Él se quería suicidar, y pensaba que era un derecho de todos. Así de hermoso era él, así de inteligente, paradójicamente atractivo y repelente.

 ¿Cómo escribir el dolor, aceptándolo, nombrándolo? Saber sacar a la luz con tranquilidad, escribir a otros sin derrotarnos,  a pesar de sanarnos un poco en el proceso, midiendo nuestro sentido trágico de la existencia, tomando las riendas y nombrar eso casi absolutamente insoportable, sin pedir ayuda, sin hablar de más, sin caer en la fácil alternativa de acabarnos a nosotros mismos con un garrote: ser con palabras secas y precisas, humanos. 

El silencio es una condena. Quiero saber qué significan todas las palabras.

I suffer from such a classic comprehension of life's twists and turns, as if etched in stone, it's where both submission and power advantages are defeated. 

Mi miedo es que un día, con esta necesidad de seguir viviendo, empiece yo una vida diferente para poder vivir con la que no fue, y mientras tanto, mientras esa llega, o vuelve, esta se termine, me la acabe, y vea entonces que al final era la misma, sólo una, la que se quedó iniciada y sin poder.

"The term 'dumb' has a double meaning of speechless and stupid. Aphasia patients may suffer greatly from being regarded as stupid and dumb in both senses of the word." (Oliver Sacks)

 Que la afasia exista me afana. Me hace pensar que no importa cómo lo haga, debería escribir más. Ya mismo.

Lo vi mil veces. Lo había olvidado. Es el mismo niño y es él, su nariz gigante, naranja. Son las escaleras y su papá que lo ve correr. Soy yo micro que está guardada en una serie de trazos y sonidos y movimientos y combinaciones de trazos y sonidos y movimientos y son todas él, su amigo, y yo. Juntos.  Lo vi mil veces. En la cama de mis papás, con las cortinas cerradas, con la cobija gigante de las hojas de otoño verdes y amarillas oscuras. Por las noches dormía con volar, y con tener un amigo como él. Siempre que lo veía  lloraba. Era hermoso y conmovedor y era como yo. Feliz pero triste. Hoy también quiero. Había olvidado todos los objetos y personas que me rodeaban en ese entonces y que hoy son ya tan diferentes. O ausentes. Sigue siendo mío, aún si no sé su paradero exacto, o cómo llegar. Es mi memoria y es mi tamaño. También lloraba porque su amigo se derretía. Su amigo, él, se derretía, se olvidaba y se iba también.

pull the blinds all the black dreams i've had well they don't mean much now when I rise at noon I'm missing someone I don't know and I don't want to be alone and this house is now a grave I've been sleeping here for days I'm too hidden to awake so I disappear always call someone up just having a dream we can talk about anything, I don't care getting out of the house for an hour or two but it's missing something I can't explain and this house is now a grave I've been sleeping here for days  I'm too hidden to awake so I disappear always  

DF

Las fotos que me gusta tomar tienen de gracia que pueden ser en cualquier lugar. Dan prioridad a las similitudes que se encuentran entre un lugar y todos los demás lugares del mundo. Aquí en el DF y aquí en Punta del Este y aquí en Playa del Carmen y aquí en Santiago y aquí en Buenos Aires son y aquí en Bogotá no son el mismo lugar pero podrían serlo. No son la torre insigne de cada lugar. 

Dice Paul Auster en Ciudad de cristal:  “El movimiento era lo esencial, el acto de poner un pie delante de otro y permitirse seguir el rumbo de su propio cuerpo. Mientras vagaba sin propósito, todos los lugares se volvían iguales y daba igual dónde estuviese.” 

Tal vez esas imágenes, contrario a lo que he pensado siempre, van de la mano del movimiento, de quien camina. Son anónimas y tal vez lo anónimo es anónimo porque siempre se mueve. Diferente a lo que parece, puede ser que en su quietud, son anónimas no sólo porque nadie las conozca, porque quizás si se supiera daría lo mismo, sino por privilegiar el sin propósito, sin rumbo. Sinónimo de moverse, cambiar, ser otra cosa y encontrarse de nuevo con el mundo.

Hay una diferencia entre no tenerle miedo a la muerte y querer morirse. Tal vez una muy grande. Tal vez la fuerza reside en no temerle y querer vivir. Y tal vez los que se quieren morir aún no han dejado de temerle en algo. Odian algo de la vida. Tal vez buscan redención. Tal vez no. Saben que la muerte es la inexistencia. Eso siempre fue lo que me gustó de él: no tenía miedo de morir. Ahora entiendo que lo que odiaba yo era su deseo de morir y que en el medio a la vez me parecieran tan valientes aquellos que lo llevaban a cabo, igual que hoy. 

Ojalá yo fuera tan especial como Maria de las Estrellas (o probablemente lo que era tan sólo la idea de ella), que a los siete comprendía lo que apenas comprendo ahora o Susan Sontag, que a mi edad ya sabía todo lo que aún no sé y quizás no sepa nunca. En todo caso, ¿cuál será la diferencia fundamental? 

La vida no es así.
La vida resplandece 
hasta que se va. 
 María de las Estrellas
O alguien más bajo su nombre. 

Otra cosa: el día del restaurante hindú volví a escribir sin pudor. Una dignidad nueva y vieja y refundida. Sin lectores imaginarios, sin buscar la salvación en la idea del mutuo entendimiento. La cena se valía anticipada al acontecimiento de la tranquilidad en la ignorancia mutua. Se hablaba de nada y de todo. La velada plantaba lo que sería la fuerza de un texto sin temor que venía esperando tanto tiempo. Se llama ¿Y qué?. Es la confianza que nace cuando se tiene la certeza de que siempre existe un margen de error. Sólo así vale buscar, afirmar e indagar sin miedo de tantas contradicciones e hipótesis sin comprobar. Reivindicar la duda en confianza es apropiarse de la hoja blanca y es a su vez recuperar con quién debatir, y se siente como un gran backup que de nuevo da cuerpo a las ideas, que aprieta la tierra y se abre al aire y toma fuerza.  

* 
 The belief that you already are who you “truly are” is indeed panic-attacking. But still, surrendering to the navel-gazing immanence of the mirror will always present itself as a possibility that can attack you from behind, years after you've checked, when you least expect it. And it hurts.

*

“So when de Beauvoir says that women live in immanence, she means that when a woman asks herself, Who am I? she does not answer, I am a person who will act upon the world and will be changed through my actions accordingly. Instead, she looks at herself as she is (her body, her preferences, her emotions) and thinks that these qualities define who she really “is.” This belief, that you are who you already “are” and you will always be that way, is misguided and rather tragic. It makes it so that when you ask yourself, Who am I? you just look at yourself over and over, and it leads you to a lot of navel-gazing that takes up your time so you can’t actually make stuff and have an influence on the world. Society has changed a lot since de Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex, but there are still conventions all around us that enforce a female’s belief in her immanence, her permanent and unchanging identity as an object. Think, for example, of the many mainstream women’s magazines that ask women what their “true” color is, or to find out what kind of hairstyle or perfume fits who she really “is”—these are all subtle methods of telling a woman that she has a constant, “true,” unchanging self to uncover. This is quite different from the typical men’s magazine, where the common articles are about objects (cars, electronics, hot women) for the man to act with/upon. Women are told to be, not encouraged to do or make. ” “The act of looking at yourself is—despite your knowing better—affected by the swarmy men who whisper as you scurry down the street that you have beautiful windows to the soul; you go home to peer into glass and block out the “bad” flesh to locate that soul. De Beauvoir spelled all this out 60-odd years ago so that bright, educated women like me would not fall into this trap of staring at our reflections to find ourselves in all our glorious immanence.” 

 I got that early in adolescence, maybe not understanding it fully, but knowing the trick and how not to get trapped. And that became my vehicle, apparently. Until I discovered I was still the same person I was emotionally and mentally in some cases regarding some specific topics so there you have it: it’s a self! And then you discover you were still sad in the same terms that old self was and that your new changes, creations and beginnings are cured with love, but then he leaves and there you are again, alone, and you have to remember all of them. Together. The whole time you did move and tried not to look at the mirror. And that doing did not make you forget. It helped you move, I insist. It helped you change. But still, there persisted something about this self and the world that was not fully changed by any of its impact on the world, these things that were forgotten needed to be adressed once again because they hurt. The self hurt. After all, that situation did change me. It did. The way I managed it, the impact I had on that specific situation led me to this suffering of having forgotten the trick on how to not look at yourself in the mirror for too long in order to keep moving I guess counts in a way, but still, that impact was still mediated by me, the one that felt above and beyond lovers and love and abandonement, already. Suddenly the self resurfaced and I was a kid again… I mean. I don’t get it. Why do you think I started going to a psychoanalyst and then to new better therapy just after years of posmodernist and selfless abandonement? SHIT. 

 As a vehicle for creation I do believe in a necessary dismiss of the self. But what about that overload of (female and not female just person-wise) insecurities, fears, pain, etc., that remains? The belief that we are not our emotions nor our bodies just gets the worst of me. Aren't we all of it? There. So if there's not a true self, there must be something that sticks somewhere outside my knowledge and very deeply connected with my ignorance on psychology and everything else outside myself (and in). In the end: 

“You might ask, What’s wrong with wanting to present the best version of me to the world? Shouldn’t we be producing strong female characters to serve as role models? And, you know, point taken. But here’s another point:..." 
 (I'm sticking with the best version of me, but go on:) 
 "...our society still teaches us women and girls to stew in our immanence. In our being, rather than our acting and creating. Reading books by women who act like they’ve transcended the traps that society has laid for us can leave a girl feeling alienated and ashamed." 

Not my case, because I have never ever believed those uncertainties are only female characteristics, even if it's weight and curves we're talking about, then I could never feel superior or too post feminist regarding my body, just because I care. Strenght can be, precisely, knowing you won't overcome certain flaws in your thinking, in your standards, etc. Why should I then reinforce negative features in plain perfectly normal anxieties? Those five-level though, not healthy. 

"Listen, girl: you have the advantage here. There are relatively few contemporary female writers that have submerged themselves in all that hideousness that crosses and cripples the female mind. Most women are still too ashamed to discuss these bleak thoughts that we should not be having. For this reason, write it. Write it, and put it out there. Make art about your shame! Transform your anger into something shocking! Create! And if you write in a manner that is not dried-up and that employs an appropriate dose of self-deprecation, then you are sure to embarrass and disturb and antagonize your readers; you are certain to explode. And if explosion does not entice you, then at the very least you might perform an unintentional act of goodwill: you might make some young woman who is drowning in her very female anxiety feel a tad better. Join her: risk embarrassing yourself, put on your ugliest face, climb inside your mind at its worst—and perhaps she will find in you a confidante; perhaps she will feel a little less lonesome, a little less ashamed."


Are we talking about being comfortable in one's own skin or about reinforcing features we don't like about ourselves for them not to ever define us if they ever had the chance? I don't even think that level of anxiety is productive for anyone, even if I can empathize with certain things. Let me explain: It bothers me that even at the end of the post a way to refer about embarrassment is "weak female thoughts. Why should my embarrassment feel like strength if it's just plain human embarrassment? I don't feel embarrassed at my embarrassment. It's a poor reading of women from the start. Feeling embarrassed is something that may happen to a strong woman as well. Am I necessarily pursuing men's approval if I want to look my best? I think that's sincerely naïve. Almost as much as trying to hide my imperfections. If it represses me, then yes, if it's in his function, then yes, but are all of these thoughts a vehicle for a stronger sense of self?  Isn't some level of indifference and acceptance much of a better ally when it comes to dealing with those standards? Not associating strength and beauty standards with post feminism or stupid girls inmediately but to coexist with flaws and desires because were all plain human? All of this anxiety, isn't it pretty much overrating itself?  I understand, and I feel like I empathize with that purpose, but go beyond that and just do it. Talk about your thighs more, and your pain more, and then you'll be friends with Mary and then you'll get a nice distance from Simone. I love you but I hate you. Damn, "weak female thoughts". You weaken yourself just by saying that.

Why is there an obsession with the association between shame and ugliness and guts? Not everything. May I present it in a nice format? Am I losing guts? true guts? Should I not? Would I be embarrassing myself? No, seriously, would I be missing out on a nice opportunity of being more authentic? Do I need to feel a little human stuff and stop worrying about others? 

This I do agree with: "...This is precisely why—despite my initial revulsion—I now love Mary Gaitskill so much: not only could I find comfort in reading about females who suffered from the same shameful habits as me, but I found a role model in the author: by diving deep and unapologetically into the psychologies of her protagonists, Gaitskill writes in a new and explosive manner that is truly inspiring. Wasting the limited hours that you have on this earth to explore and explode the depths of your imagination to worrying about what he (or she!) would think is not going to leave you with sufficient time to explore or explode. Perhaps you fear that nobody wants to hear about the crippling and shameful thinking that bores holes in your head when you try to write down what it is like to be confronted with weak, female thoughts in an age where we have supposedly come so far that we no longer even need feminism; maybe you do not want the reaction from the male-controlled world to be polite silence, like a witness to a train wreck every time; you are fed up with the I-can’t-comment-on-this- because-it-is-so-far-from-my-experience line. It is a frustrating reaction, yes, but better it be them who are forced to grapple with understanding.”

PS. Maybe I wasn't right about that. Maybe because weakness is pretty human it's ok to call it by its name. "Weak female thoughts". Who knows. 

Me dejan en mi casa un par de señoras. A ninguna le importa lo que hago, y al fin y al cabo, mi curiosidad seguramente también está inerte. Organizo una porción de arándanos, queso, yogurt y galletas de fibra a las 2:00 am, y es hoy, también, una forma de resistencia. Así como comer carne abundantemente durante dos semanas al regreso del viaje fue una forma de resistir a comer con esta familia tan particular, a diferencia de su casa, en otra ciudad en la que siempre decidieron qué comer sobre la marcha pero con deseo, de qué hablar, a qué hora, convocando a todos sin afán, con ligereza, sin miedo, compartiendo en torno a cualquier cosa con detalles, departiendo con gusto, reconfigurando la riqueza, y acá, que cocinan siempre lo mismo y se quedan en silencio durante todas las comidas.

Y mi comentario es desagradecido: no siempre cocinan lo mismo y no siempre se quedan en silencio. Más a menudo se repite esta última situación. Pero se trata de la experiencia de la no repetición. Esa que allá no sólo por la novedad no se repetía sino porque en la experiencia se forman vínculos al no estar presos en lo que acá es un orden inamovible. 

Comí y quise comer de nuevo porque volví a desear. Así, no quise perder la costumbre y de vuelta subí más de 4 kilos.

Ahora de regreso la experiencia dejó de ser apetito para volverse gula. Buscaba la repetición. Y así es como mi porción de hoy es una nueva forma de resistencia que busca venir del mismo lugar. No restringirse, pero alimentarse. Ya no se trata de comer carne, de probar salsas, de guardar apetitos y tomar café a primera hora de la mañana. Ya no lo tengo, no lo puedo recrear así. Tal vez sea una solución insuficiente para resistir de nuevo a toda señora insulsa, a todas estas conversaciones vacías, a tanta falta de mesa y a tanta repetición sin reinstauración y estar ahí para mí, como alguien más que me pide cuidarme. Es que la participación no se funda en acuerdos convencionales ni tácitos ni en la transacción, en ellos las palabras no conocen su significado. La participación no es real sólo por cuenta de la novedad, sino por cuenta de algo más que de alguna forma logra hacer que todo pueda fundarse como si usáramos las palabras por primera vez. Al volver, estoy buscando decir y alimentar lo mismo, no necesito rellenarme para estar satisfecha. El apetito es el deseo y el deseo acá se drena triste. No es culpa de nadie. Pero busco hacerlo, porque podemos decir cosas diferentes con las mismas palabras y podemos tener un mismo apetito pero satisfacerlo de muchas formas. Hoy hago todo diferente pero resisto. Hoy resisto a las mismas faltas. 

Cómo duele no crecer y aprender a cuidarnos juntos. O saber si estás haciendo lo mismo.