DONNE

Suddenly I see compasses everywhere.

SHOPPING

Once, Adam and I were discussing about what makes a couple A COUPLE. I had told him the dream Sean had had a few days before. He had dreamed he and I had gone shopping for the food of the week. He had told me he supposed we were in England 'cause I was so excited at the new and different brands. He remembered I was very happy throwing things into the cart. Adam didn't let me finish telling him the dream because he interrupted me saying, "There's nothing more couplish than doing the shopping together." True. When romance is over, I mean all the possible romantic scenes Hollywood offers, common life pervades. It instills and settles like another piece of furniture in the home. Romance gives way to common everyday life and then the misty vapours of a veiled existence lift and show the daily routines and habits of common people that work and struggle to make ends meet. Can love survive in such a graceless surrounding? Well, there is exactly where it starts growing.

Sean had a sequence to that dream. We finished the shopping and arrived home. We lasted hours taking everything from the car into the kitchen because we were chasing each other and having fun. We even let the ice cream melt, which is a sin for both of us. He has been married, he knows. I used to live with someone, I know.

Recently, Sean had another experience. He was awake. He was shopping. When his turn in the queue arrived to pay, he was surprised to see he had bought frozen food, fruit and nuts. He told me, "It was as if you had bought them!" And yes, I buy fruit and nuts whenever I go shopping. And when I used to go to the supermarket and buy meat I used to freeze it. Of course Sean and I hadn't talked about this. He knows, because he has seen me eating, that I like to eat fruit and that I am a nut addict.

I don't go shopping any longer, what for? I buy what I need in the corner store. But whenever I feel like the need to write a list of food I think, "What would Sean like eating? What should I prepare for him?" Each time I pass by the vegetable stand, the tomates catch my eyes unavoidably and I imagine the smell, the taste, the texture of a tomato soup, Sean's favourite, and I always think, "I should start practicing my tomato soup."

Shopping is not just buying food to store in the fridge --it implies planning a balanced meal, not just of nutrients, but of tastes, of flavours. It implies sharing and thinking of the other. Sean doesn't like nuts, he hates them, and he is not a fruit fan.

LONELINESS

You are really alone when there's no one to whom to say, "I love you."

THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A HAPPILY EVER AFTER

There is only a string of brake ups and make ups.

DECISIONS

Today I was woken up by the sound of a text in my mobile. No, it was not from Sean cancelling today's date --thanks God-- it was from Liber. She was on the train to Sttutgart and she asked me to remind her why she had gone there. I answered that she had gone in search of freedom, experience, and learning. Then I went to my early class at Observatorio and on my way back home I got another text --again not from Sean cancelling (God! Am I paranoid!)--, but from a furious Mau who was fed up with some problems.

Ok, these two texts kept me thinking about the decisions we take in life. So many! We never know when we choose to turn left what we are leaving on the right path. They remind me of my own choices. Years ago, when I was about to finish my Bachelor's degree, I chose becoming a mother instead of finishing it and of traveling for a scholarship to England. I chose to work in order to help my daughter's father, then my partner, to raise our girl. I worked a lot. I worked in schools, in English institutes that send you to offices to teach to executives. There was a moment I was teaching from 8.00 -9.00 in a nun school, then from 10.00 -14.00 in high school, then I would pick up my daughter at kindergarten, and then I would cook very quickly to be able to go to my afternoon classes at Glaxo from 17.00 -19.00. I was so tired all I could do was to arrive home to watch TV. I often wondered in those times what would my life be like if I had chosen another path, but quickly would erase those thoughts as soon as I heard or saw my girl beside me.

Now I'm alone. The opportunity to face new decisions has arrived again. Now I have the table set before me: finish my thesis and leave to England to study, to meet Sean in flesh, and to see if what I had thought was as I had thought it. I want to study a Mastership in Narrative, to meet and smell, and touch Seany. And of course I'm afraid of leaving all I've got here --my daughter, my cats, my plants, my mother and brother, my family, my friends, my flat. But one has to do what one has to do, so one won't blame others for not having done, because it's better regretting having done than not having done. I also search for freedom, experience and learning.

FOUR STORIES BY DORIS LESSING

Recently, my mother has learned quite a few things --to live alone, to depend on herself, to read, to write, and even to swim. Ok, she knows how to read, that is to decode graphics into words, but it was until a couple of years ago that she took Literature as a subject in her Senior classes at the Culture House. She still reads in Spanish, translations and all. She surprised me when she started reading The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. It's one of my all times favourites, not an easy one. Since then she became a fan. She started recommending me books, which is something I feel really proud of. One of those was The Grandmothers, a collection of four not so-short stories by Lessing.
The book opens with "The Grandmothers", maybe the story I identified the most with. Usually, people consider love affairs, or mere love relationships between people, more or less the same age, or the man being older; but thinking about older women being in love, and loved by really younger men, is many times a not so comfortable subject. For those people, this is an uncomfortable stroy. Not for me. I find it endearing, reminiscent, and a little bit cruel.

"Victoria and the Staveneys" is another uncomfortable love story. Victoria falls in love with an image, a house, and a dream of a better life. Victoria has the luck --neither good nor bad, just luck-- to spend a night at the Staveneys, looked after Edward, the older brother who is then 12. Later on, she establishes a relationship with the younger brother, Thomas. She finds out through time and experience that not all that shines is gold, and that sometimes, a second glance is more revealing that a flashing first impression.

"The Motive" starts one thinking about choices and decisions. In this election time, one wonders how to select a representative that will really care for the wellfare of the nation. And then, after the deception, one wonders why this chosen person, or group, has disappointed us so badly. Set up in a different time and space, "The Motive" offers an intelligent, although maybe obvious reason.

"A Child of Love" sums all the other characteristics: it's uncomfortable, it forces to look twice, and it questions choices. How real can love spring in the middle of such a graceless age as WWII? How real can love be in any unhappy situation? What is love? What moves one to love another? Is love the desire of not being alone, of a wanting, and needing of belonging? Does love answer to the need of coming home and not feeling it void? Is it a way to silence the fear of death among the dead bodies, the dead hours, the dead opportunities? Is endless love an ordinary and sick obssession?

In all of them pervades the illusion each main character makes of another, except, maybe in "The Grandmothers". The only thing I didn't like that much was the translation. Being myself a professional translator, I noticed certain Spanish grammar details that break the atmosphere, otherwise, metaphors and tone were a good achievement.

Lessing, Doris. 2004. Las abuelas. Trad. Dolors Gallart. Barcelona: Editorial Afluentes

HAIR AND AGE

Today in facebook, Ric's statuts made me think of something. He asked why men let their hair grow as they get older while women cut it short. Not in my case, both men and women.

Here's the explantion I wrote to him.

Not all women cut their hair short when they grow up, meaning adults, I guess it's the other way. And I remembered my story with hair. Ever since I was born my mother cultivated in me a long and luscious hair. But at the age of four, she got possessed by a weird spirit, and she decided to cut it short, horrible! I looked like a boy. I hated it, and I remember I cried when I saw my ebony locks being swept away by the hairdresser's assistant. I vowed I would never do that to my daughter and I didn't.

Then, during grade school my hair went up and down according to my mother's fancy. There's a nasty pic with me in jeans, my new green, eyeglasses, and my hair I guess shorter than my brother's. I looked so much like a boy.

Then, from junior high to.... university I got hold of my hair. I wore it long. Not so long, but long enough, just below the shoulders. I would take care of it dutifully and lovingly, convinced as I was that it was my only beauty. Again during univeristy, I got fed up with it getting trapped in the chairs of each classroom and I decided to have a drastic change. I had it cut to the nape. Then it went to the shoulders and up again. In one of those ups and downs I met my daughter's father and I had it cut. Then we had my daughter, and I had it really short in order to look after her. I had no time for both, my hair and my daughter, besides trying to order my thoughts to write some thesis. I got used to short hair and whenever I tried to grow it longer I had forgotten how to take care of it. It was too much work, I didn't know what to do with it, and I ended having it cut once and again.

Then the terrible news came. Ame's father was dating someone else. I threw him out of the house, and then I had a new cut. But I decided that short hair is simply comfortable and easy to take care of, definitely NOT sexy. I started to look for a change. First I had it dyed. I had bleached streaks which took six hours to be completed. The hairdressers ended so tired I guess they closed the shop for the rest of the day. I liked it, but I decided it was not worth keeping. Then, while the roots turned black again, I decided to dye it a dark colour, a reddish tone. It suited me fine, but it wasn't me. Then, when only the ends were reddish, I had them cut and my hair has been long since then. Long and hanging. It doesn't have the spark it used to. However, I like it so much better than when it was short, I wonder why I had it short.

But, mine is not the only case I know. As a matter of fact, my grandmas illustrate different cases. My grandmother Elodia, who wore her beautiful hair long most of her youth, had it cut short when I met her. There are many pictures of her with long hair and rolls to the sides, but I don't remember her with long hair. Although it was always very black, until maybe seventy years old.

My other grandmother, Luz, had her hair long all her life. I wonder why all my aunts, mother included, have their hair short. Since the old pictures she had taken, her hair hang below the waist. I remember her old and tender, towel drying her hair with care and even tenderness and then braiding it to the very end to later pin it on the back nape.

My daughter loves her hair long, although, once, out of pure boredom she took a pair of scissors and cut it shoulder length. however she's letting it grow again.

I guess most women like their hair long and when they cut it, it's to mark the end of a stage in their lives or because they need a change.

IDEAL LOVER

Never will fiction get close to reality, or can it be?

Well, dreaming is good to establish goals and visualize probable future scenarios.

My ideal lover lives next door. Nope, he doesn't live with me, he lives next door and travels frequently, but he is all mine as I am all his and I also travel a lot. But casually we are always here. Why? When you live in the same space problems and conflicts arise from the colour the walls should have to how clean the space should be, to who has to do what. Who needs that? He lives in his space as he wishes or as he can keep it, and I do the same myself. For example, my bedroom is my sanctuary, it has two purposes only: resting and lovemaking. No work, no watching news, no eating on the bed, just relaxing watching nice programs, before going to sleep, reading in calm, foreplay, and let the good times roll! I would never deprive a smoker from the pleasures of smoking, but not in my flat. One thing is you may smoke when you visit --windows wide open-- and another quite different is allowing a mate smoking and stinking everything. So each to their space is good. Want to share lunch, breakfast, whatever? Fine. Don't? Fine!

My lover keeps fit and is healthy. I don't mind big muscles or trophies. Just healthy and fit. I don't want him to fall asleep before finishing a love act. Or to stop because he can't resist it any longer. I don't want huge bellies on top of me. Too gross. Sorry for the extra info.

I love sense of humour. A man might be gorgeous, but if he can't make me laugh, or if he doesn't laugh at my jokes (which might get extremely stupid) he's well off.

I love openness and sincerity. I prefer someone telling me what's wrong from the beginning than having someone confess me a terrible secret after a month or more or less.

I love a good pair of eyes. I don't care the colour, the size, or the wrinkles around them. I like the expression, the ability of saying "I love you" just with a glance that pours feelings, that wants to grab you and hold you and never let you go. A glance that can't separate from you. Eyes that have a spark.

I love a smile that appears as I appear. A smile so frank and open it provokes you to smile too.

I like a laughter that gets you laughing. I love making people laugh and when they do I enjoy.

I love details, cards, mails, texts, messages. Simple and forgotten courtesy. Punctuality. Constancy. Creativity and a wide imagination. And of course being a writer I really appreciate someone good with words. Someone who uses them, who plays with them, who handles them as I do. I feed on words and I love being fed.

MOVING ON

Since the attack of the scary mattress I've been tossing and turning on it and in my head. What should I let go? I have Sean in my mind so set that I thought I should let him go in order to move on and continue with my life, but I was wrong. Totally and awfully wrong. What I have to let go is the past, and even the present, in pursuit of happiness and a future. That is so against me. I am so obssessed with certainy that the sole idea of opening towards an uncertain future terrifies me. So, how did I arrive to this conclusion? Writing!

I know, I write so many things everyday how could I get to this conclusion just today? Well, I write many things, but THE writing takes place in my diary. It's the utmost confessionary where I write my innermost thoughts and where I just let the pen flow and connect with my desires and fears that are the same after all. Yes, I was afraid for a sec to have to let go Sean after all that has happened... in my mind. He's been having troubles with the divorce and I don't know what kind of problems. That's another thing that has me terrified, not knowing. I depend absolutely on trust and faith. Something I have never done. It is safer to stay put, guarded, here in my little flat with my kitty kats, my plants and all kind of past souvenirs. The key were the sheets.

1st part of the dream means: stop to think, hold on.

2nd part of the dream: let go.

2ns part looked closely: I was facing the matress, the sheets were the same my mother bought for Rafael and me when we decided living together. America would look at them and smile at the flower printing because, later on I discovered, they resembled smiling faces. I was facing the sheets, but I was not smiling, I was begging, demanding the thing to let me go. I am demanding my past to let me go, I have to let go the past.

I have to finish my thesis, apply for a job in the UK and fly to meet my future. What I have to let go is the past. Forever.

GOD IS GOOD

And yeah, yeah, yeah...God is good...!

I'm saving for America's school fee, so I can't spend money. I had some Quaker oats cookies for lunch today. I was starving when I arrived to Alex and Lis's office. Luckily, they were, too. They had ordered lunch, and they invited me half a roast beef ciapata... plus a cup of frapuccino topped with whipped cream! Oh! I felt so good in my stomach! As they said, glucose increased our studying potential, and we finished a whole unit in the class time.

Earlier in the morning, Sean had texted me saying he wouldn't be able to get on line due to whatever. Chatting is importanat because he's the only one who make me feel embraced during the day. He gives me my emotional high, my daily sensitive fix. Just chatting is like feeling his strokes. His glances fill me with love and his smiles and laughs with joy. So when he can not get on line I feel divest of warmth.

As soon as I got out of Lis and Alex's office, a woman dressed in pale blue offered me a free massage on a termic bed. It was quite early for my next class. I had plenty of time. I accepted. The bed, the music, the aromatherapy were like an embrace sent through the ether from far away isles. I felt my Seany on my neck, on my shoulders... It was warm and cuddly.

So I had been hungry for food and embrace. There is a passage in the Bible that says that God knows before you what you need and He provides. He relieved both my hungers, my aching knee and my swollen guts--God is Good!

P.S. Just about to finish my last class, at a very weird hour (20.35 -for him it's o2.35, pretty late), I got a text from Sean. I felt so good in my heart!

MIND READERS

"So, if you can read my mind and I can read your mind...what's the use of speaking?"