The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living
It doesn't interest me how old you are
for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after a night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments

— Oriah Mountain Dreamer

What you want

RYAN.- You don't remember me, do you? 

JENNIFER.- Should I? 

RYAN.- Nah... we were on a plane together once. 

JENNIFER.- Haha! OMG... Ryan? Are you "counting Ryan"? Of course I remember you! Once a month I remember you. I must have told that "period on a plane" like a million times 

RYAN.- Not me. 

JENNIFER.- Haha... You wanna go grab a coffee or something? 

RYAN.- What about your boyfriend? "the king" 

JENNIFER.- I don't have a boyfriend. I hate commitments. I figure, why limit yourself when there's a world of posibilities out there? 

RYAN.- Maybe all those possibilities distract you from what you want... That's why I don't watch cable. 

JENNIFER.- What? 

RYAN.- There's too many choices!

Some things are best left unsaid.

RED.- [narrating] I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.

"Abre las cortinas"

"Deja que entre un poco de luz"

Y de repente, se hizo de día.

It's been a while

Una conversa, un facebook app, y unos links compartidos removieron varias cosas durante esta semana. Tuve oportunidad de verme en perspectiva releyendo. Recordando cada cosa detrás me doy cuenta que ha pasado ya un buen tiempo desde aquel domingo en el que decidí abrir este espacio. Por esos días tenía apenas fresco el recuerdo de la última vez que pisé las lomas. Acababa de ver a Corgan. "Never let me down" sonaba una y otra vez en mi iPod, y llevaba unos pocos domingos (si apenas alguno) saliendo a correr a la cancha frente a la panadería. No me había reencontrado aún con aquel amigo becepino, ni tenía idea de lo que me esperaban esos veranos. Todavía conversaba por messenger. No recordaba los veranos primaverales. No había probado el sushi por primera vez. No había regresado a Cuzco ni sabía nada de los viajes que me esperarían. Tantas cosas han pasado desde ese domingo. Pero todas han sido para bien. Ahora tienen (y puedo darles) sentido.

Viéndome en perspectiva ahora entiendo mejor también. Empezando por el color de este espacio, entiendo el duelo. El nombre y la figura del laberinto que más adelante comprendería en un starbucks, viendo un logo en medio de una conversa barcelonesca. Entiendo la temática recurrente. Las vicisitudes también. No obstante, en medio del hotchpotch lo que más veo es la procesión contrastando con el carnaval. Veo la dualidad.

Es hora de homogeneizar un poco las cosas.

Y es hora de hacerlo de afuera hacia adentro.

No cambié

Solo aprendí, y aprender no es cambiar, es crecer.

Algunas mujeres que conozco II

dicen buscar a Mr. Right,
pero en la práctica se contentan con Mr. Right Now.

Arriba el Sol

abajo el reflejo
de cómo estalla mi alma

Sí.

Entrar después de varios años a un video, y encontrarte en los top comments como el más votado

 http://youtu.be/Hsj9sMDgh-A

me hace sentir igual que ese fading effect en 1:26. Tantos años después y aún resuena una melodía que se detuvo abruptamente con delay y reverb, fading out hasta hacerse silencio.

***
 - ¿Todavía escribes?
 - No, ya no.

 ***
 - ¿Eras tú el que comentó, verdad?
 - No.
 - ¿Estas seguro?
- No se de que hablas.

Clau!

♪ And one day we will die
And our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea
But for now we are young
Let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see ♫

Mature Love

Mature love, some insist, is a broadening, deepening experience. [But] the claim that love promotes maturity is unpersuasive without some indication that the individual would not have matured just as readily as in the absence of love. Indeed, to the extent that love fosters dependency, it may be viewed as a deterrent to maturity.

I am not asserting that the effects of love always border on the pathological. I am saying that the person who seeks love in order to obtain security will become, like the alcoholic, increasingly dependent on this source of illusory well-being. The secure person who seeks love would probably not trap himself in this way. But, would the secure person seek love at all?

-- Excerpt of the article 'This Thing Called Love,' by Lawrence Casler from 'Psychology Today' dated December 1969.

Algunas mujeres que conozco

...son tan del siglo XXI para unas cosas y tan del XIX para otras.

Lightning could strike

PARRISH.- 

Do you love Drew? 

SUSAN.-

...There's a start for a meeting. 

PARRISH.-

I know it's none of my business -- 

SUSAN.-

No, it's none of your business.

PARRISH.-

Do you love Drew? 

SUSAN.-

You mean like you loved Mom?

PARRISH.-

Forget about me and Mom --
are you going to marry him? 

SUSAN.-
Probably. 

PARRISH.-

(smiles) 

Don't get carried away. 

SUSAN.-

Uh oh -- 

PARRISH.-

Susan, you're a hell of a woman. You've
got a great career, you're beautiful 

SUSAN.-

And I'm your daughter and no man
 will ever be good enough for me. 

PARRISH.-

Well, I wasn't going to say that -- 

SUSAN.-

What were you going to say? 

PARRISH.-

Listen, I'm crazy about the guy -- He's
smart, he's aggressive, he could carry
Parrish Communication and me aloong with it. 

SUSAN.-

So what's wrong with that? 

PARRISH.-

That's for me. I'm talking about you.
 It's not so much what you say
 about Drew, it's what you don't say. 

SUSAN.-

You're not listening -- 

PARRISH.-

Oh yes, I am. Not an ounce of
 excitement, not a whisper of a
 thrill, this relationship has all the
passion of a pair of titmice. 

SUSAN.-

Don't get dirty, Dad -- 

PARRISH.-

Well, it worries me. I want you to get swept
away. I want you to levitate. I want you to
sing with rapture and dance like a dervish. 

SUSAN.-

 That's all? 

PARRISH.-

Be deliriously happy. Or at
least leave yourself open to be. 

SUSAN.-

'Be deliriously happy'. I'm going
 to do my upmost -- He smiles. 

PARRISH.-

I know it's a cornball thing but love
is passion, obsession, someone you
can't live without. If you don't start
with that, what are you going to end
up with? I say fall head over heels. Find
someone you can love like crazy and
who'll love you the same way back.
 And how do you find him? Forget your
head and listen to your heart. I'm not hearing
any heart. (a moment) Run the risk, if you
get hurt, you'll come back. Because, the truth
 is there is no sense living your life without this.
 To make the journey and not fall deeply in
love -- well, you haven't lived a life at all.
 You have to try. Because if you haven't
tried, you haven't lived. 

SUSAN.-

 Bravo. 

PARRISH.-

Aw, you're tough. 

SUSAN.-

I'm sorry. But give it to me again. The short version. 

PARRISH.-

Stay open. Who knows? Lightning could strike.

Yeah, this is good

HARRY.- This is much better... fresh air... I have the streets all to myself.... who needs to be at a big, crowded party pretending to have a good time? 

Plus, this is the perfect time to catch up on my window shopping. This is good.

¿Qué hacer?

tú lo sabes.

conservar la distancia
renunciar a lo natural
y dejar que el agua corra.

Yet another one

Seriouslly. I don't consider myself romantic at all. But I don't know why I enjoy these videos so much. It's like a guilty pleasure.

and wishful thinking too

Coincidence. That's all anything ever is. Nothing more than coincidence.

Would you like to have dinner?... Just friends.

SALLY.- We are just going to be friends, OK?

HARRY.- Great, friends. It's the best thing...You realize, of course, that we can never be friends.

SALLY.- Why not?

HARRY.- What I'm saying is - and this is not a come-on in any way, shape, or form - is that men and women can't be friends, because the sex part always gets in the way.

SALLY.- That's not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved.

HARRY.- No, you don't.

SALLY.- Yes, I do.

HARRY.- No, you don't.

SALLY.- Yes, I do.

HARRY.- You only think you do.

SALLY.- You're saying I'm having sex with these men without my knowledge?

HARRY.- No, what I'm saying is they all want to have sex with you.

SALLY.- They do not.

HARRY.- Do too.

SALLY.- They do not.

HARRY.- Do too.

SALLY.- How do you know?

HARRY.- Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.

SALLY.- So you're saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive. HARRY.- No, you pretty much want to nail them, too.

SALLY.- What if they don't want to have sex with you?

HARRY.- Doesn't matter, because the sex thing is already out there, so the friendship is ultimately doomed, and that is the end of the story.

Yo soy el capitán de mi existencia

Fuera de la noche que me cubre,
Negro como el abismo de polo a polo,
Agradezco a los dioses cualesquiera que sean
Por mi alma invicta.

Caído en las garras de la circunstancia
No he hecho una mueca, ni he gritado en voz alta.
Bajo los golpes del destino
Mi cabeza está ensangrentada, pero erguida.

Más allá de este lugar de cólera y lágrimas
Telares, pero no el horror de la sombra,
Y sin embargo, la amenaza de los años
Busca, y así me encontrará, sin miedo.

No importa cuán estrecho sea el camino,
Cuán cargada de castigo la sentencia.
Yo soy el amo de mi destino:
Yo soy el capitán de mi existencia.

Invictus

Don't patronize

Morning will come,
And I'll do what's right;
Just give me till then
To give up this fight.

Você sabe explicar

Você sabe entender tudo bem

Você está
Você é
Você faz
Você quer
Você tem...

What do I get from these amazing stories?

To reassure myself that is not worth settling for less.

It's not worth settling for less.

Nothing less.

Things I love about you

1) You're very into music
2) You're a nice dancer and love doing it
3) You're passionate about whatever you do
4) You love to entertain
5) You're cute
6) You're hot

In THAT order.

No, I'm not kiddin' you, Will...

That's why I'm not talkin' right now about some girl I saw at a bar twenty years ago and how I always regretted not going over and talking to her. I don't regret the 18 years I was married to Nancy. I don't regret the six years I had to give up counseling when she got sick. And I don't regret the last years when she got really sick. And I sure as hell don't regret missin' the damn game. That's regret.

Alguien alguna vez me dijo

...que la dinámica era muy común. Una persona le habla a la otra todos los días, webadas no importa, casi al punto de j.... siempre de manera amena y cague de risa, plus gileo e intención (de)clara(da). Luego de un tiempo, de un día para otro se borra sin mayor explicación. La otra persona empieza a preguntarse, ¿porqué no llama/escribe/jode? ¿dónde esta? ¿qué esta haciendo? ¿con quién? cuando toma conciencia de la ausencia es porque generalmente esa persona ya se fregó. Ya se la hicieron.

Somos animales de costumbres. Sufrimos de aversión a la pérdida. Valoramos más lo que es escaso, lo que tuvimos y perdímos, lo que no podemos tener.

I found a new place here

I’m coming down fast

Ya no me asomo a la reja

Como moro soy más moro.
Como cristiano, cristiano.
Como bueno soy más bueno.
Como malo soy más malo,
soy más malo que el veneno.

Después de haberme llevado
toda la noche de jarana,
después de haberme llevado,
me vengo a purificar
debajo de tu ventana
como si fuera un altar.

De oro barcelonés
un anillo te prometo,
de oro barcelonés,
si dices por la mañana
ese que canta quién es,
por la noche en tu ventana.

Ya no me asomo a la reja
que me solía asomar,
ya no me asomo a la reja,
que me asomo a la ventana
que hay en la soledad.