Winter is Coming

“Winter is coming” my father says.

These words always bring a painful strain in my stomach.

These words mean that good times are over and bad times are coming.

They mean that from now on there will be scarcity and want, there will be pain and I will require patience and self restraint.

My father means that this is only one winter of many, that he has seen more than I have, and that I must learn from this one and from all that come after so that I can be strong.

These words mean that there will be less sun and less warmth and less enthusiasm, less food and less entertainment.

These words mean that a test on my character is coming, and what makes my stomach ache is being aware of it.

I prefer not to be aware, but it is impossible. If my father hadn’t spoken the words, someone else would have, to the same effect.


I guess I’ll move to the tropic.


D.

Girl Talk

‘That’s what it’s like, girl’ said a mother to her child.

‘You don’t need much help in looking beautiful until you turn forty or so. Don’t waste your time striving for it, you already have it. After that, age with grace. Us women have the privilege or curse of living physical decadence very closely, more than men who don’t lose shape over pregnancies and don’t really need good shape in order to reproduce.’

‘While you have beauty’ she continued, ‘strive to gain things you don’t have: skills. If you go the other way around you’ll be wasting time. You’d be looking for things you already have, and then things you can no longer get.’


D.

New Year Kind of thinking .2

By D. Salazar

As in every beginning of a new year, I tend to allow my head to roam around all possibilities of life design, working status, learning experiences and cleansing rituals I can get my hands on, convinced that, even if I can’t do them all right now –how impairing that feels- at least I’ll be able to do the ones I truly like the most. For this I rely solely on that power we humans have, the power of will, to keep attracting those things that attract us.

Choosing a working path is not easy, paradoxically enough we are forced to choose one at the same time our raging hormones can’t even decide on one romantic partner. University age is not a choosing age, at least not for us humans with a foggy but pleasant path spread ahead.

I prefer to live day by day.

While trying to decide a working path for this new year, I realized that the one that seems both intelligent and attractive to my intellect at the same time, requires money and time, maybe too much money and too much time. Considering that I also chose to pay for an activity that makes me incredibly happy and keeps my over enthusiastic head away from dark thoughts about the emptiness of life –and how we came to die and everything is useless and other fatalistic thoughts of the sort- I’m gonna need tons of money.

When you realize you need money to get money through a better job, and you also need money to have fun so that the process of getting money is not so tiresome, you fall into depression. A little voice awakes in my head and says “wtf man! When do I get to live and enjoy living?”

With some effort, I extracted the voices –real or imaginary- of the various people I deeply admire. I find they are the best resource against depression.

One of those voices, raspy and smoky, coming from the kitchen table, said “I have never concerned myself with the reasons I would be remembered by”.

Another one, rather sombre and smelling of wine, said “I only attempt to expose the manner in which I have come to certain truths”.

And then, the greatest woman who has ever lived says, while sitting in a corner sipping tea from a delicate porcelain cup, “Freely be, whatever you are”.

Like a mother’s lullaby, these words clear the dark cloud of depression and get my ass on my working chair again. Whatever my choice of work, whatever the amount of money and time I need to spend to achieve that choice, doesn't really matter.

We admire in others the qualities that are inside us, yet unexplored.

I dare you: Name the Puppy

By D. Salazar

I have been a curious child.

One afternoon when I was seven I found a stray puppy, all brown and wide eyed. Mom said I couldn’t keep him, so I hid it in the park ad visited him often. One time, there was a bag soaring nearby. I took it when it entangled with a shrubbery. I tied the bag around the puppy’s head and watched him struggle to death.

I felt really bad afterwards. So I asked him to forgive me.

He said he’d forgive me if I promised never to do it again.

He’s been my friend ever since. I've been being really careful not to hurt him.


Several years later I realized that, among the millions of people that exist in the world, at least one of them had to know the answer for my question: why had I done it? The dog came with me on my quest. His name is _______

When I found the man, I asked him: Why did I do it?

He said: You are the only one who cares. Why should I answer to you?

I replied: Because I took the trouble of finding you

He asked: Do you think you deserve an answer because you took the trouble of finding one?

I replied: Yes

So he sentenced: If you had wanted an answer so much, you would've found it on your own means.

I answered back: I can’t. That’s why I came searching for you.

He asked: Why are you so sure you can’t?

I said: Because I tried

So he finished: Then you don’t care enough.