Love letters

Imagine... imagine that someone is writing love letters and bringing them to the postman with no other address than "anyone". The postman sends them to the people around. Some of them will say "it's not for me". Others will open it and their heart will jump, because there is someone who is talking TO THEM. Then sometimes the one who wrote the letter and the one who received it will meet each other. Each of them will leave their loneliness at home and say hello. And they will say "I know you" and they will kiss...
Do they know each other? When the one who sent the message: "I want to love YOU", who did s/he mean? And the YOU who received a letter addressed to anyone, who is s/he?

The words are wrong and so the feelings get... confused. YOU- one word that refers to anyone - are different from any other you, and I don't really know who YOU are. when I say "I love you" I refer to myself, but you don't know me. I could be anyone. So when I say "I love you" I'm cheating twice. Once, because I'm not really telling you who I am, twice because I pretend that I know who YOU are.

More than words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9CeNo4Q7p0

Thus, when I find out that the one who says "I love you", doesn't really know me, I feel deceived. But I am not without guilt: I didn't tell him who I was.

The words, which meaning we take for granted, deceive and lie. We are the performers and the victim of our own lie.

Words are powerful weapons. You take one and throw it into an open heart and you cause damage. But it wasn't me who you threw the word-grenade at. It was just anyone. I'm not there to suffer because you don't know me.

And so I'm back to my loneliness. I feel safe and I decide not to send any letters for a while.

Snowy days

Small flakes flow around innocently till the city is covert in magic.The brown leaves left behind their due date, felt on the white streets producing an unexpected colour scheme. It's an early surprise that brings forward Christmas atmosphere.
The cold hits my face, wakes me up in my inner refuge where I wintered during summer. Sometimes it seems almost necessary to go deep inside and then come out again. I'm still sleepy, a bit lethargic, barely aware of something coming up. Something that have been growing and taking shape. I don't know yet what it is but it has the mysterious colours of autumn and afternoon sunshine reflections. And I'm dying to paint it, sing it and dance it in a ritual that will let it free.
I just dreamt a dream and even if I don't remember the details I'm enjoying its taste in my memory, still half asleep.

"No se manana, se de hoy"

One of those days in July I woke up slowly becoming aware of the sounds around me. The coming and going of the trains. I imagined the roar of trolleys and people saying goodbye or hello.

I slowly became aware of the softness of the mattress as I lied curled in the middle of a king size bed. It smelled of a hotel room but it wasn’t the hotel I work at. I was alone in bed. I cried, just for a moment I felt lonely and I missed something. Then I let go the love and the dream. The man who left the room earlier that morning was not part of me anymore. I didn’t go with him to the station to say goodbye, and I didn’t want to keep his presence in the city I lived in now. I let him go.

It took me a couple of weeks to realize that I was free. As I was listening to Rosana “no se manana se de hoy”. “Hoy no es amor, no es ternura, no es odio ni amargura”. That morning someone I was ready to start a life with few months earlier became a stranger.

Changes never stop happening

A year have past since I started to make changes to my life. Changes never stop and are still happening, sometimes I feel I'm loosing the ground under my feet and the winds are taking me somewhere without asking me where I want to get. Sometimes I spread my wings and enjoy the air on my face.

A year ago I learned to break certain laws governing a conventional existence. I let go ties to stability, to conforming with good-enough-to-survive live. I risked and won but I just found out that there are more ties to break.

Ties to familiarity and a home that doesn't have a location, just the smell of candles and wood and home made food. Life just doesn't fit to the written scripts. It's surprising, mysterious and sometimes scary.
Sometimes I freak out, the little girl in me rebels against the uncomfortable challenges. Why should I adapt, renounce and loose control!? Well, life. I decided about a new path and I am sticking to it. Today life is like a puzzle with pieces that doesn't match each other. Tomorrow, let's see.

Another Storm

It’s been a month since my last post. I haven’t stopped writing. I just didn’t have time to edit the material and post it. Today I am starting a new chapter. I won’t be able to write about last month’s events in real time but I hope I can still transmit the storm I have just sailed through without major damages.

To start with, old wounds turned up when my parents visited me. I waited for them to arrive with a mixture of fear and enthusiasm. Now I was able to understand how hurt and destroyed my mother must have been after her marriage with my father. She was forced to fight for me and for herself and that's why she taught me to stand up and fight the difficulties. Sometimes she wouldn’t understand my weakness or my indecision. But she lived times when being hungry didn’t mean “I fancy a snack” and a burger was not at her reach on any corner. Maybe that’s why she didn’t have time to be paralysed by fear or to doubt about taking an opportunity. She didn’t have many so she grabbed the ones she had. I admire her for reconstructing her life from pieces and for loving us unconditionally.

Still, we don’t know how to give support to each other and there is no easy way to say I love you. Few days after they left, she called me to give her opinion as if a mother’s opinion was just that. It hurt again, but now it doesn’t matter because I know she loves me and I love her.

One of that days I went to the sea front alone and I saw the sea the colour I’ve never seen before. The surface was creased under the force of the wind and the turquoise blue interwove with silver reflections on the crests of the waves. I sat on the pebble beach and in spite of the strong wind it seemed peaceful. The seagulls were gliding over the beach. For a while they would stay motionless in the air while the gusts of the wind only slightly disturbed their flight. Then with a few effortless flaps of their wings they would move forward. The wind is their element. The same way, the sailing boats were going gently across the waves, their sails caressed by the wind that was pushing them forward. When I went sailing a few weeks ago, the simple fact that the boat can move pushed by the wind amazed me. I knew it but I haven’t felt it before.

So there I was at the end of the world, the wind defining my figure with strong blows. It is my element as well so I opened my wings but I was only learning to glide. I wasn’t ready yet to go forward. I was waiting to move on and another blow of wind was just about to come. That’s how you learn to fly, by doing it and you are at the mercy of the elements.

Pandora's box

So what came out of Pandora’s box once I opened it? A bit of guild for being selfish, for betraying a man rather than betraying myself; for taking a revenge; desire of being loved and wanted, actually seen, known and accepted; being loved... unconditionally.

I fell in love with a pilgrim. Someone who left behind his profession, lifestyle and belongings. Just like me, he was trying to fix something in his life.

One evening watching the sunset from a cliff I saw you, and I know you saw me.

It was before I fell in love, before I really thought of making love with him. We saw each other without the surface and context. We had a conversation during which I felt completely naked in front of someone I knew for a couple of weeks. It struck me how he could know so much about me. Finally, I could let all the walls I constructed around me fall down. The scaffolding of appearances and defenses that made me feel so oppressed and stopped me from growing.
(Today, showing myself is still an every day fight, but I try to remember how deeply unhappy it made me to hide behind the walls.)

The problem was that we fell in love without knowing anything about each other’s live and it made it extremely difficult to put up with the surfaces, as well as insecurities we had left at home. So when we decided on this common project and as consequence ended up in a foreign country where the cultural differences struck and put each of us under different pressures we turned into enemies. Sad and definitely I would expect more from myself. But then I didn’t know something I would learn soon.



When you see someone you have just met, what do you see? A face, a smile. What do you ask him or her? What are you interested in? What do you expect to find behind the surface, do you even bother to look there? Well, if you are reading this blog probably you do. Before you really see someone, you need to dismiss the surface, this spiderweb of information about someone: profession, hobbies, origin, made of their car... and thousands of objects, facts and people that surround this person. And just then you can look into her/his eyes and see.

That was the way I saw my grandma in December. We went to the hospital and there she was, coming to our encounter, a bright smile lightening her face, her blond hair plaited on both sides, the light in her eyes... I saw the young girl she always was in spite of life because life never broke her... Of course her heart was seriously damaged, betrayed, hurt by so many wounds but always warm and generous. She was full of energy. It struck me how was it possible that this woman may die during the surgery planned within days.

I knew her all my life but until that moment I haven't seen her...

The tree of us, my grandma, my mother and me in a hospital room we shared something that winter evening. I didn’t understood it there and then, it came to me later, after coming back to Brighton, after the surgery went well and she was recovering. This was my Christmas present, she made it and it didn’t matter we were far away, she was with me, while I was alone, surrounded by strangeness, far from home, with no job and my heart broken again.
What the three of us shared there, was the unconditional love a mother can offer, and all the things we have done or said in the past, when we hurt each other, now where gone. That is what unconditional means: “whatever happens I’ll be there for you, no matter who you turn out to be when you grow up, I love you" (this also goes for a special woman who is growing up and becoming wiser).
When I understood this simple meaning of love - love that can get you out of hell, and I’d like to think it can also repair a damaged heart- I realised that being loved in that way, made me feel special and made me strong enough to make it out there in the uneven world. I was not scared of the strangeness, not scared of being alone and without any security about my future.

Was I wrong to expect that kind of love from a man, a partner?

Everyday life

One of my readers told me that this blog is not like others he read. It’s not about everyday life so I hope I won’t disappoint him cause today I’ll give you a bit of routine.

6.30 am, I leave and as I’m walking down my street I see the horizon of city roofs with St. Peters tower standing out. Behind the city, the strip of the sea. Depending on the weather the roofs and walls are dark or bright when they reflect the sun. Also the colour of the sea changes but I haven’t deciphered the meaning of its changes yet. I’m dragged down the street by the gravity and the urge to arrive on time. Supposedly 5 minutes before my shift starts. I don’t have five minutes to loose at work! My dreams keep me pretty busy. Anyway, black uniform, shirt and trousers. No, I don’t want to wear a skirt.
I arrive at the hotel, change my shoes in the messy and smelly staff room. Every time I go in there I think what kind of people am I working with... Well basically people of all sorts. Young people and students at the reception and restaurant, older in the kitchen. It’s more or less fun to work with them. The work is easy, no responsibilities. I like my part to be done, my every week pay on my account. I do like some of them, but I’m not naive, few may become friends.
On my way back I walk along the North lane, the alternative one. As I walk, I let the work issues fade away and I relax. Sometimes I go into one of the shops just to have a look, there are still couple of them I haven't seen. I like the one with funny T-shirts: “sex, drugs and sausage roll” - very British; or the kid on a mountain of chairs trying to reach the moon. I know someone like this kid, trying to get to the moon...

I used to live near mountains but I must say that I’m loving the sea more and more, It’s mysterious and unpredictable. It is a strong element and gives this place a background of a fisherman's town that became something completely different now. Now it’s a gay capital, which I deduced, means that it can’t be boring, and it is not. This Sunday there was a naked bike ride. It’s a pity I couldn't see it. Instead I had couple of matches to play. There was a beach volley Hawaian tournament and surprisingly our team made it to the semifinals! I’m playing since February and I love it. My specialty is diving in the sand so I end up sandy, but also tanned and relaxed. Then comes the good part, a beer and conversations, some good laughs. Life is good.

So, here I am leading a very normal life, pretty busy but more or less steady. I follow the path of my dreams however my baggage is not very light.

Have you ever, after coming back from a journey, left your bag unpacked till the next day? And the next day you have to take everything out, the dirty and clean clothes mixed together... I know, it’s a bit disgusting. My emotions are like a bag of dirty clothes I forgot for a couple of days, and now I have to do the washing. For a while I did as if they didn’t exist but there is no way to avoid them. I‘d better do the washing before they stink!