SALT IN OUR MINDS

Rarely have I thought in much detail about every trip in different corners of the world. Some trips are rapid, you have to adapt to the quick itineraries and sometimes you cross borders quickly, sometimes you take the flight and find yourself in the other part of the world. 

Rarely have I thought in much detail about every trip in different corners of the world. Some trips are rapid, you have to adapt to the quick itineraries and sometimes you cross borders quickly, sometimes you take the flight and find yourself in the other part of the world. But sometimes when you take the tube to work or find yourself in that busy café something may trigger a flashback. And you go back in time.

Flashback.
Cusco, Peru.

I saw him timidly from the other side of the table. I have read before a lot about globalisation. So I was not surprised that even in the heart of Cusco, near “Plaza de Armas” square I was standing in Starbucks getting the same coffee that I would order in Paris or London. I tried to break the ice. “So you speak Spanish”. “Yes, he said, like everyone else. It is the first language of most countries in South America, maybe if you go to Arequipa where I lived as a kid or remote villages in the jungle, people talk also other languages. Here many people speak Quechuan language. It is the language of the past, so people like it. “And how is like living in Andes”? I remembered when the airplane crossed the Andes I could see the golden peaks in the dawn getting closer to the airplane wings. In such remote areas of Earth that people mostly look distantly in the map, it would definitely be different to really live there in their own societies. “I didn’t like the Andes he said”. “When I was a kid, it was so harsh living there. There is a year that it was so cold. My father did not work a lot. One month we had only potatoes. I did not like him. One day was so aggressive and I made the final decision to leave. I took my clothes and some money and left my parents. I was puzzled. “You left?” at the same time many questions worried me, maybe the questions that would worry my grandmother when I was wandering out in a winter day of the heavy snow. “Did you go there again? How did you live? Were you not afraid?” He said he was only 9 when he left and went alone in the town. He spent many years on the roads, asking for help while one day he received help and found a job. In Peru he said you have to do it yourself, the government does not help much. “And your parents? Do you speak to them?. “For many years I didn’t. They are not my parents anymore. My father was worried about me. I went there and met her. My father was also there. We speak now a bit, but very rarely. I didn’t want to live with them, but I like this way. I have many friends in Cusco.

Flashback.
Gdansk, Poland

It is hard to see so many shops in the old town of Gdansk and not enter any. The doors are open and sometimes entering a restaurant, café, or textiles shop. I was trying to see as many things as possible and by mistake, I found myself in a small gallery. A classic sofa with a soft classic rug, next to some paintings that although in Gdansk reminded me the prosaic paintings of North Italy. I knew paintings reflected a bit of the life and perceptions of the inner society. A grandfather and his daughter under a mixed sky. Two cows in the horizon and the grass that is becoming more dry. Next another painting, either fire or sunset in blurry background of mountains. It was no surprise that sunset can become a fire. I had seen it before in another painting and I myself had seen the sunset in Adriatic become full scenes of fire. And young men and girls watching it at a distance. To the right, the shoulders of a young man and woman without any clothes and the skin painted with details. Elsewhere, where women and men were strictly covered because the body could lead to sins and immorality in Poland it was the opposite. Flesh, skin and hair were at the center of the painting in a way that it would provoke the most conservative feelings. I saw at the painter, among many men in the room, I knew it would be hard to find. We have our hidden perceptions and visions under the skin, and like a lesson I got from traveling you never know well. Different from commercial places he was silent, and left the door open. I could bump in at any moment, like everyone, to the personal corner of someone and like a stranger leave the hall.

Flashback.
Santorini, Greece

It is the most isolated cliff. They were next to me. “We stayed together for so long, we have each other”. He made a jump, but couldn’t stay in the upward-vertical position. She worried. He tried again. This time I could see his head to the ground and legs vertically up. The sea-carved stones were harsh enough to keep away the wind. From the sea a cliff had emerged harsh near the shore. A jump. Another one. Someone had the courage to do a flip from the highest peak to the sea, something I was afraid about. I looked at them. They smiled.

Flashback.
London, Britain

“It was a normal life. We married and lived together in a flat. Some people are happier and at some times happier than other times, and you can have a bad life. But we had a good life. We all used to work. He used to work hard and when I went home the first thing I thought was about him. I would cook ever-day and took cooking very seriously, I would prepare the shower and everything. When he came I would run to kiss him. He also had a motorcycle. We used to go together to meet friends, quite often. We had two friends that were so close to us. I never had been happier in my life. But then one day I received a call. All I remember is that the police said “He is in the hospital. The accident was fatal”. I will never forgetthose words. I fell and I don’t remember how I found myself with my brother hugging me. He understood I wouldn’t take it lightly and probably came immeditaly to my house. I never spoke much with my brother before but when he came that day and wanted me to recover it is the only reason I decided to stand in my own life. Everything else passed uneblievily fast. We had a dog, but without him I knew it wouldn’t be the same. It reminded me of him. Every step of our house without him was empty. I sold the house immediately, I gave the dog to my brother and he gave it to someone else. I never heard anything bout the dog, only that it has certainly died. It was 12 years ago. I took the flight and went to Brasil. I taught English for many years, never went to America again. I never got close to anyone else. Only a few years ago I got close to one of my friends, she sensed me well. Nevertheless, I know my life since that call has forever changed.

Flashback.
Junik, Kosovo

War is not something you can make fun about. My father was an officer and I joined the war. I was in my 20s. There was no other way forward. Serbs oppressed media and everything. In this region, many people were taken in custody and beaten. In the conversation I always had been curious to ask the old dilemma I had read when I was a teenager at the “Broken April” of Kadare. “How it is like to kill?” I knew I had asked a sensitive question. I was attentive looking at his eyes. He breathed for a moment. He said no one had asked that question before. However, I could understand he had his own moral reasoning. He said, he had thought a lot about it. But in war you don’t think much. They were there. We could see them through the forest and we knew they they wanted to kill us. At the moment you only think about firing. Some people get killed, I saw some getting shot. One mistake and it is done. But we knew we had to go through this.