Boulder Eva Baltasar Quotes

Small children have the power to impose their happiness on the everyday anxieties of grown ups

The destination always kills the journey, and if we have to reduce life to a story, it can only be a bad one

Y sin embargo he descubierto que no se puede columpiar a un hijo sin sonreír. Lo he intentado y es imposible. Los niños pequeños tienen ese poder, imponen su alegría al malestar ordinario de los adultos.

I listen with all five senses, I listen to her with my entire body, with everything but my heart, which feels like it wants to thrash the hell out of me. This wasn't part of our plan. The truth is we'd never made any plans, we'd just taken huge bites out of life.

She tells me to take some time off and settle into the new place. 'Do your own thing. Time off.' Language is and always will be an occupied territory. I have the feeling I was shackled to it the moment I was born. Only language can help you belong somewhere and make sure you don't lose your way. It's a nourishing underlayer that seems to live in the mind, migrate down to the mouth, and, spoken, melt on the lips. At the same time, language is everywhere, occupying the body's farthest-flung cells, pushing them to unimaginable places. It urges you on and turns your stomach, confuses your animal instincts, makes you human. No emotion is more indulgent than the feeling that you are intensely human. Though it can also be the most tyrannical. You are responsible for every word, and no statement is innocent.

she has an appointment in fifteen days for another set of tests. She doesn't eat for several hours before leaving the house. Then they draw her blood again. Blood, the snitch everyone hates. It keeps you alive on one condition: transparency. It creeps around the body like a shrewd domestic who has access to every room and knows everything there is to know about you. And who talks under pressure. The body is too basic, too weak; it can't be trusted. Only the mind can console us for its disloyalty; the only flag it flies is that of freedom, made of the bones of truth and the bones of lies - a cross; white against black. Blood respects nothing.

I wander through the museums like a drifter down affluent avenues, the value of the pieces on show beyond my comprehension, their beauty out of my reach.

Like illness, celibacy makes us more human

La vida puede no gustarte pero ser inocua como el cloro que tragas con el agua.

The truth is we'd ever made any plans, we'd just taken huge bites out of life.

Alcohol is the friend that knows you have nothing to lose, holds you tight, and makes you feel like it's giving you everything.

I needed to face the emptiness, an emptiness I had dreamed of so often I’d turned it into a mast, a center of gravity to hold onto when life fell to pieces around me.

Language is and always will be an occupied territory. I have the feeling I was shackled to it the moment I was born. Only language can help you belong somewhere and make sure you don’t lose your way.

Por la noche, escondida bajo el edredón, aún me estremecía. Intenté pensar en los buenos sentimientos que unen a las personas, como la generosidad, la gratitud, el amor. Quizás el respeto y el perdón. El cerebro permite hacer eso, elegir las palabras que nos salvan, construir sentencias.

But all this tunneling has opened rifts through which the captive parts of me have started to emerge. I realize that I am smoke, that the things that define me rise as they would up a chimney, probing every crack, searching for a wellspring of light or cold, a cupola of sky to sprawl into.

What was I thinking, dropping everything? The devastating possibility of the same old job, of a tiny room in a suburban apartment, of lovers as fleeting as shooting stars, hot to the touch one day, a distant dream the next.

My kisses are landmines. I set them mindlessly, easy as humming, knowing that when I come back they’ll explode, dismember, unearth bodies and quarries.

Sometimes, Samsa’s make me wonder if I’ve made a mistake loving her with such ease. But it means everything to hold her in my arms, her body steadfast to mine, happiness flowing from her limbs like the vigorous power of a god, knowing without a doubt that this is my all.

Sorrow holds me because it has tentacles; I am its sustenance, it stores me. I need to get out of here.

I think I’ve discovered what happiness is: whistling the moment you wake up, not getting in anyone’s way, owing no explanations, and falling into bed at daybreak, body addled from exhaustion and mind free of every last trace of bitterness and dust.

I can give anything up, because nothing is essential when you refuse to imprison life in a narrative.

I drink her like I’d been raised wandering the desert. I swallow her as if she were a sword, little by little and with enormous care.

Yes. If I’d ever disowned a god, now would be the time to peel off strips of my skin and offer up the fat of my body as an oblation.

Unlike bears or goats, I had built my life on this emptiness, and lived it as though it were impossible to break. I have no future now, and no present either, outside of the foolish repetition of all the innocent chores that crop up day after day.

I don’t know how to leave her, it’s like the waxy parts of my body have hardened to her shape. I kiss her and kiss her. I kiss the hair that falls over her eyes and casts them in a weird golden light.

The cold feels peculiar. It’s possible I’ve drunk some of it myself, since I can feel it thrashing and bucking under my skin, and also deeper inside, in the arches between each organ.

The destination always kills the journey, and if we have to reduce life to a story, it can only be a bad one.

esperar que la Samsa es reconstrueixi, que trobi a faltar peces de si mateixa i lluiti per recobrar-les

Reposa el caparró contra el meu pit i dorm abraçada a mi, com un musclo petit aferrat a la roca mare.

impossible routes only seem impossible because they're dangerous

Por la noche, cuando me desnudo, el cuello alto del jersey me atrapa el cráneo para recordarme que nacer no es nada, el peligro es renacer.

Me horroriza pensar en la magnitud del poder de las palabras que nos incrustan cuando somos pequeños. Ahora sé que ni siquiera la poesía puede neutralizarlas, y aún menos someterlas.

Los niños pequeños tienen ese poder, imponen su alegría al malestar ordinario de los adultos.

Si de tant en tant m'abracés com abraça aquells coixins, se m'estovaria una cosa encarcarada i malèvola que duc a dins i em desafia perquè no depèn de res que pugui dir-li ni de res que pugui prometre. Baròmetre de les circumstàncies, el que em fa ser com sóc pot ser modelat però mai convençut, ni expulsat.

Quan marxa de casa vestida així, a trenc de dia, em sento l'esclau predilecte a qui confien l'anella carregada de claus. Em fa un petó incert, ni curt ni llarg, un petó on ella ja no hi és, i tanca la porta de cop, poderosa com mai. Llavors és quan m'adono que alguna cosa viva s'asseu dins meu, de fet s'arrepapa i xiula mentre contempla el cel que baixa a poc a poc, com si ballés. Em sorprèn, aquesta manca de culpabilitat on conflueixen l'amor, que sempre empeny enfora, i la tiba cap endins. L'amor no se'n va amb la Samsa, però tampoc és amb mi, pertany al voler. I estimar-la és justament això, voler que hi sigui amb cada fibra de teixit i de pensament, des del moll de cadascun dels ossos. Voler-ho amb tots els exèrcits. Amb fam, amb febre, amb desesperació.

M'hauria agradat saber tocar la guitarra, cantar-li una cançó molt lenta a mitja veu, dir-ne l'encant, repetir-ne el nom.

Si les premia amb una mà era com tenir-la-hi a ella, curulla d'escalfor. Les pedres m'alimentaven, com quan agafes un record i ja no cal menjar perquè et satura el cos.

L'exterior em sembla un monstre amb tants caps com persones que temo i que estimo. No li interessa el meu patıment, però m'atrapa, i abans d'engolir-me em mastega. L'exterior és una banyera d'àcid, un gran ventre. Els dies s'hi dissolen. Jo els visc en l'emergència de quan hi ha tempesta i tant em sembla que els domino com que em vencen.

Em sento enfonsada, amb el cervell que se'm podreix a dins del cap com un tresor inútil al fons d'una peixera. Treballo sense tenir-ne consciència, com si em substituís un jo anterior ben entrenat.

Tampoc entenc aquest dolor, molesta poc però sempre és present. Creia que m'atacaria, que aprofitaria el cansament de la nit per clavar-se'm amb ungles i dents. Estava preparada per al plor. Però no, tinc un dolor que és com un gos. Jau en un racó i em llepa la ferida. La manté tendra i oberta, va fent. Navego i estic molt sola.