Waking up, again

The system reboots.

It’s not often that we have the chance to be struck by the need to do art. To find something significant enough to get swallowed by. I felt it once again. Was it the golden hen of our political system? The wars looming over the other side of the bridge? The earthquake that hit Lisbon and taught me how to dance tango? The search for a new job in a saturated and challenging market? The fear of losing a loved one or being the loved one someone loses? Was it the lunatics commanding how the world spins that made me want to return to my lunacy, too?

Whatever the reason, I return from the land of the numb to excruciate my pain and woe with new words. Drown them in their own medicine, drag each one with a chain through the rubble they caused, and in the end, put them down like an old dog, y’know?

(I reckon I failed every other time, but we must try again. It’s not easy to beat these two fiends. I wonder if I really want to give them the lethal treatment. Mostly, they are the culprits compelling my way of inventing worlds.)

Sir, I spent the last two years being a good boy. I’ve been working, paying bills, yearning to buy a house to evade insatiable landlords, and settling down. Only to find myself looking for a new job after a layoff. Rinse and re-oh-fucking-pit.

The well.
The well left me a dent. I covered it with rags and rowed forward to the unsure feeling of what I was. A job defines you if you let it. Mine did. And now I was lost. I neglected my need for writing, taking the stage, or penning lyrics. Now I had time, but the clock often dictates the way, and I couldn’t lose it with non-sense art that pays close to nothing. I had delineated goals: find a new job as soon as possible so I could return to my house search.

After seven months of intense searching that drained me to the bone, leaving a trail of 500-plus resumes sent and many declined interview invites with AI interviewers, I finally found a new gig in November to start in January. Weeks before finding salvation, I had another crisis to solve. The landlord kicked my wife and me out of the apartment we had been living in for the last four years. While I was searching for a new job, the landlord was trying to get a raise of at least 55% on his.

Engulfed by anger, I couldn’t unravel the necessary ink to compose someone’s obituary. Instead, I leaped onto my piano and banged chords to ease my murderous hands. At least I have a new job, I tell myself while searching for a new home. Luckily, I married a Brazilian Yang, who found us a new flat in two weeks.

January slips in, and my brain’s still spinning the broken record from last year. With a new apartment and a professional adventure close to starting, my pockets are lighter than they should be. The landlord decided to keep our deposit as if it were his to take. We’ve talked to counselors, we hired a lawyer, and now we play the waiting game that the legal system imposes. “Hey, at least I have a job” is my new mantra. I repeat until fatigued, and the job, at last, begins.

The first paycheck hits the bank. I yank all the embellished paper people call money from a nearby cashpoint and blow it on a brand-new phone. The old one was a beaten-up relic ready to find a tombstone in an apartment drawer. The new model is a slick brick of glass and nostalgia — more camera than phone. It has four eyes and an installed antenna to call my premium adult — my dad — and keep in touch with my Yang. Its four lenses have enough magic to make me feel like a kid again. I used to shoot with my old man before life came knocking. University, work, and just like that, fifteen years gone like a rusted spoon in an old aunt’s house. I never picked up a camera again. Since my pen has run dry and words have been hiding, I’ve been hollering silently to find something to attract me back. That’s when photography crept in.

I kept this website on the shelf for quite some time. Its creation dates back to when I was applying for employment. It never left my computer until now, thanks to photography and the burning need to do something that connects me to my whimsical self.

I’ll use it to display photos, write down and explore ideas, share music I enjoy and concerts I attend, write new poems, and answer lingering questions my brain keeps asking. If you’re up for the ride, this will be my space away from social media, which I’m tired of and, more often, think is a bloody cancer we humans are addicted to. Take a train downtown and see who’s reading a book and who’s doom scrolling their cells down the pipe.

Warmly,
Miguel