¡Y DALE!

Cumbres Borrascosas (Wuthering Heights)

Los Jóvenes Caníbales (All the Fine Young Cannibals)

Esplendor en la Hierba  (Splendour in the Grass)

Propiedad Condenada (This Property is Condemned)

Washington Square (al menos un título que hubo que traducir al ser un lugar propio)

Estas son las historias que marcaron mi magín sobre el amor y lo que perdura de él. Historias de emociones que no mueren jamás debido a su carácter intrínseco.  Emociones que se funden en al ADN en reacción al perfume combinado con la chispa exhalada por el objeto de pasión. 

Me dice que sí creo haberlo pasado mal que él también sufrió cuando salía con mi sustituta, que ella le devastó.  No me consuela porque quisiera haber sido yo quien le había importado tanto como para hacerle sufrir.  Ojalá poseyera el poder de Heathcliff para suscitar en él un hondo pesar por lo que quemó.  Tal vez si tuviera el magnetismo de Bixby mi Salome se arrepentiría a diario por lo que desechó cuando especulaba con cosas y estatus por encima de la alegría.  Pero no, en esta historia me toca el papel de la infortunada Alva, que tanto quiso cambiar sus circunstancias sólo para que cada uno de su entorno le pusiera trabas al no concordar con sus intereses.

Durante años quise pensar que podría haber sido manipulado o traicionado por malos consejos pero por lo que me dice ahora ¿he de entender que me hizo el desplante por mi propio bien?  Me viene a la mente como me dijo – cuando aún tenía ilusión – que si me creía que éramos Antonio y Melanie.  Allí mismo debí darme cuenta de la inutilidad de sentir algo por alguien que me encasillaba en caricaturas de prensa rosa.  En un susurro pequeño y ronco ahora me pregunta por qué no me volví allá si podría tener una vida fácil.  No sé quién le diría que la vida es fácil en algún lugar lejano – supongo que como el país de nunca jamás.  Es lo que es y las luchas que tuve en mí ciudad serían quizás de otro color pero no mayores dado el cambio de rumbo que quise dar.  Que pensó que me iría de mi propio país al encontrarme sin novio en el lugar donde luché para llegar durante diez años…  ya que mi familia pensaba que volver a España era dar un paso atrás.  No obstante me siguieron a casa en cuanto llegó su jubilación y así sus protestas desvanecieron en el momento que volvieron a andar por las calles de Madrid.  De todos modos, será un cliché pero no por eso incierto, que no se sabe lo que sufre otra persona sin vivir su misma situación.

Por eso mismo sé que no se puede saber nunca lo que uno piensa si no te lo dice y aun así dudo de lo que me dice.  Me pregunta ahora en esa misma voz de niño que pide algo que mucho desea pero casi ni se atreve a pedir, que si de veras quería estar en Madrid porqué me fui.  Supongo que no habrá visto las noticias de los últimos años pues fuimos 550mil o más los que tuvimos que marcharnos para no morir de asco y hambre o dependiendo para toda la vida de nuestros padres.  Se me ocurre que puede haber pensado que me fuí al enterarme de los detalles de su vida; cosa que evité pues era más fácil respirar si no me lo encontraba.  Por eso dejé de ir por los lugares posiblemente compartidos y ahora me entero que él tampoco los frecuentaba, aunque no sé si por un motivo similar.  Al mencionar uno con quién me encontré alguna vez veo en su cara un dolor que no entiendo ya que la lógica me dice que la única forma de encajarlo es creyendo que no me quiere imaginar siquiera tomando una copa con otro.  Él que me dejó a mí y siguió su vida con una lista por lo visto extensa de mujeres que creería en sus momentos eran su solución.

Pero ahora me deja planchada cuando de repente lanza una cadena hecha por eslabones de “fui jilipollas”;  terminado con un colgante de que me esperó hasta los 31 años.  Estremecida porque me dejó el a mí y no al revés, y siempre supo donde vivía y cómo contactarme si me hubiese querido encontrar pero sólo me buscaba cuando estaba con otras.  No me vino estando libre por mucho que proteste que acabaran de compañera de piso.  Ahora también esta con otra aunque por mucho que le preguntara sobre su vida familiar no la haya mencionado ni nombrado ni siquiera aludido a su posible existencia.  En todas las comunicaciones habla como un soltero.  Ninguno de mis amigos ni mis compañeros casados (que son casi todos ellos) son capaces de hablar de su vida en familia sin hacerlo en plural o halagar su media naranja.  Aun los divorciados hablan de la madre de sus hijos pero este sólo reacciona cuando le pido me enseñe su foto de familia.  Entonces quita algo de la cartera para que no lo vea, antes de pasármela con sus cuadritos de fotomatón metidos debajo de una rejilla.  ¿Habrá sacado la foto de boda?  ¿Con qué fin?  

Mejor no especular ya, pues termina volviendo a esconderse en las monomanías justo antes de proponer que sea una amiguita para charlas.  Aunque nunca fui antes su amiga se ve que los años le han descerebrado si cree que podría hacerlo.  Supongo que esto es fruto de la idea de que yo soy “buena persona”.  No es la primera vez que me digan eso de buena persona.  Repatea que me llamen buena persona porque parece ser el antecedente necesario para que se sientan libres de pisotear la esencia de una. 

No sé porqué lo habré hecho otra vez.  Bueno; sí lo sé.  Me decía que quería hablar de lo que no habíamos hablado.  No soy masoquista para nada.  Supongo que la lluvia de mensajitos me convenció que se quería sincerar o de veras tenía algo que me quería comunicar.  Ya veis que la conversación no fue nada clara así que tampoco lo sabré nunca a ciencia cierta.  Habiendo pasado una semana con el teléfono en silencio ya al menos puedo pensar.  Menos mal pues algunas amigas mías se han divorciado por menos y no quiero ser yo la excusa sino he de ser la razón.

Me preguntas por qué no tuve hijos

Me preguntas por qué no tuve hijos; a mi edad que necesariamente habrás calculado que ya no es una posibilidad. Ahí la pregunta soltada de talente impensado pero obviamente calculado. Después de veinte años no creo que quieras saberlo de verdad y quisiera aprovechar los minutos ya que seguramente serán veinte años más antes de que te vuelva a ver. Largo una excusa endeble y asientas, confirmando que este encuentro ha sido un error. No sé porqué me habré torturado de esta manera y empiezo a contar atrás los minutos que faltan para que te vayas.

Porque fuiste capaz de dejarme llorando desplomada en la acera de recoletos a las dos de la tarde un día soleado mientras pasaban los turistas para entrar en el Prado. Porque al volver al trabajo después de cotillear lo suyo me mandaron a casa y en el autobús de vuelta fui el espectáculo del día para las marujas volviendo de la compra. Porque el vacío que sentí cuando semanas más tarde dejé de llorar – porque vino mi padre para sacarme de la cama y me obligó a acompañarle a todos lados pues temía dejarme sola – era tal que nunca más logré llenarlo con nada. Porque después de meses cuando empezaba a parecer una persona normal e iba y venía sin vigilancia volviste para echar sal en la llaga. Estando dentro de mí hundiste en mi corazón una navaja de hielo preguntándome si fingía. Y con eso supe que no merecía la pena buscar ni querer nada pues si al que le había entregado todo lo que era lo apreciara o entendiera tan poco para qué volver a intentarlo. Para remate pasado unos años me buscaste para tratarme como manceba cuando te cansabas de la mujer por la que me dejaste, pero al menos ese día tuve la cordura de no dejarte hacer. Porque tú elegiste compartir tu vida con otra persona y compartir los años con alguien ajena a cualquier cosa yo te hubiese ofrecido.

Porque no volví a encontrarle atractivo en nadie mas más allá de lo físico y después de un tiempo eso también dejé de encontrarlo pues sus mentes no me decían en absoluto nada. Me cansaba descubrir sus ideologías podridas y tener que despejar repetidamente todos los prejuicios típicos de estrechez de miras. No es que no confiara, sino me di cuenta que no quisiera contarles nada. No me trataban con tu mezquindad pero no valían el esfuerzo. Y así me quedé sola ni siquiera en Madrid sino en un país completamente extranjero muriéndome de hambre y trabajando una media de ochenta horas semanales para llegar al fin de mes y entonces ya; aunque hubiera vuelto a tener interés no habría sido jamás posible. Cuando los británicos me preguntan cómo es posible que una persona como yo nunca se haya casado les digo que fui dejada en el mismísimo altar con 25 años y con eso se callan; pues en su cultura es inimaginable tal crueldad hasta el punto que lo consideran algo de películas que no pasa en la vida real.

Y pasan cincuenta minutos y para despedirnos me abrazas pero perfectamente sé que nunca me quisiste y poco te importé ya que pasaste el rato soltándome comentarios que revelaron no me habías escuchado nunca. Uno de muchos que nunca destrabó las monomanías, por lo que no me arrepiento de ahorrarme la explicación pues no la habrías oído.

The Duck

Walking by sad table after depressingly unhappy table of wretched dejected items at a rummage sale near the east coast beach, in a detached and disconcerted mood given the unwelcome stalker company of a guy I’d turned down several times hounding after me. Come upon a table with small animals: rabbits; finches; parakeets; goose, chicken, and duck chicks… I stood looking a moment and asked the peddler “do you mind if I hold one?”
“You can hold it if you buy it.”
“I don’t want to keep one; come on – just a moment?”
“5€”
“5€ just to hold it for a minute? I told you I’m not taking it with me.”
(looking behind me rather than at me) “ok – go on then”
< > *sigh*
I put the duck down “Thanks” and turned to go.
“Hey, you can’t leave it, take it”
“I told you I don’t want the duck; just wanted to hold it a bit.”
“It’s paid for so you can’t leave it here” (pointing behind me)
Looking behind me; my stalker was grinningly pleased with himself and camera in hand.

coughing and coughing and coughing

I’ve been sick since June; recurring fevers and sore throats with occasionally sores but staving off the bad symptoms with daily anti-virals and lysine with megavitamins.  Been taking glucosamine and fish oil since October; which is about when I started having a cold.  Colds are a horrible thing as they take down the last vestige of immunity I have left and then every virus I’ve ever had rears its ugly head in succession if not in mini groups.  I’ve been dizzy, out of focus, vomiting, with diarrhoea, unable to breath when I lie down and coughing coughing coughing nonstop for about two weeks now.

Why would anyone ever read such a pathetic post on any blog?  Let alone one no one reads ever anyway?  Ah the freedom to whine when no one listens…

without walls

I know I am of an older generation because I do not feel comfortable expressing every last thought in a public forum for all to pick through.  Lesser minds believe I say what comes to mind; however, that is usually more indicative of their slow mental processing than of lack of forethought in what I express.  I rarely if ever say a single thing I haven’t thought through – problem is most people around me don’t think much due to their constantly babbling about inconsequential nonsense or any item that will kill silence.  The idea that any person on earth should have easy access to my personal history and experience is repulsive.  I value my privacy in a manner that apparently few under 30 do today.

I learned never to express anything important or significant about my feelings or thoughts when I was four.  I had recently learned to write and under the pretence of offering an outlet to practice my father gave me a «diary» to keep under my pillow.  There was no lock on it but; being typically naive as a four year old can be and thinking the safety of my bedroom inviolate, I did take to scribbling in the notebook for about a week.  At the end of that week I woke up being dragged out of bed by my hair with an irate 38 year old doctor smacking me open handed hard enough to floor me and when I tried to get upright using my own arms smacking me down to the floor then kicking me.  How dare I write anything about him in a negative light?  What an ungrateful worthless piece of trash I was.  Ingénue that I was I told him I had thought the diary was private.  Of course nothing was private.  I should have known better than to write down something I didn’t want another person to read.

I couldn’t sit up straight for over a week after that.  I  did not write about how I felt about anything again.  Not even in letters I knew he wouldn’t have access to read because I was beaten more than once for letters written to me by others about what they thought and felt. For over twenty years I never once had a free conversation on the phone because when I didn’t see him standing there listening I still knew he was – or recording it – or my mother would provide a report.  I moved a third of the way around the globe thinking this would be far enough to finally gain some freedom to express myself but no, I was followed and all my conversation was again cut off.

Now I find myself surrounded by people that don’t understand what boundaries are; don’t keep work separate from private; revel in posting disgraceful pictures of themselves; blather on in tweats to anyone that can access it; and I feel sorry for them because I know whether they realise it or not people are out there who will make them pay for it sooner or later.

European Results

1 in 4 UK voters; or some 4,3 million people, feel strongly that I should not be allowed to live and/or work in their country. They would get out of Europe and back to their empire days if they could. Close the borders. On question time last week several of the guests went on about how in the UK they tend to get it right on immigration and “do better” than most of Europe but I don’t see that. I see a nation of people that don’t speak their minds honestly because in private they vote for the borders to be closed and a return to the relative isolationism they had in the seventies. Today I see the UK on the news in roundups with countries overtaken by right wing nationalists. Perhaps we Europeans aren’t the right kind of foreigners for the British to tolerate. They’d simply rather have their grateful former commonwealth people filling the jobs they won’t do in preference over Caucasians with entitlement that sometimes can’t be identified as the underclass until they open their mouths?

But what of the 34,4 million of voting age that couldn’t be arsed to vote at all? Do any of them have homes or holiday in my home country? My country; that due to the international banking crisis created by the CITY’s ways of working and the subsequent bail out insisted upon by BRITAIN, is suffering a meltdown. My country; that now has the right price again with the pound exchange, as all that euro business was making pints on the beach a bit pricy for them. Meant they might have to be sober for a minute or two of their erstwhile uninterrupted debauched spectacle of a holiday.
Of course, my country is currently being led by a worthless excuse of a self-interested politician; voted into power by the apathy of the majority rather than by any real desire of anyone that he should lead. Excuse me – lead he does not – he persists and refuses to give explanations and does what he’s told by foreign (to my country’s) interests. Even so, I recognise that my country would be a thousand times worse off without the positive influence of the EU on its laws, consumer protection, freedom of movement, civil rights, women’s rights …

I am a staunch believer in the EU; that enabled me to come to the UK when my own country did not offer me any prospects for work, enabling me to fend for myself. Fend for myself because I did not receive a single hand out or council or government assistance. Fend for myself because I am in a place by myself that is completely foreign and unlike any of the marketing the BBC exports and takes quite a lot of getting used to.
So after seven years of permanent residence and watching governments say “British jobs for British people” & millions marching in London, the impatient voters of Britain have moved on to a party that overtly supports the isolationism idea and has proven it will not shy from obstructing Europe. So now I wonder what can a person like do? Where can a person like me go? Home to be unemployed until I starve under the right wing? To France? To Denmark?

* (estimate based on the 2011 census and last reported turnout stats)

Harrow vs. Yorkshire

If Harrow is the ultimate expression of British education; then what country is Yorkshire in? The students of these ongoing documentaries certainly seem to speak different languages.

They exhibit drastically disparate cultural attributes and the disciplinary methods are night and day. Is it appropriate that only those whose parents can afford to spend a UK males average salary on them (remember it is about £7K more per year than that of a woman) should be provided a proper grounding for life? Or is it really just about buying a place on the team? Or being written off as minimum wage class before a child is old enough to understand they’ve been written off; and thereby withholding the education that would assist them in figuring it out?

Maybe it was a toss-up between the channels or maybe only people that can afford Sky give a toss about Harrrow. Meanwhile lowest common denominator shall always be interested in watching ill spoken shiftless and hopeless youth failing to care that they are nailing the lids on their futures before the camera. Problem is it simply depressed me to watch the yorkies, but I know that the posh boys are only genuinely half British as most brits can’t afford that school.

So the dichotomy in programming – to me – seems to actually be metaphorical of the malaise that drags Britain down every day. They think they are something they stopped being a century ago; but actually deep down because north was lost soooo long ago they are an unintelligible and unfixable mess.

operacion manzanares

In Copenhagen today: World Series of Cliff Diving;

in Eton (round the corner from where I live): Rowing World Cup;

back home in Madrid: 181 people arrested for fraud against the social security system (estimated sum of  6,5 million Euro).

*sigh*

Look at it another way and at least some progress is being made back home, whereas; in the UK bankers are still rewarded for ongoing and persistent incompetence and there are honestly no benefits left that might tempt any however lowly scum to try and defraud the system.

Of course, some might say I ought to be careful of what I type given my parents of are disparate nationalities; I grew up abroad and live in an entirely different country altogether.  IE: I am a suspect half-breed with connections in a variety of countries and left leaning political alliances.  No longer can anyone indicate this sort of a statement is paranoid if PRISM has been (statistically deduced) recording or scanning one of every four internet statements I’ve made over the last two decades. 

Yes, that’s right.   TWO DECADES of internet as I was one of the privileged UofI students who began using it in 1990 (albeit only to exchange emails and chat with my Russian friend living in Japan…  Think perhaps my communications have ALWAYS been monitored just for that??  Could be)  That would explain why whenever I travel border security get messages indicating they need to check all my details with a fine comb and search me thourougly.

Hurrah for Snowden avoiding capture and getting to Ecuador.  Hurrah for Ecuador protecting him and his ilk -> here’s hoping they are not held continuously in confinement in an Embassy much longer.  And Hurrah for Bradley Manning.  While he may not be freed frrom the oppressive manipulative state that holds him he will surely not be forgotten for doing what he knew was right to expose vile and inhumane acts and methods.

Would there were more stong individuals in the right places to defend the value of dignity and freedom.  We should all be able to guiltlessly enjoy something so gratuitously fluffily superfluous as a cliff diving competition in a country with no natural cliffs from which to dive. 

Unfortunately; a lot of us cannot so long as we keep turning on the news to see how our countrymen do everything possible to harm the common good and slowly drag the world back to feudalism via sustained contraction of social services and buying power in rich countries, that necessarily means poverty and conflict in poorer ones.

late Metro home

Walking home late from a day of unappreciated overwork; having skipped lunch for the nth time and unable to remember if I’d fed the cat before running out that morning… bursting cumbersome heavy bag falling from my shoulder and as I pulled it up over my dropping jacket I slipped on the stairs two flights straight down to the desolate metro station, landing in such a way that my shins banged against the marble as my shoe flew in an arc over my back past my head and into the wall opposite. I lifted myself, gathered the array of bits that had spewed forth from my bag (some of which required remounting the stairs – going back down – realising something was just a bit further up – going back up and then back down again) and stuffed them back in my #g*d^m%f! bag then hobbled over to regain my shoe.

Disconcerted and pissed off I pushed through the doors to the entrance area where the dirty turnstyles failed to glint under flickering fluorescents far in the distance behind a bank of dispensing machines and a photo booth. Photo booth from behind which jumped out two crunchy smelling of sweat bony teenage girls dressed in charity shop clothing. The one with a box cutter in her hand was agitated and bouncy like a fighter; the one with dirt in her hair stood back and watched like she was grading theatre exercise.

(screaming like a hearing impaired crack addict): GIVE ME YOUR BAG OR I’LL CUT YOU (independently animate arm waving a cutter in front of the scrappy body in syncopated rhythm to the bouncing feet)

Get out of my way; I’m in a hurry.

(missed a beat – thoughts trying to formulate behind vitric eyes – quick glance back to the observer then glass balls front) GIIVE MMEE YOUR BAAG OR I’LL CUT YOU (jabs into the air with the cutter but feet slowing down)

FUCKING GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY. I don’t have time for this shit I’m in a hurry.

(lack of comprehension – looking back) she doesn’t believe me Don’t You Believe Me? (focusing front while pulling back her arm) DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND I’M GOING TO CUT YOU

DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND? I’M TELLING YOU TO GET OUT OF MY WAY. (barrelling through to the turnstyle – ticket in hand after having collected bag items post fall)

I don’t get it, she didn’t believe me, why didn’t she believe me? (the offshoot faction regrouping against the photo booth – muttering and shoulders hung)
Shuffling down two more flights of stairs I got to the platform just as the train arrived; ankle and arm throbbing. Saw the time, all the shops would be closed by the time I got out so tang and tuna. Woo hoo.

UKIP & NIC’s

So the anti-Europe party won 25% of the raw votes; but is only expected to win between 1 and 5 seats in the next general election? Testament either to just how entrenched in its right wing myopia the Telegraph is; or just their assuredness that the electoral law will never be amended to be fair?

At least it isn’t the BNP one might think, but too soon as the Conservatives rush to reinforce their own anti-foreigner image by avowing none should be entitled to retirement pensions… If nothing else such rosy welcoming auguries should certainly reduce the influx of overqualified (& relatively cheap) professional workers from countries where bailout and austerity has led to massive unemployment. The bailout and austerity driven by the British way of managing bank activity; their insistence they knew what they were doing when they clearly didn’t…

Could be living in a land of ever increasing xenophobia is still preferable to living on the street back home. Or maybe not.