Small things (Part 3)

I haven't written any Small things for a while and it seems to me that if I stop now I'd never be able to pick it up again. So here it is, the third part of Small things.


You can read part one here and part two here. 


The following week I took a couple of days off in my summer job and picked up Seth for an excursion. He didn't actually know where we were going or for how long, but since his perception of time and space was different to everyone's else he didn't actually matter. I packed food and camping stuff enough for both of us and drove him into the desert. I used to camp in the desert with my family when I was a kid so I knew exactly what I had to do and where I had to camp. Seth, on the other hand, had never been there and I felt that it was what he needed.

When we got to the place he was astonished. The vastness of it and the sense of solitude. He went and climbed a lonely rock and stood there for ten minutes. I wasn't counting on him to plant the tend so I started on my own. After a while he came back and started helping silently. When the sunset arrived I lighted up a campfire to cook and he sat by it staring at the flames. He hadn't said anything since he got out of the car, it wasn't unusual but it still made me uncomfortable, even if I talked to him he wouldn't take his eyes off the flames as if he was drinking energy from it. We ate in silence and stared at the stars, so shiny and so many.

After a while Seth sat up, looked at me and abandoned his silence.
-Why are you doing this?- he asked.
-Why not?
-I wouldn't do it.
-That's the main reason.- I replied.
He stared at me, then he sighed and closed his eyes.
-So, thank you I guess.
He laid back with his eyes closed, but I could see he was still awake.
-I'm getting in the tent to sleep, goodnight.
He never replied, but I knew he had heard me, so I got into the tent and went to sleep.

Fear

I've never been a specially fearful person, not even when I was a kid. Of course I have fears, odd fears I'd say. I fear pain and failure, I've grown used to pain, but still I fear it. I fear refusal and sometimes I fear people. I fear death not because of it but because I won't be able to see what happens in the future and I always hated it when stories go unfinished. I also fear the greatness of universe, although I don't even know if that is fear or what it is, it's just that there's so much out there that could finish at any moment now and I'd like to see. But lately what scares me most of all are the news.

Just have a look at a random paper (it shouldn't be so bad if you're not in Spain or Greece). What do you see? Crisis, crisis and crisis. It's everywhere. My family has never been well off, but we've never had economic problems nor we do have them for the moment, but all the same it is very scary to see what's happening in the country and what's happening to lots of families who are being evicted from their homes.  And the future doesn't look much more promising, every week there are more budget cuts, health, education. The country is getting poorer every day maybe because it wasn't so rich in the first place. And the news just make everything worse, the only thing you hear is doom, it doesn't look as if there was an exit, though there should be one because story is ciclic and it always repeats, but this is scary too. For people like me who do not really understand economy this is confusing.

It might sound as if I was just whining and maybe I am, but I just want to live my life the best I can with the rights my ancestors fought for, even if they were maimed after the dictatorship. I want a honest life, a decent house, a good education, a health system that is beside me when I'm ill and some decent politicians. I don't even want to own a house, I just want to be able to work for my expenses and enjoy life, so why is everything so complicated? They tell us to be brave, that this is going to finish eventually but I see no end to it and it's sad and it makes me uneasy, me and many other people. And I guess I should be on the streets now claiming against the system, but I'm lacking the energy, which is awful, because I'm young and I should be ready to fight, but I'm drenched with fear and doom. I feel like the fear of loosing all I've got has just left me paralyzed and wanting to be deaf and blind so I wouldn't hear what is going on and I wouldn't see how everything is upside down.

I believe that I'm not the only one who feels like this, and as I said I've got "no right" to be fearful, I've got a job I love, I've got some money in the bank, a family who could support me economically if needed, but all this could be gone in a second. Just like all the jobless and homeless people out there. Or is it just that I'm too used to a good lifestyle that the perspective of going back in time scares the hell out of me? I know I should be positive, and I've to be, maybe, just maybe it's not quite my day today.

A hundred posts

I know I haven't posted a lot lately, but it's because I wanted my 100th post to be special. Yet, here I am, with nothing important to say.

I've been so busy lately that I feel drained inside, when I'm at work I've got plenty of things to do but afterwards I just lack the energy, I get home and think about the things I should do and I always leave them undone. I guess it's the springtime that tires me, though it never happened before.

As I said I wanted to write something special for this post, I could have written some "Small things" but I lack the inspiration, and since I haven't bought anything new I can't do any "Things that I got lately", so here I am filling the blank space with the hope to get to a conclusion.

That's what I'm thinking, I need to force myself to write at least once a week, it's good practice for my CPE exam and besides it will force me to put some order into my thinking. But in case I didn't have anything interesting to say it would be nice if you wrote some random topics you'd like me to write about in the comments section. (I don't have any hope any of you is going to do it, but who knows...). I'll write about it stating my views about the subject, so feel free to suggest topics.

Books that I got lately

Last Monday (April 23rd) was Sant Jordi, and as I explained last year people buys books and roses and there are plenty of stalls on the street selling both of them. Sant Jordi is my favorite holiday, except it is not because you have to go to work anyway. Usually guys buy roses for their girlfriends and girls buy books for their boyfriends, but usually everybody gets a book. Since my family has long given up on trying to buy books for me I got them myself.

The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway/A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway/El mejor amigo del oso - Arto Paasilinna

I bought Hemingway's (I wanted to read more of him since I finished "A Moveable Feast") on Amazon before Sant Jordi, but I got them afterwards, and I bought Passilinna's the weekend before because I went to a bookshop with a friend and I found it so I decided to buy it. I'll be reviewing in the order I've read them.

El mejor amigo del oso - Arto Passilinna

For those of you who don't know Passilinna what you need to know is that he's a Finnish author with a really particular sense of humor, I won't try to define it because you really need to read it, the bad thing about him is that it's really difficult to find his books, this is the fourth one I've got and I think there are only two more left that are translated in Spanish (I don't know Finnish language) and I think it's even worse for English. Well about this book, its title translates as "The bear's best friend" and it is a delicious book, I cannot define it in another way. There are so many crazy things happening that it's exhilarating. One of the things that I like the most about Passilinna is that all his characters have some flaw and they all do crazy things but they believe they're right about it, it's just so like real life but way crazier, or maybe this is how Finns are like. It's a must read, I think that maybe it's the Passilinna's book I liked the most. So if you like surreal situations that somehow make sense read it. 

The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

I once said that I wasn't good enough to do a Hemingway's review and I maintain it so I'll keep it short. We all know how great this book is, but it's only when you read it that you get attached to the main character that you realize it. I know nothing about fishing and its terminology but I felt as if I was on the journey with the main character. It felt real. I don't need to say it's a must read, because I guess that most of you will have already read it. 

A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway

I ended this book this very afternoon and I'm still in the aftershock. It has left me shattered, broken inside. Because it is longer than The Old Man and the Sea you have more time to get to know the main character (Frederic Henry), to grow familiar to him and to the people that surronds him. You live the war, the love, the death with him. It reminded me a lot of A Moveable Feast, I guess that because some of the things in the book actually happened to Hemingway himself. If you could only pick one book of the three I've read, pick this one and read it slowly and carefully allowing all the details to sink in, understanding how was it during the war.