This entry is called: “you don’t know how smart I am in Spanish”...

... while I am trying to type in my old Hewlett Packard laptop with ñ character, now that I am used to a non-special-characters keyboard at work, and missing some keys in the process.

I have been -or trying hard to be- bilingual for a couple of years. Not so many that I could erase all traces of Argentinean vocabulary and definitely not enough to completely erase all those UK English learning years, but sufficient to understand what the unitedstatean fellows might be talking about. But I know, I might not be like them any moment on, not discursively nor in mindset.

Porque la cosa es así en la era de la ofensa fácil, uno no puede hablar de filosofía o política en la mayoría de los entornos, que te llaman a la cancelación. Que no se te zafe tu opinión poco popular, y no aburras tampoco con argumentos kilométricos que el conductor designado se duerme. No seas vos, o sé un poco menos vos, pasado por el filtro del comentarista aceptado. ¿Y cómo se debate o se aprende con eso? ¿Cómo se muestra un cacho de alma cuando lo que vende es el cuerpo?

What a lame speech. The part of me trying to fit in is now trying to break free. Feel like sparkling again, feel desirable, playful with my tongue or my fingers on this keyboard. I used to write some erotic content even, goddamit. Where has all that gone? Perhaps under the pile of success-driven unachievable goals that I imposed myself to, forgetting about life to be lived and created. Trying to be seen as an organized functional piece of machinery instead of the immense quilombo my beautiful mind is capable of. I am deviating my energy towards where it doesn’t belong.

Es insomnio de 4 am otra vez, avisando que se pasa una década casi y flasheando en mis ojos las decisiones tomadas hace un tiempo. Pero nada de esto cambia, las reflexiones vuelven sobre lo mismo, los miedos también. Y la soledad de querer transmitir con palabras que el otro no te va a entender porque son del lado opuesto de tu cerebro bilingüe… esa soledad nadie te la puede explicar. Vos me entendiste, he couldn’t. Worse, never tried.

There is something infuriating in not trying to understand POVs, some kind of laziness -dejadez- that is close to uninterested behavior. Because all of us want to be understood; it could be sign languages or Google Translator, we wanna be heard, and validated. If not, why am I even writing this on a very unknown blog page. And don’t make me start talking about texts without emojis, how-how-how can we connect with that?

La soledad de las 5 am no se va tampoco scrolleando una pantalla. Se va si hay un abrazo que quiere ser abrazado, en mi cuerpo magro y con mis rulos despeinados, suspirando suavecito y acurrucado. Porque tampoco uno puede decir que necesita un abrazo o una comunidad, viste, se te va todo el sex appeal al carajo. Ah pero después están todos con problemas mentales y no saben por qué, se inventan un Caralibro cada vez más grande y parecido a una queja que a una conexión humana. Y sin embargo acá estamos todos pataleando y gritando para que nos miren, desde nuestras solitarias casas mentales.

I prefer nature, true bugs and bird songs. A symphony from the 16^th century, a couple of brushes and acrylics on a canvas, my guitar. My lover playing with me whatever comes to our minds, in a language we can create everyday by try and error. Because it takes time to be bilingual, because it takes time to not let others speak by ourselves or impose their beliefs.

Y todo esto no es más que un ensayo del ego para dejar de lamerse las heridas, y ser curioso otra vez olvidando lo que se aprendió doliendo. Porque toma tiempo, profundidad y especialmente alegría que a alguien más le parezcas súper interesante, que realmente diga: te veo.

The bioluminescent tale

My friends and I improvised a trip to a tropical island to escape cold and snowy weather and routine. Let's say it is known as the "Island of  Charms", it really honors the name. Landing there was a gentle caress to the soul. Like the ones I've been missing, the longing relax. Welcome new year.

The cities had that refurbished vintage vibe that most Caribbean islands have, full of colors and happy pedestrians. And there we were, with our cameras on hand, trying to capture those colors without making justice to the beauty our retinas saw. You see, we are this strange generation of humans that live through lenses and flashes, that doesn't have memories anymore if not in those pixels. Everything recorded for a posterior (no-one?) voyeur. Surprisingly, we keep on living in the past through them, but in our brains... there are few true colors left we can remember.

But here we were, a full new-moon night, one of the darkest -or in another perspective, one of the most starry skies you would experience. Sailing on a boat towards a bay-reservoir surrounded by mangroves, one of those places where the Earth still resembles to what it was like until modern humans came. Our aim: to be observers of one of the magical gifts our mother nature created. 

The first evidence were little sparks on the waves as the boat agitated the high saline and, therefore, warm waters. Is that real? Is the water looking like sparklers lit on a celebration? I had to dip my hand there... and voila! Hundreds of microscopical lights surrounded my skin with a pale green glow! Impatiently jumped on the kayaks, blinded by that impenetrable darkness that was only illuminated by our glowing strokes; the silence interrupted by our giggling. Like babies that made too much noise. And the emotion scaled up after all fears turned off... Splashing and swimming on those waters thriving in biological star-fires, while watching the stellated black vault in mirrorlike manor. Twinkling cells that switched up by motion, perhaps annoyed telling us "please do not disturb". Or maybe they also wanted to play with us and with the fishes that jumped out in the air, or rocketed like torpedoes leaving a phosphorescent trail. 

Forgot to mention the number one rule for this place: no artificial lights. Phone screens down.

And now? There is no evidence on what just happened. No pixels on phones or GoPros, no bits uploaded to the Cloud, nothing. The phosphorescence was so quick and dim that only specialized cameras could pick it, but even in good bioluminescent nights it would be seen like "fake". We were left with just the photons going through the pupil to the retina exciting the cones and rods, and then to a cluster of neurons that will hold that memory. An instantaneous experience for a couple of hours. In time it might get distorted... at the end it will die with us. 

So what happened could only be transmitted partially by oral or written description, just like the myths and legends of our ancestors, created for collective memory. Like me in this webpage, telling the story of the sea fire, full of adjectives expressing my emotions, in a language that is not my native -purposely picked- to show that no high-fidelity translation could be possible. This was something one can take but not give away. Something you can play but not reproduce. Even if we tried to reconstruct it, no virtual machine could remotely approximate to the in-person impression. There is no way a screen could mimic the combination of your six senses in time and space; the smell, the touch, the sounds, the light, the breeze, the wet salty water. The tiny little light igniting on your limbs because you move, because there is a reaction: like a dance, like a kiss. Our human experience, limited and at the same time infinite by combinations of sensations, will never get replaced by a copy. Is reality what we perceive as non-fake? Maybe it is what exists out of our human interpretation. It is beyond our brains and our desires; it has unpleasant sides, unexpected twists. And it can be beautifully surprising if we let ourselves dive into it.

So no records but my fast-beating heart and my brain full of dopamine. And a cluster of freshly excited neurons.

That was my wake up call, that was my lesson. For moving forward in this life, with my feet touching the grass, the sand or the snow, breathing, touching, observing. Feeling. The world is out there, and for me being in it I have to experience it in first hand. Get outside.

PS: a bloom of noctiluca reproduction, aka "the most brilliant night glow" can kill coral reefs by asphyxia. More blooms are seen in climate change. There you have the unexpected twist.