My grandfather used to say that he wouldn’t even go to heaven alone.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get that far. A storm and loneliness have brought me to San Antonio.
I don’t complain. For the first time in months, I have the opportunity to sit down at the keyboard to put music to the script of my life.
Living far from my loved ones increases my awareness. It’s like an intensive retreat in the new psychological fad: mindfulness.
Every gesture, and every action, is more conscious. Nothing is done because they see you. Everything is done just because. Or because it’s time. In short: because I want to.
Throughout these months (there have been 4) away from my family, I have lived as if each trip were a parenthesis in my life. When I got on the plane I would raise my hands, cross my fingers, and say “crucis” and I could stop the game. That way everything will remain static waiting for my return.
But living is a constant. There are no parentheses or interruptions. Everything goes on. We all continue living.
I have always said that the brain is an organ designed to find explanations. That’s why we are so full of excuses, ramblings, justifications and rationalizations. Consequently, my brain has been trying to make sense of all this for a month, but I do it with the peace that comes from knowing exactly where my house is, and not having to give a reason for having looked for another one.
The truth is that nothing stops. The children grow up, I get older, and Gemma continues to become more beautiful every day.
Then I turn around, look the other way and see that a family has driven 16 hours to come see me (an hour and a half) and as soon as we finish they will get back into “the truck.” Nothing erases their smile. A father tells me that he is being transferred to Panama. Read the surprise on my face. “Don’t worry,” he tells me, I have agreed to the three annual visits to Laredo (Tx) as non-negotiable; “We are going to keep coming.”
Sometimes responsibility drops its weight all at once, just to remind you that neither fatigue nor what happens during the break in your life can make you lose sight of what you are doing.
And I understand that their lives do not admit parentheses either.
The only explanation I can come up with is this: I’m doing the right thing.
This is my life. Without parentheses. On horseback (When will we change the phrase to something more in line with the times?), by plane, between Texas and Madrid.
The great Vicktor Frankl wrote it with crystal clear precision: “To live means to assume the responsibility of finding the correct answer to the problems it poses and to fulfill the tasks that life continually assigns to each individual.”
Amen.
Of course, I raise a purpose: to live better every minute I have (at your side).
