personal pursuit

I would just like to say that, after studying human nature as a personal existentialist pursuit of mine, I’ve come realize that more often than not, in any given situation, we have absolutely no idea of what we’re talking about.

Sad, I know, but thankfully this is not always the case.

I know this because I, like many before me, have been known to fool people into believing that I know exactly what I am talking about, when the truth is that I am as confused as they are. And even though I have managed to cheat my way into -or out of- quite a few situations, there has always been one thing in this journey which has remained true and constant all the way.

My writing.

You see, I have never written a single word during the winter that could not be read in the spring. Words themselves didn’t jump out of my heart simply because I wished them to, neither because I forced them into existance.

No, it didn’t happen like that.

The little ones and the imposing ones, those that were confusing to me at first, and even those that made me forget, if only for a moment, just how brittle my own coherence was at times. The few sad words that kept me warm at night, and those that felt so familiar inside my zealous heart. All of them, all of them simply found their way into my callow hands one day.

It was simple, quiet and brief. And just like that my life was changed.

Sometimes the ethereal movement of my hands controls my destiny without me knowing it. I don’t even care that they alone imagine the stories and the characters which make me laugh endlessly as I contemplate in silence the joy that is re-discovering them. They are small and fragile, my hands, but inside they keep multicolor stories of great deeds and everlasting warmth; stories which I would never dare to speak out loud for fear of abandonment.

But to see, to be, to watch in awe as my dream moves pass my eyes in ravishing beauty while I write these childish thoughts. To realize in that very moment that all my pains and all my thoughts, that all my wishes and emotions are centered around that one perfect moment. The very instant where all possibilities exist, when all it takes is but one look, or one smile, to bring my life back to me and make it what it once was.

I live for those days.

Frank 21.40

days are numbers

I remember clearly the first time I listened to ‘Days are numbers (the traveler)’, by Alan Parson’s Project.

I say that I remember it clearly because that day, like so many days from that time, were filled with wonderful new discoveries. That song struck a deep chord in me. For some reason that I can not easily explain, I have always thought of myself as a traveler, always moving forward, never looking back. I realize that it is a romantic notion, but I’ve always been captivated by the idea.

I wrote yesterday’s post while listening to that song. Here are the lyrics:

“Days are numbers (the traveler)”
by Alan Parson’s Project

The traveller is always leaving town
He never has the time to turn around
And if the road he’s taken isn’t leading anywhere
He seems to be completely unaware

The traveller is always leaving home
The only kind of life he’s ever known
When every moment seems to be
A race against the time
There’s always one more mountain left to climb

Days are numbers
Watch the stars
We can only see so far
Someday, you’ll know where you are
Remember
Days are numbers
Count the stars
We can only go so far
One day, you’ll know where you are

The traveller awaits the morning tide
He doesn’t know what’s on the other side
But something deep inside of him
Keeps telling him to go
He hasn’t found a reason to say no

The traveller is only passing through
He cannot understand your point of view
Abandoning reality, unsure of what he’ll find
The traveller in me is close behind

Days are numbers
Watch the stars
We can only see so far
Someday, you’ll know where you are
Remember
Days are numbers
Count the stars
We can only go so far
One day, you’ll know where you are.

Listen to the song if you haven’t… hopefully you’ll like it.

Frank 14.48

the traveler

It happens to me that on occasions I walk through the city streets at night, when no one is watching me, conceiving moments of brief lucidity in which I tear my heart and soul apart with my own naked hands. The sensual movement of the trees and the way the air embraces my body moves my soul out of oblivion.

With arrogance and bitterness, the traveler awaits for the precise moment in which to take the road again, leaving behind everything he knows. Memories are what he controls, the only life he understands. They remain in quiet places, distant faces and little pieces of brown-colored paper. A way to defend his madness and his absence; the fears that surround his days and nights; nightmares that like little demons eat away his skin and suck away his blood.

But the traveler doesn’t know how to give; he simply conceives moments and places without name. Fearing that if he were to give anything at all, he would realize there is no place for him in this reality we have manufactured for him. His is the ability to create the perfect situation and come up with the words that best describe it, without really being there at all in the first place. It’s being able to imagine other people and control their minds. To think, laugh and to cry. Everything he does and says justifies his lack of sense.

But it’s the solitude itself what consumes and eats away his flesh. And so he lives, our traveler, never owning his destiny, always doubting which road to take and avoiding at all cost any kind of encounter that may remind him how lost he is. How imperfect he truly feels.

But have you ever seen the road of a lonely traveler? It is filled with moments and desires, mindless demons that crawl up behind him making little or no sense at all. All the colors of the rainbow paint this road and a soft, melodious chant can be heard all the time.

And he walks on through the road anticipating, looking on ahead and thinking of the way he used to feel. Remembering yet again the distant places and the blurred-out faces of those that crossed his path in the past. But his road is also silence, the silence of his mind and the silence of his actions. He screams and curses time yes, but the poor fool also laughs at infinity and then he cries at his own eternal solitude.

And everything he is and everything he knows. All his dreams, and the fears that hunt him. His world in shadows, and his moments of compassion. All his imperfections, and the years of expectation and solitude. The air he breathes and the moon that watches him when he’s asleep. His clumsiness and the humility he feels. All of his confusion and the innocence he still keeps inside.

All these things and so much more tell the traveler that, after all, his road is also kindness and is hope. The hope that one day he will cease to be the lonely man walking by the side of the road.

Frannk 19.14