All beauty must Die

All the eons of the universe have fall on you
not even the mirror, that old beloved enemy,
can bear the heaviness of the years for you.
as an assassin time has come over night,
you wake up only to face a stranger in the mirror.
As autum leafs,
all beauty has fallen away from you,
you are like a tree,
waiting for death to come

All substance...

Sometimes life is like politics
you have to change it, make a revolution, turn it upside down
and everything will continue the same.

Other times
mutation occurs in silence,
it grows in the dark... like a shadow plant.

Unaware of the process you carry on living
only dreams can warn you
(but it does't matter because you never remember your dreams)
and then one morning or maybe one night
in the middle of a conversation,
or with a cup of tea half way between the table and your lips,
you become aware of the little changes
in the DNA sequence of everyday life.

and the question drops inside your head with the weight of a hammer
Where all your substance resides?
is it the curly hair or the junky caffeine gene?
                               maybe    
maybe  all substance is about transmutation    about restlessness,
the unfolding of whatever life can bring and     you....
                           eye blinded
                  need to be prepared to embrace it

Out and about

Three weeks ago the movement started
it was a subtle earthquake.

in less than a week I bought my plane tickets

put some things in the suitcases

and crossed the ocean dragging behind me 40 kilograms,

and without saying good bye to many beloved people

(whose names I don't dare to mention)

I still don't have a permanent place

my belongings are still packed

no internet no phone no house

only the road ahead..

(Thanks to miss Carla Afonso for this beautiful song)

I want to cast a spell

I want to cast a spell
But not a love spell
I don't want to steal a lock of your hair
while singing impenetrable incantations
neither want to tie you to me by force or magic

I want to cast a spell
but not a money spell
I don't want to wither like an ancient alchemist
searching for the secret of transmutation

I want to cast a spell
a spell of freedom and protection,
A healing spell to frighten away this sadness,
to shut up once for all the screaming of my old scars,
a spell to burn down
this fleet of black ships lying under the sun
as a premonition,
a spell to embrace love and life
and happiness and beauty and all those undefinable concepts
which only can be described with words that are not yet invented
or are too old to be remembered

Look at me
I am casting a spell
there are not lit candles or burned incense
I am not summoning the elements or inviting in the four directions.
I can recognize my voice
sweet and deep at the same time
here is me, simply,
shivering as a broken bird
face to face with my nude self

Levitation

That small moment
not even a second...
impossible to measure  under rational terms,
that small moment when everything froze
and you lose the sense of time and space,
that second of a second
when you can hear the sound of the things falling down

Are you going to be fast enough to catch them?,
do you have the skills to prevent  them smashing into pieces?
or are you going to stay there,
immobile,
looking at the parable taking shape while they fall,
waiting for the crash,
amassed by the multiple little fragments flying out of your sight,
now missed for ever under the furniture.

That second of a second

between the jump and the landing,

when you wish to have the gift of levitation

because after a few seconds in the air

you can hear the sound of your life and your body and your hopes falling down.

Are you going to land on your feet?

Are you going to lose one of your seven lives? (you have already lost so many)

or are you going to smash into little pieces like a wine glass?

This second of a second

it has lasted centuries or a blink?

Am I levitating or falling down?

I can hear the sound of my life and my body and my hopes falling down

sorting out

B-day cards,postcards, old photographs,

books yellowed by the past of the time,

CDs, vinyl records, cassettes from my youth,

museum maps, notebooks and diaries,

brushes, watercolors,

beloved jackets,

holed shoes,

a couple of reminders of old scars

all them piled out...

laying on the floor

hanging out of the drawers

spreaded as tarot cards telling me my fortune

whispering... 

and I am here trying to sort them out

I know I can't carry them with me

but then I realise that they are already part of what I am

'Postcards and letters
T-shirts and sweaters 
Passports and Parkas 
Mobiles and chargers 
Two tennis rackets 
Blue Rizla packets 
A new sheep-skin jacket 
I lost it all 

All through my life there have been 
Many rare and precious things 
I have tried to call mine 
But I just cannot seem
To keep hold of anything 
For more than a short time 
Possessions of a sentimental kind 
They were mine, now they're not 

Gym-kits and trainers 
Asthma inhalers 
Silk-cuts and Bennies 
Ten-packs and twenties 
C-class narcotics 
Antibiotics 
The holes in my pockets
I lost it all 

All that I'd like is to know
Just where do those lost things go? 
When they slip from my hands 
Then one night in a dream 
I passed through a sheepskin screen 
To a green, pleasant land 
I found them all piled up into the sky 
And I cried tears of joy'

Waiting room

Living in a waiting room

nothing lasts more than a few seconds

being in transit is the only constant

people, loves, fears, come and go

some times I wish them to stay a little longer but that isn't possible

waiting rooms also have rules

there are not farewells, there are not welcoming parties

there is only ambiguity

this vacuum full of juxtaposed forces and feelings

Now that the time of departure is almost here ...  again

I am afraid of leaving

my bare feet are hanging upon the floor

unsure of the path to follow

I am leaving or I am going back?

Pessoa's verses are in my head

speaking to me

hunting me

warning me???

Partir!
Nunca Voltarei
nunca voltarei porque nunca se volta.
O Lugar a que se volta é sempre outro,
A gare a que se volta é outra.
Já nao está a mesma gente, nem a mesma luz, nem a mesma filosofia.
Partir! Meu Deus, partir! Tenho medo de partir!... 

Fernando Pessoa

Diasporic

'How can I Accept  a limited definable self  when I feel, in me,  all possibilities?'

Anais Nïn 

I love the sound of the word
I say it aloud DIASPORIC
and the image of a dandelion
blowed in the wind comes to my mind,
thats how I feel most of the time
blowed in the wind
hanging in the air
without roots...
under the mercy of the changes of
the weather and the times

Some days I wonder if I live in a country
made of internal diasporas
of displaced souls as my soul
I don't know the answer
I only know that we are a mixture
made of forgotten memories
made of official stories and untold histories
I know I am not white, not yellow, not black, not red
I am a mestiza
I know so little and I wonder so much

Love letter

I am decided to dance

on the streets or on the table

in my pyjamas or in my tango shoes

no matter where or when,

dance with all my body and soul

my life is changing so fast

I am loosing my bearings at every second

but maybe if I dance all the way through

just trying to feel the rhythm

maybe if I flow with the beat...

I may be able to make sense of these

moody days, of all this new feelings

of all this love and blueness..

I am decided to dance

no matter the rhythm life is playing

no matter the place or the time

because while dancing I feel alive

I even love myself when I am dancing

I can take my imperfections and enjoy the little beauty on me (with my extra pounds and curly hair)

Some times I miss my dancing partners

all this amazing people that have touched me in unspeakable ways

people I love and care about

or people I will love to have the time to know a little better

but who is dancing on a different realm

this is a love letter for my dancing partners

the ones I haven't seen in years

the ones who ripped my heart into pieces

the ones that have been always there no matter distance and time

the unconditional ones

the ones I have hurt sometimes without noticing

the ones that have passed like shooting starts

the ones with whom I want to dance with but... 

they don't want to dance with me

this is a love letter for you all
thanks for giving me the pleasure of dancing with YOU

Roller Coaster

Trotted around
like a ball of string under a cat's claw
Up and down and UP again
the streets feel like a giant trampoline under my feet
I have lost all steadiness

roll roll roll

I raise my arms, close my eyes
and let everything go
there are so many things I can't control
the only thing I can do
is enjoy the ride

growing up

According to stats I am an adult...
but according to my bank account,
my employment status,
my inability to afford a car or get a mortgage
my difficulties to cope with the 'real world'
(whichever that means)
I am not an adult, neither a teenager
maybe a thirty something
who has lived most of the time from one life crisis to another

But I don't want to be a 'normal' adult
I don't want to spend the rest of my life paying a house I can barely afford
I don't want a fancy car because I love my bike
and if we speak about 'reality'
well... who can define it?
Maybe the most exciting part of being an adult
is being in a constant identity, age, values crisis
or maybe it is the adrenaline rush of uncertainty
and the discovery...
not of new lands but of possibilities

I am still amazed by the nature of light

Fieldwork basics

Decisions

Building a home is a lot
about making decisions...
the color of the walls and the curtains
the number of wine glasses in the kitchen cabinets
the brand of coffee you are going to drink every morning
and how dark you want it
marmalade or honey on toast?

who is going to be invited in?
where to place the lamps, the sofa, the bed
who you want with you in your bed

for me it is also about finding my own voice...

my particular way of looking at the world
it is about discovering on the way
the kind of feminist I am and I want to be

it is about traveling
but this time I am not going around
from one city to another
with a 15 kilos backpack

Maybe thats why it has been so difficult
start making decisions, I am avoiding  them
I am afraid of staying in the same place for too long
I am afraid of becoming a marble statue
looking at life passing through
my blind eyes

Blank

My mind and my body are going in slow motion
Putting my thoughts together has become a painful task
I can feel the pain in the top of my fingernails
In my aching back and my dry eyes

The house...the traces of clothes, the dirty coffee cups
The unfinished sentences in the middle of a converstion,
the blank page dairies
the empty rooms, my light phobia in the mornings
Are talking about that

So far I have been unable to make a home for me
Home, home, home...
It sounds both like a promise and a jail
Promises can be broken,
Jails can be delusions

Back to normal

Being normal, back to normal, normality
a normal life, a normal woman, normal pleasure
normal size and weight
almost everything and anyone can be qualified between normal and abnormal
but defining what NORMAL is... that's a different matter
what 'normal' is depends on so many cultural, social, biological, moral, economical, statistical, mathematical, chemical, physic variables
most of the time 'Being normal' or 'living a normal life' doesn't have the same meaning for two persons

'BACK TO NORMAL'
is just an expression to acknowledge that something in your life
has been rocked down and may never be mended
So going back to normal is a kind of negation
is refusing to accept that life, as you knew it, has changed,
something has been inevitably broken,
and you need to put your pieces together, glue them
and learn how to live like that.

where I come from

When I was about seven years old (maybe younger maybe older)

the village where I was born

disappeared under a grey, boiling mixture of volcanic ashes and mud

I wasn't there

but ever since I have used that story to explain to myself my feelings of not belonging...

this kind of displacement of the soul

I have been a nomad since I was two years old

divided between two forces...

the desire to fit in and having long friendships as old as myself

and the necessity of being in constant movement

being a gypsy like one of my great-grandmothers

That's why when someone asks me where I am from

I always answer with a riddle...

a net of comes and goes connecting different cities and houses

leaving a lot of loose ends

I have never felt a connection with a particular territory

every little town, every city where I lived is part of my personal mapamundi

but although I am not sure of where I am from

I have always know from where I come from

I was dreamed and nested at my mother's womb...

I came to this world wrapped in her red tissue

my first dreams were lulled by

the music of the blood rushing through her veins

and the beat of her heart 

It didn't matter where I was

How far or how lost I was

how many oceans I had to cross

I always knew where my motherland was

This week my mom felt ill

I don't know what is going to happen

I only know two things

that love and life are built every little day

and that I will always know from where I come from

...in my own skin?

I know, I know...
Talking about women and body image can be considered a feminist cliché
furthermore, being confy in her own skin has different meanings for each woman
even today, for me it is difficult to speak about my body.

I don't know if I am finally comfortable in my own skin
some days I think I am...
other days I eat a piece of chocolate feeling terribly guilty...
looking at the mirror reflection with horror

I have read loads of feminist theory on women and the body
thus I can theorise to some extent my body image troubles
But then I wonder, do I really have a trouble?
Well it seems I have...
every-time I go out someone is trying to sell me something to help me to be a 'normal' woman
A girlde to hide all the 'extra-flesh', push up my bottom and make my boobs look bigger;
creams, milkshakes, massages, and miracle mud will help me to lose weight;
the newspaper's health section is full of articles about dieting and body makeover, more appropriate for a beauty clinic's publicity leaflet than for the 'women's issues' section.

Some times I have wondered if all this women's body incarceration is related with the armed conflict and the militarisation of everyday life that is going on in the country.
In the Colombian conflict women's bodies are not only used as 'comfort for the warriors', they are also objects that can be disposed, bough, raped, killed, dismembered... territories to be conquered, controlled, transformed (through cosmetic surgery, creams or girdles).
It isn't by chance that all the armed groups had used sexual violence against Colombian women and girls systematically as weapon of war (Different women's and feminist organisations have denounced it. For instance, last week the Mesa Mujer y Conflicto Armado launched the 10th report on Sociopolitical violence against women and girls in Colombia http://www.mujeryconflictoarmado.org).

I may be wrong...
but I really think that this overcontrol of women bodies... on the telly, the newspapers, the radio, the magazines, everyday street's advertising... is closely related with the armed conflict and the militarisation of the country.
I can't compare myself with the women and girls that have been victims of sexual violence (perpetrated by the guerillas, the paramilitaries, drug-dealers, and the army), and are still longing for justice, too afraid to denounce their attackers, or to speak about their experience, because they are fearful of retaliation and public 'shame'.
But I can say that I have experienced in my own skin how the image of women's bodies as objects of little value is fostered by the armed conflict, the narco-culture, and the militarisation of Colombia's everyday life.
I know, I know
Body image, armed conflict and sexual violence
what a cliché!!!

Home is not a place

I carried my home on my back for over two years and a half
I settled down, moved again, get a new place and moved again...
Then I started little rituals,
wine and jazz with friends,
dancing until death once a month at payback night
I even felt in love....

Four months ago I came back 'home' to Bogotá
only to find a small box with my favourite books,
some beloved objects, my old diaries
a collection of postcards and old photos...
unmaching clothes, abandoned brushes.
On my backpack I was carrying pretty much the same.

Almost all my friends are gone or live in a different city.
Now I drink my morning coffee alone
black, not sugar, and without mr handsome smiling over it

In my new house I have some borrowed furniture
curtains that don't match (and I don't like)
books and more books
my petit frere
and a luminous place surrounded by trees where I am a stranger

But I know that home is not a place...
It is a quality in the light
a smell...
it is the morning coffee served in my favourite mug
it is a kiss from my petit frere
it is that open book next to my bed
it is the dog I miss...
Yes, home is not a place
and now I am building it again
from little pieces that doesn't mach because some of them went missing