The Lanzarote of 'Broken Embraces'
This summer we have replaced Macchu Pichu with an alpaca float in the town pool. The aroma of a fig tree has been enough to reconcile us with the light that we longed for so much and the caravan has become the new Seat 600. This has been the curious summer of little things.
“And the air was full of thoughts and things to say. But at times like these, they only say the little things . Great things lurk, lurking, unspoken within us." Perhaps today, now, this summer, this quote included in the book The god of little things from the indian author Arundhati Roy It makes more sense to all of us.
Because just a year ago, no one would have told you. By then you had already returned from that trip to Thailand and you spent more time on the subway than at home . You linked with last summer festivals and the applause was only a thing of soccer and theaters. Yes, the world was an overflowing and juicy fruit . One that seemed more ours than ever.
However, now everything is very different. Or at least something different. This summer we have closed our eyes a little more, feeling the salty breeze and prolonging the time doing the starfish in the Mediterranean . The little things. the simple . The ones that once seemed a little more caught up in the bustle of a planet that was spinning too fast.
But to understand the history of the little things, it is necessary to go back to the beginning, six months ago. To a month of March in which we stopped and the echo of everything seemed stronger to us.
Including our own.
STOP
During the first days of the health crisis everything was new even distressing. But also an opportunity for those of us who decided to get out of a fast world and be aware of the precious time that those four walls induced. And so we realized that singing to a plant, baking bread or sticking your head out the window while it was raining it wasn't so bad . Small rediscoveries between Zoom meetings and alarming news with sights set on the same horizon: the summer that would reward so many days in limbo.
Ojos Negros, a look at the emptied Spain
The point was that, unlike the initial plans, this summer we were not going to go to the Philippines or Barbados, but to the house of our parents in Murcia . Until September. And in most cases, moving the office to our childhood room . Years ago, perhaps the idea would not have been so exciting to us. However, this time: What was Macchu Pichu compared to seeing our loved ones again? That's how we got started. With his mouth covered and consuming TOC level hand gel. Leaving slippers at the door and recognizing old smiles on the other side of the mask.
After a secret hug (and you know it), we have lengthened the after-meals with Pacharán listening to songs from 2005 as if all this time had been compressed . Flowing like the lotus in a river of uncertainty reclaiming the pending light. Discovering that our nephews know us a little better now or that a fuchsia sky among the palm trees is more of a gift of life than a handful of likes on Instagram.
The summer we live
BLUE IS MORE BLUE
“On the boat there is an older man with a bouquet of flowers, perhaps because he hasn't visited the island's cemetery in a long time. Perhaps, because during the confinement he remembered that old love he wanted to return to . And if you look closely, seagulls squawk in a hundred different ways. In a bar on the island, a mother teleworks while her son yells at the beach with his fins on . There are bougainvillea in the street where someone forgot a boat. And from a window, a woman looks at life, although she may not need more. She misses the sea. A cane . Touch a posidonia forest inhabited by more fish than ever. And dance naked with the sea. The aroma of the fig tree that floods everything and that reconciles you with some place lost in memory. Because it was always necessary, but perhaps never before have we appreciated all those little things so much.” Tabarca, Alicante
This summer has not only been a time of hugs with the eyes and contained elbows, but also one that we will remember for being the one that marked the rediscovery of our country. We have felt proud to write that of #YoMeQuedoEnEspaña under the photo of a reservoir that was next to the house. Because Greece seemed to us just as far away as Japan and many of us feel the duty of squeezing an orphan country in half of Europe . A collective feeling that has sprouted until reaching the most remote cove and the oldest of the caravans.
Suddenly, seeing the three blues of the Mediterranean between the white houses of Altea seemed like the closest thing to a mirage. That road trip as a couple, a litmus test to take things more calmly and make more love in a cabin. Discover the pleasure of reduce our global “I” to the same people of a thousand shades . Leaving home with the unicorn mattress straight to the sea. Make more stops with the car on the way to a destination. Traveling on roads that seemed more ours than ever.
The little things...
However, not everything is meat from an unpublished episode of little house on the prairie. The reset to which we have all been subjected since March has also had bad things, very bad . Terrible. Many of us have trembled seeing the history of income, suffered episodes of panic and anxiety but, especially, feared for the life of a loved one . A trend that will continue to accompany us in the coming months until we recognize ourselves again and, perhaps, we see ourselves a little more different in front of the mirror. Not worse, just different.
Because there is a global feeling born of this pandemic that resides, more than ever, in valuing the little things. And we have never before lived with so much uncertainty. But we don't appreciate the present moment so much either..
The Kings of Summer