Memo

Ay mi corazón vivo dale dale dale vamos todavía.

Nambrenan

la contesa maria carolina
se perfuma, ni te imaginas
la señal de la cruz delinea
con un dejo jazmín y azalea

Holaun

¿Por qué escribo canciones?
I´m forever going through some suwweal shiiieet.
Por eso.
And cuz I can.

Joyous Warning

Her Majesty´s looking to poison us.
Yup.
Cheers to that.
Cheerz.

Lily and Aurora II

Aurey it´s me. Is it too late?
No, Lily, and even if it were, you must have a reason to be calling me at this time!
I do, I do. Aurey I´m so excited! I just figured that one great way to get Jeannie to become communicative and to understand language is to take advantage of her great ear, her aural response, her aural sensitivity... and just like with everything else, breaking the process down like the analysis of a symphony is perfect for both of us. I get to learn how she learns, she gets to learn to link the music of the discourse with certain emotional responses, and we both learn to communicate.
I just incorporate this little pill into her everyday activities: I break dialogue into its basic motifs and the emotions they can be linked to. Then I take away the words and let it be a melodic discourse, with actual small musical motifs. And I either entertain her with that for long stretches, she loves it, or I throw her one every now and then, and she just lights up! Aurey! And there´s quick progress because she´s got this supersensitive delicate musical ear!
Well I´ll be damned, Lily. You don´t cease to surprise me. Jesus.
Thanks for your patience, Aurey.
What are you talking about? I´m happy for all of us! Great work! I´m coming over.
Sigh and silent smile.
Click

The Great Bottomless

General Perkins was known to believe in the power of willpower. A dimension of unknown dimensions, it never ceased to fascinate him how, throughout the history of mankind, the sole power of human will, repeatedly meeting the most impossible challenges, repeatedly left those who witnessed it in awe.
"It has no limits. It is The Great Bottomless. And boy do I love all limitless things, even the most terrifying ones. Eh, Gruubs?"
"I see, Sir. Well, me too," mumbled Gruubs, whose eyes were following an ant's impossible pilgrimage up the windowsill, with a chunk of today´s parmesan on its back.

Her Majesty´s Little Chap

Lily and Aurora I

¨There, now. You´ll feel better anytime now. Hold still.¨
¨Dammit. I always get stuck like this, wondering why he does this to me.¨
¨Do you really want this man to be the one to hold your hand when you die?¨
¨No, he´s the one I want to hold my hand as I live.¨
¨Well, then, girl, all you gotta do is activate your OMT.¨
¨What the hell´s my OMT.¨
¨It´s the Own Man Translator. You try to break down everything that`s breakdownable about how your man acts, you analyze his discourse in time, if you need to you draw vectors, or make lists, or set up graph charts, until you rip it down to 10 main themes max, and the reactions based on them... and you study him. I mean study him hard. And trust me this can reach what I call heights of depression. Study the hell out of him, Lily, literally. Literally, Lily. And when you know him, based on reflexion, based on experience and objective observation and analysis, you become a simultaneous interpreter between his behavior and your rationalization and he becomes an instrument for your life symphony and you finally use him to compose instead of the other way around.¨
¨Oh Aurey, seriously.¨
¨Don´t take this lightly, Lily. I´m offering you what may be your only way out of your mire. You know I´m right.¨
Lily sighed.
She did.

Chapter None, In Which We Meet Lily and Aurora

Hello, Aurey? This is Lily.
Hi Lily!
Hi dear, I´m calling to ask you about something. Is this a bad time?
Not at all. Tell me what´s on your mind.
Well, I´m trying to make Jane do the body turn we talked about the other day, where you cross one arm and leg way over the other and let her figure out how to get unstuck. Well, it´s not working. As soon as I do the crossover she reacts by curling in the exact opposite direction! I´m distressed, I don´t think she can do this.
You mean as soon as you cross her legs and arms and take her out of her balance, she restores it and even emphasizes her decision by curling up the other way?
Yes, Exactly........ Oh!! She´s already doing it!
Hello! I´ll be right over.
Click.

Useless Concern

If I were famous, I´d still have a secret alias to express admiration in my place
without it being tinged by the fact that I am indeed me.

Libros Usados

Post-it encontrado detrás de la puerta del baño real:

Basta con la virginidad de los libros como gran valor. Un libro usado, que te llega via Ebay, tiene esa marcha de más que a mi me recuerda la biblioteca de mi colegio... ¡y encima cuesta tanto menos! Tanto que tiene el gusto del robo y la ganga (that damn sweet taste). Cómo es que uno tarda tanto a veces en entender cosas sencillas. Saludop. Taluegop.
María Carolina, Infanta de Kijara

Nostalgia

I´m a little sad when I don´t know how to communicate an emotion I have. You may say well sad is a pretty easy thing to communicate. And I might reply yes but sad is all that comes through to you while there´s really a bigger dimension which is there´s something I need to express but am unable to, and that´s why I´m sad... and embarassed to be sad and not furious.
Knowing that nothing I feel may actually be unique only makes it worse... others have felt this but I will never find them in the position to talk about it and even if I find them, the emotion may be similar but it will never be a complete match. I miss my childhood, who can help me with that? I miss my mother and my dad and my brothers and their families and the mentors and mother-sister-teachers who shaped my soul, the feeling of being completely protected from harm and loss, I miss my dogs, my cats, my gardens in their golden seasons, my pony, the scent of jasmine and tangerine and basil filling my brother´s land rover, the feeling of my whole life ahead of me, water from sweet streams bubbling around my feet, the red earth, the always important festivities which interrupted work and study and which were the perfect excuse to feel the day was special, the music seeping out of houses at all times. I miss ASA, how fabulously frivolous our concerns were half the time, I even miss sitting down at my glass desk at home to do homework I had probably already half finished in class, or sitting at the piano and taking in that scent of pine which drove me mad with belongingness. Or the school library, where I often stayed long in to read the most meaningful books that were to become the underlying geography of my mental... skyline.
So what the hell, I´ll start by feeding it to you generous, pious people, and doing so as best I can, sacrificing many an aspect of narration... and then stop abruptly, maybe half admitting that I already feel a little better. So much so that I leave. Seeya.

There´s a Time and Place to Sleep....

 

This applies not to the Royal Family.They do the anywhere, anyhow thing.

Declaration of Dependence

In the period between ___ and ___, ___ deconstructed and reconstructed ___self in the head-over-heels festival - or landslide - of assimilation of an awesome creature like ___, only to deconstruct ___self again when ___ failed to come through with the implicit promise of happiness. And all the things ___ wanted to share with those ___ loved, when ____ dreamed of inspiring conversations with, say, ___ nieces and nephews or students, drifted out of reach again, became ambiguous, and vanished, combusting in the crisp winter morning.

Leap

Encontrado en un post-it en la bota de la Infanta María Carolina el 1º de marzo del 2012:

Hola día-diferencia.
Hola bisiesto dragón.
¿...festejamos como nunca antes?
Por ahí ni tengo razón.

Cortazeando

A veces estoy así sentada nomás, y percibo como un soplo de conciencia, los bordes de algo que está pasando tipo en otra dimensión.
Como si por equivocación me adelantara al siguiente truco del mago, y supiera lo que está a punto de hacer suceder. No es abarcante como el corrimiento del telón en el capítulo 84 de Rayuela, que viene inevitablemente golpeando a la memoria y me parece ahora a mí que es más grave que lo que estoy tratando de describir.
Me enternece mirar al costado por un momento, sobre la pantalla, y espiar si el siguiente es el cuadrado o el palo o la L o la Z o su reverso. Otro nivel lúdico, pues.

Lily and the Mirror I

¨Something weird just happened in the bathroom,¨
¨What, Baby.¨ Charlie lay sprawled on the bed reading an issue of some obscure comic, and his eyebrow lifted imperceptibly.
¨I went over there to check on myself in the big mirror, and suddenly an urge took over and I started looking for the scissors. I knew that I had to stop fooling around with these ridiculously inadequate bangs and cut them properly. And suddenly, the scissors were doing things that I had never made them do before. It was as if I had suddenly become a hairdresser. I was having my way with those scissors the way I have it with the piano when I´m figuring out a song. I was remembering every move I saw stylists doing on my hair through the years, especially the prosperous ones if you know what I mean, the parting and the re-parting and the pins... I had only one pin, but I used it like a mini light saber. Then I washed my hair quickly with volumising shampoo, in the sink, no conditioner, held it in a towel for 10 minutes, and finally blowdried it. When I picked up the tube brush to style my bangs it was as if it were my personal weapon. With what confidence I managed it with my left hand while my right blew the moistness away and the heat gave shape to a part of me. Then I made a discreet little hairdo, and held it up like I had never held it up before, with unrefutable logic, lucid use of common sense and the laws of physics. I felt possessed, I swear.  And here I am. Tell me if it´s not something. I want you to tell me what you think.¨
But only silence responded, because Charlie had fallen asleep.

Projects of Virtue

Drafts of Austral sky phenomena have allowed us to capture this fragment of a public mental press release by HRH Francesca Juana I.
 
¨I was thinking about a tape recording of myself fooling around and singing when I was about nine, and it occurred to me that I might record my 9-yr-old Max listening to it with earphones and responding to it on a parallel track. It would then be two kids with a very strong bond exhibiting themselves creatively...  What a way to remain! It´s gonna be legen-wait-for-it-dary! I know Lil Miss Cole and lots of others did it, I´m not inventing rocks. But in this day and age- ¨ (signal interrupted)

So courtesy of the future, hopefully, we will have one more recording to celebrate and wonder at.

Star Splinter

Lily blinked in the rays of the reflexion of the sun on the front neighbor's window exploding on the inside of her eyeglasses. A light attack from behind, she sighed.
Yet the attack of light from a star came not alone.
Neurons sparked alive and shuddering communicated in the exact combination that would elicit the thought.
She still hadn't recovered full functionality of her sight. But the words were clear in her mind.
 
I'll tell you what. This is what I propose.

I realize attention spans cannot be expected to be what they once were.

We've all got some kind of ADD or else we wouldn't survive.

   

So I'll begin a brand of minute long songs, the MP (mini play).

  

I want you to hear my songs. And trust me you want to hear them too.

I give you short (time away from else), you give me full (attention throughout).

Short-4-full. Short-4-full. Till the end there is no lull.

Amen.

How Her Majesty Intended to Remember Valentine´s

Fugue

the flustered writings of a blocked songwriter

Oh Jesus.

Telepathy

Lily looked at Charlie in the rearview mirror as he looked out to the lights up the hill.
`Besides,´ she said, ´if you want to return to an old habit, all you need to do is allot a specific time in your life for it. Like the fox and the little prince, it´s a formula that cannot fail.`
`M-hm,` he semisung. `Incredible how life changes your schedule and you lose things just because they get lost in the schedule, become more and more ambiguous and dispendable...`
Lily´s thoughts immediately rested upon her fingers resting upon the piano.

Stop resting.

Stop stopping.

Oh Lily.

Dadaism

At the risk of seeming more stupid than I hope to be I´d like to comment that I´ve been taking a fancy for TV series in the last years, and that I´m more and more aware that each series has its own particular brand of laughter. Desperate Housewives - Grey´s Anatomy  - Californication - Lie to Me - Dr. House - Modern Family - The It Crowd - Blackadder - Little Britain - How I Met Your Mother...
I need to record myself and analyse the dada.

How I Met Your Meyer

Feigning to see a glimpse of her reflexion on the monitor, Lily cuddled the tachicardia in her chest.
There it was, her eye looking at her among the o´s of google.

Lily and the Block

Lily was sitting there, thinking about it.
Never like in this time, she´d find herself staring at the clock 8 minutes after her last memory was the exact same moment 8 minutes before.
How can blockage be so beautiful, though, she thought, as if she were musing over a very intricate yet perfect snowflake snuggled in her palm, melting.

Importance of feeling important

¨Between 8 and 10, I began to think that what I had to say was actually important. We are talking world savior style, of course. By 21 I kept little notebooks with brilliant little musings, all lost now, of course.
But maybe what I had to say actually was important. As long as I still feel this, I can still make my curtain call, wouldn't you agree?¨
¨M-hm.¨
¨You're not listening to me, are you?¨
¨What's your problem, Lily? Can't you see I'm busy here?¨
 Of Course.

A New House to Build

strange it seemed and strange it was
but something had suddenly changed the stats:
bye, future projections of misery,´ she was writing,
and then wondered why she was so reluctant to admit
that she finally saw her life approaching the end of
lateral drifting.

June

*To the soon to be memory of 2011
and the times it crowned

If you leave me now
there will be no sorry, Charlie
cause the tables have turned
and you´re down and you´re out
from my life

shame on you in spite
of all the unusual moments
oh the joy that you gave
why did you have to turn it down down down down down

soon all this will be through
pack up all of your bags
and hit the cosmic road
so long.... my... friend...

Sideral

En la bruma perlada de cada mañana
Difícil es ver algún porvenir;
Nos movemos inciertos, la noche lejana,
Pues ya su escondijo no puede servir.

Pero pasan las horas adentro del alma,
Y vemos maneras de vernos surgir;
Nuestros pasos se nutren, se unen las palmas,
Y fortalecidos, no cuesta servir.

La tarde se expande, radiante y osada,
Un vago recuerdo la duda de ayer;
Corremos cegados, por sueños de nada,
La sangre nos hierve, ¡hay tanto que hacer!

Y así nos sorprende la noche estrellada,
La sombra reluce su capa de añil:
Ya es tarde, lo siento, nos dice su espada,
Lo hecho está hecho, y ahora, a morir.

Sobre Titulina

¿Por qué no pedir prestado ésto a un epistolario, a mí que tanto me cuesta volver a nombrar las cosas?

Titulina nació el 11 de marzo del 2010 en condiciones de grave prematuridad. Pesaba 1.100 g y estaba en la semana 29 de las 40 de gestación. Si no se actuaba como se actuó en ese momento, Titulina y yo, ambas o cualquiera de las dos, podíamos perder la vida debido a una preeclampsia aguda. Fue un éxito. Titulina NACIO, viva, sana, embolada por ser arrancada de su mamá, y muy chiquita. Fue llevada de urgencia al Materno Infantil de Trinidad donde sus signos vitales, que eran buenos aunque con grandes interrogantes, fueron monitorados en la terapia intensiva neonatal (tin).
No necesitó respirador, comía abundantemente y todo seguía creciendo dentro de los parámetros normales pese al trauma de haber nacido tan temprano. Cuando me recuperé lo suficiente como para ser dada de alta (agonía de 10 días sin poder a ver a mi hija, mientras la presión seguía en el cielo en ese cuarto de la Cruz Roja), me reuní con Max y la Titulina y no me despegué de ese hospital de Trinidad....por...sesenta y cuatro días. El 25 de marzo (día 14 de vida de Titulina) los doctores de la sala deciden que Titulina está bien fuera del peligro inmediato y la transfieren a una incubadora que había recién sido desocupada en la terapia intermedia (possibly due to the death by infection of the previous occupier). Y sí: esa misma noche, a Titulina le sube la fiebre, convulsiona, y sufre una hemorragia en el ventrículo derecho del cerebro. Se había contagiado de una infección hospitalaria.
La hemorragia se detiene y es absorbida por su cuerpo en menos de una semana, la infección es vencida con antibioticos, y el desarrollo de la Titulina continua. En los meses sucesivos, Benedetta supera también una intervención al ojo derecho con terapia laser para parar y reparar la retinopatia del prematuro (rop) que había sido producto del exceso de oxígeno de las incubadoras (aparte que fueron dos meses y pico expuesta al oxígeno, cosa que inevitablemente acarrea consecuencias a nivel de la vista). Las visitas neurológicas en Asunción apuntan a la necesidad de profundizar el estudio del posible daño causado por la hemorragia.
Así, apenas llegamos a Florencia, la inscribí en el sistema de salud italiano y la hice ver por una eminencia de la neurología, que me la insertó completamente gratis en el engranaje del hospital pediátrico Meyer, en el departamento neurológico, justamente una de las áreas por las que ese hospital tiene fama planetaria, para hacerse todos los estudios. Fue en el arco de esos tantos electroencefalogramas y resonancias magnéticas que descubrimos que una de las consecuencias de la hemorragia había sido una epilepsia y uno de los ventrículos del cerebro tapados impidiendo la circulación del liquido cerebral. En los meses Benedetta había acumulado un hidrocéfalo preocupante, que amenazaba con cortarle la vista y hasta matarla, sin hablar del daño que ya había causado dejando sin espacio de desarrollo al cerebro. No se notaba porque había ocurrido después del nacimiento, cuando el cráneo de Bene ya estaba lo suficientemente duro como para no deformarse para nada. Entre mayo y noviembre se controló de la mejor manera posible con fármacos la forma epiléptica que ella sufre, que en esa etapa se manifestaba con un sobresalto cada pocos segundos, como si le corriera electricidad, ocurriendo en clusters de varios sobresaltos, especialmente cuando recién se despertaba o cuando trataba de agarrar cualquier cosa). En noviembre se aprobó la cirugía para ´destapar´ el ventrículo que estaba impidiendo la circulación del líquido cerebral de su cabecita. La intervención se llama tercerventriculocisternostomía.
Inutil es tratar de describir la angustia que se siente como padres ante tanta impotencia, tanto ´destino´, tantas variables sin respuesta a la vista. Vagábamos por los jardines del hospital las tres horas de la operación sintiendo que se detuvo el tiempo y que el hacha se balanceaba detrás de las nubes. Entendía amargamente la agonía de mi hermano y mi cuñada hacía tan poco tiempo, cuando la vida de su tesoro pendía de las manos de los doctores.
A pocos días de habernos dado de alta, Francesco y yo comenzamos a ver los efectos positivos de la operación al cerebro que le hicieron a nuestra hija. Vinieron de a cuentagotas, porque la situación de los ventrículos era, y probablemente seguirá siendo, crítica. Pero vinieron: pequeñísimos pero milagrosísimos progresos. ¡¡¡Titulinaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! De mi parte la misión es toda la estimulacion, terapia musical, visual y corporal que me sea posible. ¿Qué más quiero? A mi lado un ser hermosísimo y sagrado, la fuente de gran parte de mi asombro, que depende alma y cuerpo de mí. ¡¡¡¡He aquí la misión más importante de mi vida!!!! El sistema de salud italiano no solo nos concedió cobertura total de todos los tratamientos, visitas, y la delicada operación, sino que refuerza el proceso con un equipo de fisioterapeutas y ortopédicos increíble, con el cual hay diálogo y un claro sentido de evolución, una sensación de que si descubrimos cómo, todo es posible, para que la Titulina vaya aprendiendo a sentarse y pararse, y relacionarse con los objetos, interactuar mejor con otros, y ojalá un día también a caminar y hablar...y cantar... y bailar, como me prometió una incauta enfermera del materno infantil en el 2010, sin imaginarse lo que ocurría debajo de esos cabellitos... Es por todo ésto que sabía que tenía "sí o sí" que volver a Italia. Y estoy una vez más sintiendo el alivio de haber encontrado la serenidad necesaria para tomar muchas decisiones acertadas, por más que no había cortes limpios, y en todos lados sentía dolor.
Soltando recién ahora un poco la respiración, pido disculpas por el largo tiempo que me tomó compartir todo esto... y no, no hablo de la condición de Benedetta en otros medios sociales... pero mantendré al día personalmente a quien tenga interés por saber como nos va. Las vías del Señor son, después de todo, infinitas.





ANGUISHES/SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER - S.A.D.
The Clinicalz
Anguishes Ouverture by Francesco Trinipet
S.A.D. Music by Fran Bellucci 
Words by Francesco Trinipet and Fran Bellucci

Oh, let's get to the core
before my time runs out and
symptoms of a classic S.A.D. return

you said our lives were quite bizarre
and that awaking demon stars
would never yield a positive result

What season spares
young lovers and their flares?
May swinging moods
carry us flying through!

Whatever Daisy can adore
I'll get and bring right to her door
Pretending to deserve a little more...

Uncompromisingly charmant
while craving sweets i start to chant
a tune of classic (y)early winter S.A.D.

What season spares
young lovers and their flares?
no reasons reach
the shores of Daisy's Beach

You woke my biophiliac nerve
made me flirtatious
so a dirty flamboyance
could take control of me

Even a sunset just for two
before the lazy colors flew
could come to poison hearts in rising pulse

What season spares
young lovers and their flares?
May swinging moods
carry us to the moon
What season spares
young lovers and their flares?
No reasons reach
the shores of Daisy's Beach...