The spring of detachment

 

The past is much more than a word that we drag to the final outcome, with or without a requiem. And if I say that we drag, obviously, it is a surreptitious way of not saying that this process is - always is - (auto)biographical and individual, but it is the collectives that alter the course of humanity. Not that it is a shame or cause of diminishing character, but because before it is verbalized, it has to be understood who we are, where we come from, what we feel and why we feel and think it, in this or that way. And for me, the past, the one I drag, has many drawers, but the biggest one is called dad. And you can't shelve a father. It doesn't fit in any drawer, it spreads through all of them, with its aftershave perfume, its restorative Olex in the thin dark strands that at the ends already show the beautiful gray that it would become, if it could have been, if greedy and selfish and eternally present time had not taken it to an inaccessible place,  the mannerisms and rituals, the swear words said in a joking way or the direct speeches of conscience and education, the lullabies sung in the deep and melodic voice of tenderness, and even that harshest way of looking and scolding to illustrate and teach, but it is not in a drawer that he is,  there are no drawers for a father, he enters and influences everything around, contaminates with smiles and good mood, with Ritz cigarettes and ashes,  and party monologues, as all the clowns who throw the rockets and run to pick up the canes do, making sure everyone is well, no sad thoughts, nothing, shadows of vultures hovering in the sky are not allowed, even if it is heavy and it is April and it is twenty-five or ten or never again. Parents do not belong to the past because they are always present, leaning over dreams, walls, albums, warm childhood memories. I saw you dad, you were still dressed in April, see you, and I sat on your lap, smoothing your wrinkles of happiness, the one you gave to others - I believe it was your way, so yours to help yourself to a tiny slice - for having your time counted in years that dwindled to months and I on your lap,  that they drowned for days, while I smoothed your forehead, and with my hands that were innocent birds, I still had time to draw you a king's crown laden with flowers that never came to bloom. There was a Grândola vila morena in your every gesture, a "and after goodbye" around your eyes and eyelids, which were your ideals of freedom, fraternity and equality. That is why I have given you so many crowns and made you king for life, like Solomon. You left and smiled and asked me not to lose my smile, not to lose my dear, not to lose it for anyone. Your smile is worth all the gold in the world, did you hear right? And I recorded everything you said to me, dad, everything, I just didn't know what I kept it for, what that purpose would be, but yes, I mean, no, I didn't lose my smile, none, on the contrary, wanted to be abundant in smiles, and in that I'm similar to you, but I keep them in a metaphorical drawer, where I pile up everything, the pain, the disappointment,  the remorse, the sadness and even the slight impression that I could transform all this affective collection into a planet where I can start all over again, all over again,  And I piled everything up, Dad, and from this affective inheritance that you gave me and that is on Earth, and from the smiles Dad, also piled up, I will effectively start the foundations of my recycling project. Francisco, what smile do you want me to put on, today, the new day of an entirely new year, that of seeing you smile serenely or that of pride, this kind of vanity of having known you as the good Samaritan, or do you prefer me to put on the enigmatic smile of not knowing what day it is today or if April will return? To think that today, if I have to leave, I will not leave my two boys what you left me, a new and ready April with democracy and causes and hope. I would like that, in the future of my children, their past would have ideals coming out of the rooms, the memories, the nostalgia, and not the uncomfortable thoughts of a world in revolution, unsuitable for humanities. You were so generous, father, you and all those who fought with you for that April and we so poor and ignorant, so deluded and conveniently distracted, that we took this April for granted, believing that attitudes and noble men were what was born from this seedbed that rotted. Today, Dad, you deserted, Zeca too, but all the vampires and their corruption remained here. And their gadgets and the unfortunate and fetid normalization of the worst that is in us! 

We close the stations inside the suitcases, the boxes, with the love letters and postcards that were sent to us from this or that country, with the damaged tape cassettes that we still hope to recover, along with the ring of first love, with the curl of our children's hair, the box of the first milk teeth they lost and even the fairies who did not come to pick them up. Time goes by and there is no more April, I was told to throw away all the drawers, all the rehearsals of being April again, and I suspect that the garbage collectors have reasons to complain about our garbage, the lack of consideration we have for their work, the risk allowances for exhaustion, infections and aggravated lung diseases,  oh man, if only there were postmen sending these straight drawers to heaven, you know Mr. Postman, it's just that I have this letter, this one that has no postal code, it doesn't go in padded envelopes or in blue mail but I would ask you to please send it directly to Guedes, to Francisco Guedes who is in the forty-five cloud,  leaning against the elevator ten. Can I use acknowledgement of receipt? Just to make sure it was delivered? Tell him that you are in no hurry to open. That you take one of those perfumed cigarettes of Ritz and cologne, that you sit back with your friends and read to me slowly, let him know that I have a smile on my face that he has never seen before, which is the smile of believing that I will hug him again, so many years later, please tell him to take half cognac Hennessy, slowly, to use the tissue tissue to wipe the tears from the smile of the girl he left here. But there are no postmen working on that round, nor working on public holidays. And with the past, we open avenues within us, entire forests of recycling, where, in order not to weigh down our pains, we fertilize the land of others with them, prepare the ground for what is to come that is suspected not to bring only hope, because it is only born with the destruction of something, sometimes of everything,  Sometimes only a building, a roof, a crude construction, a boat, a plane crash, which requires towers to collapse in order to know how to value solid and valid buildings and this is transversal to everything, to societies, to families, to the proletariat, to the Neptunian crowds, to everything. Towers fall every day, as the seasons fall and Spring, the most beautiful of all, that to be born, has to be destroyed, it is necessary to tear the flowers and fruits, so that the seeds spread, it takes blood and will to impregnate the world of life, hope is born like this, every April and we look at the future with fear but it is already being debated,  Erased, planned, built with the floor of the past, with the recycling containers where we throw the leftovers of the past. Our dear ancestors and their feats of courage and bravery. Of lovingness and understanding. 

It is better not to label the drawers or else, let's forget the drawers and use constructive minimalisms, smooth and healing, suitable for detachment, rationality and emotion cooled, that the towers fall, that the sheets of water fall on the ground for the fertilization process and we need to understand that it is not the things that are left to us from the past that are important,  It wasn't yours Weigh papers, Dad, it wasn't the worn frame, nor the glass of your charcoal photo that kept me floating and giving birth to every ten and twenty-five, Dad, no Dad, it was what you left me in terms of moral and ethical values, it was the conversations and questions you answered me, the stories you told me,  The direction you gave to my curiosity, this memory of who you were is in force in the present time, which will continue to bring out the best within me, the most human and beautiful thing I bring. That is yours, that is from your grandparents, that is from your great-grandparents and that will serve my grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren and so on, that I am human, that I still carry hope to water the April that is coming. I know. This is going to hurt. Combative and rude. Aggressive and disciplinarian. No, we cannot throw the past under the rug it hides. The baggage needed for today, in this harsh cold season, is the lessons you have had to learn. And how slow we would be if we believed that the land is a playground, a bathing holiday, where the façade replaces the whole building, the content of shelter and security, as in the game of make-believe that will always be childhood. The past tense is not a verb tense. It is the seedbed. And as long as we do not understand all this, many towers will collapse, due to exacerbated consumption and the scarcity of humanity. 

The past will always have many seasons inside, a lot of rain, a lot of wind, circumstantial joys, lessons and much more, many human misfortunes that we, in the twenty-first century, still do not know how to be people, without mistreating everything around us. Save the verb tenses between present and future and from the past that is worth gold, we will seek the values that dignify us in the future: From the past, I want the virtues of our ancestors, perhaps more worthy of that buzzword that is to say humanity. Time is ticking. We need to run with him. And if we look closely, the past already brought all the seeds of what will come and we need to face it. It is not things, but ourselves, to question whether what adds to us as people is our color or creed or the amount of euros we have in the bank, whether we are foreigners or just strangers, whether we live free or in captivity, that kind of values, after the destruction of the harmful, what we can share with the whole. We will have to give birth to empathy, it is not the nice hypocrisy or the picturesque little charity, but solidarity and respect for each being among us. Because the future will be made, not of us adults, we will be the ground of the new generations, they will be the causes for which we fight and the benefits to the whole. The past is not my father, it is made up of all the parents, of all those who stepped on this same ground and decided to leave seeds for a better spring. So, the past is not this narrowness, it is not the house or the square, but us, who we were and what example we set through our lives. This is the legacy of the past and cannot fit in the largest drawer in the world. And this, I repeat to myself every day. This is not the world I intend to leave to my children. And what I do with this cause will be more than a drawer in their future. When I leave.