Memories for rainy days

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To those people, present or not, whose memories hug me and allow me to be more ocean than shore.

Memory #1: The inconsiderate one

It's been a week since it started raining relentlessly. My mother is sitting in a corner of the house, on a rocking chair, looking out the window and proclaiming, "Another flood, God has had enough of us!" Perhaps," I say to myself, knowing that I am fed up with some and others more. I remember yesterday when I went to the store to get my mother's medicines, a lady went with her troop of children. They ran everywhere. I carried the pot of pills in my hand, I read the leaflet to know how to administer the medicines to my mother or to know how many doses I had to medicate myself during days of stress. The troop of children disorganized everything, they shouted, along with the other clients who communicated with each other amid the hustle and bustle. The troop leader turned around without looking, without considering anyone. She pushed me, with a turkey, with all its turkey meat and its feathers stained with black marks. My mother's medicines fell to the ground.

Memory #2: Other People

The pharmacist said I couldn't replace my pills; the drug plan didn't cover them.  I asked him how much the pills cost if I paid for them out of my own pocket. When he told me the price, I put a bunch of the collected pills in my mouth, with all the bacteria, with all the stomps of the troop of rude children, with all the bad taste the lady caused me when she told me that I was in the middle. I remember taking the pills like this, dirty, full of that eagerness that people spit to buy. Of course, these people are not like you, because they are other people, because they are things that you don't do.

Memory #3: Reflective

I was passing through the parking lot. A multitude of people with their other people, those they call family, discussing the Thanksgiving dinner, that if trays were missing, that if mashed potatoes ... The same as always, but different, the same thing that will be repeated for the dates of Christmas and New Year. We are made of that, I suppose, of moments that we build for others, of those defects that we hide in order to be able to sleep every night. I remember that moment when I saw that bunch of people pushing turkeys around the parking lot. For a moment I felt the embarrassment of others. How are those people, who a few minutes ago were fighting in the store over an icy turkey like the balls of an Eskimo, able to show themselves to be good and grateful for an event? What happens the rest of the days? The usual," my mother told me when I got in the car, "the rest of the days they continue to living with their problems, their things and their shit, without time to thank anything or be good.  That's not genuine.

Memory #4 Crash, "the good guys".

- So you can't always be good?

-NO. But you can be genuine.

-You don't convince me, Mom. So what's this?

-Hypocrisy.

- Where are we?

-You can be good and bad, from time to time, but constant, not always good, not always bad.

- And where is the consideration?

-In the ass, my son, in the ass.

I remember when I went out of the parking lot and two coming cars started haggling to see who got the empty space. None of them wanted to give up, and I couldn't get out. At that moment I thought of the moment when those two people were going to give thanks. They were going to sit at the table, probably with their family, and they were going to look loving and tender like for a postcard or a souvenir photo of those they put in the frames to sell them to you. A beautiful souvenir. Well, somebody might see it like that, I only see a couple of idiots honking for a parking lot. 

Memory #5: The Tear

Before I got home, I had to stop at the mall. My mother had broken her tennis shoes, the usual ones, it was always the custom at home to wear them until the soles were all alone. There was another tumult. Children asking for toys, parents buying plastic to replace time. Sweet Christmas and in summer diabetes. I got tennis shoes for my mother. I went to pay, while I was in line I felt that they began to push me. The line was not advancing, but the breath was squeezing me.  Then another cashier began to collect: "in line order, go through this checkout. They all passed in tumult. I wanted to cry, not because of the line's turn, that's not why. I remember coming out of the sad tent, maybe I cried, I remember my mother's hand caressing my wet cheek.

Memory #5: The stamina

We went to the family's house. All together. Cordial. Talking about their lives, their tastes, their parties. My girlfriend, my dad and my mom were talking, I don't know what, but I think those laughs were worth it. Someone was talking to me, I don't remember who, after the first half hour only saw a blurred face and my only answer was: "that's how it is", that was something my grandfather used to say when his mind wanted to swim and only to say "that's how it is". and only one puddle was available. That someone speaks speaks speaks speaks blablablablabla...... I remember. I just remember an emptiness somewhere in me. Maybe I was all empty. Where did I go? I don't remember, but I passed from mouth to mouth, like a burning cigarette, like an unsatisfied prostitute, like an unstable womanizer, like an unaged glass of wine, like the offering of the mass. A time for each one, so that they would be happy with my presence, without being with them in any other way than physical. Perhaps that is why I have never seen the logic of funerals. That's how I spent a couple of hours.  I looked around, I saw something, joy, I don't know, I don't believe it; there is something else, but they don't know it.

Memory #6 The best memory

Unlike other years, we stayed at home. I thought of all those people with their usual turkeys, with their usual good attitude, with their usual party ritual: birthdays, weddings, 15-year-olds, everything that must be done by the laws of physics, or by habit, or because others do it, or because others in other times did it. And what about us? What about what makes us so original? That afternoon, my father and I moved the sofa and placed it in front of the window. Four cups of hot chocolate boiled that night, it became night sitting in front of the window. For a while we didn't say anything, we just watched the rain, saw it fall and wet everything. My uncle arrived, with his wife and my cousin, and joined our very unorthodox meeting. We didn't have elegant clothes, we were lying on the floor, watered on the sofa, sitting on the step, laughing our heads off, living life. I remember that moment when we gave birth without gestation, without preparing anything, it was only born of spontaneity itself.  I remember that it happened more than once, every time in an unexpected way.  It was the seventh day of consecutive rain, I remember it, I remember that beautiful rain, which gave us a night to sit on the balcony of our heart to speak moments that when you remember, you FEEL.

F. JaBieR