Plans

Dear everyone,

Forever exists not.
Tomorrow we die.

Sad, I know.
Difficult, I know.
True, though.

Live.
Live today-
With the urgency of a fly.
Love, learn, feed your eyes, your brain, your body.
Feed yourselves life.
Feed others it too.

In case we run out-
In case we are soon to reach our expiry date.

On extinction.

Can we please keep the sharks? 

And the polar bears, the frogs, the tuna, the elephants, the tigers, the belugas and the turtles, the gorillas, whales, dragons and devils, parrots and narwhals… Scheisse, we are running out…

Sometimes I run out of Nutella.
I love Nutella.
I don’t want to run out of it.
But I know that the next day I can go and buy another pot from the shop.
Imagine there was no more Nutella in the market and I was running out.

Shit.

I don’t want to ever be running out of something.

A Letter to Space

Mr. Don Pettit,
Node 2, Deck 5, ISS, LEO 51.603

Dear Don,

A letter…

“Perpetual Twilight”.

That is the name of my favorite blog post of all time.

You see, I wanted to be an astronaut as a child.

Didn’t we all?

I was obsessed with space travel, in constant fascination of MIR throughout my childhood.

Space travel-

Space exploration-

Exploration of the existential self in confined spaces.

Experimentation-

Zero Gravity-

Darkness-

A moment-

That moment-

Just a moment-

Of inexplicable beauty, of unworkable reason; an unfeasible once-in-a-lifetime glimpse of something impossible.

A bit like love.

Like that moment of perpetual twilight, almost impossible, almost not there…

It’s so fascinating, I want to hug it.

I didn’t fulfill on my wish of being an astronaut.

I am a scientist of plays; I engineer theatre pieces, short stories, films.

I am also into conservation, environmental sciences, sports, music, cheddar cheese and books.

My curiosity does not understand of limits, and who am I to stop it indulging in absurdities.

Absurdities for others, perhaps, but for us (my curiosity and me), it means life- understanding equals life.  Perhaps the sole reason for my existence is the questioning of these things.

Randy Paush said he just dreamt of the zero-gravity bit, I did not… not only.

I wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to wear the kit, I wanted to be alone in space, reflecting on the fear it would give me to be alone in space reflecting on fear…- all by myself, floating above home, far from reach, and observe the earth, its lights, its roundness, its dimensions, its movement and everything outside of it, outside of myself, outside of anything my brain could describe.

I feel like I live my childhood dream through your eyes – somehow.

Zucchini talks to my heart; I root for sunflower’s wellbeing.

I was there when you grabbed little Dragon towards you, present.

I’ve participated of your experiments and games, your stories and your lack of plastic bags.

I now know how to pee in space, how to eat in space, how much toothpaste to use, how to talk to plants, how to listen to them. I now know how an eclipse looks from above, and I even know what Expedition or Increment I would like to belong to. I think I now qualify for Increment 31.

I almost feel like I know an astronaut.

My favorite astronaut of all time- just because you play with food (and channel sprouts)!

I thank you, from my bedroom on this fragment of intergalactic sediment – from this atom of universality…

I thank you for being my window, for allowing dreams to be proof-able, determined, tangible.

For allowing vastness to be spacious.

For forging knowledge, for inspiring discovery and discovering inspiration- in the everyday and in everything.

For taking care of the plants, for writing poems, stories, notes, letters.

A letter to you, my space bound friend, for being brave and cautious, and creative when you need to, for sharing with us-the dreamers on mother-ship earth who wait your return to hear more stories of unbelievable feats.

Space.

Empty space.

Never empty.

Always analyzed, observed, proud.

I hunt the skies for a glimpse of that metallic body that houses not only your physicality, but also your ideas, your dreams and the perfect poetry of sight that the outside has ignited in you.

The floating house.

The laboratory of dreams.

I can see through your eyes.

I gain understanding, freedom, inspiration. I am an astronaut. Here. Right now.

Now Earth awaits your landing.

Say your goodbyes to your sleep station. (Just for now)

My only concern now is…

Who will garden the plants?

From this dreamer and wishful member of Expedition 30/31, for Soyuz TMA-03M with call sign Antares,

From a bedroom on Earth,

                                                                         Sophia Mertins

I am not a writer. I am a victim.

I want to always be an expression of me. (The innermost me.)
I want my words to always be mine.
"Words are only words within a sentence.” That’s Virginia Woolf…
But this, this is my pen.

……….

As I child I wanted to be an astronaut.
No one- ever- told me: “I think space doesn’t go well with you.”
Perhaps because intuitively they know… they know that a part of us is galaxy, explosion, energy; a part of you, of me, of this pen, of the thought hitting the page like a wave on a rock… is also a star.
And a part of me is a billion years old- but another one is much older.

………

My pen woke up all aggressive.
It wants to write. Injured wrist and all.
Hand write.

………..

Something about constellations and words within a sentence and Virginia Woolf and a wave and… oh God… the synapse right there…
Ramon y Cajal would be delighted…. And so would be Freud…

………

I don’t care.
I don’t care, you see?
Today I don’t care.
Maybe tomorrow… my brain does its thing once more, but today, my God, today the wrist, the hand, the neuron firing… they’re all connected to something else- something not my own – yes also- but not exclusively.
Something shared…
There goes a whale in my imagination.
A toy.
A marching band.

This is crazy.
That’s what happens when it is in control.
I lose it.
I become an instrument of something.
For something.
I channel words, worlds, sentences, dots – that appear to be periods, commas, whales and marching bands.

A series of thoughts revolve above my head – not in it, no… outside of me.
I don’t choose them; they drop and continue moving, spiraling down all the way to the tip of the pen.
(yes, this was written in paper before

I am not a writer.
I am a victim.

I want to move freely.
Go to the toilet, have breakfast.
I can’t.
I am chained to a piece of paper.

This is ridiculous…

Help!

There goes the whale, there goes my childhood… astronaut missions in the living room, a play staged by my teddy bears (I directed), there goes something I don’t recognize…
Someone else’s childhood?

That thought is new…
Let me write it…
Down.

(Now it’s mine)

Period.

Uno mas.

Y decidí no vivir más allí.
No quedarme pajarito en una jaula que me hacía picar las alas.
No por cobarde.
Pero sí por miedo.

Y no fue que no me diera cuenta, me daba.
Como dolores escurridizos que no saben a nada. Que no significan nada.
Que no tienen sentido.

Es ese algo que tienen las armas de fuego, los cuchillos, la tortilla tiesa, que dicen.
No es que no me diera cuenta.
Es que cuando se ve gente tirada en el suelo con un charquito de sangre  y uno ha dejado de sentir… ¿qué pasó con la humanidad que uno llevaba dentro?
Es que se ha vuelto cotidiano.
Es que se vuelve melancolía, una tristeza que es distinta a las demás.
Como no querer subirse al bus, ¿desde cuándo dan miedo los buses, los teléfonos, las obras de teatro?  El escondite estaba bien cuando éramos chicos. Ha pasado a lo ridículo, teatro del absurdo.

¿Y que es la violencia?
Es que nunca entendí qué estaba pasando.
Es que nunca entendí qué era, de qué se trataba, qué medio usaba para expresar qué cosa.
Yo sé, yo sé que te duele. Mira que la poesía que te sale de las manos. ¿Qué es? ¿De dónde viene?
Todavía me da enojo, no creas que me he divorciado de ese miedo. Ese se le queda a uno.
No sé si se nos dio para saber algo, como para darnos un secreto que no hemos descubierto.
¿Por qué nosotros?
¿Por qué ellos?
Es cuando uno se pregunta, ¿Pero qué jodidos estamos pagando, aprendiendo, recapitulando?

Es que ves, por eso no me quedo, porque no entiendo quién me quiere en una jaula.
Es que me daba rabia.
Miedo. Miedo sí, pero rabia. Rabia también. Me daba cólera de enojos.
“No me quites esto, porque es mío, no me mires así, porque soy mía, no me quites eso, eso no, por favor no me quites…” como si la vida fuera qué cosa.

Y los amigos, los amigos que se los quitaron a uno como que fueran qué cosa, ¿ves?

Por eso.

Por eso no me quedé.
No por hipócrita.
No por cobarde.
Por miedo. Sí.

Si te sirve de algo, tu poesía no habla, grita.

Grita Laura, grita.

Words...

Come on, word…
Come out.
No, not like that- sit next to the right word that’ll escort you.
No. word.
Sit still.
Please-word.
I can’t tell stories without you.
Word. Word. Word. Word.

Intermittent.
Eloquent- sometimes rhythmical.
Like the ‘tut-tut-tut’ of a telephone line.
How?
How do I have you, word?

I have you…almost-
On the tip not of my tongue, but of my brain.
Frontal lobe- I can feel you… there hiding between the cortex and the intracranial tissue – moist.

Is it an ‘R’ you start with?

…

Muñequitas

Muñequitas.
Se les cambia vestido, zapatitos.

Se les inventan procesos judiciales.
Se les vuelve presidentas. Muñequitas.
Divorcios a la carrera, a la maratón, de San Fermín; todos disfrazados de conejos.

Nada.
No hay nada. Aquí no hay nada.
Ya pasaron las tormentas.
Se agotaron las razones.
Que absurdo parece todo.

On plastic waste.

Practicality?

No…. I think it’s fear.

I think all our problems derive from our fear of losing the 3rd dimension.

All the objects act as maps that demark and respect a linear world we created for ourselves in our fantasized protuberant reality.

Isn’t that the function of plastic?

You could think that trees and nature could take care of that, but are they really that material? Are they really there?

The leaves break at the slightest contact with a strong wind- the flowers, the rivers, all in constant motion, in constant apathy of our hands.

Nothing fits in a room, nothing stays put in a room, nothing to remind us that our existence is solid, permanent, real.

(Is it?)

Let’s stuff the oceans with plastic, should we not find a bottom.

Let’s surround ourselves with depictions of solidity.

Whatever you can find! Color! Throw in some color... and shape and texture, and why not some meaning to it too!

Anything that keeps us from expanding- we may explode and become galaxies…

God save us…

I think I am nailing the void.

All those stories, the books, art… the void.

Fear of the void.

Fear of conceptuality, of non dimensionality.
I think I am nailing it.

I think.

I see a lamp, and behind that lamp, a curtain, and behind that, a window, cars, buildings, walls. 

It all makes me feel safe.

It makes me feel I am still here.

The three-dimensionality makes me feel more here, less there… (in outer space).
It makes me feel... something…

(…or am I imagining the atoms?)

The Toilet Roll Series

With the ‘Toilet Roll’ series, I wanted to explore the connection between the mundane and deeper stuff.

Based on ‘Toilet Rolls’ – a previous blog entry/thought that was born when reading the packaging of a well known brand. I imagined the rolls talking to me… But what were the rolls not telling?

I explored…

Toilet Rolls.

Toilet paper is talking to me.

Something about it being the softest paper I’ve ever tried.
I reply I’m not a professional toilet paper taster.
I don’t know anything about ‘softness’.
It says it has a dimpled middle layer for extra texture.
It says it is the best shit in the world, a jug of warm milk coming second place.



A new day, a new sheet...

toi·let pa·per

Noun:

Paper in sheets or on a roll for wiping oneself clean after urination or defecation.

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That said, don’t forget the environment when talking to your rolls.

And if you want to know about toilet rolls and how they affect the environment:

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6403

S.x



On death.

I’ve always thought Shakespeare understood death like few people has.

Death is a recurrent topic in my writings, it fascinates me. The way I see life, being aware of death makes us seize the day (I may be wrong).
In any case, what a great invention!
This is something I wrote about it, for it, to it, because of it…

“There comes a time when death needs no description.

(Am I being followed?)
This night so cold.
I can feel my bones.

Dear William,

You had such clarity when speaking death.
Death as wrath.
A cloudless sky.
Death as a word.
Spoken at the exact time.
Never right.
Always measured.
Awaited.
Understood.

Death as an echo.
Loud and clear.
Voiceless.
Speechless.
A silent night.

We will all die!

Our days are counted.
We live as if blindfolded by an imaginary everlastingness.

Death.

Death is here.
Its bony hand on my knee.
On yours.
Death is near.
Silent.
Cautious.
Aware of its own density.
Thin-air like.
Cold and shallow.
A metallic taste in ones tongue.
Death is lonely.
Solitary.
Death is close.
Cold like a cave with no entrance.
No exit. No return.
Death is hissing, whispering in our distracted ears.

Listen.

Its broad mouth opening, swallowing tomorrows and our discolored beliefs.”

Theories in a string- wordy thoughts on a theory of everything.

Perhaps we’re imagining the atoms.

Perhaps our understanding isn’t lengthy, but our fantasy is.

Perhaps dolphins and whales have theories of evolution and quantum of their own.

Perhaps they’re looking at us and pondering on our self destructive nature.

Perhaps they’re collecting phytoplankton funds in order to help us- we could use some chlorophyll.

Perhaps every now and then, a heroic individual sacrifices itself in the coast trying to warn us.

‘Oh, those animals just won’t listen.’

Perhaps we are just fungi.

A fungal infection gone mad.

It happened to a Gregor Samsa before.

He thought himself human- he was only a bug.

Perhaps atoms give themselves the same importance.

Perhaps cells and viruses also build societies and fight wars, gossip and study and look out at the stars at night. Perhaps we are just words in a book, a thought in a bearded man’s head, a white hair on a cat’s back, a piece of plastic in the middle of the sea (wishing itself a better luck).

Perhaps we are just lab rats in a lucid dream…

 (p.s.: And in the end… there’s just a vibration… and it sounds a lot like a cello… period.)

My Existential Knee

We are dying.
All of us.

Pause.

We, in a way, started dying as soon as we were born.

Pause.

I had a sports injury.

Patellofemoral pain, or commonly called ‘runners knee’.
My knee had decided to infuriate me.
I limped my way for about two weeks.
I didn’t really rest… I was trying to be ‘super’.

‘The patella is damaged’.

Patella…
I only knew my knee as ‘right knee’.
I didn’t think there were separate parts to it.
Like a skeleton to a body…

Kryptonite.

I may come across as some type of hypochondriac.

Illnesses and injuries are a delicate topic, they make me really anxious.
But who doesn’t feel this way?

The line between life and death so undefined.

Death- as I see it, could find us anywhere. Any day, any time of day.
What if no one remembers me?
The sun will rise for at least 5 billion more years, but my existence is limited.
My expiry date due.
But when?
The ink is blurry…

What happens after that?

Dreamless sleep?
An encounter with the unconscious?
Silence.
Quiet.

A sharp pain in my knee reminds me that I am still here.

Pause.

Sigh.

‘Patella Discomfortis’, I would call it.

The End.

(not mine)

Fantasma.

La invisibilidad de su persona.

La espontaneidad de su curiosidad.
A medias.
Vagabundea por los corredores de la casa.
“No es nada.” “No es nada.”, escucha a la vieja calmando a la niña.
“Es solo el viento.”
“El viento no camina”, reclama él sin ser escuchado.

Las cuencas de sus ojos somnolientos, oscuras, como tumbas.

Qué poco solicitados los fantasmas estos días.
Ya nadie los considera seres vivos.
Ya todos olvidaron sus pecados.

Prelude to a birthday.

It rains like it did when I was born.

I wake up to music and breakfast with the friends, then I read Jason's journal and wonder when I can start touring again.

My nails are purple-pink, my tummy rumbles, Marion mumbles something about a room somewhere, La Rata is gone, Charlie downstairs.

Richard didn't piss me off half as much as he could have had- maybe cause he's pretty. I wonder if when all this started- 3.9 billion years ago, the consciousness that is me already mumbled and rumbled and wondered if Jason, if touring, if Marion, if some room, if Charlie downstairs, if Richard, if somewhere my nails are purple-pink, if it rains, if I...

Hypochondriac

I enter the room.

Paleozoic.

Late.

Late Paleozoic.

Nervous.

Confused.

Did I misdiagnose the self diagnosis?

Did I imagine it all?

Perhaps this is just normal.

Everyone waits their turn.

Silent. Pensive.

Are they too, imagining worst case scenarios?

Am I uncommon?

I get nervous.

As if the schoolmaster is about to deliver the bad news.

I failed.

Health check failed.

I’ve had cancer three times in the last half hour,

AIDS, insomnia, rabies and a mild condition of yellow fever.

And the worst is yet to come, when I enter that room and (almost in tears) deliver my diagnosis and the doctor confirms that indeed, I am a hypochondriac…

Silence... a thought.

Life has gone out of hands.

With all those cells and cancers, and dust, mites, plastic, telescopes and televisions- aerodynamics, patisseries, black holes and submarines, oil, coal, trains and radio transistors.

It’s gone out of hands; there’s no room for simplicity in this madness.

Nothing is ever quiet with the noise of fridges, lamps, hissing chargers and public transport.

Even birds seem to have fallen asleep…

Time

I have a small watch hanging from my neck.

Tic-tac. Tic-tac; as I imagine time is meant to sound.

Time is not sounding.

Time is surrendering.

To itself.
To the world around it.

Maybe the world-

(the whole of it)

was only created to explain time.

…

‘According to the second Law of Thermodynamics,

the entropy of the universe can never decrease.

The steady march from low entropy to high entropy is what we perceive as the passage of time.’

Tic-tac.

Tic-tac...

Epic

Not a word.
Not one.
Word.
Silence.
Quiet.
The notebook loses pages like a rainforest in deforestation.
Its intrinsic literary biosphere threatened by the shadow of my pen.