DUOBT, BLOOD and RESILIENCE

About the book, Pero yo…sigo…caminando (But I…Keep…Walking)

[una deriva de la variable humana y la estructura subyacente] (A Derivation of the Human Variable and the Underlying Structure)

« "This book is not reminiscent of a psychological essay. It is not even an artistic monograph on Antonio Almaraz. In this book I found a life, and in turn I found myself. Torture and healing. Resilience».

I don't want to be the person who unveils this work of art, since it is up to each individual to decipher and understand it. Not at the whim of a servant, nor of the author himself. Since, when you undress the work, you undress the person. In this case, oneself. This book came into my hands in a moment of doubt, fear and uncertainty, and the free interpretation, lacking artistic knowledge, but, above all, mine, was what influenced the mimicry of my soul with its essence. My main intention was to observe it, to compare it perhaps with some writing or some work of art I might have seen before. Deluded me, nothing could be further from the truth. My first impression was the almost immediate comparison with the canvas White on White, by the Russian Suprematist painter Kazimir Malevich. At that time the book did not have the cover done, but a good part of the table of contents and the first chapters were done. Without having a previous context of what it was about. Only three colors and the words were what directed me to the last thing I expected to find: a life.

Doubt

Doubt is what is consecutive to emptiness. Usually insignificant voids that could be confused with surprise. And at the same time, doubt is the whole. A whole that determines it and makes us consider it, in some cases, superior to reality. Faced with a negative event, I firmly believe that doubt does not begin when you decide to take the decision to act, but in these previous moments in which you measure the magnitude of the damage without yet being aware of your own reality. Knowing that something is wrong with yourself, but not knowing what. The first blow. Little by little you are noticing discomfort, and perceiving what, in the beginning, you might have refused to do. Either out of fear or embarrassment. Most people tend to face problems alone, to escape from reality and isolate themselves. It may not be the best decision to make, and the problems will most likely overwhelm us. We try very hard not to involve anyone so as not to bother, or because we believe it is a minor, unimportant problem. Many times, in order to begin to doubt things, you need to see them from many points of view. From yours, the pain. And from the external ones, the grief, the astonishment, and the vulnerability. And to begin to face it and when you are lost and do not know where to start, you turn to help. A help that in some cases manifests itself in a sweet, honeyed voice, and in eyes that look at you without judging. That endure without recrimination, and that are satisfied with a few crumbs of love that before you released in abundance and now is conspicuous by its absence. People who face your problems as if they were their own, all to see you smile. In the book, I saw that the person who lived in it had a broken soul and a rebuilt heart, and how behind him was a person who had healed a suicidal conscience. At that time, Antonio and I shared torments. He from the point of view of healing and hindsight, I, in the midst of doubt. We both resorted to different eyes, but the same light to be able to keep walking.

Blood

Just like physical wounds, sentimental wounds also bleed. The latter manifest themselves in the form of ugly words addressed to the people who least deserve it. They put up with you and are still there, even though they know that right now you are not even able to appreciate yourself. The bloodletting is accompanied by a strong physical pain, which evidences the emotional wounds that indicate that you are at your limit either psychological or somatic, which cannot be cured in any other way than keeping your mind busy until exhaustion. Emotional blood is sometimes accompanied by a green bile that sadly symbolizes anxiety about the situation, not giving more of yourself, frustration and the lowest moment of yourself. To cut the hemorrhage of fluids, it is often enough to look into blue eyes that wordlessly calm you, or brown eyes that cry with you when, for the fiftieth time, you think again about the various causes that have led you to doubt yourself. The way to cut the emotional bleeding is through denial, the anxiety of being aware of the situation, crying, anger... curiously, these emotions are the same ones that make life grow again. When you have stopped bleeding, you start with the slight improvements. Small but constant. Until one day you catch yourself rebuilding yourself based on the past. Starting to build a new Self with a stronger armor, and writing little songs that make you not remember, but not forget what has made you start over.

Resilience

Lately the word resilience has become very fashionable, and I wonder if we really know what it means or if we have simply become accustomed to seeing it in typographic tattoos and hearing it on the news. People are not aware of words’ meanings, and they stop less and less to think about it, using vocabulary lightly. Many people tend to belittle people's courage by calling it resignation, habit or stagnation in a problem. To be resilient you have to be able to look at the past and see yourself locked in a room with four walls without seeing a way out. With four walls that are gradually narrowing and cutting off your air. With four slippery walls that you could not climb and where you saw no possible solution, without even realizing that those four walls were suffocating you. It can take days, months or even years until you realize that those walls have to be broken just when they squeeze you the most, and see that when you break them there is nothing. That is the most complicated step, to start again when there is absolutely nothing left of what you built and where you felt safe. Nothing of what you were, not even a sad brick. Nothing of what you lived or were beginning to live. Nothing of happiness. The overwhelming nothingness. Resilience is not resignation, and much less, it is habit. The difference between these two terms is marked by the simple fact of courage. In order to become a resilient person, one must deconstruct oneself, psychoanalyze oneself, break down and demoralize oneself. To be a resilient person, one must learn to appreciate catharsis and free the unconscious from it. To learn to love the heart, the eyes and the mind, and finally, to give yourself the pleasure and the first benefit. Doubt. To be resilient you have to appreciate yourself in each of those previous steps, look back still with the doubts of yesterday, with the blood taste still in your mouth o and with the love and pride of being who you are today. Look in the mirror and see an accumulation of doubt, blood and resilience.

Marina Garrote Panero