Dancing in the middle of the storm
We lived together, tight as the cotyledons of coffee in the mature bean, without realizing it, without making conscious the attachment to the same navel.
I was busy making wagons and locomotives, with cans of sardines collected from the garbage and a bit of fantasy, wagons drawn by stick horses and looking at tomeguines that fluttered in the yucca fields. What wonderful occupations we children had!
One day we suddenly looked at each other: Who are you? I asked for.
And to my surprise, you didn't answer. You didn't say a single word, nor did you give me a clue, but from that moment I had the suspicion that, although you hardly ever showed your face, you were close.
I heard from you again, that fateful day when I looked at the coffin where they put my grandmother, desperately searching for the radiance of her tenderness, which was no longer in her closed eyes or in the wrinkles on her forehead.
Do you really think it's gone? You asked without a hint of irony in your voice?
No, I don't think so, I answered and kept crying, because reason is one thing and feelings are another.
And you put your loving hand on my orphan shoulder, you accompanied me for a few days, and then you disappeared again in the sway of routine.
And so the night began to make days, summers, autumns, and winters, spring.
One morning a little flower wrapped in diapers arrived, a tiny moan that resembled crying from hunger, and you returned with her to ask me the usual questions:
Where do you think it comes from, what did it come from, where it was before it arrived do you think it will go one day?
And this time, I didn't want to answer, perhaps out of uncertainty or cowardice.
I remember that you disappeared with insolent laughter and at the same time, so much tenderness in your eyes, that it seemed to me a relative of the one I had not seen since grandmother left.
Then you disappeared for a time from my life, so that I could mask a little pride, the stupidity of believing that I was a successful man, that I was worth by myself, without the help of angels and witches.
Suddenly one afternoon you painted the rainbow a different color, you let me slide down the ravine, in a palm tree on the wet grass, you gave me the reins of the dinosaurs, and you flew close to me as far as I could go.
The hyenas and crows were waiting for me, the thorns and thistles, the desert sands and the early mornings alone, not to hurt me, but to get to know them.
Then I began to shout out the window, I looked for you in the moors and the forests, below the park benches, in the mysterious shadows that the afternoons throw. I looked for you in books and cinemas, on the floor wet with my tears.
Could it be that I've done something so despicable that it doesn't even deserve you to talk to me?
Why don't you show up in my dreams and give me a hint?
Tell me what it is, declare your verdict and hit the hammer that the judges hit, and I'll stay calm!
And nothing, you did not appear.
In a fit of receivers, I cursed and cursed so hard that I was exhausted and out of breath, I lay down on a smelly bed and prepared to wait for the end of the suffering, I gave the last hope two brooms and a kick in the butt to a little of faith, which I still had.
When I was about to breathe my last breath, your questions came to mind: where do you think you will go when you leave?
And, for an instant, for a miraculous fraction of a second, it occurred to me to look inside, towards that magical space that we are when we let the heart look at the one that is reflected in the eyes of a child, and there you were so calm as always, so loving and smiling, waiting to hug me.
Since then, nothing is lacking or surplus on this earth, nothing disturbs or worries us. Only compassion and love accompany us, like those children on top of the floats on the eve of kings, throwing flowers and candies to whoever wants them.
Thank you for your tender hand, for the encouragement that has let me know.
