The Hours

FEELING GOOD  

17/15/23. Abrera, Barcelona.

      One phone call; one phone call is all it takes sometimes to change your world upside down - from good to bad, from bad to worse, from not so good to better and from better to well - That is the feeling I been getting today, as Toni, my friend from childhood rang.

His life seems to have been generously stopped in another epoch I still remember… doing what he is supposed to be doing without too much regard of the passing of time, ageing and disappointment. His family close, neat tight, parents, brothers, and sister, all living together in harmony as if time had not taken any toll on them. And indeed, it hasn’t, not much, not in the corrosive and psychological sense of the word. Love and care for one another has kept them together like in an oyster, which will never let go of its precious jewel.

      Toni takes me back to the past, along time ago, a time that has only existed in my memory as a dream. Or there are glimpses of it somewhere in my subconscious that remind me that once, for a while I felt completely secure, wrapped up in the comfort of a family home…  without feeling trapped.

It is just too beautiful to be -even if remotely - part of that world of his: Because he is my friend.

      Muslin curtains in his bedroom. Fleetwood mac playing in the distance. There is a smell of precious everyday cooking at 2pm, long chats on the table until late in the afternoon. No rush: tomorrow, he will work it all out in the gym; …whatever the excess of the day before, and the formulae to stay fit at last, that is. The library is waiting too, and a walk. New ideas on his book will materialise and unfold while hanging the laundry in the pleasant afternoon. ‘What’s on tonight?’ There is light comedy on tv. And so, they will gather again this evening as if following the lines of a rhythmical poem, and night will come pleasantly, as it always does to those who live harmoniously.     

To Toni Conesa.

PROSODIC

18/05/23. Abrera, Barcelona.

      Prosodic; that is what I am to myself, when I try to be convinced of something: something that true or not, I will become, due to repetition and conviction. I will for instance, stop the last very cigarette from entering my mouth and lungs, no longer pretending that it’s okay just two, that the dry cough is but nervousness from the anxiety of living. No, I will not stop being prosodic to myself until I am lured to liberation from it. Emotions crawl free on blood, and I must try to tame them as if a wild horse was running under me: That cigarette is helping and the small anxiety tablet too. It can’t be helped. Not right now. My life and the world around it have taken a grip on me, too difficult and uncomplacent, and catching up. Lack of physical and mental health are part of my surrounding, and I am trying to outlive it the best way I can. He, will be well I say, David I mean. And Nadal, that is a different kettle of fish. I do hope that I will see him get out of the darkness that he’s got himself into. More difficult to cure than the cancer of the blood.

      I have a journey to complete, that soon it will come to its closing, less than two months. My companions have taught me many of their long an arduous processes of existence that have become my own. Learning from their strengths and weaknesses I have. I have not been alone through it all, as I am not now. The stars have confabulated in my favour a process to keep me sane. And indeed, I try: The workings of the mind can be very difficult to scramble and unravel. Even for me of myself. We are prisoners of the mind, and we are equally liberated by it: all we have to do is try. So, I do. I try over and over again, until I am exhausted or, until something else happens and everything antecedent seems unimportant.  Or I accomplish something that makes it all right. (Or not) But that is where I am today. Trying to make it all worthwhile, the time. Off, to be with him and rest of all the headaches of life. But the time will pass, as always does. And I, thanks to my friends, my literate companions, I will have moved on; I will have conquered and gained much from this. I will have made it all worthwhile. I will look back and see that I have survived it, one more time. The pain will or will not still be there; I will retrospect with certain sadness to the things we have not shared and pity the problem that is there and does not allow you move away (from it), my child, static and paralysed by the inability of the mind to move forward.  But I will have made it, once more. Once more. Just like All of them, All of them, until they did die. But only after leaving a legacy for me to remark upon. I am fortunate thus, I am alive and wise to ponder on the things I have learnt, and on the things I have yet to acquire. And so, through a prosodic discourse of my own I am better, and I will not go crazy, despite the fairy wings that all too often flap at my heart, until I say a prayer, and all is all right.  

      To prosody, to the rhymes and rhythms of the mind… to the subconscious flow, strimming under me, and to the lapses that all too often take me off course. Until I submerge again into their lives, which give me hope again, as if a thing of feathers, coming out of Emily’s flow…   

HELP

18/05/23 Abrera, Barcelona.

Oh, Virginia, Virginia,

come to my rescue, right now,

I am trapped in a sentence, and I can’t get out.

John had me enthralled in his writing,

I cannot understand.

But it’s so enchanting and fabulous,

I cannot put it down.

If I only knew what he is saying,

the inner workings of his mind…

I know I will be much wiser,

and stop wondering what he is at.

The Ode to a Grecian Urn that is, a mystery to unravel,

as I only know he is wondering,

about the inner workings of the mind...

Him of others, mine, of his and myself.

...If he had only lived to a hundred,

he might still be well,

And write something manageable,

for my poor simple head.

But he left us all so sudden and at such a tender age,

that he might as well be and angel,

 hovering above the clouds instead.

OFF GUARD 19/05/23

Abrera. Barcelona

      You caught me off guard, and I reacted. It wasn’t my intention, but I did it. Too long I have been holding on the frustration of your indifference and the pain of your distance. Unaware that you are hurting too. For something that I didn’t do, or if I did, you twisted the intentions. I didn’t break up from your world up there in the hights of Europe to start over because of nothing. Happiness matters, and when it has been shattered you need to act. I wish you acted too, and you fought for your own. It isn’t easy in a constantly demanding world. But it is possible to fight your corner and make yourself count. Make it count. The mind is an obscure place that shatters the intelligence if you don’t control it. Can you control it? Your lacking on everything, it is only in your imagination as you’ve got everything if your own strength allows it. You are built for life and life is built for joy. Why do we not?

      I didn’t mean to hurt you, or maybe if I did it was unconsciously after so much so. I am only human. I wanted you to react, and you did, only against me. I did it all wrong. Your bringing up. I gave you everything I could, but not what you need it I guess. Life in hard when you start up with the wrong feeling as it takes you to the wrong places, making the wrong decisions, and every wrong the decision brigs hardship. And I know it best. I have lived my life trying to undo all the effects of those wrong decisions and make the best of what there is and built on new ones that make it all -all right-. I hope in time everything will be all right. And I dread every encounter that is not based on love, since I do love you and I wish you were happy, without the agony of always wanting more of what you cannot provide to yourself. Needing is a constant shatter of the brain; needing is the problem of the main. I am on guard now, and I will not let it drag me down to the gutter of the emotions to the pit of sorrow. Cheer up my child for there are still many hills to climb and clouds to run too.