cuando repican duro...

Aprovechando la época navideña, he decido traer las manos al teclado para escribir este artículo, que en cierta forma era una deuda pendiente que mi conciencia me reclamaba desde hace ya varias semanas. Resulta que hace unos cuantos domingos atrás, me encontraba yo en la iglesia, sentada en el mismo banco de siempre, oyendo misa como de costumbre. Estaba distraída. Miles de ideas de toda índole, color y peso se me acumulaban unas encima de las otras en torres infinitas que se tambaleaban y chocaban en el espacio de mi mente. Que la carrera, que el trabajo, que aquel trámite que quedó pendiente, que los regalos que no he comprado, que las cuentas, que los ahorros, que el mercado, que mi horario para mañana, y así sucesivamente iban apareciendo voces y más voces, provocando un ruido estruendoso que terminaba por aturdirme por completo. Volví en mí. Traté de recordar sin éxito lo que se había predicado en el Evangelio. Me sentí frustrada, solté un airecito pesado que acarreaba to...

Vivir en Venezuela siempre ha sido una experiencia súper intensa, como practicar un deporte extremo, a diario. Pero estas últimas semanas han sido de una locura descomunal, incluso para los estándares de nuestro país. La situación actual que se vive en las calles de la capital es espeluznante, la gente anda como gato engrinchado en Halloween -o en este caso en Navidad- con los pelos de punta, atento a donde pisa y pelando los ojos para que no se le escape nada. En algunos el brillo en la mirada es un brillo de esperanza, en otros lamentablemente es una expresión de temor, como quien abre los ojos a todo dar en medio de la noche oscura, rogando que si se le aparece un monstruo en frente sea capaz de vislumbrarlo. Tratar de mantener la cordura en esta realidad que estamos viviendo es una tremenda proeza. Yo llevo ya unos cuantos días tomando pasiflora, rezando como una monja y evitando las estresantes colas para comprar comida en los supermercados. Pero aunque uno se defienda a ca...

The procedure to declare something helpless is long and tiresome. It is composed of three bureaucratic stages that are decomposed into five steps each. If you are interested in making a formal demand of helplessness you can use the guide in the following link: www.thingsarehelpless.com . Here you will find an extremely heavy PDF of 300 pages where the instructions are carefully explained. Note: It is recommended NOT to use the link provided above, since it has recently been giving the error 404, and others.   In our institution we are proud to offer our desperate clients the most complete service there is on the market; once the demand is approved, you will receive our “package for helpless things” that includes: 1 month of pre-paid daily appointments with a shrink, 1 month worth of passiflora tea bags, And the “things are helpless” guide in a practical CD. Any questions or further inquiries can be made between 8:45 until 11:45 or from 1:15 to 2:45 pm. From T...

About a month ago I noticed that there were two purple orchids in full bloom growing on a plant in the front yard of my grandpa’s house. I didn’t know where they had come from, I was sure nobody had planted them or bought the seeds, not even watered them, and I couldn’t recall since when they were there, they just happened to appear inadvertently, like wild things do. Two weeks later the plant was blessed with four more beautiful flowers, making a total of six.   Do you know what Diaspora means? My mother asked me a couple of days ago. I told her that I reckoned I had heard the term somewhere recently –more than once I think- but I couldn’t remember what it meant. Try to remember, she said. Since I was incapable of doing so, I tried to guess its meaning only as an amusement. The first thing I thought was that it sounded to be of Greek origin, I don’t know exactly why, maybe because it reminded me of the words Dionysius , (the god of wine in Greek mythology), and a...

Every writer has its own personal obsession: mine is the subject stated on the title of this article. Nationality: what the hell is that, how does it enter our lives, and how can it define us? Let me start by saying that I am Venezuelan until the fifth generation downwards, from both sides of my family tree.  You could say I’m almost a pure blooded-Venezuelan. Nevertheless, my peers have accused me all my life of having a weird accent, and of being different . –which is quite a tricky adjective, I have discovered.-  Socially, I’ve always felt like Nick Caraway in the Great Gatsby; making his own words mine, in the Venezuelan society, I feel like  I am within and without at the same time. I’m this curious observer that wanders around the borders of the outcasts, being neither an outcast nor an insider. Since my adolescence I’ve dedicated myself to read as much Latin-American literature as I can bear: Mario Vargas Llosa, Cortázar, Ernesto Sábato, Benedetti, García Már...

Time can be a tricky thing. You can get terrorized by the bearing of one minute, you can find yourself praying for a bad day to end when it’s 24 hours seem infinite, and you can be amazed of how fast one year has passed and gone, feeling like it was just yesterday that it all began… On my last post I had said I would write during one hour every day for the next 27 days, but the truth is that when it comes to writing, my brain cannot stick to a tight schedule. Some days I wanted to write in the middle of the night for a whole hour, and some days I didn’t want to write at all.  To be honest, most of the time my mind was lingering on the same idea, but I was incapable of putting it into words. It just so happens that things have a tendency to linger on me -or I have a tendency to linger on them . In consequence, time becomes this elastic, malleable, thing that can change its form and weight, whenever my mind gets in the mood. For the last four weeks, the same idea has bee...

June 30th,  Brussels. Today I found myself alone in the apartment, facing three weeks of solitude, after living the last 10 months of my life surrounded by people. As always, I have it all planned out : these three weeks are going to be diligently used to do tons of paperwork, manage my accounts, start some research concerning my plans for the future, cleaning the apartment, and taking relaxing one-day getaways to the beach. But due to my compulsive over thinking and other nearly neurotic habits, (I’m quite close to being a workaholic ) so it happens that at 18:00 of day one of my three weeks of solitude I found myself on the couch, realizing that I had done 30% of what I had planned, so in consequence I was going to be absolutely done with my fabulous to do list in a week. Taking in the defeat of my agenda towards vacations, I grabbed a book that I had started a month ago and decided that it was the time to pick it up. I slid into my favorite corner of the couch, an...