Hi there everyone! I’m back : )
It’s been a crazy couple of weeks: first I visited my brother in the States (my dad met us there as well) and then my mom came with her husband to spend a few days on Splendid. I love seeing my family, things were not always perfect but we have all worked hard to leave the past behind and now we enjoy each other’s company a lot. I’m very Latin in that aspect, people come first, status, comfort and possessions come far behind. If I’ve got lovely people around, some food and a place to sleep I’m really sorted.
Alex and I have been living together for eight months now. It’s crazy how fast time goes by and how easily we’ve become family too. He got along really well with my brother and his wife and my mom and her husband were delighted to see how we live and how natural we feel together. They loved Alex, he made them laugh a lot. They were also surprised to see his love for nature. They know me and how sensitive I am, but they did not expect such a big, strong guy to be so sensitive as well. In only four days they saw him save a huge snake that was in the middle of the road at night, get really upset and angry at a woman who was cutting down a tree… He’s very affectionate with me too. They had deep conversations with him (I had to translate some of it, but they actually communicated pretty well). It was so nice to spend our lovely family time with Alex this time, we cooked, sang with the guitar, went swimming to the shore, we went snorkeling, exploring with the dinghy and talked about our lives for hours. I was proud of him and I was also proud of them. I am surrounded by amazing beautiful people. Alex always says how lucky he feels, I feel the same way.
I have to say it’s not easy to go to the city, it has not been for years now. Especially when I go to the States, just the freezing air conditioning everywhere and the shock with the heat outside makes me ill after a couple of days. Then there’s the crazy noise, the amount of cars everywhere, the crazy shopping, the artificial food, the ads on the radio (man, I started bringing my mp3 player and headphones in the car not to hear those people yelling at me!! “call 5670-2345, that’s 5670-2345, 5670-2345, call now 5670-2345!” how can people listen to that everyday, it’s crazy!!). It’s so different when you live in the countryside. Luckily my brother lives in a very quiet area and we spent most of the time there, I used his guitars to record some music for the movie and also we kept going to the airfield to fly his planes, drink iced chai tea and sit on the grass. They have a nice life too, he works from home most days doing what he loves, he does not have a set timetable, he can take days off when he wants to travel. They enjoy sports and nature, they spend time cooking their own meals, play music, go to the movies… You know it doesn’t matter where you live as long as you make your own choices and don’t forget what life is all about. Money is paper. Power and status is for the weak and insecure. Having time to be with the people you love, doing the things that you love is priceless. And nature is incredible.
The other day Alex was saying how western man is proud of the digital era, how he discovered the use of zeros and ones and applied them to image, sound, etc. But if you look at a seed, it can be buried with a pharaoh, planted 3,000 years later and a fruit tree still comes out of it. Talk about technology! Or how live beings can reproduce or how we can self-heal with the power of our mind. A raspberry is art. Plant your own carrots and buy real seeds, they tast soooo much better! Nature is incredible. So many people forget to enjoy it.
It’s funny, a few years ago I realized that I was working all year to go either to the beach or to the mountain on holidays (and my holidays were wonderful! 2 weeks in the winter and 7 in the summer!!). I always cried with emotion when I had to leave nature to go back to the city. And I thought, I’m an idiot and moved to the mountain. Now I only went to the city for 2 or 3 weeks a year to visit my family, go to film festivals, etc, and the rest of the year I lived in Patagonia, the beautiful place people went on holidays to. This year I had decided to live on the beach for a few years, learn how to surf, swim everyday and escape to the city when all the tourists came for holidays and look at me. Not on the beach but living in the water! In the middle of the Caribbean, enjoying love, nature, food, films in the cockpit, actually MAKING a movie with my best friend and lover. It’s amazing what happens when you take the only step that matters: a step towards your dreams and out of the rules imposed to you. I don’t even have to go to work anymore. I sometimes have nightmares in which I am back in the city and have to fight with my posh employers for a fair salary. I wake up and realise I’m still here, floating and working with wood, paint, the sewing machine, when I feel like it. Drinking rain water and eating fruit from the jungle. And what big effort did it take? Just picking up my stuff and leaving. I’m so happy here. I miss my family and friends often but visiting is my first priority with the little money I make (my family also helps) and I always make new amazing friends wherever I go.
“Being an adult is knowing who you are and having the courage to be that person”. Are you living the life you love? Are you being the person you really are? Are you listening to the voice inside of you? That’s all that matters.