listened to punk rock. In those years, my parent's opinion had a big influence in my life, till the point they always decided for me, directly or indirectly, and I always did what I thought I had to do to not dissapoint them. They sometimes told me how proud they were of me and when I heard that, I hoped to die, because I didn't feel proud of myself at all. I was a coward who didn't have enough courage to do what she wanted just once. I felt my life didn't belong to me, cause I had built it based on what others wanted. I needed it something just for me, and that was music. I never let my parents influenced my music taste. That was something all mine, and in rock music I found a way to break free, a way to feel like a rebel, a way to build my own world. I remembered when I listen to just the first note of a rock tune, I got instantly happy, cause I believed rock was the best and it would last forever.

When I was driving back home thinking about all these, I've regreted so much haven't bought The Clash box. I guess I'm still a coward sometimes.

Why does it always rain on me?

I rarely listen to Travis, but this time I felt like.
I can't sleep tonight.
Everybody's saying everything's alright
Still I can't close my eyes,
I'm seeing a tunnel at the end of all these lights.
Sunny days,
where have you gone?
I get the strangest feeling you belong
Why does it always rain on me?
Is it because I lied when I was seventeen?
Why does it always rain on me?
Even when the sun is shining
I can't avoid the lightning.
I can't stand myself,
I'm being held up by an invisible man
Still life in a shelf when
I got my mind on something else.
Sunny days,
where have you gone?
I get the strangest feeling you belong
Why does it always rain on me?
Is it because I lied when I was seventeen?
Why does it always rain on me?
Even when the sun is shining
I can't avoid the lightning.
Oh, where did the blue skies go?
And why is it raining so?
It's so cold.
I can't sleep tonight,
I'm seeing a tunnel at the end of all these lights.
Why does it always rain on me? from The man who (1999) by Travis

My dark hour

As all people, I have an addiction: self pity. I hate that feeling and manage to avoid it most of time, but some days I just can't. A part of me loves the relief and the sick comfort that it brings to my heart. Yesterday night, it was one of those days.

People usually go out on Saturday night with their family or friends to pubs or wherever. I also wanted to go out last night, but the problem is that, as I'm a lonely and introvert person, the couple of friends I have were going out with their other friends whom I don't know much. But this not an obstacle to me, so I put my make up on, dressed a bit more carefully than usually and left home to wander around town on my own. I walked by the local pubs, but some of them were closed for holidays, so that the rest were crowded and there wasn't any table left for me. Finally, I ended up in a pub far away from downtown where they were celebrating a soft stag-party. Luckily, there were some seats for clients that weren't in the party. I ordered a rum with lemon and took a seat. I looked at the pub terrace where the people invited to the stag-party were. All of them were in white, like if they were in Ibiza. Then, I paid attention to the music: in the terrace, they were playing today's shitty pop music, but other group where outside, in a car, playing an album of a metal band I didn't know. I heard a mixture of the two kinds of music, the strangest mixture I've ever heard in my life, although I would prefer to listen to the metal band only. The waiter brought my drink and I relaxed while contemplated the sky. But I started getting depressed, I was in the mood for it. And, again, I wondered what if I could have been another person and have a better and perfect life where everything was as I dreamed it. I know it's childish, but sorry, sometimes I can't help it. After that, my thoughts flew to nowadays decadent world and my struggle against been caught by its hypocrisy and got even more depressed. To that point, someone has turned up the volume of the shitty pop music and I couldn't take it anymore. I finished my rum and came back home throught the lonely streets.

Once I was back, to cheer up, I tried to buy online tickets for a rock festival I wanted to attend, because, totally by chance, next week I have to travel to the city where the music festival is celebrated and some of my favorite bands are playing, so I was thinking about going in my free time. I know I'm old for music festivals, but I don't care. Unfortunately, I have confused the dates and the festival is not the week when I going, but the next, and I realized it last night. So, it makes me get more depressed, is that was possible, and went to sleep feeling so sorry for myself, dreaming of another life in another country in another easier time with a more encouraging future...

Arcturus, the guardian of Ursa Minor

Yesterday, the day of the summer solstice, when it started getting dark around 22:30, I went out of the house, looked up to the sky and there, in the West, it was the star Arcturus. I always know that summer has begun when I can see early in the night this star. Of course, I could have known it using any other star, but Arcturus is special to me.

The window of my bedroom in my parents' house in the village is in the West side. When I was a little child and didn't know anything about astronomy, in hot summer nights, I used to sleep with the window opened to get the night air cool the room and I contemplate the clear summer sky and the stars through it. But a star shone more than the rest, shone like a lamp, shone with an intensity that I thought it was so close to us that I could reach it with my hands... And I thought that star had to be Arcturus. One day at school, the teacher told us something about planets and stars and said that Arcturus was the guardian of the Ursa Minor. I liked that of 'guardian of the Ursa Minor', so I happily assume that the star I watched trough my window was Arcturus. And I found, years later when I started to develope my interest for astronomy, that, in fact, that star that I have been contemplating during summer for years, was Arcturus. So every year, when summer comes, I look for Arturus in the sky and wave hello again.

A new life

Now, I'm ready to say goodbye to life as I've always known it and start from scratch in a new place where nobody knows me and doesn't even imagine how my life has been before get there. And, again, I wonder if I'll do it right this time, if I'll find that that I've been lacking during too much time, if there I'll finally find a home for me.
This is the third time I get a new start, but not of them before has been as great as this. But I promie myself that I won't wasted and for once I'll do what I want without thinking about anyone else.

On the other hand, this morning I was packing and keeping all the remains of what it's gonna belong to my past soon and I felt sad cause I have to leave behind the people I love here and an important part of my life, and I know things and myself will never be the same when years pass by and I come back here, but I must keep on on my way.
I feel a bit scared too, cause what if I do it wrong this time again? What if I can't hold on and give up? What if I break myself again?

Anyway, I have hope on the future... I have a bit of time left, but my new life will start soon, and this time I can't fail.

Living in a ghost world

One of my favorite comics and movies of all times is Ghost World, written by Daniel Clowes between 1993 and 1997, the heyday of generarion X, in the underground zine Eightball. This comic is a master piece about the always inspiring issue of the end of teenage, the lose of innocence and the entrance into the adult world and the alienation that comes with it in a monoculture society run by the media and the consumist interests, like the colors used in the comic show (blue, green and white, colors than the TV set reflects at night).

If you haven't read this comic yet, I recommend you to do it. I'm not gonna tell the whole story now, but they show some episodes of the life of two friends, Enid and Rebecca, during their last teenage summer, after graduating in high school. These too young and intelligent girls are kind of outcasts who are able to see the decay and mediocrity of the customer culture and prefer to not take part on it. One of them, Becky, is more likely to betray herself in order to get acceptance, while Enid stick to herself and deny joining the rest of the world, fact that ends up distancing the two friends till they lose the connection and friendship between them.

The main reason why I love this story is because I see some parts of my life reflected in it. Me and my all life best friend used to be like Enid and Becky, two freaks always wandering and making cynical jokes about everything and everybody. But, as in the story, my best friend was a Becky, more dazzled by society lights, while I was a denied and stubborn Enid. I guess sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

There are some differences about the comics and the movie of Ghost World, and also in the feelings they brought to me. I remember the first time I read the comics, a lot of years ago, they made me feel empty, kind of depressed, something close to a nihilist feeling. It's difficult to describe, but I'd say it was like listening to a Nirvana song. And, on the other hand, the movie has a more focused plot, there're no caothic episodes. And the feeling it brings are quite different. The only word that comes to my mind to describe it is 'painful'. Here, the sense of nihilism and emptyness is replaced by desolation and pain, and I think this is because the movie shows the loneliness, sadness and struggle that Enid carries inside of her, and that doesn't appear in the original comic.

Maybe some other people wouldn't find this movie painful, or even they'd hate the character of Enid. I have to say that when my friend watched it, she didn't like it at all, and she didn't understood Enid. But I can't help loving this tragedic character. And this is because I feel so related to her, that character is a more self-assured version of myself. But I still recognize me in Enid's sarcasm and cynicism, same as mine, in her view of the world, in her hidden sensibility, in her weird likes, in her loneliness and in her struggle to find something authentic in the modern world. As she does, I tried to feel the void with contraculture and weird stuff, in a try to develope my own. In conclusion, I tried, as her, to still loyal to myself and my sight.

But what is the message of Ghost World? Maybe that you must follow your dreams and what is in your heart and deny what others wants you to be or do? This has been the message of most of books, songs, movies and other cultural products during the modernity. But, in the case of Ghost World, this is not the what the story means. The message here is hopeless and pesimist.

What does Ghost World present to us? It shows the boring life of a girl who tries to stay truth, to do what her heart feels. She exactly does what modern books and songs have been telling for decades. If you do it, they promise you that you will be forever free and happy. And Ghost World is exactly that, it shows that this is only a lie, it shows the consequences of that behavior in real life. And they're negative: a future of loneliness and isolation in wich you'll be a loser. This idea is what the character of Seymour represents in the movie, he's Enid's hopeless future and I used to see in him my future too when I was young.

Of course, Ghost World is not the only work which shows this. I'd like to do now a little comparative between some other well-known works belonging to different fields of arts which are about the same topic and have similar plots. The two that I'm gonna choose are a literary one, The catcher in the rye (1951) by J. D. Salinger, and a music one, American Idiot (2004), by Green Day (I'll refer to the story plot of the album, not the music aspect). So we have now three works all of them written by American artists, two of them modern and one more classic. If we examine the story of the three, we'll find that they have many points in common, The three have young adults main characters (Enid/Becky, Holden Caulfield and Jimmy) who have grown up in customer American culture and see its mediocrity, rejecting it, reason why they all three are social outcast. At the same time, they desperately want to find a place to belong, what leads Holden and Jimmy to escape to find their place in the world but, instead of that, they find a person who seems to understand them or relieve them: for Enid, this is Seymour; for Holden, her innocent little sister; and for Jimmy, an extraordinary girl who also tries to find her way and, at the same time, stay true. But the three of them are taken away from the beloved person because of their struggling and their attitude: all people abandon Enid and she realizes she will keep hurting everyone if she's herself; Holden sees her sister's innocence like something he's lost and will miss forever; and Jimmy breaks up with his rebel girl because of his doubts about who he is. At the end, they're all alone, everyone has left them. And the heartrending message is clear: sticking to yourself will lead you to anything. Reflecting this, at the end od the three stories, it's not clear what happens to the characters. Holden maybe became mad and Jimmy went back home. There's no real conclusion cause their attitude has taken them to anywhere, there's only emptiness left.

So we have here three works by different artists and designed in different moments and we must recognize they have the same fitures, proving the important and worrying that topics like alienation, identity and authenticity are for modern man.

Oh, I have forgot to talk about the ending of Ghost World. No, the truth is that I was keeping it for now. The comics and the movie have different endings, both of them poetic in their way. 

In the comic, Enid walks besides a coffee shop and sees Becky trough a window. She thinks something like 'You've become a beautiful young woman' and walks away. This shows perfectly how Becky has betrayed herself to join the adult world, while Enid still being an outcast. On the other hand, in the movie, when all people has abandoned Enid, she decides to make true her dream of run away (one of my youth dreams too) and she takes a bus to wherever, making so clear the idea of the nothing where her fight has lead her.

While reading Ghost World, I wondered what was going to be my own choice, to join the mediocrity or fight against it and become a teenager forever. But you know? It's a lost fighting, at the end we can't choose. So I then wondered how much time I had left before I betrayed myself and became a sad shadow of what I was, how much time before I lived in a ghost world, how much time before my face was lit with blue, white and green light by the TV set, like the face of many others before me.

Balloons factory

Last Sunday I saw in the paper a report about child labor and it got my attention, so I read it and, I have to confess that it moved my conscience till the point that this issue has been around my mind for some days.

In the report, the journalist talked about his visit to countries such as Indonesia, where multinationals hired labor, in many cases children from poor families. So, he explained that when he asked these boys and girls what they wanted to be when they're adult people, they answered, with all that misery around them, things like doctor, engineer, teacher, etc. although they don't even attend to school. He told how young girls, almost children, forced into prostitution, dream about that one of their clients will be a prince charming who takes them out of that nightmare. The contrast between their terrible situation and that innocence in their sad eyes seemed to me the most cruel thing in the world. But one of the stories who moved me the most was about a boy who worked in a balloons factory. Balloons are for us something happy and funny, colorful, and if we ask any of our children if they want to go to a balloon factory they will answer yes. But for this boy, balloons and factories are not funny at all. Everyday he has to work hours and hours breathing all the chemicals needed, and has his skin whitish because of that. The balloons he's almost dying to do will decorate the parties of children luckier than him, even they used to decorate my own birthday parties, but those balloons are made of the future, the health and the hopes of a child as innocence as any others.

And all this only brings one question: who is to blame? When I finished reading the report, I was feeling guilty. It's not nice when someone comes to remind you that for keeping your life level, in the other side of the world millions of people are dying or living badly, it's not nice when you remember that your hands are stained with blood. But we must accept that we're in part responsible of this tragedy because, at the end, customers are the ones who choose, although the temptation of buying cheap is so big, isn't it? And, after all, what can we do to change that? We don't control multinationals. And moreover, if just one person deny to buy their products, will it make any difference?

This leads us to a new question: are all we to blame or are we just victims of this unfair system too? We're constantly wanted to buy new products to keep or improve our social status, we're constantly told that we need this or that to be complete human beings, although the truth is that it only makes us less human. If it wasn't for some heroic journalists who show us the truth, nobody would tell us. These poor children spending their lifes in factories don't appear in tv ads or on  billboards. When you go to a shop and you buy something, no one warns you about that shirt has been made by children. Could be more sick a society that donates money to charities and at the same time is accomplice of a productive model who is going against the people charities help? But I guess we live happier closing our eyes to this. Because, after all, I can't do anything about it by myself and you can't do anything by yourself as well... or maybe is it a lie? Who knows?

Letter to a friend

Soon it's gonna be my best friend's birthday, announcement that summer is here again, and, for this year, I decided to write her a kind of letter about our long friendship.
I know I could have done something better than a letter written with a cheap pen, like a slideshow with photographs, music and all that, the kind of things that people do these days, but I have reasons for my decision. The story of why I choose the letter and the cheap pen is quite long and I'm not gonna tell it here now, but, in a nutshell, I almost lost something my friend did for me years ago because of the computer and a data error. So that's why I wanted to do something which doesn't depend on electricity, or computting or whatever, something that my friend can read whenever she needs or wants to. Moreover, although it's the key of progress, I think technology has taken away a lot of the romanticism of life.
So in the letter I wrote, I told my friend that the problem of any long friendship is that you get used to have that person by your side and you take for granted that he or she is gonna be there always, so that you forget how to say the important things, things that maybe are evident, but it's good to remind them sometimes. And this not only happens between friends, but in all kind of relationships.
As I'm a very reticent person, I'm so used to keep my feelings for myself that I find strange and difficult to express them to someone I know. Then, I'm not a person who tends to say nice things to everybody and, although I'm sensible, I always hide that part of me. In conclusion, writting that letter wasn't going to be an easy task for me. But, after write about the problems of long relationships, I started with something easy: make a travel through my memories of my friend, from the earliest to the most recent ones.
I forgot a long time ago how we became friends, although the first memory I have about her is from before that, when we were three and attend playschool.
I remember I wanted to play with a toy, so that I went to look for it. But I found that my friend had it. Then I stared at her for a while and thought something like 'I've never played with this child'. Then, my next memory is from when we were already friends, at four and a half years old, more or less, and we were in the playground laughing together. It seems to me it was spring then, I don't know why. And, after that, all the memories come together: the summers in the pool, she and I playing in her house garden, the concerts, wandering around town with no place to go, talking in the bar on Sundays mornings, rememebering the old times, our programme in the local radio station... always struggleling toogether for so much years.
Finally, I wrote for her five pages with our memories, just to tell her at the end the important things I wanted: that I love you and you appear in most of the happiest memories of my life, that you're important to me till the point that I barely can imagine how my life and even myself would have been if you hadn't been here. Since we're born, all things change around us: years goes by, summers passes, birthdays passes, schools passes, works passes, stages passes, friends enter and get away of our life, people who we used to love have changed or have gone and they're not with us anymore, even we have changed a lot since that fist mememory... all passes, but you've always stayed in my life. As Nietzsche said (he's not one of my favorite philosophers, but I consider he was right about some things), we must accept life with its tragedy, and as long as there're friends like you, this would be easier to do.
Thank you for all these years of friendship.

Bus station

I'm writing this while waiting for the bus here in the bus station. I wanted to write about this place some day, and I guess today's that day. And why about a place like this? Because it brings me a lot of memories and, apart from that, I've always liked to sit and watch the different kinds of people that comes here, going up and down anywhere. It's a busy place, but full of life. I used to take here the bus back home after shcool everyday during my teenage, but now I barely come. This station is different now and I think it was reformed some years ago, but most of the shops and things stay as always. That's a good thing about this place, it doesn't change, and if it does, just a little bit. So I think that is also the reason why it brings me all those memories.

When I was like fifteen, once school finished, I came down here fron the top part of the city with two schoolmates. They weren't really my friends (I've always been a lonely person, but I'm ok with this) although we had great times together while walking down here. Then we sat to wait the bus, bought some sweets and had a laugh at the teachers. I must admit I miss that time, so far now that it seems to have happened in another life.

Right in front of me is the photobooth where my best friend took some photos with one of her first boyfriends, at the age seventeen, a rebel, romantic and idealistic guy, right before she left him because she weren't capable of loving him as much as he loved her. She told me about the photobooth story and the ridiculous she had felt in the situation, so that everytime we needed to take the bus and passed besides it, she got red and we made jokes and laughed.

In the other side of thr station, in the left, there's the place where one day while sitting with some girls from my old school, we started an argument about a teen fad of that days and, as I hated all those fool things, said I didn't like it at all, so that one of the other girls faced me and told me that she hated me because I was a bland. Back then I was so insecure that the only thing I could do was swallow my hurt pride and ducked my head, but, luckily, one of the schoolmates with whom I used to go everyday defended me. Those words pained me and that's why I still remember that old story.

And, finally, this was the place where I used to wave goodbye to the first boy I fell in love with, I guess at thirteen or fourteen, and stayed in love with him for some years. He was in my class, and I was nuts about him, so that all people knew that I loved him and I think he knew it too, cause then I was so innocent to walk with my heart in my hands, but at least he didn't use it to take advantage of me. I never was with him, and barely talked, although sometimes got to flirt with him. Anyway, it was most of a platonic love because I knew I was too young to manage to love someone. But that love was pure and I miss I could love someone again like that, I wish -and I guess all adult people do- I could go back to the time when I could believe in everything and trust everybody to the point of be able to give them my heart fearless. But that love passed and now almost nothing of it remains. This boy moved to another high school to finish the last to years and so did I. I've never seen him again and I think once someone told me he got girlfriend. But after all and over the years, I still remember him and wonder how life has been for him, if he is married, if he has children, a good job... If he is happy and how life would have been for me if I'd had the opportunity to share my life with him, a life I dream with all my teenage nights. So, he came to the station everyday too and when I saw him here, I said goodbye to him with my best and most lovely smile, and he used to laughed. I know if I met him again, I would fall in love again, because as he was a kind of first love, he'll always have a place in my heart.

Well, this post is too long now, so I'm gonna finish it and keep waiting for the bus. It's incredible how we feel linked to some places...

Happy birthday

This has nothing to do with a birthday. Well, maybe it does in some way. But actually, it's about a story that a lonely girl I met one day told me. The phrase 'Happy birthday' was important in that story, and that's why I've titled this post like that. I'll do a song when I have time...

She stares at the mirror
looks into her eyes and ask
'What's wrong with me?'
She looks at her life
from other eyes and realize
how miserable it is.

And she feels
she needs someome to lean on.
Need someone to do the things
she will never dare,
to cry out the things
she would like to say...

But listen to me,
my innocent child,
don't put your faith
in someone else's life.
You may as well
learn to walk on your own
cause no one will be
at the end with you

Here he comes
and her eyes are shining.
A cold word from him
is a world for her.
Cause he doesn't suspect
he has a place in her heart
and she just can't understand
that she's nothing to him.

But listen to me,
my innocent child,
don't put your faith
in someone else's life.
You may as well
learn to walk on your own
cause no one will be
at the end with you.

Your smile when he's around
makes me feel pity for you,
cause after all that smile
is made of unhappiness.
I wish, sweet child,
I could give you all you lack
to let him go.

Listen to me,
my innocent child,
don't put your faith
in someone else's life.
You may as well
learn to walk on your own
cause no one will be
at the end with you,
and the world will teach you so.

Betrayal

Have you ever feel the pain and the bitterness of betrayal? I mean, you admire someone deeply and then he dissapoints you. You put your faith, you share your hopes and dreams with him, he represents what you believe in, he inspires you to start things by yourself, you find consolation in him as if he knew what you feel, as if he understood you... he's an important part of your life. But time goes by and he becomes all that you hate, all you never like him to be. He breaks all those things that you had put in his hands and doesn't even think about it for a second. He betrays you.

I think the first time someone you admire dissapoints you, you realize that he's just a human being as you, nothing special. And the dream ends in that moment. Then you try to convince yourself that everything can go on as always, that there're still admirable things in that person. But he will dissapoint you again, and again, and again while you try to forgive him desperately till the pain that he causes you is almost unbearble, the bitterness of feeling betrayed, the rage against him grows with every new dissapointment and, eventually, you can't take it anymore and even wish to be able to hit him or shout at him, or not want to know about him anymore. However, the deal is, as he was an important person to you, you can't help loving and, after all, admiring him. So it turns out to be like a conviction, you just can't run away. When you see him, you think that you can't really get angry with him, you will believe in his lies again, you will let him play with your affections, cause looking back, there was a day when he was all for you, but it will never be like in the beggining again, when your admiration was pure, when it wasn't stained by betrayal, during that time when you thought that person was the most amazing in the world. Cause you know that person still exists in the past, and you would like him to go back to that state, to forget what he has become and that you hate. It's impossible, and here comes bitterness again.

I think this story happens over and over with all the people we can get to admire: parents, friends, family, partners, bands, teachers, athletes, scientifics, writers... cause at the end we're all the same and all make mistakes and lose our way sometimes, and we shouldn't forget it.

Data mining

I was trying to write lyrics for a song and here it is:

You know all about me
but I can't know you
cause actually you're nothing
although you're almost everywhere

You know all I love,
all I want,
all I need.
I fear one day you will able to know
the deepest desires of my soul.

And I wish I could
run away from you.
The way you control me,
the way you analyze me
is so degrading...
but I can't do anything.
I'm trapped in your world of lies.

Here you are again
trying to tell me,
trying to sell me
what you think I need,
what you think I want
and the most scaring is
that you're right.

I guess I'm used to like
what you want me to like
but your brand new happiness
won't bring anything
but emptyness.

And I wish I could
run away from you.
The way you control me,
the way you analyze me
is so degrading...
but I can't do anything.
I'm trapped in your world of lies.

If I tried to scape,
I wouldn't be anyone,
but living like this
I'm nothing anyway
What part is the real me?
What part is what you
force me to be?
I can't answer anymore.

And I wish I could
run away from you.
The way you control me,
the way you analyze me
is so degrading...
but I can't do anything.
I'm trapped in your world of lies.
We're all trapped in a world of lies.

The blog I used to read

I used to read a blog where there was great stuff that I loved. The thing is that I forgot about it for a few months and yesterday, it came to my mind, so that I decided to check it out. And what was my surprise when I found out that I couldn't access to it because the author had stopped paying the hosting service. That blog was about a topic very important to me and I was really sad about this issue, I don't know how that blogger has been able to let die such a wonderful site when she's dedicated a lot of years to build it..., but anyway, I started to think in all the photos and all the posts that I would have saved from that blog and now have dissapeared forever. I guess you should value things while you have them...

My little rebellion

My teenage and early youth days were very dark for me. Back then, I was just a kid scared about growing up, a nerd and lonenly girl filled with doubts that tried to hide in her books. All my life I've been a really idealistic and artistic person, and the contrast between my ideals and the reality has made me feel lost many times and has encouraged me to look for the truth. Also, I'm very introvert and individualistic person, and during my youth, trying to set up my personality, that two cores of my identity were stronger, so that they caused me a lot of trouble, suffering and misunderstood in those days. When I got into youth and adult life, the better way to describe what I was is a walking doubt, questioning and worrying about myself all the time, because I was just trying to be myself and it didn't seem to fit a world that doesn't have room for individualistics. I only had one thing clear: my ideas. When I truly believe in something, I defend it against all and live according to it, but I've never tried to change the world, it's enoguh if the world doesn't change you. 
During that confusing time, I ran into something that becomes really important to me. One day, I was searching randomly for new bands (as all young people I loved music, and I still), and found by chance one that played a strange kind of agressive rock whose lirycs I instantly felt related to. And the revolution started that day. It ends up to be a punk rock band (they still play nowadays), and since then I developed a deep love to punk culture. When I started to listen to punk rock, the only idea that I had about its background culture was a bunch of violence guys messing around, but when started to research, I forgot my prejudges so quickly. Punk is about thinking by oneself, about respect and it holds some ideals that I've denfended during all my life. I found myself reading and reading essays, books and punkzines... and anything related to punk culture. Some day I have to write here about punk history and statements, but today I don't feel like.

I wouldn't think of me like a truly punk rocker, I was a polite and good girl that spent her time studying. Relating to punk, I've always been like that person looking a shopfront and doesn't dare to enter the shop because there're lovely things, but too expensive for him. But anyway, I've visited some punk scenes in some cities and met punk people during my life (most of them quite intelligent and respectful). Punk has always been my little rebellion and it taught me that there isn't anything wrong in being individualistic and think and do things by yourself, so that in my youth it helped me to feel the confidence that I was lacking to like myself and live in the way I wanted.