swallow17

[swallow17]

Trying my best to be a Pre-Raphaelite damsel.

[swallow17]

I really wish I had the time to live.

But I don't. I'm getting married in June and I'm supposed to be excited about it… which I am. Of course I am. But mainly, I am stressed.

I'm stressed 'cause I can't find the time to properly organize everything. I did the invitations by hand, one by one, back in July; I chose the little presents that the godmother will give to the female guests with all the care in my heart.

And then, my uncle died and rot. The world started to spin too quickly. My fiancé and I got sucked into work, grasping for time together in the corners of our crazy schedules. I haven't seen my best friend in weeks. I haven't seen my friends in weeks. I'm stealing these lines from a moment without chores, before running to pilates and a neighbourhood meeting and whatnot.

And I can't sleep at night. 'cause every time I close my eyes, the world spins faster and faster. And I can't keep up.

I can't be thin enough, pretty enough, efficient enough. I see the cracks in my smile. I see the dark circles, like bruises, under my eyes.

But I have to keep up. I have to brush my teeth, wipe the taste of bile from my lips. Smile again. Find yourself again. You're here, somewhere amongst the rift. The foundation is still strong.

You're still the big-eyed, big-hearted girl from that village between the ravine and the river.

Keep up. Smile.

"I am okay."

[swallow17]

My hair still smells like a rotting corpse.

Or at least I feel as if it does. I've washed it relentlessly since Wednesday afternoon, over and over. I used lemon shampoo, put some rosemary oil on it, then rose essential oil. And then I washed it again. I have a lot of hair, long and thick. And it smells like a rotten cadaver.

My friends insist it doesn't anymore. They say I smell like flowers and perfume, but I still can smell it.

And it's fucking disgusting.

Whatever I had imagined, it was way worse. My uncle had been dead for some days, lying on his bed, in a heatwave in the middle of the Spanish summer. The neighbours complained about the smell and they called the police. The police called the firefighters and they climbed up and forced a window. I've been told that they didn't need to go inside to know he was dead.

The town doctor refused to enter the apartment to pronounce my uncle dead. The police had to drag her upstairs, and once she was there she puked and fainted. My parents arrived at some point around those moments, when the police was calling a forensic team. That was when I heard of it. Of the fact that my mother's brother had been lying dead on his bed for days, rotting quickly without anyone thinking of him. Slowly becoming a thousand flies.

Only one of the policemen entered the room where my uncle was. He didn't allow anybody else to go inside, 'cause apparently the image was too much to bear for anyone. My grandparents' flat is quite big, and my uncle's room was on the oposite wing from where the firefighters opened a window. The doctor fainted without having crossed the corridor. Only one of the policemen was brave enough to go there and check the situation.

The coroner also entered, of course. He arrived and, as the policemen and the firefighters had done before, put some Vicks Vaporub on his upper lip and nostrils. And then proceed to question my mum, who was having a meltdown. Why did nobody realize my uncle was missing? Well, he had cut all of us out, both family, friends and neighbours. Was it possible that he had committed suicide? Well, no, no one thought so. He was selfish and ruin, but not suicidal. Not that we knew, of course. Was his mental illness part of the situation?

What mental illness?

The funeral home workers arrived short after. Luckily for us, the owner of the Funerary Home is dating one of my second aunties, so he was exceptionally nice about all of this. He went upstairs without the Vicks Vaporub thingy, or a face mask, and he evaluated the situation. "We have to cremate him immediately," he said without hesitation. "As soon as anyone touches the corpse, it will fall apart." The coroner said they needed to run an autopsy, in order to rule out a criminal offence. My auntie's boyfriend simply shrug. "As soon as anyone touches him, he will fall apart."

So they tried to find the cause of death without touching what was left of my uncle, trying to navigate the thousand flies and maggots, the stench and the tons of garbage flooding the flat. And they found a blue folder with medical records.

"Appart from the diabetes, he had liver cancer," read the coroner. "That's natural causes. You can take him to the crematory."

So they tried. They lifted the mattress and tried to tip it over the coffin which they had barely managed to carry to the room, crossing the narrow hallway after climbing two floors without an elevator. My auntie's boyfriend was right; as soon as they moved the corpse, it crumbled. And most of my uncle fell into the coffin.

Most of him.

That was what was happening while I was considering if I still loved my uncle or not, while I was deciding if I should go for a swim in the time my brother finished his shift. The firefighters evicted all the neighbours, 'cause the fact that a cadaver had been rotting there for four days was a health hazard. They left all windows open, closed the door and sealed the building. My mum was still crying at the building's main door, without being able to enter her childhood home, apologizing desperately to all of the neighbours. Then, my dad took her home. My brother and I arrived soon after.

That afternoon, my dad and I tried to find a company that could disinfect the flat as soon as posible, so the neighbours could go back some. The thing is… they all refused. Some of them demanded pictures of the situation and warned us that the waitlist was, at least, three weeks long. Others said that we needed to remove "anything organic" before they went to fumigate. Other simply refused.

Dad is a farmer. He was raised in the countryside, he never went to a proper school; the teacher came down to the farm and taught the kids of the workers, and my dad grew up "doing what had to be done". He has never hesitated. I guess this wasn't the time for him to do it.

I am my father's daugher. When he said that he would be the one going in to clean everything, I said I would go with him. Chin tilted up, clenched teeth, brave face. That's been me around my dad since I can remember. He raised me to be strong no matter what. Never to flicker. So I wasn't going to do it.

But my fiance refused. He said I wasn't going in. He said he knew I would do it and I'd do it right, with my tight lips and my clenched fists and doing what had to be done. But he simply didn't want me to. He wanted to protect me from that, he said. He's a soldier and, in the past, he worked in a funeral home. So he knew what was inside that flat, what we were facing. And he didn't want us to face it alone.

So he asked for a day off his work, and the army apparently thought that helping his father-in-law to clean up the mess a rotting body left behind was a good enough reason to miss work. He bought all the supplies and, Wednesday at 6:00 am sharp, my dad and him went in.

The thing is.. there were things we still didn't know. My fiance knew what was to be expected from a corpse lying in a bed after four days in a Spanish heatwave, but we didn't know about my uncle's mental illness. We didn't know about his diogenes syndrome.

I waited in the street, right by the tractor's trailer my dad had brought to take the matress. Right by my mum, who was relatively calmed by then. Until she saw my fiance and my dad coming down to the trailer over and over, in their safety overalls and wearing the facemasks covered in Vicks Vaporub, bringing one bag after another. And another one. And another.

We didn't know about my uncle's mental illness, but we knew about the hatred he felt for us. We knew that flat, that was entirely his after the death of my grandmother, wasn't going to be our inheritance. We're sure that his testament is done and that it cuts us off, and we're perfectly fine with that. We've been working our entire lives; we have homes of our own, savings and a good life. The cleaning of the flat was being done to help the neighbours, to avoid the three weeks waitlist.

But when I saw my father and my fiance bringing outside bag of garbage after bag of garbage, I thought about whoever will inherit the flat.

And of what will they do with the memories there.

I didn't care about the jewerly or all the expensive gadgets I knew my uncle had bought along the years, but I thought of a picture of my grandfather that I had seen a million times in my grandmother's living room, when I was a child. I wanted that picture. I didn't want anybody else to have it.

So I told my mother I'd be right back and I tied a handkerchief to my face, covering my mouth and nose, as I had done four years ago, in the first days of the pandemic.

And I went in.

I cannot even start describing the stench. It was so dense that I could almost chew it. Clenched teeth, clenched fists, chin tilted up, brave face. First door to the right, the living room. And the living room was full of garbage.

My uncle had kept every container of every little thing he had bought since my grandmother's death. Astonished, I contemplated the piles of empty egg cartons, empty drink cans, old Amazon boxes. Every centimeter of the room was full of… of everything.

Clenched fists, clenched teeth. My grandmother had been fighting this her entire life, keeping my uncle's illness at bay, keeping it a secret to shameful to be brought to the light. She kept my uncle's dignity until the end, becoming a slave to his needs to the point it brought her to her grave, preventing him from getting the help he so desperately needed. And he could not survive without her.

Clenched teeth, clenched fists. I tried to take a deep breath, but I hurled immediately. I don't know how I managed to keep it in, but I bit the inner part of my cheeks until the taste of blood masked the stench. And I entered the living room and started the pillage.

I only took those things without economic value that were priceless for my family. The old pictures of my great-grandparents and grandparents. My mother's braid, that was chopped when she was a kid. My grandfather's smoking pipe. I kept my lips tight, my teeth clenched. In the middle of the garbage I was wading, I saw a teddy crab. It was purple and small, surprisingly clean in the middle of all of that. I wondered if it belonged to my grandma. I felt sorry for the teddy crab, alone in a flat that stank of death. But my hands were full and the little crab was so far away. I left it behind.

The little teddy crab made me cry.

I went up and down several times, wading garbage in several rooms, looking for my great-great-grandfather's gun, the cuckoo clock my grandfather broght from Andorra. I couldn't find most of those things. Meanwhile, my fiance was facing, alone, the task of remove part of a corpse from the ground. My dad, who had known my uncle years ago, who was friends with him, couldn't face it. My father was cleaning the rest of the rooms, trying to remove anything that could serve as food for the thousand flies around us. When we crossed in the corridor, he carrying a bag full of more garbage, I carrying a photo album, he looked into my eyes and I guess the dread I saw was in my eyes too. He glanced at the end of the corridor, where my fiance was facing the horror alone. And he nodded.

I guess that, if my parents approved of my marriage before, now they're sure of it.

I don't remember clearly what came after. I stopped looking for memories when my fiance told me it was over, his very blue eyes sad and tired behind the protective glasses. He took me outside while my father started to fumigate the flat, trying to kill the thousand flies that my uncle had become.

I was tired, and dizzy, and desperately sad and lost. But when I saw my mum outside, with her teary eyes and her hands holding tight one of her parents' pictures I had rescued, I felt a little bit of peace. She hadn't need to go there and see her childhood home in that state. She probably will never do it, so she will keep the memories of the flat my grandmother kept pristine clear. Now, I can't think of the memories I had of my grandfather playing with us in the living room's floor without feeling the hurl in my throat, but I still have other memories. He wasn't my brother. She's suffered enough.

I did what it needed to be done. Just like my dad.

My hair stenchs like a rotting body. I have washed it over and over. When I close my eyes, I still see the mattress my dad and my fiance brought downstairs to the trailer, full of brown, yellow and black stains. I still see the living room where I played with my brothers and my grandfather full of garbage. I still see the little teddy crab.

But the worst is over. That very same afternoon, my auntie's boyfriend gave us an urn with the ashes of (most of) my uncle. The priest in our village held a service, and now my uncle is with my grandmother again, in the cemetery, next to her Elm Virgin's chapel.

And I hope that, this time, my uncle can be at peace with my grandmother and the rest of them.

The worst is over. My relatives gave us their condolences and congratulate us for the wedding, saying that they were happy that next time we reunite will be for something happier.

My hair still stenchs. But I have happy days ahead. When I take a deep breath, I still smell the rot; but it's but a memory.

This too shall pass.

Clenched teeth, chin tilted up.

Life goes on.

[swallow17]

My uncle just died and it's pretty freaking inconvenient for me right now.

Well, he hasn't just died. Or maybe yes, I couldn't know. I mean, I could have asked my mum, but when I called her, like half an hour ago, she was having the biggest of meltdowns - understandable, of course - and I simply couldn't bring myself to ask for details. That and the fact that I could hear one of the neighbours in the background saying "we're waiting for the forensic team" made me think that maybe he's been dead for a while.

I'm still trying to figure out if I'm sorry about it or not. When I read about it in one of my family's WhatsApp groups, the only thing I could think was "Fuck, I was about to go to the swimming pool". I had plans for the day. Started off hitting the gym like the gymrat I'm trying to become in order to look gorgeous in my wedding, then shower and healthy breakfast, then Excel tables trying to figure out budgets, incomes and whatnot. And this afternoon I planned to go for a swim and then go to the capital to organize some things for the wedding.

And suddenly, he freaking died.

I called my mum, but she couldn't speak. My dad is kinda disastrous with these things, so I assumed I should call my brothers and organize us - I was right, they didn't know. One of them lives faraway, so I talked to him and my sister-in-law and they'll arrive tonight. We don't even know if there's going to be a funeral, and how and when the service will be held, but anyway my mum needs us. My sister-in-law talked about cooking for my mum and all of that and it kinda made me feel better, 'cause sometimes it's tiring to be the only girl in the family. My other brother is at work, but he finishes around 15:00 pm so I will pick him up and we'll go to the place where I was born, to support my mum.

To try to feel sorry about the dead of a man who once tried to strangle me.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't like that all the time - not with me, at least. We probably will never know how he was, 'cause the whole story is full of secrets, lies, half-truths, interests, chaos. My grandma and him lived alone together since my grandpa died, and he was pretty possessive of her. I do not know to what extent he was physically abussive, but I can tell he was a psychological abuser. My grandma felt compelled to serve him, to do everything for him even when her health was decaying. When she needed to be put in a care facility - 'cause her living with my family was unacceptable for my uncle -, he tried to make her recover so she could go back to live with him, the two of them, alone together.

To nobody's surprise, forcing an old lady to act as if she was still a middle-aged woman took her to her grave. I called the shots that time, 'cause mum was having a panic attack, and I decided to bury her with her husband and mother, as she had been asking for months as she felt her time was coming.

And then my uncle arrived to the facility, reclaimed the body to incinerate her and take her with him back home, I refused and he tried to strangle me. Luckily for me, Dad was around.

So yeah, I cannot tell that I'm sorry that man died.

Nonetheless, he wasn't always like that. When my grandma was still strong and active, when she was more my godmother and less an old lady I had to take care of, he was a nice uncle. He gifted me my first kitty. He liked to talk about books with me; he bought a super big book about cetaceans 'cause that was my seven-year-old hiperfixation. He read the whole freaking thing with me; he knew a lot about orcas and belugas at the end of it. He also gave me the super-extended DVD version of The Return of the King, just because I loved The Lord of the Rings. He bought and read the two books I published when I was in my early twenties. He even tried to get me to sign them. But, by then, I was offended by the distance between him and my mother, the way he spoke about her, the way he treated my grandma. And I was polite but cold.

I guess that's something you can say about me. Polite but cold.

He was my mother's brother. He was a kinda deficient brother, especially comparing him to my own brothers, for example. He was a horrible brother-in-law to my dad. A bad son to my grandmother. He was a fickle uncle to us.

But I guess he was my uncle, after all.

I'm not hungry at all today. I guess there's still enough time for a dip in the pool.

[swallow17]

It’s like a popularity contest all over again, right? And the need to fit in. I really miss when book communities were a way of escaping this shit, and not a mirror of what I hated of secondary school…

I miss when we actually loved to read.

It's a strange feeling, y'know. Maybe it's because I'm getting old and I'm starting to think that everything was much better in the old days, but I really feel as if this was better back then. In the good ol' days.

I was never one of the pretty girls. Don't get me wrong, I was pretty; I've always been pretty, probably in the same way that you are. But my complexion was kinda dark for the nineties the earty 2000s, and also, my personality was freaking weird. Gifted, they'd say, but also with the spicy ADHD that made me annoying. Talkative but pedantic, interested in things that were… well, I never loved dolls and makeup. I loved fantasy and fairy tales, SciFi and space operas, talking about adventures with the boys. So I was never one of the pretty girls.

I was one of the geek ones, I'm afraid. Being raised in a small town in Spain, the fact that I preferred to spend my hours reading and drawing didn't sit well with my classmates, who thought I believed myself to be "better than them". Maybe a small part of my did it, 'cause I was a girl and a teenager years later, and those tend to be a little self-centered. I was almost completely alone, but I really didn't mind. I had a friend who loved comics and was kind enough to let me talk about books non-stop, and I had another one who was a nerd and was always happy to remind me that I actually needed to do my homework. They didn't really talk to each other, so I was basically alone with one, or alone with the other, or alone. And it was fine by me, even though sometimes I missed having someone who loved the things I loved. And when the internet entered in our lives, I discovered I wasn't the only geek girls around.

Are you old enough to remember the early 2010s? The golden era of the fandoms. I discovered then that there were more geek girls who'd actually love to talk about books non-stop; people who'd answer my comments and questions and crazy theories, not just let me ramble. People who'd write fan fictions and read mine. People who'd theorize about Tyrion being Aerys' child, who'd write an entire fan fiction about Tywin and Joanna - I lost that one and I'd really, really love to find it again. People who would love to talk about Katniss' decision, who would side with Gale or Peeta. I even read Twilight and wrote some passionate defences of Jacob being the actual good one for Bella. A friend of mine got the mockingjay tattoed. Yeah, of course, some of them were "just for girls" and girls were shamed for loving them; some of them were "elevated" and men loved them too, so girls were allowed to talk about them without being labelled as "annoying" of "hysterical".

The thing is, that lasted for ages. Each book we read was there for many months, years even, and it was a sort of collective experience. We were writing about them on blogs, on forums. And we were doing it together. I even took part in an online role game thet consisted on writing chunks of text, in the form of a fan fiction, about our OCs in the Hunger Games universe. It was about the books. It was about the characters, about the ideas. And the mark those left in my generation was kind of… permanent, I guess. But then, for some reason, it all vanished. And it didn't give way to something better.

I hate going on booktook. Or bookstagram. Or booktube. Or booktwt - is that a thing still? I always feel as if I'm far, far behind. Books appear in 30 seconds videos and they're the best freaking thing ever, and then they disappear. All of them are the best, but they never stay for more than a month. There's always a new release, a new and shiny special edition that we need to buy. Fandoms shift so quickly I never have the chance to talk about the story I just loved. I don't even feel that there's a fandom anymore; there is this new influencer who wants the crown for discovering this new saga. It's their saga, y'know; and no one else can't talk about them, 'cause they discovered it. It's not collective anymore; we're not together talking about books, but following that bookfluencer who'll try to make us feel the need to by more books, so the big publisher will send them more free books.

And the stories fall into the void.

Do you remember the Grishaverse, when it started? I thought it'd bring back the fandom era, that we would be heartrenders, tidemakers and alkemis, as we once were Ravenclaws, from District 12, demigods or Martells. But it didn't happen - though I have to admit that the fanarts are pretty impressive. Then the Netflix series came and I felt hopeful again. I felt the same with the House of the Dragon series.But it didn't happen. The marketing teams tried to make us pick a side, and most people did, but it feels more as if they're rooting for their football team and less as if they're loving a series based on a great book.

I don't know. Maybe the thing is that I'm old now, that I've to work eternal hours and that I don't find the time to read anymore. But when I say those amazing fanarts of Meleys and Moondancer, when I see them swallowed by the algorithm, falling into the void… I can't help but think that the old days were, in fact, the good ol' days. Those days when a book came to stay. Those days when we were readers and not consumers, when we were talking about the things we loved, and not following the next trend.

I really don't want more special editions. I really don't want the next best seller. The next Tolkien. I don't want any of that.

I just want to find the feeling I had when I was fourteen and talking non-stop about books with people who'd talk me back.

Those days seem something from a book right now.

And I really want to go back there.

[swallow17]

I guess we still need rituals.

Today, one of my friends had a freaking big exam. The freaking big exam, the one she was crying over on my kitchen floor three months ago. It's a tough one, one I passed six years ago; you have to pass two parts of that thing, and, even if you do, there's no guarantee you'll get the job. And it was extra difficult for her; she didn't study the degree that gives you the best chance to pass the first part of the exam —that one that basically examines you of the contents of that four-year degree she does not have.

And she passed the first part. With a 70%, no less.

You can believe me if I tell you that's a lot. She basically had to study a degree all on her own, while working, and she freaking did it. So, big accomplishment; but today was the second part of this exam, and, for me, personally, the worst one. 'Cause it's the one in which you don't have to write, but to speak. You have to defend your project in front of a comittee that will decide if you're suit for the job or not, and you must do it perfectly. No mistakes allowed.

So yeah, she was nervous. And I didn't have the stomach to let her face this shit alone, even though she insisted. "I can do it on my own," she said that like a hundred times. Followed by about a thousand "I don't want to bother you", "It's a lot to ask", etc. Well, the thing is she wasn't asking. I wanted to help, so I didn't give her the chance to say "no". I travelled early to the city where she had the exam, that is not the home place of any of us, drove her from the hotel to the examining board, waited there with her trying to keep her calm, and took care of her things when she finally entered the exam. Then, I had two hours for myself.

I honestly didn't feel like sitting there for two hours. I literally can't just wait around, so I decided to search a church on my phone and go light a couple of candles. I really don't know if I believe in God and all of that, but that's what my grandma would have done if I was the one facing the exam. And I feel strangely compelled to keep her alive, somehow.

So, I found a church. I lit some candles to the carving of Mary, 'cause I feel a certain sympathy for her and she makes me think of nature, forests and rebirth. Also, I bear her name, so in case there's really someone listening, she might be proner to help me. I stayed there for a while, looking at my little flames, enjoying the coolness of the air inside the temple, the silence.

I left a bit later and I found a supermarket where I grabbed a couple of sandwiches, a giant bottle of Nestea and some chocolate, and run to wait for my friend outside the place where she was doing her defence. I assumed she'd be hungry, after such a long morning. I don't know. Sometimes I just act on impulse, but I like to think that's what anyone would do. Trying to help, I mean.

She exited the premises a few minutes later, and she was a mess. She was immensely happy 'cause the ordeal was finished; she was kinda satisfied 'cause she felt the committee liked her work. She was shaking from the stress and anxiety she'd been juggling for months. And she bursted into tears when I handed her the food. It was like watching the breaking of a dam; once the water started to leak, it couldn't be stopped. So I hugged her, at my best capacity, and let her cry until she was finally relaxed. Then, we walked to my car.

She was talking non-stop then, about everything she wants to do this summer, all of her plans for the future, and also the ones for our shared part of this future. And then, suddenly, she said "I'm gonna cry a lot when I finally see you in your wedding gown, y'know?" I don't remember what my answer was, but I guess I joked or said something silly, 'cause that's what I always do. I drove her to the train station, so she'd catch the train that would take her back to the place she was born, the stretch of land between the desert and the sea, under a million stars. She made me promise I'd visit her there soon. I guess I'll go, if I can.

So, after that, I hopped back in my car and drove back to the city, to meet another friend. It is amazing, the number of friends I have for the unbelievable dull person I am. Anyway, we spent the afternoon walking around this fairytale forest, right by the river banks, under the shadow of Snow White's castle. And I kept thinking about those words.

Why would anyone cry just by seeing me in a wedding gown? I'm getting married next year, yes, but that can't be unexpected to anyone. I've been in love with my fiancé for the last ten years; we went back and forth a lot, that's a fact, and there were other in the middle, but our comicly messy love story would make for another full post. Anywise, our wedding is something that's been largely anticipated. It's just a confirmation, a way of putting into the eyes of gods and men what's already been obvious for everyone; that I love that man, and I'll do until my dying day. And that he feels the same way about me.

So, why all the fuzz about the wedding gown?

I couldn't reach any conclusion, so I just enjoyed the coolness of the river. July in Spain can be boiling hot, so we refreshed our hair with water from a nearby creek and, after a while, I headed back home, in a different, duller town. No fairytale castles. No magical rivers.

Why would anyone cry over my wedding?

I arrived home, greeted my beautiful giant cat, waited until the nightfall to open the windows and refresh the house. Then, I hopped in the shower and open the cold water tap.

I was still thinking about the wedding thingy. I imagined the moment at the altar, that moment where I would say the words, "I take thee to be my lawfully wedded husband" and all of that (in a different language, ofc) and I suddenly started giggling like a teenager over the thought of kissing my husband there. My husband.

I have been called "cold" in multiple occasions. I am afraid I am, indeed, quite cold. I'm not good at physical contact, it makes me overly anxious. I'm not good opening myself to others, the words just refuse to leave my throat. I'm excedendly good at being alone. I kinda like being alone.

I guess I am, somehow, cold even with myself. I still don't completely understand what makes me so happy about the wedding, but it does.

In the end, it comes all to the same place. The little flames in the church, my white gown and the red poppies on the wedding invitations. None of those mean a great deal by themselves, but there's a shine that only our hearts can provide. The candle which is hope for a better future, a bearer of good wishes. The white dress my mum and one of my friends helped me pick, that makes me feel beautiful. The red poppies that combine his favorite color with my soul raised between wheat fields.

None of those are that important, as such. But they're part of a ritual. A ritual of asking for help for those we can help no more; a ritual to celebrate love, life, a shared future.

So here I am, writing down my thoughts. Putting them into words, in a language that's not my own, trying to force them to make sense, capturing them in such a way I can get some distance. In a way I can understand them. Because that's the ritual I've always used to survive.

Society has grown out the need of many things. It appears that we don't need faith anymore, nor traditions, nor all of those rituals that marked the years and seasons for my gipsy orthodox grandmother, for the celtic catholic one. Churches are more of a touristic atraction than a place of worship. Local festivities revolve around loud music and alcohol. And I don't see that many people paying attention to legends and folklore, though there's a sort of revival of that last one in some circles.

But my friend will cry when she sees me in a wedding gown. I'll giggle at the thought of saying "I do". My dad will read the words I asked him to in a cracking voice, because he'll be giving his daughter away. It does not matter if I already live with my fiancé. If does not matter if, for the last three years, we've been inseparable. It will be in that place, at that moment, when it will be palpable, undeniable.

It is a ritual. And, for us, it's the ritual what makes it real.

[swallow17]

I miss when we actually loved to read.

It's a strange feeling, y'know. Maybe it's because I'm getting old and I'm starting to think that everything was much better in the old days, but I really feel as if this was better back then. In the good ol' days.

I was never one of the pretty girls. Don't get me wrong, I was pretty; I've always been pretty, probably in the same way that you are. But my complexion was kinda dark for the nineties the earty 2000s, and also, my personality was freaking weird. Gifted, they'd say, but also with the spicy ADHD that made me annoying. Talkative but pedantic, interested in things that were… well, I never loved dolls and makeup. I loved fantasy and fairy tales, SciFi and space operas, talking about adventures with the boys. So I was never one of the pretty girls.

I was one of the geek ones, I'm afraid. Being raised in a small town in Spain, the fact that I preferred to spend my hours reading and drawing didn't sit well with my classmates, who thought I believed myself to be "better than them". Maybe a small part of me did it, 'cause I was a girl then and a teenager years later, and those tend to be a little self-centered. I was almost completely alone, but I really didn't mind. I had a friend who loved comics and was kind enough to let me talk about books non-stop, and I had another one who was a nerd and was always happy to remind me that I actually needed to do my homework. They didn't really talk to each other, so I was basically alone with one, or alone with the other, or alone. And it was fine by me, even though sometimes I missed having someone who loved the things I loved. And when the internet entered in our lives, I discovered I wasn't the only geek girl around.

Are you old enough to remember the early 2010s? The golden era of the fandoms. I discovered then that there were more geek girls who'd actually love to talk about books non-stop; people who'd answer my comments and questions and crazy theories, not just let me ramble. People who'd write fan fictions and read mine. People who'd theorize about Tyrion being Aerys' child, who'd write an entire fan fiction about Tywin and Joanna - I lost that one and I'd really, really love to find it again. People who would love to talk about Katniss' decision, who would side with Gale or Peeta. I even read Twilight and wrote some passionate defences of Jacob being the actual good one for Bella. A friend of mine got the mockingjay tattoed. Yeah, of course, some of those books were "just for girls" and girls were shamed for loving them; some of them were "elevated" and men loved them too, so girls were allowed to talk about them without being labelled as "annoying" of "hysterical".

The thing is that those lasted for ages. Each book we read was there for many months, years even, and it was a sort of collective experience. We were writing about them on blogs, on forums. And we were doing it together. I even took part in an online role game that consisted on writing chunks of text, in the form of a fan fiction, about our OCs in the Hunger Games universe. It was about the books. It was about the characters, about the ideas. And the mark those left in my generation was kind of… permanent, I guess. But then, for some reason, it all vanished. And it didn't give way to something better.

I hate going on booktok. Or bookstagram. Or booktube. Or booktwt - is that a thing still? I always feel as if I'm far, far behind. Books appear in 30 seconds videos and they're the best freaking thing ever, and then they disappear. All of them are the best, but they never stay for more than a month. There's always a new release, a new and shiny special edition that we need to buy. Fandoms shift so quickly I never have the chance to talk about the story I just loved. I don't even feel that there's a fandom anymore; there is this new influencer who wants the crown for discovering this new saga. It's their saga, y'know; and no one else can't talk about them, 'cause they discovered it. It's not collective anymore; we're not together talking about books, but following that bookfluencer who'll try to make us feel the need to buy more books, so the big publisher will send them more free books.

And the stories fall into the void.

Do you remember the Grishaverse, when it started? I thought it'd bring back the fandom era, that we would be heartrenders, tidemakers and alkemis, as we once were Ravenclaws, tributes, demigods or Martells. But it didn't happen - though I have to admit that the fanarts are pretty impressive. Then the Netflix series came and I felt hopeful again. I felt the same with the House of the Dragon series. But it didn't happen. The marketing teams tried to make us pick a side and most people did, but it feels more as if they're rooting for their football team and less as if they're loving a series based on a great book.

I don't know. Maybe the thing is that I'm old now, that I've to work eternal hours and that I don't find the time to read anymore, so I can't follow the pace of the rest of the world. But when I see those amazing fanarts of Meleys and Moondancer, when I see them swallowed by the algorithm, falling into the void… I can't help but think that the old days were, in fact, the good ol' days. Those days when a book came to stay. Those days when we were readers and not consumers, when we were talking about the things we loved, and not following the next trend.

I really don't want more special editions. I really don't want the next best seller. The next Tolkien. I don't want any of that.

I just want to find the feeling I had when I was fourteen and talking non-stop about books with people who'd talk me back.

Those days seem something from a book right now.

And I really want to go back there.

[swallow17]

My grandma's faith feels like an old blanket.

I really can't find a better way to describe it. I can't even start to feel it as "my" faith, 'cause it's something I would have never sought by myself. I felt that quiet sacred joy in the forest, amongst the creeks, when sitting in silence listening to the birds singing their rebirth in spring. But she felt that for her Virgin, y'know. Spanish grandmas are like that; there are almost as many grandmas as Virgins in remote villages lost in the steppe, but they're curiosly similar to each other.

She was never imposing with her faith. My father gave me the name of his Virgin and I had to carry it even though I never felt it as "mine"; my grandma, on the other hand, gave me a million stories about her Elm Virgin. There was a painting hanging on one of the rooms of the old family house, a big handpainted picture of the Elm Virgin on her tree, stopping a deal to death between two knights; a remnant of those years when my family had means and a name. By the time my grandma was born, the money was gone and the name meant little more than nothing, but the stories remained the same. Tales that remained untouched, still shinny trapped in that golden frame. And she gave them all to me.

I never felt any faith as mine, as much as my dad wanted me to do so. The name of his Virgin, one who was revered in the faraway mountains of Aragon, was strange to me. The one of my grandma, the one who reminded me of trees, forests and stories told in front of her house's chimney, was different. That one was my grandma's, which, I used to think back then, meant that one day it would me mine. But the day never came. My grandma died after saying her goodbyes, as all women in my family do, and my heritage were the stories of the Elm Virgin, the swallow's pendant, a poplar forest on the river banks.

But her faith was never "mine".

I tried, believe me. I felt as if I was disappointing my grandma and her Elm Virgin. It was an strange feeling, 'cause my grandmother and her Virgin were so intertwined that I started thinking of them as one and the same. I'm not one to go to church, 'cause I still feel better outside, under the branches of the chestnut trees outside the hermitage next to the cemetery. The Elm Virgin lives inside the tiny church, under the warm marble arches, and my grandma unlives in the cemetery, under the marble stone, next to her mother and my grandfather. My grandma and her Virgin are both there, next to each other, and at the same time they're both in the chestnut trees, in the touch of the sun, in the way my mum buys small medals to help my brother pass his exams. She bought one for me, years ago, to help me pass the exam that gave me the job I hate and love. Today, I bought one for my friend, so she may pass the exam too.

And I realised I was closing the circle.

Maybe my grandma was the same. Maybe she didn't feel her faith as "hers", either. Maybe she felt her Virgin as an heirloom from her grandmother, a shinny treasure of words and rituals to keep us all together. Maybe she felt that those stories were all we could pass to the next generation when our family lost the money and the land. Or maybe she just loved her Elm Virgin as I do, as a reminder of the love of those who're gone. As a token of those times when ours was a matriarchy, with my great-grandmother ruling the family with ther wit and words after widowing at a young age. She brought the family forward, in a time when they didn't have nothing but a house in ruins. Her name was the one I wanted to bear, by the way. It's not the name of one of the Virgins, but it was powerful 'cause she made it that way. Because she was.

I don't think I'll ever be one to go to church every Sunday. I like churches, aesthetically, but I still belong in Nature. A few weeks ago, my fiancé noticed, surprised, that I make the sign of the cross the other way around. "Aren't you a Catholic?" he asked, surprised. I laughed, as we were in a Catholic church, asisting a Catholic mass so we could speak to the priest about the dates and location of our marriage. I am a Catholic, or at least kind of, but I have two grandmothers. One gave me the Elm Virgin, the music of the steppe, the poplar forest, the wheat fields, the vine and the plow. The other gave me the turned around sign of the cross, the tarot cards, the stories of the Saints. Pray to Saint Martha when you have a difficult task to do. Pray to Saint Isidro for rain for your crops. Pray to Saint Catherine for help with your exams.

I will never be one to go to church every Sunday, I'm afraid. But I'll marry in the church where my grandmother got me baptized, so many years ago. I'll go to the chestnut forest every May, to see my grandma's Elm Virgin welcoming spring. I'll pray to Saint Lucy to keep my eyesight and to Saint Rita to protect my marriage. And I'll peep the future in the tarot cards. As I'm the mix of many women, I'll keep alive their heritage no matter what contradictory, strange or old-fashioned it makes me.

My grandma's faith feels like that old blanket I keep at my parent's place, that one that's kinda shredded and kinda battered. That one that makes me feel at home, that carries the touch of my mother, my grandmother and those who came before. It's like an old tune, hummed while tending the orchard. Like the old kitchen's table. And I'll keep coming back to it, as long as it makes me feel safe and it's safe for those around me.

[swallow17]

Today is one of those days.

I'm having a hard time just standing myself; I'm annoying myself out of my mind. I'm tired, but I don't really want to sleep. I want to play Zelda, but I'm too impatient to go after the fairies. I want to read, but my mind keeps drifting. I've been hungry all freakind day, but I don't fancy anything specific. I've tried to eat this morning, and I tried to have lunch; I simply can't. I'm not nauseous, or dizzy. My stomach doesn't hurt. I just don't feel like eating.

But I'm so hungry.

I don't have much food at home, anyway. I've been trying to lose some weight; it's not like going back to talk to Ana, as I did when I was a teenager. I just want my summer clothes to fit. I just want to recognize myself in pictures, in the mirror. I'm not going back to Ana. Or that's what I want to think.

So, I'm Mediterranean after all. Far away from the sea, more linked to the Atlantic, but Mediterranean nonetheless. That means that I belong to a culture of poor people who're great at inventing things to eat, so roasted onions it is. I have two onions left from yesterday's party. It will take about two hours to roast them properly. I guess that'll do for a very early dinner.

Yeah, maybe that's why I'm so down right now. Work has been a shitshow lately. My friends are adults (just like me, I may add), so we never find the time to meet anymore. One of them moved to another country and we talk weekly as if a bussiness meeting, another is kidnaped by a jelaous girlfriend. My fiancé lives in a different city during the week. I've been holding to yesterday's party to keep my sanity, I've prepared everything so it'd be perfect.

Don't get me wrong, it was perfect. Almost all of us were there, together, laughing, enjoying the food I so carefully curated, singing and looking our best with the most perfect smiles. I enjoyed it as if it was my last night on this Earth.

But it lasted four hours. Four freaking hours, and it was... gone. The morning came with a disastrous kitchen, a friend who slept at my place having a nervous breakdown and my fiance so tired that I didn't have the heart to wake him up. I cleaned the whole freaking house while my friend cried and told me about her mess. I mean; I make bad choices, I have to admit it. But at least I can be proud of not making all of them at the same time. She's working her ass for a job who doesn't pay back; studying for an exam she'll never pass, 'cause she has the wrong degree for that test. She's dating a guy who she doesn't even like, but he's a "nice guy". I couldn't avoid the grimace when she said that. I've had my fair share of "nice guys".

But that'd make for another entire post. So, back to this one.

While I was cleaning the aftermarth of the party and listening to her I felt so... trapped. I felt as one of those donkeys they used in the village, with the carrot just out of reach, so close I can dream of catching it.

"Work a little harder, girl, and you might make it. Make it until that shinny day that'll be too short anyway. Get back to work. Chase the next shinny day. Do it until you're too tired to imagine new shinny days. And then enjoy the nervous breakdown on your kitchen's floor."

Yeah. Maybe it's just the lack of sleep. Maybe it's just that I'm all alone again, alone with the perspective of another Monday on a job that's draining me.

Maybe it's just today.

It must be just that. It's just one of those days.

I guess the onions could be ready by now.

[swallow17]

I have a friend who's kind of broken.

He's broken in that way that makes girls interested; that way that carries a certain melancholy, together with the goofy air and the full lips; he's broken that way that makes girls think they can fix him.

I know it, 'cause I used to be them "girls".

I met him an eternity ago, when we both lived in shitty flats in Madrid, making just enough money to get by, grasping for air in the city nights and filling that emptiness that work kept making bigger with cheap alcohol and indie music.

Those were our roaring twenties, I'm afraid. Endless shifts, precarious jobs, leaky roofs, unmade beds, beers after hours. We crashed onto each other in a despertate attempt to feel something else. Something that wasn't that numbness, that horrible premonition that our days were drifting away from us. That our lives were drifting away from us. That our lives were a wreckage in a cold sea.

Madrid was devouring us and we were devouring each other, as if it meant something.

I used to be them girls. I used to be one of those girls with dreamy eyes and flower dresses, always mesmerized by the city lights, the hustle and bustle of the streets. A small town girl, y'know. He was the city boy. We took no midnight train, but we sure held onto that feeling. For, like, three nights or so. Then the novelty washed away and we were still two lonely fucks who didn't know what to do of each other.

Still, the sex was great. Probably, the only great thing between us at those days.

I left Madrid some years after that. I was chasing my small town dreams, and the big city stopped being so fascinating when I realized that my soul had been almost eaten by that grey smoky monster. I went back to the forest, and then I lived in the mountains for a while. And I went back to the big-eyed, big-dreamed girl I used to be.

But I never stopped talking to him. I think that fact kind of surprised him; but I'm not the kind of person who's able to hold grudges. I loved him, in my way, an eternity ago; it wasn't the kind of love any of us wanted, but it was there. And, despite his best efforts to present himself to the world as a bastard who doesn't give a fuck about anybody, he kinda gives a lot of fucks.

You can talk tons of shit about him, and it may be true. But you can also be sure that he'd let himself be killed for a friend. And he doesn't open so easily, so he doesn't have that many of those.

I left Madrid and started over in the valley. I fell in love again, built a small life full of hopes, got engaged, started planning a wedding. My days are full of sunlight and flowers; I can't be further away from the gray little girl who lived in the big city ten years ago.

He's still there, navigating the streets of the steel-veined monster where we met a lifetime ago. We still talk; he writes stories that sound like somehow like poetry and dreams of a future where he's in love with a girl who doesn't need to save him from himself. And I hope that future is not so far away as our past.

I have a friend who's kind of broken. And, sometimes, when we talk late at night, I feel like he's holding the kind-of-broken girl that I once was.

And I'm glad I'm not her anymore.

But I thank him for keeping her safe.

[swallow17]

Cozy Sunday morning at home.

[swallow17]

bookstore cats

- x - x / x - x / x - x -

[swallow17]

When the moon shines behind the clouds, my dad says it "sizzles" and I love that way of putting it.

[swallow17]

I'm afraid I missed out Tumblr.

Most of my friends talked a lot, and I mean, a lot, about Tumblr when we were like fifteen, or sixteen. It's not like I had that many friends, so maybe that "a lot is" more like two or three people. Also, they were the weirdest people you can possibly imagine; so was I, of course. So am I, truth be told.

But I missed it. I pretended that I didn't care, that the fact that my mum forbid me from doing most of the things that other kids my age were doing. No phone, no computer. Not even going out with friends. At the same time, she didn't give a damn about me. Don't get me wrong, she was and is a wonderful person. But she had her issues. We all have ours.

No phone, no computer, no makeup, no tight clothes, no fantasy color dyes. Forcing a kid to go through her emo phase looking like a normie should be considered criminal behavior, but genetics gifted me with raven hair and a magnificent resting bitch face. Still, no wonder why I got rebellious.

Well, was either that or the whole best-friend-dying-as-a-child thing. One of the two.

But, still. I missed out Tumblr. I ended up stranded here with the whole Twitter Apocalypse craze, but the skies cleared before I had shared my user with my followers. And now, suddenly, I really don't want to.

It's kinda nice, you know, this feeling of screaming into the void. I missed out Tumblr, but I did join the Fotolog thing, and MySpace. I also had a blog, for so many years. I even was mildly successful as a youtuber, back in 2012. And all of those things started with this feeling of nobodyness.

It's like writing on my journal, but better. I know nobody's reading, so I can be myself. I know that, even is someone reads me, you won't know me, so I can be myself. And being honest is so, so hard these days. I really don't remember the last time I put myself out there, without worrying about anyone else's opinion.

So here I am, screaming into the void, writing on my journal. Silently shouting.

'Cause it feels nice to howl in the storm.

[swallow17]

The older you get, the more you choose calm over chaos and distance over disrespect. Drama becomes intolerable to you and your peace becomes your ultimate priority. You start surrounding yourself with people who are good for your mental health, heart and soul.

[swallow17]

"Maybe I need you the way that big moon needs that open sea,

Maybe I didn't even know I was here, 'til I saw you holding me."

—Andrea Gibson

[swallow17]

Happiness is boring.

Adult social life sucks. It sucks, from every possible point of view. There's nothing good about trying to get together with your best friends and needing to act as if planning a heist, trying to figure out how to coordinate with that friend who lives away but doesn't own a car (or even a driver's license!), to find a space between your 9 to 5 and your bestie crazy freelance hours. And then, the other says that he has plans with his girlfriend; and another gets an extra shift and the cards castle crumbles.

All over again.

But sometimes, it all works out. It's like a shooting star, you feel even tempted to make a wish. It may be pathetic, but saying that your wish was for that meeting to take place… well, it's a little bit true. Even if just a little bit.

And then you get together with your friends and everybody has a story to tell. An anecdote about a stupid client, a bad manager, a frustrating task at work. A Tinder date that went horribly wrong, that girl who managed to disappear yet again, a fight with a partner.

And they all turn to you and you have nothing to say.

That's a first, isn't it? You're, you've always been, the quirky one. The one who's been involved in one affair or another, a crazy love story that turned into endless days of horrible sex and sour disappointment. The one with the strangest students, the weird encounters. The endless stories.

And suddenly, you're not.

And, weirdly, you're okay with that. More than okay, sometimes. You kinda enjoy the calm surrounding your life. What if the most exciting thing you've done this summer is writing a book that just your friends - and your lover - will read. Well, that and climbing to the highest tower of that fairytale castle with that person you still cannot believe that is in your life now. Well, actually, he always was.

Just not like this.

So you tell again the stupid story about the guy who wanted to try tantric sex, and they all laugh. And you laugh with them, 'cause you're still at home. You're still the quirky one, the one who brought the rest together. And that togetherness feels like home.

Even if you're like has become so boring. So ridiculously boring. So happily boring.

Maybe that's why fairytales finish at the happy ending. Because after that, all is boring.

But in such a wonderful way that you wouldn't really change anything about it.