The alcohol and the soda from my whisky soaked the painting, and dragged the paint down the canvas. To me, it seemed a dreadful painting, and it was a hard time to believe I had made it. So, as enraged as I was, I smashed the glass against the recently finished painting. Then I contemplated how that capitulation gesture decomposed everything.

In my interior, a similar abandonment precipitated me to an abysm from which I was dissolving as well; I was blurred and bursting into smithereens. My recent pieces of art were a cartoon of what I used to do; and as a consequence, my sales lowered alarmingly. I wasn’t going through a shortage of ideas period, to which I had already gotten used to lately, but rather it attended to apathy’s consumption. Apathy oxidized my fingers and my brushes until they screech over the canvas, blurring it with mistakes.

That one was a lack of interest, which impregnated everything I touched and resumed itself in the reluctance of representing a world so imperfect to my eyes. I painted hopeless and emotionless worlds because my empty heart sounded filled by the loneliness of the echoes.

I came out to my studio’s balcony to breathe the night air. I closed my eyes, stopped the whirlpool of thoughts; and then I waited for a moment for my soul, a few steps behind, to catch me. The balconies from the old Town of Barcelona are like the shelving of an antique library full with un-catalogued and worn lives. That is how I felt.

During the day the streets are a noise museum. Peeling dishes, children crying, elder remembering, simple and sounding things. This is during a regular day. But this New Year’s Eve came filled with desolation, and the hardest to bear emptiness. I shivered; I was stiff with cold and the abandonment on my second end of the year, alone at home after my wife Clara passed away.

From nearby Royal Square, I could hear people’s voices, their exclamations of joy and their imminent aphonia. All of these got to me after spreading over the sidewalk, climbing through the centenary building’s facade, and reaching my balcony to finally beat me on the cheeks. The world is celebrating a new year that added life to their lives and I coursed a new year that deducted in mine.

---

Two years ago, Clara and I were visiting Kenya. She wanted so badly to portray the late afternoon of the African savanna that I gave in, as I always did. Clara was a photographer. I loved her like I never loved anyone before, like the first time we met our gaze. That’s why I always gave in. A few days after arriving to Samburu, after an extenuating excursion, devastating fevers attacked her. A parasite invaded her organism, poisoning her blood. The fevers, shivers, vertigo nauseas, vomits and headaches didn’t abandon her until the end. Quinine was not enough. The doctors were unable to save her, and then, my life heeled in a wreck in-land.

I cursed heaven for giving me Clara, and for ripping her away later. I could not understand how a bug from the marshes, so insignificant, could end with Clara’s life, and with a love as big as ours.

From that moment, everything in my life has been a blunder.

I talk to Clara from that moment on, and I wish to believe she listens and understands me. Sometimes we talk, in my imagination, about minor stuff:

-Who takes care of the rosebush? – said Clara’s voice as an omen in my interior.

-Which rosebush?

-The one showing through the balcony.

-Nothing grows there anymore. The roses are dead and the rosebush vanished.

-Well I perceived their scent, and when I walked nest to it I pinched with one of its stems.

-That can´t happen Clara, could it be because you are… -I was about to say: dead. But I didn’t say anything, and stopped talking alone.

---

Often I continued with these conversations through the whole night, until early in the morning. In a dozing altered her soul’s rest and my conscience’s until I asked her to sleep; soon after, I’d fall defeated by sleep. Sometimes I thought I heard her through my dreams, during the night, as well as when I was awake.

I walked down to drink a caffé latte at the coffee shop. Early in the morning- the first hour of the year- the street resembled the table cloth from the eve: flooded by silence and the first sun’s rays. At my feet a bunch of confetti and streamers, empty bottles, deaf laughter remains spread here and there; a disaster similar to the one reigning my studio and life- in my life after Clara-. Before coming down, I connected my laptop, and opened my e mail. Only one message, from my friend Javier. I printed it, and saved it in my jacket’s pocket to read it next to the bar, while I soaked a croissant.

Javier announced his imminent trip to Barcelona from Los Angeles, via London. He was going to exhibit, for two months, a retrospective of his painting in the MACBA museum. Then: Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen. The itinerant sample would be back in Los Angeles in six months, where Javier works and lives since a few years ago.

Javier is one of those friends whose friendship grows with time, it doesn’t matter how-long-since-last-time, and we always retake it as if it were from last eve. We used to talk about everything, except emotions. It wasn’t that he didn’t have them just that he didn’t feel like manifesting them. He was always like that, reserved, and I accepted it. I knew that under that apparent disaffection beat a sensitive heart.

Years back we studied art and plastic expression together. And after we graduated, he went for abstract painting, and I for dreamlike hyperrealism, like Dalí.

A few weeks later he called:

-Víctor, what time is it in Barcelona? I hope I didn’t wake you.

-Close to midnight. But don’t worry; I had not yet started counting sheep. I am not even in bed. Tell me, when do you come?

-The twentieth, at nine. I’ll let you know the flight number. You have no idea how bad I want to get back to Europe.

-Well, now you seem to be living a second youth… Okay, I wrote it down. Don’t make any hotel reservations; you’ll stay here, in my apartment. I have more than enough space. I’ll come pick you up at the airport. It will be awesome to have you here.

-Víctor, listen to me. I’ve been thinking that maybe you need to take, let’s say, half a sabbatical year. So I’ve thought to cede you my studio, here in Santa Monica. You can enjoy it while I am away. I believe you need to reacquaint with your painting, get away from Barcelona and mostly from the memories. Your last e mails are filled with melancholy and you can’t live that way, so tormented.

-Javier, thank you so much, but this is my place. Whatever I must do, I must do it here. Running away won’t make anything better. I don’t think that a ten thousand kilometers stride will leave memories behind- I replied.

---

-It is decided. You come here, and I go there. You will love Los Angeles. It is a city full of energy, ideas, creativity. You may paint in my studio; you will find every material you may requisite. You need it Victor. Californian sun will change your spirit. You’ll meet my artistic agent, Jeff, phenomenal person, you’ll see. I’ll leave my studio keys and my old convertible with my neighbor Sam so you pick them up, ok?

-Javier, just wait a second...

-Byeeeee…!

He had hung up before giving me half a chance to reply.

At that time, through the window, I could see how Barcelona began to sleep. Here we go to bed and there, on the west coast, the day began. Then thousand kilometers maybe not, but nine hours of difference did seem enough as to disorient the memory and avoid bumping against my past.

I remember that night I dreamt.

My wife stepped into my dreams again. Then, from the other side, she crossed half the world and sat in my bed to tell me to accept Javier’s invitation. Accept it, anything else. I know it was her because an intense rose perfume invaded my room, and the air smelled like the summer evenings when she looked after the rosebush in the balcony. And from that day on I could not stop smelling the roses, even when I left the windows opened and the studio at the mercy of air currents.

The next morning, because I always gave in to Clara’s desire, I sent Javier an email: «Ok, you win, I accept the invitation. I’ll pick up a few things and fly to the West Coast».

I added a virtual smile. It wasn’t even real, but it was the first one I allowed myself in a long time.

My name is Victor Bruguera, and I came to Barcelona to paint the ocean. After this, I didn’t want to leave this city anymore, because its blue ocean gets way inside when you contemplate it. I was born a little bit more than thirty five years ago. I am a Virgo, with Leo ascendance, rainy evenings bewitch me, and jazz, and I regret not learning to play piano. I believe I would not be able to spend a long time without living close to the sea, to an open space, so my ideas can develop without boundaries.

I know that I still must grow because my contradictions give me anxiety. Since Clara’s death I hide behind a parenthesis from which I don’t come out. But beyond this weight, I consider myself very vital. Clara admired my sensibility, my kindness, and my capability for tenderness. That, she said, made her fall in love. And she would add: «…Also those green and shining eyes, your abundant curly hair, your not excessive thinness and your enough strength». That is how she saw me, shaded by love’s indulgence. The mirror shows me an image of a man appearing a few years younger. A good man. No, well maybe not, a comprehensive man. Someone who uses objects to communicate silences to refine, in a face softened by the avalanche of kisses he received in his teen years.

I studied artistic expression, but now I’ve learned that the important things can’t be taught. The important things in life you learn on your own. When I started painting, I abused certain technical resources, it is normal, because I wanted to use what I had learned. After this, not anymore. I discovered that at no school they prepare you to make profitable the mistakes that will certainly come. But, I believe that we all need to get through them to think, because they are excellent teachers.

Some may think that creativity is a matter of inspiration a hundred percent… and the artist wishes for the piece to flow naturally. But I must say that not one thing or the other is like this. To me, creation is more transpiration than creation; it requires consistency and determination. Many look at a painting for just a few seconds and give a quick opinion, but the painter spent a long time working for that fleeting second of attention. In the same way, the spectator assists to the finished play, but the actor worked on the endless trials. The reader reads a book in a few weeks, but the writer typed and typed a book for months…

I can say that I’ve been able to survive with my painting. Let’s say I pay all my bills. I sell my particular fabrics regularly, public locals like town restaurants, and corporation offices. Banks, assurance companies, multinationals. My agent organized expositions here and there. Luckily, every time more people put my pieces on their house walls. It is curious, but when I started painting I believed that the day I’d be able to exhibit my work, heaven would fall over me. And well, it wasn’t like that. The world didn’t stop because of that simple detail. And yes, I accept that I felt happy; all though at the same time my inside sounded like an unfurnished house. Because I had become empty? Maybe. Or maybe because on the way you must always leave things aside, pay your prices. Any ways, and luckily, I believe that no matter how much you leave behind, you always get more. Much more.

I rented an apartment in a rehabilitated building in the old Town where I got moved. I tore down some partitions and made it my studio. An even if from my balcony I can’t see the sea, I can feel how it accompanies me, and how it penetrates in the studio, fills it with all shades of blue and before it leaves, it overflows my mood with white foam. Luckily, I enjoy an incredible light during the day. The studio isn’t fancy at all, but it works. The kitchen might be a little small –integrated to the living room- but it is fine. I love to cook and honestly I usually get pretty good results in my elaboration. Cooking relaxes me and makes my mind work at an optimum efficiency level.

Sometime later Clara came up to me in an enchanted month of April. To that day followed the happiest years of my life, filled with unthinkable details. During that time there wasn’t anything so lovely in the world than loving Clara. It still took us two years to get married, two years that passed by so quickly. Then we filled the walls from this place with her pictures and my paintings. We caught reality to show it, each one with their way, to others. What one got, sharing it, multiplied us both.

One morning, at the beginning of the recently released year, I closed my studio, left the keys where Javier could find them, and took a plane to the United States. Our flights were on the same date, so we were not going to be able to see each other. It was funny that maybe we would cross over in the sky, like stars sometimes do, so called shooting stars. And I accept that the perspective of confronting a new reality excited me, new and different scenery that didn’t know anything about me. There I wouldn’t have a past, only a present. That was the novelty: only the present. «In an environment sterilized from hurtful memories, you will be able to take enough perspective as to redirect your life », claimed Javier. I must confess I still had my doubts; because no matter where you go, you always end up finding yourself.

Anyway, here I was, at the international arrival terminal in L.A., with my luggage and an address, with my fair English and a bunch of questions. A taxi took me to Santa Mónica, one of Los Angeles’ towns bathed by the Pacific Ocean. The driver stopped in front of an old and elegant building, with 3 stories and a façade perfectly conserved. At the front, in the avenue, some stylized palm trees grew as I’d never seen. Tall as a garden up in heaven.

The breeze from the ocean refreshed my lungs. I breathed in and pressed the intercom.

-Samuel Hines? My name is Victor Bruguera; I am your neighbor’s friend. I believe you have some keys for me.

He was expecting me. He took me into his apartment. He gave me the keys and offered to come with me to the third floor. But before going up to Javier’s studio, he filled me with kindness, invited me to a beer, and introduced me to his daughter, Lorena, a charming young lady in her twenties.

-Call me Sam. She is Lorena. Her mother doesn’t live with us, but we don’t even miss her, do we Lorena? And this doggy, that won’t stop sniffing your pants, is Baffles. We have very few neighbors here. In the upper apartment lives a couple, the Jacksons. They spend a lot of time at their jobs so you won’t see them around much. He is usually on his phone, so it isn’t easy to talk with him, unless you call him on the phone -he laughed-. They often organize noisy parties, way over the top. I guess they need to do all this excess because the job pressure. And well, on the third one lives Javier, well, now you! Excuse me, would you like a beer mister Victor?

Sam: African American, divorced, former boxer, retired, a magnificent person with whom I soon formed a friendship. I mean that kind of exclusive complicity among those who have received an overwhelming quantity of knocks. I bet Sam has a giant body because his heart is so too. He gave me plenty of information about the city, and immediately got me up to date. Later, on following nights, we would talk for hours and hours in the building’s front door. He told me the story of his life several times, unfortunately a way too frequent story in boxing. I got to know all of his victories, one by one. And only once did he tell me about the sole «K.O. » that knocked him unconscious in the boxing ring. Years later a bad woman broke his heart as well. From that inappropriate relationship came Lorena, an enchanting young lady who was started as a cast singer for several record companies.

-Lorena had sang chorus for Mariah Carey and Toni Braxton. Do you know them in Spain? They are really good. Soul music, you know? -asked Sam.

Lorena asked me if some day I could paint her portrait. And I answered «someday», because in the present I was not painting. I stopped considering myself a painter from the moment my airplane left the airport and I left Barcelona behind. This last bit I did not tell her, but I kept it for myself. And since then, every time we saw each other, Lorena reminded me of my promise. And I reaffirmed my compromise: «someday». Knowing as I did that no calendar would set that date.

We went up, to the third and last floor. The studio seemed ideal. What’s known as a loft: everything integrated in one diaphanous piece. It was flooded by the light that came through the big crystals and by a ceiling partially with crystal. I looked around, while Sam closed the door behind me. Two of the four walls had crystal, and through them the sky precipitated to the studios interior. At dawn the sun rays came in timidly, but in the midday -and mostly in the evening- the light was so that shadows where impossible. In the middle of the living room: a white sofa, an audio-video device, and a halogen stand lamp, cold and a vanguard. The studio was painted in an immaculate white. The limited furnishings and the cherry tree wooded floor. And everything came to be -even the slightest detail- very Zen. At one side, next to the window, was an easel, a bunch of frames, paintings and utensils. Next to the wall, a bed -blue as a calm sea- which came apart from the whole set by a folding screen that represented an antique library.

-If you need anything, you know where to find us. Sometimes you can feel lonely in a city like this, where distances are huge -offered Sam.

-Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind.

He closed the door behind himself. There I was, with my limited luggage and my humor wrapped in a bundle. It seemed as if I was being born in a new world, but reincarnated in an antique and scared body. Wrapped in the silence in the middle of that residence, I could feel how something new was making room towards me. I sat on the floor, in the middle of the living room; I dialed a number in my cell phone and talked to a friend in Barcelona. I wanted to say it: I had arrived, but was still alone.

That night I had a dream. One of those that get stuck and you don’t forget.

Three times I heard my name in the dark, my name in the middle of two sharp pauses. And I, so used to talking to myself, whispered:

-Tell me, love.

-I’ve come to say good bye -it was Clara’s voice-. I’m leaving for ever.

-Where are you going?

-To the other side of your dream, so I am not a burden for your mood. I wish to stop being a stumbling block in your nights. Stop crying. Life is not made for tears.

That night I perceived her as incredibly real. We shared farewell’s silence as an advance of her definite absence. For how long we were like this, I don’t know. And before leaving for ever -as impossible loves leave the heart- she turned around under the door’s arch to say:

-You know Victor, death doesn’t exist. Only love exists. This was the last time I dreamt with her. I stopped feeling her heartbeat next to me, which would wake me up in the early morning. Not in this, nor in any other continent. «Only love exists», her words got stuck in my memory. And that night vanished in my memory the intense perfume from the roses she cared and that made our balcony an undisputable garden.

I Met Jodie Wright on a Tuesday in March. Even now, after all these years, if they ask me how she was, it would be difficult for me to answer that question. Without a doubt, she was a woman that shined in every sense. Someone who can point and discover things in your life that are - simple, important, yours - which haven’t caught your attention before.

I remember her aspect: radiant. She drew attention towards her: slim, thirty something, incredibly attractive. She contemplated a painting in the small gallery in Santa. Monica. The Donna Marie Gallery, on Third Avenue. Tanned, Honey colored eyes, perfect lips. She dressed casually, a pair of worn out jeans, White t-shirt and a green jersey knotted at the neck. She admired the frame with a sense of detachment as if she was looking through a window. Her eyes seemed to maintain a deep conversation with the work in a way that silence seemed obligatory.

After I began my second tour of the gallery, having taken a quick and very general look the first time, I went to stand next to her. The painting that caught her attention was an impressionist landscape depicting a dive jump on a lake surrounded by plant foliage.

---

Jodie watched the painting and I watched her. After a little while, our eyes crossed, once, twice. Even though I could see in her eyes an air of disapproval for having interrupted her state of suspension towards the frame, I told her:

- The colors of the water seem right, but its missing depth, everything on it seems on the surface. Don’t you think?

I didn’t get an answer, not in that moment. Only half a look and half a smile for courtesy. She was only trying to be nice. So we continued contemplating the work while I backed off in silence. Over a certain level of quality, it is difficult to talk about good or bad jobs. A painting either get’s there or it doesn’t. It’s that simple.

And it seemed it captivated her, not any other, but that landscape in particular. A second later, without expecting it, and just as I was leaving, she turned around and said:

- I once dreamt this landscape, but when I saw this painting I understood the shortage of refinements in my imagination. Have you ever been to a place where you had been in your mind?

I understood indeed. In my job, it used to happen: first I imagine it, and then I put it into the paintings. I nodded and answered the question:

- I know what you mean. It´s like discovering, all of a sudden, that people share the same ideas but they express them in different ways. We all know everything even though we might have forgotten it. And the mystery of those coincidences amazes us and leaves us perplexed.

- Yes, that’s true.

- Do you like the painting? – I asked.

-Yes. And for a very special reason.

-And can that reason be known?

We talked without taking our eyes off the painting, like two strangers, until she turned and shook my hand:

-My name is Jodie Wright –she introduced herself with a smile.

-Victor Bruguera. Nice to meet you.

We shook hands. The ice had melted. Almost.

After the presentation I remember we talked about the painting. I asked her if she painted. She laughed openly: “No I don’t paint, Do you paint?” She asked curiously. Her smile could affect anybody.

- Yes and no – I responded timidly since I concluded that people tended to overate my profession.

-So, Do you make a living out of it? –she asked.

-Let’s just say that I make ends meet –I lied.

-And that accent, it’s from…

-Spain.

She nodded. We continued our tour of the gallery. From each of the paintings she seemed to extract and enormous amount of information. Not from their subject matter, but from what could have moved the author the paint it.

---

She told me that art and creativity comforted her and gave her infinite longing in its absence. «Do you know what I mean? », she asked.

I wasn’t sure I understood, but I listened to her with interest. Feeling admiration for someone can be very special. And she was the kind of person that awoke admiration pretty fast, as fast as lit gunpowder fuse.

Some women I met before only came and went. Some of my old partners cured my loneliness, but I cannot say they gave me real company. Not at least the kind of Quality Company that turns into complicity. Clara, my wife, was the exception. After her death, I became uninterested with meeting other women and when it got intimate, it was only to shake the feeling of loneliness at least for a while. And then, of course, nothing beautiful came from it, since our bodies joined, but not our souls. I believe that a couple can keep their bodies together, but their souls in an unsalable distance: Which means, a commitment without a commitment. I am talking about a different kind of relationship, one agreed upon even before birth. Twin souls? I think those are two words that define a valuable encounter. I’m talking about a gathering of two beings whose interaction is developed infinitely

-… So, do you visit galleries often? –I asked.

-Every now and then. Not only in art galleries creation manifests itself. I can also feel it when I take care of plants, when someone offers a smile, or when I lay in the grass. For me, creation is life in action. And life happens all around us. Don’t you think?

She described it just as I felt it, even though I had never heard anyone express it in that way. A little while later we were on the street surrounded by people that came and went and I didn’t wish that our conversation would end.

-Jodie, can I invite you to some coffee? Would you accept?

-I can’t right now, Victor. I’m late for something, they are waiting for me. But I come to this gallery often…

-You haven’t even told me why that painting interests you so much –I tried to make her stay.

- Oh! That’s a long story. Maybe next time…

-The short version would do. Can’t you at least do that?

She was leaving.

-On Tuesday’s.

« Which ones? All of them? », I wanted to know.

-Lucky me, there’s only four or five of them a month. Great. So, will we see each other again? - I asked while she moved away into the crowd around us.

-Yes, yes –she waved goodbye with her hand.

She left without me being able to stop her, without the net I was throwing being able to catch her. She was in hurry, she excused herself. I saw her turn while she got lost in the crowd to offer me a consolation smile just before she turned the corner. Once again, her warmth invaded me. It’s something I cannot describe since I’m a painter and not very good with words. But I know she captivated me. In that precise moment, I knew for sure that I would again see Jodie.

---

And that certainty surprised and rattled me. How could Jodie, unlike anyone interest me?

I walked to my apartment, kicking these thoughts around and even others more vacuous, as if they were empty beer cans. My ideas rolled and rolled as if they had put my mind in a washing machine.

Once in my study, I turned my laptop on and sent Javier and e-mail: «Here I am, all set up, absorbing the city. Your neighbors, very friendly. Everything is perfect, nothing new to report. I’ll take care of your plants; maybe I’ll pick up the brush…».

On the inbox there was another one for me. It was a very particular message which gave me a lot to think about in at that precise moment:

---

«The time it takes for you to complete a job is the same time it takes to do nothing at all. Make good use of your time. Life keeps going anyway. There’s a certain cosmic rule for which we exchange our time -life- for the things that makes us feel alive –what you have lived- Which means, we give life to get life. It’s a fascinating exchange and without a doubt a fair one.

But if you hold on to what you can give, without offering it to others, then you make its experience something incomplete. We can all commit to a purpose in life. How do we recognize it? Asking yourself what it is, constituting your natural talent, contribute to the greater good by putting it in service of others. What would you make of your life if success was guaranteed? What is your secret talent? What brings more light into your life? A gift is not something we receive; it’s an ability we give to ourselves by exercising it.

We all have something to offer to others as incredible as it seems. The beauty of this day demands something from all of us. What are you going to do with this day Victor? »

Signed: J.

---

Nothing more than that letter.

I printed it and turned it off.

I read it again... «Javier, little by little, not so fast…», I thought. Truth be told, it surprised me that it came from him, since he used to express himself in a different manner.

Javier kept a large amount of his paintings in the studio. I checked them one by one, I crumpled them, pictured what he was trying to express by painting them. I could hear inside of me the sound effect from each brushstroke. Each painting seemed better than the last, and with it my admiration started climbing on an infinite stairway. His painting touched me, it reveled itself full of emotion and strength, opposed to the bareness of mine. Javier painted with a warm subtlety I lacked. And he endowed with soul each one of his art pieces, while I was frozen lost in theories. The fact of being able to appreciate the huge difference between his art and mine, and at the same time being incapable of equating it hurt inside of me. Why had God given me the ability of admiring what I could not create?

Commonly, Javier used luminous colors, tending to ochers. He captured his particular universe through a wide spectrum of warm colors. I believe this was because California’s light got deep inside of him, fogging his palette. Frequently he would break this clarity with a violent gray trace. A gray that was not gray, but a black capitulation. I remember that once he secretly told me about his gray: it was not paint, it was volcanic sand brought from Chile mixed with water from no particular place. Those days I checked his fabrics once and again; with admiration since I’ve always recognized Javier’s geniality.

The studio’s door bell rang. It was Lorena with a message from her father: «He would feel happy if I accepted to join them for dinner», she recited all at once under the doorway, while catching her breath. And then added joking: «No jacket required». I accepted gladly. And something else, she had brought me an apple pie she had made herself for me. I thanked her with two kisses, and begged her to come in while I put it in the fridge.

She got interested in some of Javier’s paintings. I explained some details, balance, or unbalance of the whole, the dialog between traces and colors. I remember her absolute amazement to the argument avalanche which thwart her opinion that abstract painting doesn’t follow any criteria and that it is an absurd art.

-Wow, Victor. It is amazing how much you can draw from a painting, and you? How is your painting?

I was unable to answer that question. I wasn’t even sure if I could consider myself a painter. As if, after finishing that last cloth -on New Year’s eve- and washing my hands with solvent, at the same time my previous paintings had vanished through the drain. In photographical terms: an excessive exposure to sadness had veiled my complete work.

-You see, Lorena, I used to paint daily objects, very familiar object, and some portraits. It is called hyper-realism. It’s like taking pictures with brushes.

-Portraits? Like the one you owe me?

-Yes, like the one I shall someday make you.

-Someday, some day… I wished it were today so you do it with me wearing this new dress.

Years before, Lorena might have been a young lady with braces on her teeth, but she had become a captivating woman.

-Well, we’ll see, maybe soon. What about you? What kind of music do you perform?

-The kind you sing with your eyes closed.

That night I had dinner with my neighbors. They wished to know me better and get comments about Barcelona. They knew it because of the Olympics. Little by little these human and simple people made me smile. They managed to make me feel welcome in a foreign land.

-Tomorrow I’ll show you Javier’s car: a convertible 66 Chrysler. A real wonder - pointed Sam as he gave me the keys.

-Great, tomorrow- I nodded.

-Could you take me to Capitol Records? I must pick up a check. Would you do me this gigantic favor? I will show you the financial neighborhood; those buildings will impress you -proposed Lorena.

-Naturally, if you then come with me to make some shopping -I closed the deal-. And that you sing to me while I drive -I added shaking her hand.

-Is that a yes?

-Yes.

-Yes, yes, yes - nodded with the head while taking the dishes to the kitchen.

Sam offered some liquor, enlightened by a wide smile.

-Lorena is my whole life. Isn’t she charming?

Yes, she was. And he seemed a dear and tender man. Someone who preserves the inner child we all used to have, the child who holds the grown up’s heart. He showed me pictures from when he won his league’s championship. We ran our fingers through his past, while he commented his life in black and white. His past with memory dates wrote on the back. His dreams and hopes. So many, that put next to one another, on one night -from beginning to end- you wouldn’t be able to cover it all. Memories are a part of human condition; I manifested this while sipping on my glass of brandy. Also, the longing for a better past.

The third street, passing through the pedestrian zone in Promenade, is a vital place in constant commercial and cultural ebullition. Three words are repeated there: novelty, vanguard and design. It is a zone that shows the creative side of the city, a kind, always cheerful and filled with great energy.

Tuesday of the week followed by my encounter with Jodie, I went to the same Donna Marie art gallery. But Jodie didn’t show up. I waited for her for two endless hours, next to the door. I consulted my watch, tic toc, knowing as I knew every minute, what time it was; and I distracted myself watching people pass, minding how little I minded them. While I waited, I looked in people’s face Jodie’s. I imagined her smile. I imagined to hear and feel how her voice named me, but when I saw for her, I didn’t find her. I only heard tictoc, tictoc, tictoc… Twice I thought I saw her from far away. Not on the first or second time was it her. My heart beat and stopped beating twice. Better yet, my heart was a clock that started winding down: tic… toc.

Tuesday after that one, the same thing happened, I mean, nothing at all happened, except that I waited for two hours, three sodas and two news papers. Alone and bored I waited at Starbucks cafeteria’s balcony. That day Jodie Wright didn’t show either. I admit I began to feel a little stupid. What was I doing there? How had I got to that? Away from my country, my house and my work, even from my memories. It didn’t make any sense.

And truth was I wanted to see her again. Where to find her? I didn’t know. Was I becoming interested in a woman again? That question brought me a bunch of half answers, all of them accompanied by a feeling of guilt. Never the less, I visited again, for a third time, the gallery. I still remember my surprise to see the sold sign in the frame of the painting we had discussed the other day. I thought that the staff from the gallery could give me the information from the buyer. It might have been Jodie Wright. Never the less, the room’s director was not able to disclose that information. That is confidential information, you understand, right?, she said. I understood sure, damn it. And I could imagine a predictable ending: when the exposition ended, that impressionist landscape would be retired by its mysterious buyer. And I would never see Jodie again. Matter closed.

However, weeks later, on a March evening -one in which caterpillars turn into butterflies- something extraordinary happened. After stopping the car because of a traffic light turning to red, in front of the Sea Palm Restaurant, and through a window, I was able to see the gallery’s painting on the inside. «There you go», I told myself stunned by the coincidence -now a days I don’t believe in chance anymore, but back then I did-. I parked my car, and walked to the door, where a small letter announced: «Staff day off». What I’ve always believed is in bad luck: the place was closed.

Finally I knew where the painting was, though I didn’t know who had bought it.

That night I received a new message, which message I would never classify as chance:

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«We get love for every sign of affection we express, and we endure suffering for every prejudice we cause ourselves. With time you will learn that we receive what we issue, and that life -as the tide or surge- brings back what we said, thought and did. That is the way things work. You’ll learn to recognize as currency the same emotion -the same love or the same rage- you expressed. That energy we create or liberate -positive or negative- doesn’t ever disappear, it only gets transformed and reappears again. And most importantly: you will learn to relate your present experiences with the previous ones, you’ll know what kind of relation they keep to one another, and what they show you about yourself. You will discover why whatever happens to you is happening to you. You’ll know the reason for summoned the people that appear in your life. Chance doesn’t exist anymore, neither does chance encounters. You must know it is this way and attribute it to the good of everyone evolved».

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Signed: J.

As the last one, as the first one.

My amazement grew because it seemed hard to imagine Javier writing them. I printed and went to bed. When I spoke to him again, I would mention the two messages. I wrote it in a post-it pasted to the screen of my cell phone to remember it.