.

.13. THE ETERNAL DISAPOINTMENT OF LIFE AS IT IS

Just as there was a first instant when someone rubbed two sticks together to make a spark, there was a first time joy was felt, and a first time for sadness. For a while, new feelings were being invented all the time. Desire was born early, as was regret. When stubbornness was felt for the first time, it started a chain of reaction, creating the feeling of resentment on the one hand, and alienation and loneliness on the other. It might have been a certain counterclockwise movement of the hips that marked the birth of ecstasy; a bolt of lightning that caused the first feeling of awe...Contrary to logic, the feeling of surprised wasn´t born immediately. It only came after people had enough time to get used to things as they were. And when enough time had passed, and someone felt the first feeling of surprise, someone, somewhere else, felt the first pang of nostalgia.
..........It's also true that sometimes people felt things and, because there was no word for them, they went unmentioned. The oldest emotion in the world may be that of being moved; but to describe it -just to name it- must have been like trying to catch something invisible.
..........(Then again, the oldest feeling in the world might simply have been confusion.)
..........Having begun to feel, people´s desire to feel grew. They wanted to feel more, feel deeper, despite how much it sometimes hurt. People became addicted to feeling. They struggled to uncover new emotions. It's possible that this is how art was born. New kinds of joy were forged, along with new kind of sadness: The eternal disappointment of life as it is...

Nicole Krauss

great expectations

A dream itself is but a shadow

Triste condición de quien sueña, olvidar sus sueños y nunca más saber de ellos. Pero no todos se los queda la noche, algunos vuelven entre parpadeos en un momento repentino del día. Es de sabios interpretar los sueños, es de sabios también callarlos.

*

There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is ’t to leave betimes? Let be.

....................New York, New York...

amanece

Bosque de estatuas

1

En un panorama gris no nos extrañe

que sobren pretextos para petrificarse.

...

Ya no. Eso que era, fue.

Se ha ido entre las manos;

es la calva resbalosa de la suerte.

Intentaste el ascenso y te distrajo

el murmullo tumultoso de la duda

de tantos y tantos

pétreos pretendientes como tú.

Bosque de piedras.

Volviste la cara a destiempo.

Ana Elena González

in the palm of my hand

an empire summoned

as if it was born

all substance crumbled