Synthetiser

Today

could have been the perfect day

to do synthesis. But

I don’t feel like doing

synthesis

today.

Nor tomorrow, although

I don’t know how I will

feel about it, tomorrow.

I received a message; someone just

did a very good synthesis of

my time around here. Just as if

that person knew exactly how it had

been, as if

that person had been with me,

extremely close to me, to the point of

intimacy. Don’t be scared, that time

(of scares, fears)

has gone. Maybe it

never even existed. I was thinking about

that, before I sat down and

wrote this: that I don’t

know if as if of late I’ve

been afraid. I was also thinking the

following: I’ve

been living

in a land of golden greens, trying to

work, and even managing to do so, while

surrounded by features of a certain kind of

paradise. My heart and my

mind — because, since

feeling is first — have enjoyed this stay

very much.

So has my body. I’m mildly tan, mildly

muscled, and

very well fed. I’ve been shaving

every three days because, one, I

enjoy it, and two,

I enjoy it. Things are simple. Things always

were simple, even if they were / even if they are

difficult. It’s part of the way things

are and are supposed

to be, I guess. I’m lazy, I’ve always

been kind of lazy. This I know. It’s part of me, to be

impulsive and serene and crazy and

lazy. I don’t think I will ever

change, although I

think I’m better off now

than I used to be

before. I believe that

it had to do

with spending the great amount of

the last year, and some more extra

months, just practicing the subtle

art of living. It is a simple, but

very difficult affair, this living

business. First, you wake up. Then

you live — I usually start doing it after

coffee; it just doesn’t seem right

to do it before. Then your day ends. The

problem is to identify and accept small

and decisive details, like

when does the day end, or

admiring the full moon, or

how does it feel to be looking

through your office’s window

to the sunset on the hills. You can

think a lot about it, compare it

to a million things and oeuvres that

you know, but you can also

just be there, watching, and

watching. Staring, as if your

interior is blank, which is different from

being empty. You are

there, just receiving whatever

it is that you are

receiving. It’s a difficult but

beautiful thing, you

know? One day you’ll notice

it, perhaps while

brushing your teeth in

your parents’ house, and that

image of the shades of blue white and orange and

red and dark of the sunset

of Beiral do Lima suddenly comes

to you. Maybe

you will remember the image, and the

colours, and then

the summer, and maybe, that summer

feeling will come to you, once again, like

in the Jonathan Richman song, or

better. And then

you will clean your mouth and

do whatever you had to do. Go to

night mass, go to sleep, go

and meet someone, or just

take a stroll on the streets of an old town

that you love with another type of

blankness within you, absorbing

the lights, the walks, the

people, and

the ideas and feelings that are

coming to you from

within; that thing we can both name as

being. But today

is no day for concepts, and

it certainly is no day for

synthesis. Maybe

those days, the “synthetic”

days, were never supposed to

have been. Maybe synthesis just has to

come like a breeze, or

a surprise, as a

gift. Maybe synthesis will come

in that day when

we are together

on a couch, barefooted, your

head on my

legs, your

body lying in the

couch, your legs folded, and me

just sitting, my hand touching your

hand (I, always the

lazy-crazy-impulsive-serene romantic, would

like to add some extras, like

rain and night outside, some soft

lamp light, some subtle

soundtrack — a good Lambchop record

would do — and my hand not on your

hand, but instead in the midst of

your hair, softly caressing your

neck, but

I can only want, or

dream, or hope, or

believe, or desire, but

to expect, well,

that’s something else

all together) and the

beautiful synchrony of our

blanknesses receiving

whatever that moment (that

day, that touch, that

feeling) gives us. And

mind you, that can be

a mighty great

thing, I believe. Maybe

one day, but not

today. Today is

Monday, August

twenty-seventh of the

year two thousand and eighteen. The

week has just begun, and

I have to keep on

working. And so

do

you.