I love walks, long walks when the objective is not to run an errand, but simply to walk for the pleasure of doing it. Yesterday I took a walk with my brother and a friend, and we walked the streets of a town that seems frozen in time, with its old houses, its quiet people and squares in every corner. I felt so at peace, admiring children running, couples walking hand in hand, and people engaged in their conversations, in their occupations, in their worlds. There is so much beauty in the everyday, and all I could think was that if we let ourselves, sometimes you can be happy with little, just by existing.
Then the course of my thoughts was diverted when I was able to observe these photos, in the solitude of my room. Every day on my way to work, I come across the streets of this place that only yesterday I visited just for the pleasure of visiting, but I constantly see people busy, with gestures full of annoyance or stress, with tiredness in their eyes, with the slow gait of those who walk in automatic mode. So many ears overloaded with stimuli to pick up because everything outside is noise and more noise, but nobody really listens.
In those moments where I feel overwhelmed and not at all listened to, I reach for this beautiful James Blake cover, "Vincent". Every note and every word serenades me and awakens in me a melancholy so great that it is even more overwhelming than the reason that makes me listen to it in the first place, however, it is one of those songs that move the soul, so whenever I listen to it I do so with admiration, as one also admires beauty in chaos and lucidity in madness.
Not all people are immune to seeing beyond appearances, but in the midst of all the demands of living in this modern world, it seems that those people who are sensitive to life are less and less listened to. Being sensitive to pain can make you be singled out as fragile, but I find a lot of strength in people who go through a loss of control so great that it threatens their sanity, not because this is something ideal or worthy of romanticizing, it's just that I couldn't recognize them as anything less than strong.
Those loving hands are the ones that make pain into something meaningful that allows you to change course, or resiliently accept what cannot be changed. Those sympathetic ears are the ones that fill those empty hallways with words worth listening to, and though they are ignored, they are such beautiful beings who are not intimidated by the frivolity of a world that does not listen.
I walk these streets and think of all the stories hidden behind the faces, trying to identify which one of them is moved by something more than what we only show to the public. As long as I have life I want to fill it with music, laughter and serenity, but when not everything can be like that, I still wish music and every expression of art to accompany me in times of desolation, and if I am lucky, to save me from losing my sanity and remind me to stay awake and not indifferent to what sensitive souls say, until they can say no more.
