La Voz de Galicia – December 23, 2022 →
I suppose that it is because winter is already here, because there is almost no light out, and because what little there is comes as gray and wet that when one feels like going for a walk, one does not feel like going out on the street. And then one remains like that, paralyzed, wishing to go for a walk, but without finding the mental strength to do so…During these days, in one of those moment when I was not able to make up my mind, I thought that perhaps I could use that time of apathy to remember the moments of calm over the last year. I call them ponds of peace, and at times I live them in the moment and at other times, I am not capable of seeing or feeling them until they are past. They are nothing esoteric because they are daily moments, images of a reality as far away as they are near that function like small postcards that I send myself (in the shape of small notes written on my phone) to remind myself of the reasons to celebrate life, despite that which is falling all around the world, around us.
I remembered that elderly couple I saw crossing the street the other day, holding hands and holding on tight (I wish to get there, with Xan). I remembered the rosquillas–a kind of Galician doughnut–and the herbs (fragrant mallow, incense and citronella) that a certain reader full of life (Charo) gave me in one of my book signings. I remember that game about movies where my mother placed a cloth on the inside of her leg and another one on her neck to try to interpret Superman. I remembered so many small things, so many “ponds of peace” that I suddenly resolved to go for a walk. And even though I didn’t do it, thinking about them took me out of the sluggishness of the moment and encouraged me, at least, to write this Christmas column to ask you, reader, about your own individual ponds of peace?
