Too Weird to Go Back?

My excentricity might have increased during this months I spent in England. I might be just stimulating myself with the thought that I'm weirder now, but I might not. I think I have become wilder, more ruthless; one could say in simple terms "an epic mess." The moment I walked around Soho at midnight wearing a silly rabbit mask and knew that nobody gave a shit, I realized that well, hmmm, I might be too comfortable in here.

I have complained about London a great deal, I know, but I don't think I've taken the time to highlight how I love the freedom in here. My Skins-fan friends remember that mini episode of the first season in which the guys throw a party in the forest. Well, I have to say it happens like that out there. English people lose it when they drink, and the atmosphere they create invites you to let yourself loose too. The chanting, the dirty dancing, the jumping, the costumes, masks,more drinks -- Had I mentioned how I absolutely love that? Not to mention the fact that you're entitled to be yourself and accentuate your particularities (read also oddities) as much as you freaking want.

Now, as suited as I feel having coke and cigarettes for breakfast and spending ridiculous amounts of money for a night out (that last line could be read as sarcasm,) my unconscious is fixated with making me aware of the fact that this lifestyle is about to end. I've dreamt of going back home three times already. The dream keeps changing in setting, time , time of the day, people welcoming me and the rest, though three features remain the same:
1.My mom and sister are alway there.
2. The happiness, although overwhelming, lasts very little.
3. Towards the end of the dream, I'm always anxious to catch a plane back to go back to London, "where I live."

I should have read Cinderella instead of that anthology of Psychology that time, but I now I can't help to try to analize myself and decipher whatever the unconcious is telling me. While awake, I day dream of my friends, the beaches, the simple life of Costa Rica, but it seems that while asleep, when my defenses are down, my psyche dictates differently. That's confusing and arises many questions. Am I no longer fit for a society with more rules when it comes to public behavior? Have I finally become a helpless libertine? Lots of pointless introspection in here, but the thought of not coping with my country when I go back is plain scary. I was warned about the existence of the phenomenon of re-entry shock, but I laugh at that. "Pfff, me not adapting back..." However, the last times I've skyped with my family, a certain tension has settled in, like I'm a stranger, like I'm no longer welcome to come back. I just didn't know it was going to be that distressing.

In less than 50 days, I'll be back in Costa Rica and will discover how upside down the world would look. Am I too weird to go back? Only time will tell.

Update. Towards One End.

I have to thank Aline for dropping by my blog one of these days and remind me of the gift I have with words. "A normal person would sit down, record their events in the fashion of a supermarket list, but you Isaac, you make the other person see." That was both a huge compliment and a recognition of my skill, but above all, it posed a personal challenge. So much has happened in your life lately. Why on Earth haven't you written about it?

The date is January 31 2011. I've been in the UK 151 days already. If I were more precise, I would have some recollection of how many of these days were gloomy, sad, lonely and how much of the remaining time was simply hangover days. It's been such a ride... I couldn't escape the "U" process: first, everything is cool, then everything sucks, but finally it is all acceptable and relative. Now, in retrospective, it's been all rock and roll.

I remember walking London for the first time, with puppy eyes and with occasional silent tears of joy. I was making a dream come true. It seems so ridiculous that now I can't help but walk with petulance around Trafalgar Square, barely minding the Big Ben in the background and think exclusively of when is the goddamned night bus going to come!!! I was taking everything for granted! How easily we lose the perspective!

And it is true that my project never made me happy. It barely annoys me these days - it is more like a big boring segment of my routine, but it can't affect my mood anymore. I have Sage to thank for coming all the way here to slap me in the face and make me notice that the rest was being incredible - and besides we got to see Christina Aguilera and Cher live. It is true I never fully like these Indians I work for, but so what? I collected thousand of stories, and as I said in my previous entry, I gave birth to a character from all the shit I was putting up with (with a British manner, excuse the language.)

Now, as I walk (or run?) towards the finishing line, I can't help but feel happy. Despite the cold temperatures, the feeling inside is always warm - the Spanish sun and two days of clear skies in London have greatly contributed to the well being too. Part of me wants to stay, to keep living adventures, but the other part accepts peacefully that my time has come to go back to my people and show them how much I've grown and learned.

I'll try to recapitule some events in future entries. I'm really close to conclude one chapter of my life, and one of my favorites by the way, but who knows what's to come? I won't close the book just yet.

I'm pregnant... with ideas.

It seems so absurd to me that I came out with this analogy while waiting in the cold of King George's Park while the person I take care of was talking his walk. Maybe when my fingers are numb and my blood freezes, there's an explosion in my brain that brings all the craziest ideas.

Two nights ago, Greta, the American girl I've mentioned before in this blog, invited me to go with her to the Christmas Fair in Hyde Park, but I said I had to catch up with my writing. I had declined the same invitation coming from my flatmate because I felt more like "hanging out" with Teok and write some more of his adventures in Sagas. This is the first time I've put my writing before a social event. EVER! The next day I had to go to work, and the uneasiness of being separated from the keyboard only grew stronger. I was writing my fantasy novel alright, but a different energy was moving inside of me, making me crave for a different story. All this anger and frustration I had accumulated in the last month in the UK emerged in the form of a character, completely plotless and in the air but with some smart-mouthed lines that would remind me forever my time in here. I was pregnant with ideas, just that the symptoms had taken their time to appear.

And that's how Iwan Salinger is gestating in my writer's womb: my first character whose native tongue will be English (the other two drafts are completely in Spanish.) I can't anticipate a lot, but it is one of those either-you-love-him-or-hate-him characters that bring some rebelliousness back! He's a ruthless boy who listens to sex pistols, who has a cigarrete for breakfast, and who wakes up everyday asking "what the fuck am I doing in London?."

The analogy is, again, ridiculously obvious. I'm pregnant and I have another two kids, and job. This took me by surprise, but abortion in here is not an option. This is what happens when you neglect your other children attention, they start going astray and then you have to raise another one. In order not to feel overwhelmed by all this breeding of characters I'm having, I'm taking this time to lock myself down, dedicate some times to the kids (Teok and Isaí) and take care of the growth of Iwan. The rough weather and the fact that I'm completely broke are helping me a lot to stay indoors, play some music, and let my fingertips type some magic. Vlad thought me through example that when a paper needs to be done, that's it! the rest paralizes. I've paused my social schedule and the rest of the plans so that I can push Teok's journey a bit further and that I make sure Iwan turns out alright (well, this is hard to guarantee since his creator is wicked.) In case this stage takes me the rest of December and the first weeks of the year, Merry Xmas and Happy New Year.

End of November Entry. Sorta.

I'm way to cold and numb to blog, but here I go anywhere.

Time calls for some catch up, or so it seems to me. November has been a cool month. I spent the first days in the anticipation of my birthday, and went it came it was pretty much what I had in mind: lots of party and good times in London - refer to my album on facebook. Diana surely helped me greatly to keep my joyful mood for a while.

Then complications came. I'm really unhappy with my project. I don't feel like I'm learning anything, and the people I work with are plain horrible. After some arguments and tension at my workplace, I decided to talk to ICYE - off record, and they opened the possibility of allocating me somewhere else. Then I saw all the faces of the people I like in London and thought: "wait, do I really want to leave?." It took me some days and then I decided that I am going to finish my time in here regardless. Anyway, January is coming and a week in Spain with Synove and Fran might lift my spirits a bit. Then, it will be one month before I'm off to the rest of Europe and visit all those wonderful people who live in Germany. I can stand the pressure.

Now I find funny that I feel so cold inside. Less than 24 hours ago, I was in the company of one of my favorite people in the world. It did not snow, neither could I escape work as much, but the time I spent with Vlad made up for all the things that did not go as expected. the challenge now is putting up work, the spirit of Christmas, and all the things I dont fully enjoy. This is what we call "fucking London" while we look around Brixton, freezing and laughing on the irony of our lives and how expensive everything is. One thing is for sure, if you feel slightly miserable, cold increases the discomfort.

I apologize if I didnt make much sense in this blog. The season and the loneliness are getting the best of me.

The Stalker Chronicles

Is it only me or London’s suburbs are rather stalker-inviting places?

I’ve been talking about this with the people I know for a while, but nobody else seems to share my fascination for people’s lives, so I tend to drop the topic. What does a writer do when he’s not being heard? Easy: he writes. And be it to satisfy my own need of telling the story or to explain until which extent my stalking practices go, I decided to blog about it.

(Parenthesis: As I wrote this last sentence, one neighbor shut the curtains.)

My room has a nice balcony that leads to an open space that nobody in the building uses (a.k.a. forsaken backyard,)and this space is poorly separated from the neighbors’ respective backyards by a fence covered in vines of leaves and ivy. Every time I go to my balcony for a cigarette or just open the window, a whole set of four-story buildings with windows leading to different houses appear. The family that has parties like every other day, the Indian/Pakistani guys who cook by the window sill all the time, the couple of entrepreneurs who run their own business from their houses, the people that come and go: all that is there for me to watch!

This has got to be a common problem among writers, I’d like to think; being nosy, I mean. Often the passion for discovering stories is as strong as the zeal for creating them. I wouldn’t dare to separate them, actually. We produce narrative but not after having devoured a great deal of anecdotes, biographies, and events. In my fantasy novel also, I write about a door that opens the path to a different world, and when I read this recurrent theme in other novels, my heart jumps with excitements; I might be a little bit of a Peter Pan and get the same feeling from windows and the real people behind them.

(Second parenthesis: One of my neighbor’s desk is next to the window that is in the second floor right in front of me. It is so funny that we’re both typing now, face to face, and nobody dares to be the one closing the curtains.)

It is not that different in my work place. The person I provide care for lives in the eight floor of a twenty two-story tower that faces a huge residential building. From his window, I see no less than fifty balconies, all with people shaving, watching T.V., drinking, talking, hiding. It is hard to keep a record of what people like to do, but I have the image of this punk girls singing and rocking, the families on the couch watching T.V. on Sundays, and the stamp of the stud who comes shirtless and wearing his white fabric pajamas, stretches, and spits over the rail of the balcony (that’s probably the image that is going to stay in your mind after having finished reading). The view often overwhelms me; it reminds me of the Matrix. It’s like having lots of mini screens with programs to watch. As I realize what I’m writing, I’m starting to think that there’s something wrong with me, but it is too late for that now.

(Third parenthesis: I just spotted a kid similar to a black cherub watching shyly from the third window to my left, in the third floor. He hid when he met my gaze and I couldn’t help laughing.)

It might be that never before I have been so abruptly exposed to a place this cramped in which your life could collide any moment with somebody else’s and work magic! Produce a story! But I seem to be so into it right now. As part as an experiment, I’ve kept my windows open for two days. The reactions go from awkward brief gaze encounters to friendly smiles but no further contact. Just two nights ago, my young male neighbor and I kept this game of not closing the curtains, but he won cuz I felt asleep very early. It’s like paradise for hunting stories and human contact… if it weren’t for the neighbors’ reluctance to share their lives and the Western paranoia over privacy.

(BTW, the neighbor whose computer is in front of me didn’t close the curtains. She left the room and turned off the lights instead.)

England, the metaphors.

“The horses may bite or kick” reads a sign outside the Household Cavalry in Central London.

Coming to England as an English major was going to affect my literary side one way or another; I knew it. When you read back home about the mist, the gray days, and the black alleys at night, you can't help but think that your life in here will be no less than a novel. At the beginning I just sat in Essex, staring at the blue sky, the horizon line and the greenery of the country side interrupted by high roofs of brick houses. At that point I was so desperate for inspiration or for something that connected me to my English major side that almost forced the assimilation of the surroundings as magical rather than just let it happen. Everything changed when I came to my project. Before I even thought of the opening song of Sweeny Todd and pranced around saying “there is no place like London,” I wanted to take some time and be the tourist. While visiting all the must sees in the city, I read the sign about the horses, but it wasn’t until a month later that my mind turned it into a metaphor. Horses, as royal as they are, may bite or kick because they are horses linked to an instinctive nature. English people, as polite and proper as I keep thinking they generally are, are just people; they may behave accordingly. I came here to find that people were no puzzle to me. I was to face with them the same situations I encountered back home.

The story might have some omens as well. One of these days, as I came to a crossroad, I could hear the sound of a crow from the nearest treetop. It might not mean anything since I’m in England now and crows abound in here, but I couldn’t help but go back to my study of archetypal symbols and feel threatened. Is this event foreseeing something? My literary side is inclined to believe yes, while my reason keeps telling me such worry does not have reason to be.

The third and most interesting literary figure in my life is something simpler but not less important. There’s a flyer that I pasted on my door that keeps falling every day. I picked it up while walking in Soho; the radiant smile of the girl who was giving them away was so compelling that I had to even walk closer and take it. I kept it with me and taped it against the door as a reminder of one of my daily battles, an ideal I definitely have to pick up from the floor constantly. The funny part is that every day that the flyer falls down and I have to post it again, I can’t help but read the inscription and feel challenged; it's because of the metaphor. What does the flyer say? Two words: End Homophobia.

I have seen no mist on the riverbank of the Thames or anything, but boy, have I seen metaphores.

I fell in love with a country!

I can't precise how my leve relationship with Scotland started, but the moment I found myself buying its flag and thinking about booking another trip, I knew that I had hopelessly surrendered to the country. If somebody is interested in the before, I didn't know much about these lands. I bought my ticket thinking about bagpipes, men with skirts - not to be thought out of context, and yeah, the breathtaking scenery... but nothing else!!! Yeah, I had heard about William Wallance and I was even listening to the Soundtrack of Braveheart as I crossed the border, but still, I need to declare that I was utterly oblivious of the Edinburgh that could be seen beyond a touristic flyer. Alright, I get out of the bus and I immediately feel the chilling wind. Nobody warned me about that, but I want to see the city and I don't mind - I certainly did at night after clubbing, but that's another story. I start the trekking by myself and it isn't long before I joined a couple of Colombians. We comment on how the high roofs, the different levels of the city, the gardens, and the castle as a guardian above the hill make us feel in a fairy tale. After saying goodbye to my temporary companions, I decided to go to Calton hill and then Arthur's Seat. I spent almost the rest of my day hiking, almost measuring every single square meter of Calton Hill and Holyrood Park with my steps. It felt like being in a movie - the soundtrack might have contributed to that perspective; I found hard to believe that a location could provide both modernity and nature whithin miles. I dunno what happened exactly, as I've been saying, but I'm in love with Edinburgh.

My friend Sage told me that Edinburgh is her mom's favorite place and all world; now I understand that. I ignore her motivation beyond the obvious beauty, but I can certainly try to put into words what charmed me. I feel like home from day one. I know what is it about these people that appeals to me that much. I think that their English does not intimidate me because they're highly critized worldwide just because of their accent. It surely from the posh London accent, but I can understand every single word and even find cute the way they say "sorry." I had heard so many stories about the Glasgow accent... and guess who ended up chatting mostly with people from there? I loved the highlands cattle and even bought a stuffed animal, and I also learned about the Jacobites.I appreciate a good walk and Edinburgh is all about moving in the city on foot (buses? what for?.)
I found ways to really piss off a Scottish as well, which in a way shows how interested I am in thw whole Scottish deal. For example, asking for a scott instead of saying just whisky immediately makes Scottish people to think that you're another shallow American tourist. Nevermind asking them why their notes (bills) are different to the English notes. I honestly spent all the Scottish pounds in my possesion because I only wanted to bring "real money" to London. Don't elaborate on why you'd sooner french-kiss a sheep instead of trying Haggis. Don't dare to mention that Edimburgh's castle on the inside is way overrated.
I might go back... what am I saying? I know I have to go back!