Letter to Hilario. It was still the times before the Natural Park. Early 80s. It was the time when I had no commitment to anything. I wasn't a ranger, El Guincho didn't exist, and, above all, some heartless people had left us a mountain of dead shearwaters because the drunkenness they had caught next to the lighthouse hadn't even allowed them to pluck them. They left and left them there, a hundred and so many dead beings entangled for nothing, for nothing. Not even the opportunity for what life had designed them for: a flight.
So, since that hadn't happened yet, I only had the commitment to live. To fish to eat and to be ecstatic with what that wild nature offered us. There was no communication with the outside, except to make bonfires for the boats that fished outside and, if the weather was good, you could talk to the travelers from the shore and you would meet in the afternoon if you wanted to go to Lanzarote for some reason. Normally, they only went to sell the dried old women and replenish supplies; that was done at least once a month. At that time, Sasa was just a very beautiful and interesting woman, perhaps the most, but I was tired of interesting or beautiful women. Until the lightning struck me in the channel and opened me to her. Well, I wanted to say that I wasn't stuck on just one; that I was single?
That day I had arranged in the morning with Juan Resulta and Marcial, who had jumped ashore to catch bait. That's what they said. I think they jumped to bring me some gift, fresh bread or any detail that they loved and to disguise it they caught four crabs. The day promised to be long as only the good days in summer can be long. I don't know how to explain the physical effort that must be that strip of hours slumped with the fixed look behind the old women, and the rower ten hours rowing to place the boat in its place every moment, under a blazing sun.
The day promised to be long as only the good days in summer can be long.
There were no polarized sunglasses. Sometimes I think that people like Marcial knew about meditation what is not written. Look, two people together all their lives, one always seeing the bottom of the sea behind the fishing and the other the sky, perfectly synchronized. Would they be a single mind? Even more, would they be a single whole? Well, after such an effort they were kind enough to come and pick me up with all my belongings on the shore, which, no matter how quickly it was done, took half an hour. That day they had had a very good catch and they came to look for me at Punta Morena, which was in front of my hut, earlier than I had anticipated or the day had shortened for me and I was not on the shore at the right time. I say my hut; my uncle Agustín said it was his henhouse. Although now it seems a contradiction with what came before and after, that's how strange everything was there. Time is relative even within the same time. The days in Alegranza, especially the fishing days, lasted an instant. You got up with the sun and without realizing it you were jarring the old women in the dark. Sometimes you looked at that sun and almost begged it: "Stop! For God's sake, stop! Where are you going so fast?". Well, that's it, they caught me with the fire lit, parboiling an old woman so as not to get too involved and run away when they came for me.
There, normally, we didn't eat at noon. We stuffed ourselves at breakfast and then dinner. But, during the day, we either took a ball of gofio with nuts and everything that stuck to it, or you hung the necklace of dried limpets that you were snapping throughout the day.
If there were no people on the island and you could be naked, the practical thing was the necklace and you didn't have to carry anything, the underpants then served as a hat and if someone appeared, well, to cover your tail. For the water it was like the camels: it stuffed all it could and until the next one. As I said, they arrived earlier than expected and I grabbed the bundles and ran to board. Marcial put his sailor boat prow to La Graciosa and Juan began his talk with me. How he liked to chat! And how I liked to listen to his stories. Well, we had been like that for half an hour; Juan was looking forward and I was sitting in front of him looking aft and seeing the island moving away and the jumillo of the fire with my old woman almost disappearing. At some point, Juan looked back and saw the smoke and said to me: "But, for God's sake, didn't you put out the fire?". And I told him that I was parboiling the old woman and ran away so as not to make them wait. What is time? How does it dwell in our heads? What is an old woman already caught worth? There was no way to dissuade him; they returned to Alegranza, dropped me ashore and made me eat the old woman without haste. What world was that? Those boats went through the sea tum tum tum tum tum to the beat of the paddles of those engines of which they were tremendously proud; behind were the sails, but above all the impossible rowing. The good days, the good days for the old woman, those had no wind for any sail. So, to those first engines, their propellers did not seem to turn them: they simply paddled. And doing what they did would be today more or less taking me from Órzola to Playa Blanca and back by car because I left the sandwich in Órzola. You realize that today nobody has that time and you wonder where it went or who took it. And because the sandwich is worth nothing.
You realize that today nobody has that time and you wonder where it went or who took it. And because the sandwich is worth nothing.
But I'm not going to fool anyone: Marcial and Juan were different. Not everything was like that. Time was already disappearing and day by day you saw victims without it, means altered on all sides. Changing the rest of their times for objects, comforts and impossible securities. Juan, ironically, said: "What are we going to do, these are the times". Erevista, in Órzola, said: "Look Ginés if there are already cars in Lanzarote that crash into each other". And in that time three arrived a day to Órzola and it was already a lot. Well, if it seems like a lot, they even took me to Órzola and then they went back to La Graciosa, another trip Playa Blanca, Órzola. All for an old woman, for the respect to those who each day took from the sea to feed their own. More or less the same as those who left the mountain of shearwaters. All that in the same times at different times. Because to them the only time that worried them was the wind, the time of the rebozo; the other was theirs, their treasure.
Juan, when he was young, when he had to leave for Africa, got up early and left his wife the house clean as gold, cleaner than his boat which is almost impossible. Great men. I, who am not one for condolences, after his death I went to see Agustina, his wife. The first time in my life. I have always been very neutral to the liturgy of death. Marcial, they tell me that before he died he dreamed aloud with me. He called me. And, sometimes, I think that everything was a dream; that's why, the true stories, the deep ones, I prefer to write them at night when I sleep in my book of dreams. So that they have no time or place and someone can find them in another dimension and read them without any coordinates. Now, the most logical thing seems to me, would be that the day I die they come to pick me up with the boat. That Juan does not see any bonfire lit and that with a gesture of mine he understands that I left 'the house' clean as a whistle. And at the voice of Marcial, "Ños, what a sailor boat!, set course and not a word more. Why? If Marcial knows where to wait for the women who were well loved? Sirens of the stars.
Because he knew that time was folding, and if he knew that, he knew that there was no time.
But those are other times and other spaces to come. Or not, time after all ends up curling up. In some place, something makes it bend, bend enough to return to its beginnings. The great dark sun. Perhaps that's why Juan always left the house clean when time took him to the coast, to the other side, to the other world. Because he knew that time was folding, and if he knew that, he knew that there was no time. Well, the one of the wind, that life has to move and the one of the waves and we are again with Juan and Marcial sailing to Alegranza, winking at the lie they are going to tell Ginés to leave him the gift and that he does not scold.
Ahhh! At the return of time, the shearwaters of the tonga could not catch them and they are flying through those seas inside. To me, that return seems to have thanked me for the services rendered, the time given and from the blow has put everything in the bowl. In peace. Because now I am already one of the old men who tell stories and I know that they all return to be well finished. Loved. The mathematics of all this, the geometry, the phi connections, the explanations of frequencies and vibrations I leave in my book of dreams, and in some place, in some time, perhaps someone can be useful. It will have to be a good dreamer. To me, the lesson I needed in this life was given to me by Asensio, the one from Papagayo, when I was starting to fish for old women, and one day when he asked me if I had caught any I replied: "I don't catch a fucking old woman". And he, with his calmness, said to me: "Tell them whores that you are going to catch many". The next day I caught 20. I never came back from a blank fishing trip. There I leave you science to investigate. That the universities are packed. "Tell them whores that you are going to catch many". What a nerve. Asensio, Juan, Marcial? Teachers for an accelerated course.
Whoever is going to teach you what you need will let you know in an instant and it will be the most unexpected or the most unexpected.
I end by saying: be careful girls and boys. Whoever is going to teach you what you need will let you know in an instant and it will be the most unexpected or the most unexpected. The teachings, like the great mathematical formulas, short and elegant. To me, to this day, to be comfortable I just need this: "Do not wish others what I do not want them to wish for me". I no longer fish. And to the fishermen I wish the best of fishing. Ah! And in case it helps, Asensio was considered by most to be at least a fool. He had gone around the world and was in Papagayo to take care of his brother Hilario, who was a bit disheveled; surely he is the one who knew the most, but I didn't get there. Hilario? Until the other day, his chiringuito remained firm in the middle of the whole Playa Blanca emporium. Irreducible and timeless.
I feel ashamed of the dishonor and dishonor that this silence, this bowing down, implies. Because whether I like them or not, they are my people.
The above is written a long time ago. Yesterday was the trial of the shearwaters of Alegranza. A young, ethical and brave woman caught them. A woman "from outside" some will say, others will say goda. A woman. I feel ashamed that the men, those from here, those from my land, refused to testify, answering only their lawyer. I feel a deep and wild shame. And it's not because they caught the shearwaters, which they caught, whatever the judge says. They caught them before, now and after. I feel ashamed of the dishonor and dishonor that this silence, this bowing down, implies. Because whether I like them or not, they are my people.
And I remember catching men shearwatering who looked me in the eye and said to me: "Relax Ginés, you caught me, good job". Full of humanity and pride: true manhood. And of recognition to my work and effort. And assuming their mistake.
A woman almost kills herself, they massacre her life and cut off her work. And now they remain silent like scared children so that their pro lawyer saves them from the mess. A pity, a great pity. My men. Everything is observed. And time always ends up curling up. And in the depths of the dream, everything continues to be woven.
Sargenta, my deepest consideration. Thank you woman for making me more of a man.
