The Write Thing

There are moments in life when silence is all that is possible. In an odd, untimely way, I believe I had a severe case of this almost for the last two months. Lots of things are changing in my life right now. New doors are opening while others have closed apparently in a much more certain way than I would have imagined, or even liked. Oddly enough, it is in those times when writing becomes the obvious channel. However, I have not written — except for work reasons — for exactly 59 days.

I cannot possibly expect anyone who ever read this blog to even become aware of my return. Those generous souls who would now and then glance at the website for a peek into whatever oddity I would decide to indulge my keyboard into by now have probably given up all hope. Yes, lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate. You would do the right thing by refraining from trusting an erratic author. Life is much more beautiful when you do not have to be surprised by other people’s changing moods.

If I were a good writer, I would be able to summarize in a concise text my whereabouts since I decided to put this blog in the freezer. Oh, well…I don’t think I can do that. Therefore, I will speak about the future, about new horizons, about uncertainty itself. Houston beckons, this time for a more permanent contract. What this means is a lot and nothing. It means I still have a job, and new challenges, but it does not bind anyone to anything — including myself. A few years ago, Houston had also seemed to be the place where I would be residing on a longer term basis. However, neither life nor I were ready for the jump, so the whole fantasy only materialized in a short story I wrote at the time and which I named “Letters from Houston”. It was written in Spanish…and I’ll never know why. Houston was on hold, and in a very particular fashion, I was coming out of my own personal limbo of indecision and non-living. Many things changed in the two years that passed since a first door to the US was closed, partially by H1-B quotas and partially by myself. I plunged into my own abyss, emerged half-victorious and wounded, and created my own re-birth, as Sylvia Plath would say beautifully at the end of that prodigious scene of The Bell Jar. I played around the limits of desire and succumbed to the demons of dysfunctional relationships, I naively believed it was possible to set free a repressed love and not pay the high cost of its loss, but I also learned to let go. I learned that letting go is the only way of healing, and the hardest.

Yes, I miss her sometimes…her laughter, her friendship, her beautiful eyes, and I secretly know there will be no letters from Houston, and no Copacabana Palace. We are no more anything, and it scares me to think that I always knew…because I wrote the end of my own story throughout the summers of her absence and my pain and I was right, even before she severed the bond to escape a friendship that now she feared.

Oh, but this posting was supposed to be about my future. Well, nothing is really about the future unless it comes from our own past. So I will raise a symbolic glass of champagne and toast to us, to the land of no regrets, to the bitter taste that time will turn into sweet vignettes of a youthful Paris…the world we knew before, dont je ne regrette rien

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been the recipient of an award. I have to thank Miss Fiamma for the honor, which I can only accept with a wide smile and a humble nod. According to the rules that come with the award, it must be granted to ten other blogs. This has been a difficult task, which took me longer to comply with than it should have I must confess. Whenever possible, I have tried not to repeat myself.

The instructions to be followed by my nominees are:

1. Place the logo in the blog.

2. Choose ten blogs that you would consider deserving of the award or towards which you experience gratitude.

3. Post links to the nominees on the blog.

4. Inform the winners that they have been granted this award by commenting in their blogs.

5. Share the love, publish the link to this post and to the person who made you recipient of the award.

And my nominees are (in no special order of appearance):

1. Emi, La seguridad de mis objetos, a charming journey into a life that blends art and its own everyday poetry in a unique manner.

2. Flash-me, Flash me if you can, a collection of creative flashes with a cryptic personal touch.

3. Geisha, El jardín de la geisha, a garden where everything grows, led by the hand of a masterful creator.

4. Manon, Blumenfest, a feast to good literature, music and writing, although it has been silent for a while.

5. Lola, Los cuadernos de Lola, an exploration into the world of words, of writing, fresh air into a different notebook.

6. Erica, Por amor al cine, a celebration of movies, with colorful reviews that only a movie buff can write.

7. Arha, A la luz de mi sombra, poetry…because it all starts there and very few privileged souls can be themselves in that sea of words.

8. T, Atrevete, another example of writing, an art that some can do in a unique way.

9. Miss Fiamma and Von E., Juego de damas, a game of two, elegantly open to an audience of thousands.

10. Jason Pettus, Jason Pettus, an artist who proves that you can live outside the system and still be heard.

Before I continue with this post, I want to publicly thank for an award, my first, recently given to me. As stipulated in the conditions issued to the winners, I am now in the process of selecting ten blogs that I consider deserving of the same award I received. It is this phase of the aftermath to my honorable gift that has so far stopped me from acknowledging the award as I should have. In view of this, and despite my partial compliance with my share of the deal, I would like to express my gratefulness to my fellow blogger, Miss Fiamma, for including me as one of her choices, and publicly state that I will be paying my dues on this choice in full very soon, on the pages of this blog.

Having relieved myself of a self-conscious feeling of irresponsibility vis-à-vis a gift that I can only marvel at and be thankful for, I now proceed to post my entry of today.

This morning I spoke to my ex-girlfriend, for the first time since we parted ways two years ago, about the person I am deeply in love with. I said it finally, after a couple of months of pondering. As I spoke, part of me poured out in the retelling of my new feelings, while another side exercised a form of restraint, as in an Edith Wharton novel, perhaps in an effort to say just enough.

It is good to tell the truth, when the truth is palpable. It is better to tell the truth with the best possible words, those that do not hurt but communicate. And it is even better to live by the truth we know for a fact, because it may be there for a purpose.

Another cycle has in a way ended now. I have always said that lesbian ex-girlfriends never really become your friend but something else, undefined, oftentimes confused with some form of friendship. There is a certain affection, because something brought you together in the first place, and there is also the sea of differences that set you apart. And then, after a while, if you have remained close in some way, there is that brief instant, before you speak, when the truth still lingers behind the curtain, waiting to go out into the scene and feel itself in motion, as an actor does. You do not know what your audience’s reaction will be, but you certainly hope they will at least understand what you want to communicate. If the reaction is good, it means that they do.

Today my audience understood, and I am glad I told my truth.