I just do not know. History is so remote and insubstantial sometimes. It feels imaginary, like the ancient stars that sent their light an aeon ago, or the intense disdainful look of the cat that naps from his roaming in front of my house. Or the unknown songbirds that improvise magic notes of enchantment as I walk in the forest. I know news come and go, and books are written all the time, about this and that. About happenings current or in past times. But somehow each day they both seem more remote as I pass by.
Today I surprised myself, becoming fearful of repeating so many of these trivial things, but still I proceeded to sprout more words, as they are that are spilt all over on the dusty floors of my convoluted mind. I decided to tie them up with colored ribbons, so to call attention and throw them out like confetti to friends, so they can smile. Probably they would say: “Look at him he is loosing it, such a nice guy, he is losing his capacity to think, now he is denying history and ideology, and just walks around aimlessly. Doesn’t he understand causality? Doesn’t he care about the ones who are guilty of social injustice? Doesn’t he know about the dialectic currents of social movements and the accurate verdicts of positive materialism?” And I probably would not be able to answer, because I do not really know what has happened to me in these later years of my life, so I understand their disconcertedness about my state of mind, there must be a reason, but I do not know it. I know that this cat, that watches everything with disdain and intensity, has provoked in me a mysterious apathy somehow. There in the inner realms where I define myself, and prepare my daily plots to share , compete, become furious, have desires, and all of the other natural stuff that constitutes the personal calm and storm of my Caribbean soul, surely intensified by climate change in the atmosphere and the aging of my entrails. Yes, I think like talking back to the cat, drifting in a conversation with myself, like inebriated without liquor. I ponder about why there are days in the calendar that mark for the celebration of historic moments (usually wars and discoveries of other people’s lands or birth of people with name recognition) there are none to rememorate heroic acts unknown, like a great meal cooked by grandmothers, or mind blowing copulas among lovers, or poems written by Neruda, or when Platero swallowed water with stars in the mind of Juan Ramon Jimenez.
There are no days to celebrate the duality that a leader, that was inspired by something positive while another set lose his shadow, creating that sharp contrast that makes possible this divine tragicomedy that captivates us all, night and day. That makes us remember history, tumbling around, imagining with terror and hope the future. Every day.
We peek at tomorrow, turn on the switches of thought and open the stored archives of our impressions, that define who we think we are. Then we charge against the world, against the wind, with arguments about our perceived definitions and beliefs, selected by processes of culture, genetics and personality.
To continue making history, story and ideology, while birds sing unattended in the forest and the cat looks askance with its green yellow eyes, with disdain and intensity every day.