That other pain

     This country welcomed me with open arms many years ago when I had to flee the land where I was born and raised.

     That is why what we are experiencing in recent times hurts me. After forty years in Spain I think I have some right to express my feelings.

     All the people I have interacted with since I arrived here, the señora I served until recently, the friendships I have forged, Juani, the woman at the grocer´s, my painting teacher, my colleagues... They have made me feel that I had my new home here, that I was one more, that I could count on them; however, I am perplexed by the evolution that society in general and politics in particular are having.

     Dear Fran, I ask you: How can an Autonomous President publicly call the president of the government a son of a bitch and quedarse tan pancha? But the worst of all are those who laugh at the insult and applaud her. How can a bully brothel bouncer become an advisor and trusted man of an entire minister? How can the Catalan issue be dealt with by deceiving citizens again and again? Why keep giving examples.

    In this corner of the world they don't know what they have and they run the risk of losing everything.

     Y. a.

     Mary

 

Do not cry

The second part, the disappointment.

All the hope that Albanians had with the arrival of the new system was blown up overnight.

In exchange for a can of Coca Cola and avoiding lines to get food, corruption and deceit, scam and fraud were established in Albania. Young Lea saw with her own eyes that what the people had dreamed of, that what her parents expected had been a chimera. Thousands of families were ruined when a form of savings spread throughout Tirana and other cities that was in reality a hidden theft that was only discovered — as is usually the case — when this activity collapsed. An economic scheme that everyone knows and in which, however, many continue to believe.

Democracy also brought to Leushka's world the terrible and unjust Structural Reforms, in capital letters, the loss of jobs and the bankruptcy of the country; while she had her own torments…

My teenage years were, for the most part, unblessed, something that was made even worse whenever my family insisted on convincing me that I had no reason to feel that way.

(It is clear that a teenager is not helped, on the contrary, his feeling is reinforced by telling him that he has no reason to feel bad.)

Tears came to my eyes when I read, in this chapter, Lea's volunteering at the orphanage and the life of little Ilir.

A great book.

From my Borstal

LDR

 

Lea Ypi.- Free. Coming of Age at the End of History. Allen Lane. London 2021

 

The Coca Cola can

‘I never asked myself what freedom meant until the day I hugged Stalin.’

This is how Lea Ypi's magnificent book begins.

The first thing I thought was that the author was really hugging, physically and in the flesh, the Soviet dictator, when in reality she was hugging a statue of the man made of steel.

The first part of the book, its 150 pages with which the story starts, describes the life of a family and a girl, Leushka, in the death throes of the communist regime in Albania.

A bright eleven-year-old girl that didn't understand why the statues of Stalin and Uncle Enver were being torn down. But the most painful thing for the protagonist is that, with the monuments, secrets and lies also fall; words are put to the silences and the whispers gain volume until they become clearly audible in the living room of the house... And she begins to distrust her family.

By the way, the fifth chapter describes a situation that I would say has a mix of surreal with a slight touch of magical realism that I leave to the reader's free interpretation. The spotlight goes to a disputed can of Coca Cola.

From my Borstal

LDR

Lea Ypi.- Free. Coming of Age at the End of History. Allen Lane. London 2021

 

 

Dicebant mihi sodales, si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas

 

A feeling, for which I have no name, has taken possession of my mind…

 

   Disappointment

   Dear Fran,

   I hope the same thing happens to all artists, including the best of all time.

 

     Of old painters

     Dear Fran,

     Young artists have their whole lives ahead of them. They can take a small brush and take two or three months to paint a multitude of emotions. At my age all emotions come together at the edge of a broad brush and I have very little time to put them on canvas.

     Y. a.

     Mary

 

     Ocaña

     ‘Yo no soy un pintor naif, desde luego, eso no es verdad. Yo soy un pintor entre expresionista y fauvista. No sé muy bien dibujar. Dibujo a mi manera, pero si supiera dibujar bien, creo que no dibujaría tampoco perfecto porque no me gusta.’

OCAÑA. José Luis Pérez Ocaña (1947- 1983). Besançon, 1984

 

     Dear Fran,

     This past weekend the painting exhibition I told you about not long ago was inaugurated, do you remember? I have had the honor of being a finalist.

     In the church of the old convent of Cantillana you can find works by very good artists, so I was surrounded by people like Magdalena Bachiller, José Carlos Naranjo and Francisco J. Romero, who were the winners, as well as Norberto Gil, Alba Cortés, Isabel Valle Ayllón, Israel Tirado, Federico Jaime, Francisca Martín...

     My painting shows a place that I discovered in Posadas, where there were some albercas and mangueras scattered on the ground. Neither the albercas nor the mangueras were carrying water and a young lemon tree had died because it could not bear the drought that has settled in these lands.

In ictu oculi

     Fran, there are two painting contests that are held on behalf of two important artists: one is in Oliva de la Frontera, the 'Timoteo Pérez Rubio', in homage to the man who during the Spanish Civil War dedicated himself to saving the paintings of the Prado Museum. The other is 'José Pérez Ocaña' who suffered from the misunderstanding of society in the 1960s and 1970s due to his homosexuality.

     Last Thursday, the night of the opening of the exhibition and awards ceremony, Ocaña's artistic career was recalled and words were heard warning of the direction that things are taking by some groups against the gay community.

     Fran, seeing my painting in the nave of the church made me very proud.

     Y. a.

     Mary