¿En qué medida seria o en qué sentido profundo podemos decir o hablar de años ganados? Nuestra experiencia inmediata de historia, de la historia de lo acontecido en nuestra vida, y en la de nuestros padres y abuelos, y de la historia de lo leído y transcurrido nos dice que los años nunca se ganan sino que se pierden.
La historia, su periplo, para hacerse, nos hace perder todos los años, y, con ello, nuestra vida. Es así como un sujeto colectivo que nosotros hemos trascendentalizado se constituye a nuestras expensas, sobre nuestra chepa.
Pero nuestra conciencia interior, nuestra conciencia de individualidad, cualquiera que sea nuestra propia percepción de nosotros mismos, nos habla, nos sugiere, al contrario, de años ganados.
Esa consciencia de individualidad, me asusta decir nuestro yo, crece y se consolida, en sus miedos y en sus éxitos, sobre la percepción interior de un crecimiento por acumulación que nos sobrevive, que se sobrepone a nosotros desde la experiencia de esos años que se ganan.
Esa individualidad acrecida, sobrepujada, arrebatada a lo informe de ese sujeto colectivo que es la historia es lo que otros han llamado sucesivamente inmortalidad, o gloria, o fama, o recuerdo imperecedero. Supongo que también esto es lo que buscamos escribiendo libros o ejerciendo de artistas. ¿Un cielo de papel? Ahora, ¿una eternidad digital? En todo caso, el tiempo que pasa es uno de los temas centrales de todo individuo, de todo escritor, aunque no se note, aunque no se exprese. En mi caso lo ha sido y de manera expresa. Es posible que siempre me haya sentido un poco viejo por adelantado. A los 18 echaba de menos los 14. A los 30, los 20. Y así hasta hoy.
Swatchka has a lot to say on the matter but it got erased. Sign that things should be thought out before written.Should be meeting deadlines but maybe...anyway just tolet you know I'm reading you.
ResponderEliminarQuerida Swatchka,
ResponderEliminaren sucesos como ese también hay misterio. En todo caso has ganado una noche de buen sueño, que no está mal. A la musa hay que cortejarla, y ella viene y nos ronda cuando trabajamos, pero se presenta a veces por sorpresa. Por Navidad, te remitiré un cuaderno de notas para que apuntes tus ideas. Un escritor o un poeta no puede salir a la calle desarmado, es decir, sin cuaderno y útil de escribir.
Second attempt tonight:
ResponderEliminarDOn't knoow where to put this. I'm still writing about time. This is just something that came out of something we had been writing about. Your blog won't accept Sanduran's photographs. I'll send you the copy with photograph included via email.
You decide, after all you are the editor :))
It was a cold Thursday night. The lights take on a special yellowish glare that just tells you it is late and you have one more class to go. I waited outside for the previous class to finish, forced the boys to carry my bags for me in the classroom. Small group, recent graduates, underemployed and unemployed one real teenager. Set out the rules of the game and started pulling out books photocopies, scarce commodities these.... and suddenly they were all shouting and laughing. I looked up.
-What’s that? they asked with hysterical laughter. My old Websters.
-A dictionary. Haven’t you seen one before?
-Yes, but it’s so old.
When one asked for the meaning of a word I looked up the word and handed him the dictionary.
–Here read this.
He passed it on. At one stage I heard someone ask.
-How do you say moho in English? I’m not going to touch that book. The young engineer who works in a sports shop. More giggles and squealing.
-That’s not mold. Those blue spots on the side of the paper are ink, all old books have them you young ignoramus. They giggled; they love to make me indignant.
I picked it up and then placed back in front of them
-If it has any brown stains they are just tea or rain stains.
A few minutes later they were working away with the old Websters as if it had been theirs all their life. Even the real teenager was looking words up in it. I lowered my eyes and let them finish their exercise.
Photos by Sanduran
On my way home I reflected on how easily young people get scandalized these days. Then I realized that like Mary I had brought a lamb to school that had made the children laugh and play. The moment people feel that things are out of context be it space or time it shocks them the same way as speaking about sex did or feminism or rejection of marriage or the apology of communism did in our time. The convention of the average/standard has become inflexibly implicit, rigidly looming with a subtitle or heading saying what should and shouldn’t be done. Implict rules dictated by the non verbalized standard may one day become law.
Mary had a little lamb,
Little lamb, little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow
Everywhere that Mary went,
Mary went, Mary went,
Everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go
It followed her to school one day
School one day, school one day
It followed her to school one day
Which was against the rules.
It made the children laugh and play,
Laugh and play, laugh and play,
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school
And so the teacher turned it out,
turned it out, turned it out,
And so the teacher turned it out,
but still it lingered near,
And waited patiently about,
patiently about, patiently about,
And waited patiently about
till Mary did appear.
"Why does the lamb love Mary so?"
Love Mary so? Love Mary so?
"Why does the lamb love Mary so,"
the eager children cry.
"Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know."
The lamb, you know, the lamb, you know,
"Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know,"
the teacher did reply.
What has been your lamb Tono?
Querida Swatchka,
ResponderEliminarme gusta la historia de los jóvenes esos, tal y como la cuentas, hay una escala de brevedad que deja la pequeña historia así colgada, casi como un poema. Si fueras capaz de enlazar series así sería estupendo, como pequeñas perlas, sin necesidad de explicarlo todo, dejando que el lector interprete. Está muy bien. Veo mucha verdad en ello. Y literariamente estaría muy bien una colección de "lambs and their collateral damages". En cuanto a "my lamb", supongo que de manera imperfecta ese lamb he sido y soy yo mismo: mi incapacidad para adaptarme a una vida convencional y mi necesidad de pensar y actuar "out of the box" en contextos más o menos convencionales. Y por ello verme más o menos obligado a plegarme a esas mismas convenciones que detesto. Ahh, y publicaré las fotos de Sandurán en el siguiente comentario.
(I can't find a term of endearment, I'm usually quite good at it)Just a note to say that I've copy-pasted texts from this blog, to run off to a café to.... do it.Was away but Trouble is back in town ;))
ResponderEliminar(I began to write this after your comment about fame and time but we've posted other things in the mean time)"(....)Esa individualidad acrecida, sobrepujada, arrebatada a lo informe de ese sujeto colectivo que es la historia es lo que otros han llamado sucesivamente inmortalidad, o gloria, o fama, o recuerdo imperecedero. Supongo que también esto es lo que buscamos escribiendo libros o ejerciendo de artistas. ¿Un cielo de papel? Ahora, ¿una eternidad digital? En todo caso, el tiempo que pasa es uno de los temas centrales de todo individuo, de todo escritor, aunque no se note, aunque no se exprese. En mi caso lo ha sido y de manera expresa. Es posible que siempre me haya sentido un poco viejo por adelantado. A los 18 echaba de menos los 14. A los 30, los 20. Y así hasta hoy."
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I’ve always known you’ve felt like that but in the same way I don’t think of social classes or nationalities, I never think of your age. I remember you locked up in your blue room studying, reading. Somehow, blue pajamas, wooden round table as a desk and those brown slippers ?
Time is the narrator; it is he who changes circumstances and behaviors, attitudes even though we like to think people don’t change. One does and one doesn’t. Much to youth’s incredulity I don’t mind being older. It’s a sort of relief to have reached this stage; it’s a relief not to have that drive to fight, to dominate, to take a stance, to posture, to be right, to be witty, to be, to be, to be,....just to make sure we were there/here. Youth is a waste of energy but not of time. There are certain things only young people will do. Let’s watch them do it.
I am a bit more patient with the ones I call the lamenters, as in lamenters-of-times-gone-by, these are the ones that were thinner, pretties, stronger braver etc when they were young. I look at them square in the eye and say: “Well, you must have all been super models”. If I’m in a good mood I add:”I was never pretty, slim and was always clumsy and absent minded”.
What I regret about time passing are those who are no longer with me. Not necessarily the dead, but those lost into the arms of a loving spouse, or gone astray because of a misunderstanding or as an act of quiet despair at my wilderness. I also regret the warm smiles of the men I have loved. Now I’m tame, time has tamed me. I watch the others, posture, take stances, give opinions, dictate ideas, etc. I love them the more for their energy and strength they can strut around with...I don’t have it but don’t want it. What does all this have to do with writing?
Time is the narrator, the guide we use to either play with in fragments or following a traditional chronology. Time is a measurement we use to tell about us, about other people, other places. Time situates us into a plot into the global narration that belongs to people, perhaps...to us all.
Congrats! This is the best piece you´ve wrote so far in this blog . Save it for a character in the making...
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