"ma un uomo camion vive ancora in me.." (Paolo Conte)

I'm defoliating the young ficus carica that we are explanting because the rocky soil has to be minced again. Above is the unequal sky, gray and azure and always changing --a cold wind comes from downfield -- I lent my windbreaker to Susy but I don't feel cold-- working and running up and down and all. I first met Susy this early morning, we shook hands-- exchanged our reciprocal biographies in three phrases-- later I tried not to look too hard at her sweet smile or to listen too intently to her warm accent. She took tools from my hands once or twice and gently said "I do this now". It is a week of apprenticeship and I came down south. It probably wasn't a good idea. Everyone is very nice to me and knows more than me about everything. But it's not that, maybe just that it was a long road to get here and my first impression was that they don't really need me here-- I grumbled against the school for sending me out to a apprenticeship after just three weeks of school. And letting me pick the one I wanted, too.
Susy tags the vases, I shorten the taproot proboscides that make funny angles or just don't let the plant go and we stick the little creatures into the vases. It's my first really ungrateful doing with plants-- when I go up to the road and line the vases along the stonewall where the rows end "so they don't get stolen" says Very Friendly Bruce (the boss of the 10 hectares foundation) and that's where I cut all the leaves down mercilessly. Some of the varieties have dark buds, pointed and with a hump-- now unprotected-- others are of a bright green almost white-- the leaves fall to the ground and make a bed of silvery green that should be raked away and composted or burned but will remain here-- some of the nano fruits are oblong, they fall too-- It's a conservative foundation and there are more than 170 varieties of ficus carica in the two or three parcels where we are working. I look at the little plants coming up from the rocky soil, shaking slightly and elastic in the gusts of wind and wonder what's the why or sense or the beginning. When I bow and get my nose into the small plant to cut the succulent branches that are hard to get I can smell the sweet obvious smell of the fig-- I wonder if that moment is to be considered part of the notorious idyll of this outdoor life-- because maybe the fact that it doesn't feel idyllic depends on me not being ready for it-- and I wonder whether it should be used as a lever to turn inside out all the painful or squalid thoughts rushing through my mind instead. To be into the light, to stand up to light wrote Max Frisch: not flattering to light itself, only a desirable task like submitting oneself to Time as if it was Eternity-- I want to learn how to do that and many other things but my mind knows other things better: I often get distracted. I think about her again, and again I see her and hear her in my head-- Martina-- so that I wish I could close my eyes and make it go away-- with the obnoxious moaning of why and why and why-- And this morning I felt sorry for myself a lot, foolishly, there in the densely parceled land-- myself extraneous, alien, guilty, ignorant, "getting old", incapable of clearness and peace-- indifferent to the parcels besides, trying with smiles and loud phrases and stupid brown-nosing and aping knowledge to melt with the thing all around me-- the people and a job to do, a role in the job to do-- being useful-- being accepted by the others and all the crap--
But then in the end I felt unreasonably glad that I was doing this job, later glad that the job had ended and I was tired and the sky was definitely now different and that we are were all in a good mood, that the sun kept showing up between one cloud and the other-- and we all got to the storehouse dragging the soles of our shoes to get the bigger pieces of soil out--
Everybody was smiling and raising hands when we said goodbyes and I drove back home and the radio was playing and I made the turns when the road made turns and had no further thoughts or feelings or compassion left.

"Me, Love's servant? I wasn't at all! And suddenly my heart felt ugly, I was sick of myself. I thought that my aim of being simple was just a fraud, that I wasn't a bit goodhearted or affectionate, and I began to wish that Mexico from beyond the walls would come in and kill me and that I would be thrown in the bone dust and twisted, spiky crosses of the cemetery, for the insects and the lizards."

-- The Adventures of Augie March

I am reading this book slowly, partly because I am reading other things and partly just because its language is sometimes difficult for me: and also I was very impressed and got clobbered by the fact that as soon as Augie finds love he goes to Mexico following obviously eagles and snakes. It took me by surprise and had me sliding down memory lane (again).

"And so"

And so we were laying in bed inside the room by the open roof. Our naked bodies etcetera, one against the other dark against the white sheets etcetera. Above our heads the mosquito net which bothered us during sex when one of us stood up on top. Outside, incessantly, the sea-- but I wrote these things already.

We had an argument because Eli had invited us to go with her to the disco in the village nearby, and then Martina said she wanted to go alone. This wasn't the argument because it was me the one who nicely took it out of her that she wanted to go alone -- advantages of being more experienced -- and then, OK, I said, but tomorrow it's our last day here, isn't it kind of stupid? It wasn't. I also took it out of her that she wanted to be alone the following day as well.
She was funny to look at, her profile sulking in the pillow, senses scanning the roof and the noises, at moments making a long face, casually asking, does it bother you?
Now I am forgetting spanish all the way... I don't know if she said '¿te molesta?' or something else.
She was playing the part, let's be real cold and forget all about it, this was but a small amount of the ominous fury she was going to be capable of, stomping on the things she feared she wasn't able to keep from happening, the pain mixed with grace-- but spontaneously I knew better, again the lousy advantages of experience -- and said: of course it bothers me, I want to be with you -- I said it in a gentle way -- and I knew she didn't expect the straight self-exposing dope, a degree of sincerity yet to be known by her-- that's when the argument started, pure obstinacy on her side to make things slump -- I need to be alone, I came alone, I have to go away alone, she said. It's all right, I said, it's a pity, but all right. Just don't be upset now.
But she dressed up in a hurry, in the remaining seconds during which we didn't look at each other. I felt kind of hurt because of the impersonality and the swiftness of this small tragedy -- her behind disappeared in the short jeans skirt, her small lovely breast in the top, her dear mouth disappeared behind a door closed in a rush. I said 'stupid' as the door closed and regretted the sedate casualty of the remark. Then the sea only made noises.
I stayed in bed for a while more. I didn't know of what she was capable of at that time and didn't really worry.

Then I got out, climbed down the stairs, looked down from the terrace to the sea, the empty uneven beach and the foamy round waves under the big clouds -- I went further down, to the beach and to eat. On the way to the restaurants I found abandoned on the sand a bracelet with little colored stones stringed to a leather ribbon and took it.
Later it was still bright, it was bright until late. I got to the internet place, started reading or writing emails, emails that probably contained omissions or lies, and from the monitor I raised my head and there she was, out in the street, licking a white ice cream with her red red tongue and looking at me through the window hole with the same dark serious eyes in abeyance. I smiled, got out. She came close to me and said "I am impulsive". I opened my arms to make her come close and stop her from explaining things, and we hugged and didn't let it go. The girl of the internet place was sitting under the porch with her baby just out of the crib and looking at us. The baby had learned to walk. The dusty road was empty and quiet. I felt Martina's grip and her smell. It was so simple -- and mysterious at the same time. What were her thoughts in that moment? What her feeling? In what area exactly our feelings were meeting? What name or address it had? But we were happy and relieved and no words were needed. Has my heart ever beat that fast? (Yes it has. It doesn't matter.) Eli went alone to the disco that night and Martina told me that when she came back it was four in the morning. We were finally asleep.

"I hate these memories"

I hate these memories. They come to me across the things I read and the music I hear. Funny how I listened to all those songs so keenly the first weeks and now the sheer idea that something like "our" song might exist and might be heard paralyzes me. I thought those things were supposed to go away or not to hurt so much. At the same time I feel like I am pushing the memories to the surface where they should evaporate and dissolve. Because they will. The thing I like most about astrology, whatever kind of astrology including the mayan that Martina liked so much, is the knowledge that the wheel keeps turning, always, although in a complex uneven way. So nothing lasts identical for too long. I feel that I am turning, my hair and posture are already half-way-- I soon am going to look at something else: this is so terrible and unjust-- and these idea of sending her a picture one day of myself from the garden where I will be doing--- whatever, should it be possible, I won't care to send her anything anymore. That's how it goes. Etcetera.

I don't get phased out by none of that, none of that
helicopters, the TV screens, the newscasters, the..
satellite dishes.. they just, wishin'
They can't really never do that
-- Mos Def

I tried to cry this morning in front of the mirror in the bathroom. I felt this thing down in my throat and the corners of the mouth turning downwards. I put my face in my hands but obviously I couldn't cry. Except for the movies, I can't cry. My own expression scared me when I looked up. I was ashamed. I am not gonna do it again. I am not a winner, I never was. Martina is lost for me, I will be lost for Libi. So much solitude is passing in my hands now, rivers of it -- "True love leaves no traces". I wish I knew what is true and what is not. Everything seems true to me. Like this alarms going off, I hear, like the restaurant we pick, we enter, compared to the other where we are not.

When in Mexico city sometimes we went to eat at the "Stupa", in the Avenida 5 de Mayo. Despite the name, the "Stupa" was just another Mexican diner open around the clock, somehow always full of people, which other than being somewhere in the center had the advantage of a great choice of food and popular prices. It was fun to stay in line waiting for our table, in the busy early Saturday afternoon, doing what lovers do in these cases, wooing and causing envy or sympathy and wondering what we were soon going to order with our micheladas. Martina used to say that me and her looked exotic together, she shorter and darker, sparky, me a tall "guero" absent minded and aloof. I nodded at the description. But I thought of us as normal. I didn't see anything exotic. Maybe except the fact that we talked so much about love and books and movies. We would sit at a white table in the larger smoking area and order and drink the bitter salted acid micheladas and have our difficult conversation, me always checking for words on the dictionary, both trying not to be distracted by the TV screens and failing. She smoked very greedily and her hands trembled as she held the cigarette.
That said my memories of the place aren't very nice, because of the last night we went back there, as we were running out of ideas. The weather was quite bad that night, rainy season and all, but was even worse between us two. Who knows what doomed on our story then. It ended with Martina slapping a 100 pesos note on the counter (there were no table seats available and we weren't in the mood of waiting) and running away, and me, after stupidly asking for the check and paying, running in the night after her in the wrong direction, and missing the last train. I guess we were so mad at each other for having misunderstood so many things. Coming back walking under the rain I kept promising to myself I was directly going to the hostel and to sleep. The following morning I had to catch a cab at five in the morning; I still had to pack; it was already very late. But then at parque de españa I turned left. Below the fancy hotel at the corner of the Avenida two guys were playing the spring of the sculpture-car and laughing. The car only sung "Veracruz", which was ridiculously sad but not enough to be ironic as expected. I got to the condo where she was temporarily staying and the doorman smiled at me and opened the front door. But there was no such a good reason for me to be there and be smiled at, I knew it. Upstairs... I remember her opening the door, she had changed her clothes, ready for the night. But she wasn't sleeping. The small apartment was full of smoke of cigarette. She asked if I was coming to continue a fight. All it was so glazed but I said I just needed to know that she was all right. We barely looked at each other and didn't touched each other. So I said I was coming to say goodbye and she corrected the verb I used and that's how we said goodbye. I was very careful not to slam the door as I got out. There had been moments so intense between us they were painful to even describe or think. Now any effort was lost. I was punished for leaving Mexico and going back to the other life, or maybe for something else it will took me a long time to understand. Back to the hostel I couldn't sleep until much later, mainly thanks to the idiot in the bunk above mine that expected to fall asleep without a sheet 'cause he didn't know how to make his own bed, and slept only with a wool blanket over a bare mattress in a room full of mosquitoes, and couldn't close his eyes, and me with him. The morning after I got to the airport and entered into the safer mechanism of traveling, which certainly is a big illusion, but a good one though, it keeps the bad thoughts away somehow, like a good job.

There's a chance I might be go back to work at the university. This time relocating no less than Sardegna. Which on one hand I would welcome as a god from the machine. Yet it is only a small chance and I am scared to explore it. I have to return a call and I keep postponing. Why? Maybe because so much time has passed -- since when I was a normal person in the world. Will I be able to return to civilization and accept all the downside of it? But it is more important to break out, says the voice. Over and over. Why? From where? Being out is really finally being different, imagining differently, walking about differently? Is it really possible only because/if no one is there expecting you to be what you always were? Libi shakes her head in disapproval. Wish I was back in March walking with Dita down the avenues of Manhattan and knowing what I know now. It was only three months ago. I wish I could start that journey over -- it's not over.

-- In picture, above: climbing the pyramid of the Sun with herds of tourists, in theotihuacan

"Mi sono fatto distrarre da ogni cosa possibile, nel tentativo di non focalizzare su il nodo che dovevo sciogliere: minchiate malfunzionanti nel computer, puttanate da scaricare illegalmente, sfondi per il desktop, la caccia dei bruchi attaccati alla pagine inferiore delle foglie delle piante sul terrazzo (è più facile trovarli alla sera tardi), le litigate dei vicini, le notizie merdosissime dei merdossissimi siti di notizie (tanto ormai non credo più a un cazzo di quello che dicono, e se mi dicono di avere paura, ecco che, come magicamente, la paura si solleva dal mio petto e vola via in una risata), ricontrollare la posta, ancora una volta... There are no messages on the server. E sì che mi è costata tanta fatica scriverle. Poi ho capito che il mio problema era così banale, provenire da una vita prevedibile e volere tuffarsi in un mondo oscuro dove almeno qualcosa di inaspettato potesse succedere, ogni giorno, almeno ogni giorno. La prevedibilità non essendo imputabile alla vita tuttavia, come se la vita mi suonasse la musica sbagliata. La prevedibilità l'ho vista galleggiare a mezza via fra la familiarità e la noia, in una area appena al di fuori e appena al di dentro della mia mente bacata." (da uno dei post che cercavano di spiegare, smarritosi poi a spiegare perché non sapevo spiegare.)

I am learning that Libi is a resourceful person, more than I thought. That her soul is larger and stronger than I thought. That her sexual life, her sexual fantasies matter more for her than I thought (well, Mars moved). How stupid of me to notice these things now. Learning that she can say the strongest things without faltering a bit, like she was talking about going out to buy some milk, only lowering her eyes ("I'd jump into the fire to keep our relationship alive, but it wouldn't do no good, would it") then raising them them up and looking straight at me. Because I told Libi about Martina, and Libi learned about her and my confused feelings, I myself learned of Libi's shades of pain, and how she never looses her bravery and her sense of humor. At first comes at you as a form of denial, but then it becomes a complex and unforeseen expression of sorrow and salvation. I hadn't noticed how strong she was before (I said that already, did I. These are the things you go on saying on and on like in a remix when you know you are causing a lot of pain to someone.)
I listened and answered and explained, this I did. I must be really growing up. I learned that my words aren't good until they are honest. Aren't good until they are straight, I mean. I knew about honesty, which doesn't mean I was willing to use it all the time (this is the kind of joke I learned to use in a conversation with Libi, because to no one like Libi a joke, even the meanest joke, in a dramatic moment does good). We talked about Nina, too, and for the first time Libi told me explicitly how she discovered about Nina and how much she suffered for it. So I learned that too (this was today).
"Why you didn't say anything back then", I asked. Only much later we had talked about it, only in bits. "I felt like an ass and humiliated. Just like now", she said. "That was worse than now, though" she added. "Why is so?" "Because I thought that Nina was disgusting -- as a person, you know. And I hated the idea of you two together. This one I don't know, instead, so my feeling is less precise". She really said so, 'disgusting', and only as she said that I learned how much she had suffered from it, while I didn't know, while I was sleeping or reading or thinking about myself in those stupid days of mine, probably: because she wanted to erase that person away with her stronger words.
I am learning how to bite my lips to keep from coming out words like "more than everything I wish you could wait for me", "don't stop loving me". I am learning (again) that falling in love, struggling in love, makes my heart beat harder everyday, my stomach to jump around and to give that warm weird feeling, everyday. Sounds rhetorical, the classical automatic rhetorical description of love, but it is actually true. My heart does beat harder most of the time these days. Every time I think I might be losing what I so badly wanted; that I might be a step closer to it; that I am causing tears and confusion; that I am distancing someone I love so much from me; that I might be find myself very high and fall down very hard; that I really don't know what I'm wanting --but it's oh so strong. The two dominating body parts of my love life: my heart, my stomach. They express it all, not exhaustively, but clearly. I am not surprised the heart is the metaphor of love, I am surprised I forgot I knew why.
I am learning that prejudices really prevent you from crucial experiences. Now I see people with prejudices as unlucky people, and feel sorry for them, even when I understand their prejudices so well (Nina is not 'disgusting' like Libi said. I know it. But I can't tell her why.) I learned that I want a different life, I want more things to happen around me. I learned that sometimes you are being called egoist and there's nothing you can do about it, but face it, face your egoism. I always hated the indulgence by which most of the people declare their own egoism as affordable, like if the world could cope with it, when in reality with their indulgence and self-spoiling they are making the world a worse place. I think egoism is an hazard and should not be used but in case of emergency... It is a tool that can be used and then disposed of, and because you will need it at a given moment, that moment is the time to use it and face it and accept it, which means accepting to be a smaller person. I know I am.
I am learning that knowing I will regret every single thing I am turning my back to doesn't prevent me to do it anyway. Like if I kept saying to myself, I need this mistake, this crucial mistake, like a inoculation. I am sure I need many other things that are out of reach (...). And I learned many other things, about the surprises of my sexual life, about the pleasure I feel at hearing the word "entonces", about my changing looks (no the nose still creaks but it's all right) and that maybe wanting to live it's all about fearing to die, and maybe that soon all my books will be back into a self-storage box, where they were only two years ago. Two years ago when this blog was born, happy birthday to it.

-- In picture, above, the absurd tangle of cables attached to every light pole in Tegucigalpa. No idea why I am posting this right now.

(...) y sé muy bien que no estarás,
ni aquí adentro, la cárcel donde aun te retengo,
ni allí fuera, este rió de calles y de puentes.
No estarás para nada, no serás ni recuerdo,
y cuando piense en ti pensaré un pensamiento
que oscuramente trata de acordarse de ti.

-- Julio Cortazar, Futuro

Linate is the old claiming baggage hall, the dark grey and yellow interiors, the faces of the policemen saying welcome back to Italy, the guy from Modena coming back from Brazil -- he says laughing, welcome to the place in the world where it is the hardest to make love -- I stand there feeling dizzy for the twentyfive hours three planes flight, my bag sliding to me over the conveyor belt, opened from the top, the plastic bag with coffee from chiapas and oaxaca chocolate spat out few bags past -- a pair of pants from guatemala is there too -- I don't care, what's lost is lost, I throw it all above the plastic seats and repack the bag mumbling a welcome to italy to myself-- outside, she's there in a violet dress, others unknown crowding the picture of the waiting --the warmth of Milano's air around us is less intense but somewhat ready to suffocate -- the sky low over the airport, in hues of gray and blue too bright to be looked at -- our embrace is honest? it is honest--

me and Libi have sex inside the car outside of the airport of Linate, her body is in my hands, obeys in the old familiar hard way we know --she gives out high pitched shrills, I feel like eating and swallowing and digesting her body-- it's different from the other sex across the ocean. I think I can't compare. I warn her to be careful, because I have a half broken nose I should take to the hospital tomorrow or so-- not that I feel like it. I don't make up the story of how it got broken, I just leave out the detail -- of the girl I was with --I don't even let the thought get into my mind. I say I know, it doesn't look broken, but I can feel it, like it is harder to breathe with the left nostril -- also it creaks when I touch it-- kept together by the skin -- gives me a weird feeling to the stomach. I learned to talk about love with my heart and now I suspect I love two persons, or I suspected it. I wish I had the room to say that as well.

At home we talk and make love again few times, I am tired and what I see is confused at moments --though real. Later we are half naked on the pavement, I am pouring out the many presents in front of her, it's fun, but then the feast is over pretty soon. I missed Libi, and yet her picture in front of me is not entirely on focus. Now I just feel in need to talk it out with someone. What I can't say bothers me more than the need to sleep-- although pretty soon I fall asleep, and wake up at the beginning of the night -- and awake in front of the window I still try to keep down the thought that, all right, now I wish I could leave -- tomorrow -- again. The bulky memories, labyrinths of words and desires -- the thought of Martina and the bad bad way we said goodbye to each other is down somewhere too, and it's like when the story you want to tell or write about is so big -- too big -- you'll never find a way to begin the job to tell it all out.

(...) her dark skin shines in the shade of the room as I enter, the morning light pours in from the side of the open roof, I see parts of her legs and shoulders, her beautiful face half turned against the pillow, the eyes closed in a peaceful sleep; this happen two or three times, especially when I get up early because of montezuma's revenge, and silently getting back to the room, every time I stand bewildered for a second at the vision of the sleeping beauty, my heart beating faster and harder, almost immediately a hard-on forces me to undress, I long to undress and lay next to Martina again, make love to her again; this mexican girl looks a india and a japanese and a thailandese at the same time; she's from the city, and very emancipated, lively, superstitious-- keeps saying she went to work when she was fourteen to be independent-- when she smiles she looks like a kid, in a way that strangely reminds me of my stepbrother when he was a kid, ages ago-- so enthusiast of the company-- we don't have a language in common, so it's all about me trying to speak spanish and missing the words, failing the grammar. Martina smiles at my mistakes, strokes my leg, I long for her mouth, for another slow dance-- outside the sea of mazunte keeps roaring against the long uneven beach-- all the rest is quiet-- unfulfilled warnings of a hurricane approaching-- when Martina and myself separate in the bed, I am sweating, and panting, the bed is full of sand, our fingers meet, we try to tell another story; in the silence of the last moments before the usual sneaking out, desayuno on the solitaire terrace deserted by the low season-- I wonder if I am in love now, and if so, what proportions this disaster will take, if any. ¿Can I bear the idea of spreading pain and tears once again? ¿is it a hastened dream? Soon we separate, with a warm smile, the same way we will separate on the last day, she going to el d.f., I going to oaxaca. It is possible necessary that we meet again in the city in a few day; so she runs to the back of the camioneta-- I go back to the beach for a last goodbye to the unsteady waters of mazunte-- the restaurants are playing the languid musics to the sea, the stray dogs populate and play on the foreground of the scene; the response, that it is necessary to meet again, to reach her body and smile again-- might be lost to the waves or to some other equally distracting, hypnotic phenomenon, and the residual forces are needed to pick up my sandals -- shake the sand away for the last time, and leave.