I’ve got a list of Japanese literature related topics. How dare I, to teach japanese literature and ask for money.
My mind is all over the places.
I could be learning something from Joyce Carol Oates or Margaret Atwood, but I’m so tired. It’s almost 9:00 am. Couldn’t sleep at all.
I’m thinking about writing a blog. A serious one. About learning languages. The thing is I’ve gotta study first in order to write.
I’m thinking about stopping my chinese lessons. My teacher is not great so why keep paying him.
I’m also a teacher. I try to be a good one. One they want to pay. My income is low as shit so that’s why I was thinking about teaching Japanese literature or starting a blog. Teaching is not bad, but Mexico’s economy just sucks.
Anyways, I don’t really need the money. So there’s that.
I digress though. I was offered a job opportunity in China. Teaching abroad for a year. But then again I don’t have my freaking degree. And I really want to have it. I want it more than anything I’ve wanted before. My thesis has been once again rejected. Probably not as bad as it could have but nonetheless it means a step back and probably staying in Mexico for another month. It sucks. Do I really want to pursue a job in Academia? It’s painful and frustrating.
So I’ve got to paths: go to China without a degree. Or stay and get the degree but lose the chance of teaching in China.
Why not live in China for a year? Couldn’t be that bad — been there before so I guess I’ll be alright a second time.
Then I could come back and get the freaking degree. It’s just a paper. Money is paper as well.
Going to China would mean flying for 16 hours to arrive at a horrible place I want to be at. Not going would mean staying at a horrible place I don’t mind being at.
Aaah, decisions. Well it’s fine. The year is about to end. I should learn to let go, whether it’s a degree or China. One thing will be lost. Maybe it won’t be the later.
Updates in two months.
3 nov 2019
life keeps going on. I want to be more positive but I also want to embrace my sadness. I think of Asia, the happy moments and the deceptions too. I think the day I’m really expecting nothing I’ll be happier. But now I’m so good. So grateful. I want to go out tomorrow and enjoy this world and this me, the me in right now, which is so pretty, so young, so adequate.
It’s ok to be you. Your flaws. Don’t fight all the time. Embrace what you are, let the tears roll and outshine them with smiles. Just breath. It’s fine. Fine. Fine. Fine is more that right.
1 sept 2019
I should be writing but then again I should be arranging flowers
I should wash my self
Delicately
Immaculately
I should clean the sheets
But it’s too late
P e r f u m e
Of my flowers before they die.
Until tomorrow there will be no sun
I should be reading
and combing my hair (It is so damage, and yet all this is about learning
to love,
even me)
And breathing
And living.
11 jul 2019
Anoche soñé contigo
Y éramos otra vez nosotros
Acaso intenté refugiarme en el olvido
busqué entre rimas sin sentido
Desdibujar los paisajes brumosos
Abrir de mi alma el claustro
Impregnado de tus rastros, de tu tacto,
Desempolvar el alma
mientras los árboles cantaban
y me decían que
lo imposible era algo cotidiano.
Y así tu ausencia
se acumuló en las horas
sin percibir las huellas,
ignoré el afán y restringí el deseo.
Desgasté los días
de una tristeza nimia
Hilvané disculpas
Y revisé culpas
Hablé con Dios no para encontrar respuestas sino para obviar preguntas
Llegue a la casa llena de nuestros recuerdos
Me paré entre
Los cajones vacíos y el armario desnudo
Apenas pude preguntarle a las piedras de tu historia, más por costumbre que por anhelo;
que ya estábamos lejos
lo supe entonces
nunca mas volvería a tocarte,
Y me di cuenta del instante,
del final,
De que las comas son apenas un respiro
para no ahogarse en un eterno olvido.
Le mostré mis heridas al espejo,
Abrace otros cuerpos y despoje al alma de anhelos.
Cante quedito
Encontré otros cuartos y cajones
Comprendí el capricho de ser sin traducir el alma y lo fácil, lo dócil, lo que se entrega a ti sin quemar el alma.
I can’t stop thinking about you You said you never really forgot something Even when you can’t remember it Now all I have left is this feeling in my heart Like a fleeting childhood that died in a warm spring day The sound of the lake, the colour of the flowers and the smell of honey poured in my bread The lulls of my grandma who grew distant and displeased The musing I once heard coming through my window is now vague and I wonder Why can’t I find you Why are you not between the poppies of my garden Why the spiders left my wall A pile of books remains unread And I look at the sky looking for starts I can’t see well. My heart goes back to that place And something’s always missing Couldn’t you come and hold me Couldn’t you come and tell me? “It will be alright, Be patient Feel the heart
Feel it beat and feel it bleed
It will be alright, I’ll be right there, I’ll be right there.”
I might have been fourteen when they took that picture of me goofing around with my high school friends. I was really lost and anxious back then, but somehow I was also very careless and free at the same time.
I remember spending those summers in a big house in a small town, walking up the streets towards cafés and pizza shops, hanging out with other kids and my cousins, rescuing a dog, being in love too and giving first and second kisses; but still, everything was brand new.
The summer was nice, not too hot and much better than the foggy and rainy winters of that town.
Back then I could have cake in between meals without a single doubt, because I was skinny asf.
I also went to dance lessons, but during the summer the school closed.
Small town memories might be lame but they are good enough
I listened to rock bands and dated a kid who played the bass. The romance lasted for two or three weeks. But the heath of summer lasted longer.
I was there, walking downtown, boys trying to flirt with me for no apparent reason. I enjoyed it. The attention was also new. And then the night came. I went to those lame garage parties some kids with inattentive parents sometimes held. It was very hard to drink beer, but we still manage to have fun.
Not knowing what the future was holding for us, and with zero intention of knowing, we let ourselves go with the excitement of our first youth.
Make up, magazines, jeans cut to our waist, Mika's Everybody is gonna love today playing over and over, dreaming with New York... a city beyond our possibilities, wishing love could last forever and not just a few weeks.
Now all that seems distant and romantic. The corner where I had to cross the street to go to the park, the flavor of brownies in the middle of the day, lemonade, scars and cuts in my fingers after playing with branches, lying on the floor or the blue sky... we didn't wanted to end, I still wished it hadn't end, but it was only inevitable.
I spend an afternoon making a video for Youtube, I recorded bits of my life here and there, watched The sisterhood of traveling pants and wished for a friendship and a pair of jeans as good as those. There was so much I didn't know and wanted to, but ignorance was the preamble for adventure.
I tried to kiss a boy one of those nights, but got shy and got scolded for leaving the party so late. But I couldn't help it and didn't care.
We ate pizza, made Skype calls at 2:00 am that lasted until 3:00 am, we swore it was gonna be like that for ever and ever and ever.
I grew up. Went to London, Tokyo, Seoul, Amsterdam... still there are certain things, certain moments in that little hometown of yours, where you rave to certain songs and certain sounds just like everyone else in the biggest cities your dreams could imagine. We sang to Use Somebody to Kings of Leon, or maybe we didn't, but certainly listened to it while all those emotions where happening inside of us.
As small as we were, as broken as we felt, we did our best... we laughed and felt and loved and regretted it and eventually got over it, but the scars and the marks of those years, now they are here with us, and they are truly eternal, witnesses of our craziness, or recklessness, or fearless selves jumping to a pool after our last exam, still with a school uniform, but knowing we were free for the next two or four weeks.
Walking around those small places now will never be same. It ended, we said goodbye, we didn't see each other daily anymore, some of us discovered we couldn't stay friends because we had nothing else in common than the eleven subjects we shared together. However, we will always have Kiss Me Thru the Phone to remember how it was.
Late afternoons that became nights, photographs that got lost due to our lack of Facebook, dead pets, casual pizza dinning, the unawareness that Korea existed, LG phones and the fact that we knew we were growing up and didn't know what to do with it.
So we finally did. And now we are here and there. And we might forget, but the memories will always be there. On the street, in your old room, in the stars you asked for wishes.
Después de leer el libro decidí leerme algunos reviews, El País y escultural (que escribe mal el nombre de la autora) dicen poco y anda al respecto:
Vemos pasar ocho mujeres, algunas ellas sin nombre pero todas ellas varadas en relaciones suspendidas y decepcionantes, de felicidad en color sepia, y parecen haber llegado a las relaciones como parte de un plan vital basado en la nada. - El país
Con un lirismo delicado y nada efectista, que recuerda a Tanizaki, relata el dolor de la separación, la intromisión de la muerte, la imposibilidad de conocer al otro, el trabajo implacable del olvido. - El cultural
Sin tantas palabras vacías como "lirismo delicado", me gustaría saber qué pensaron en realidad estas personas al leer a Kawakami. En goodreads encuentro al menos reviews más honesto: "Un libro raro y aunque las historias tienen puntos en común (todas desprenden muchísimo erotismo, por ejemplo), hay algunas más flojas que otras.", "Las sensaciones que me ha dejado este libro son bastante contrarias", "No sé cómo calificar este libro".
Desconcierto. Kawakami nos deja desconcertados. Creo que ella sabe qué escribe, y adrede es que no lo deja claro. Sus personajes no saben qué hacer con ellos mismos, con sus vida, los lectores no sabemos qué leemos, por qué leemos, qué esperar, hacia donde llegaremos con sus palabras, que son tan lánguidas y bonitas que nos obligan a seguir leyendo aunque sus relatos acaben literalmente en la nada.
En todos los cuentos hay una especie de amor, amores nostálgicos, amores que surgen de la costumbre, de la comodidad incluso, de lo familiar. Amigos que a causa de coincidir tantas veces acaban besándose, como si no supieran que más hacer en medio de un desolado Japón tras perderse en el camino. Una pareja que ha huido "de lo irracional" dicen ellos, aunque lo que han hecho es tan ilógico como ese de lo que dicen escapar. Otros que parecen no tener nada en común más que unas locas ganas de acostarse juntos sin cesar y que al final, resuelven que lo mejor es el suicidio.
Los relatos tienen en común al amor desde la mirada femenina. Mujeres solas que encuentran en un compañero, si no compañía, al menos un analgésico a esa soledad. No es amor lo que sienten, sino pasión. La pasión como una salvación o como una condena. Bien te ayuda a sobrellevar los monótonos días en una sociedad que se caracteriza por estar siempre centrados y esforzarse por la perfección, en donde la locura de un orgasmo puede ser el único escape a esa uniformidad que devora como un monstruo. Bien te convierte en un fantasma, que ni siquiera en la muerte, logra entender por qué hizo lo que hizo. Por qué amar, por qué dejarse llevar, por qué quitarse la vida por un sentimiento. O más aún, por qué seguir viviendo si ninguna razón parece buena.
Al final y después de tantos desamores Kawakami sí hace un guiño a lo que es el amor, o su imposibilidad. Dos espíritus condenados a estar juntos para siempre, por que sí, la eternidad no puede ser otra cosa que no sea una condena. Dos espíritus que no saben si se aman aún, pero que no tienen más remedio que compartir sus días hasta el fin del universo. Lo aburrido e incipiente del día a día es lo que comparten. Ninguno recuerda lo que es la pasión. Y acaso esa es otra manera de amar.
Kawakami no sentencia si aquello es más o menos genuino que los amores que llevan al suicidio o a huir juntos, sólo llena los relatos de bellas imágenes y nos presenta ocho maneras de entender y vivir este sentimiento humano, en una sociedad en donde la gente no se abraza ni se toca, en dónde el metro anuncia que por favor, te abstengas de llorar aunque tu día haya sido una mierda.
Dulzura y agonía, soledad, inocencia, dolor y añoranza son algunos de los elementos que se entretejen en su prosa, que lo dejan a uno desconcertado, que nos recuerda que en la vida lo que menos existen son las certezas.
