Are you lonesome tonight

The king will be always the king. You know what I mean.

Are you lonesome tonight,
do you miss me tonight?
Are you sorry we drifted apart?
Does your memory stray to a brighter sunny day
When I kissed you and called you sweetheart?
Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare?
Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?
Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?
Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?

I wonder if you're lonesome tonight
You know someone said that the world's a stage
And each must play a part.
Fate had me playing in love you as my sweet heart.
Act one was when we met, I loved you at first glance
You read your line so cleverly and never missed a cue
Then came act two, you seemed to change and you acted strange
And why I'll never know.
Honey, you lied when you said you loved me
And I had no cause to doubt you.
But I'd rather go on hearing your lies
Than go on living without you.
Now the stage is bare and I'm standing there
With emptiness all around
And if you won't come back to me
Then make them bring the curtain down.

Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?
Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight

My grandfather

In a day like the one that's starting now, some years ago, my grandfather died. I remember I was waken up at six in the morning, and the bad news were told to me straight ahead: "wake up, you must go, your grandfather has died". My mother left the room with the same rush she had woken me up; I sat up in bed and stayed quiet for some minutes. He was gone.

It's difficult for me to recover the memories I have of him, but I remember very well a few things we did together. One summer evening, he taught me oil painting. He was not very good at painting, but he knew how to paint three or four things very well. He used to paint witches and war boats quite skillfully.

And of course, there was hunting. We used to go hunting partridges (from the latin word perdix, perdiz in Spanish...) all the family together. My dad would go on his own, I used to go with my grandfather. One of those hunting days, as we were walking together, a partridge suddenly appeared quietly walking to our left. I saw it first, and told my grandpa: "see it, there, shoot it!" But he was too slow, and when he had pointed at the bird, it was too late.

We looked at each other. He was finished. He, the great hunter, walking along with a sick little boy too weak to walk with his father. It was like the bird already knew we were both too weak to kill it: that's why it walked by us, quietly enjoying the danger under the sun of a hunting Sunday morning. I don't remember what my grandpa told me, but I haven't forgotten his face looking at me. And how he looked for a rock, and sat down, and cut two branches of sage and offered me one, and we both looked at the fields while we chewed out the juice of the plant.

I suppose my grandfather chewed a lot of sage during the war. He was just 16 when one morning, he was waken up suddenly at six in the morning: "wake up, you must go". He sat on bed and stayed quiet for some minutes: his young flesh couldn't imagine he would end up 60 years later sitting on a rock next to a stupid kid who saw the partridge fly away untouched before him.

When the war ended, my grandfather was near Valencia. He went into a cafe, and ordered a coffee with milk. And he started to cry.

It's never easy

... to leave everything behind and start all over again. It's never easy, and maybe, maybe it makes no sense at all. So come away with me, I'm back.

Come away with me in the night
Come away with me
And I will write you a song

Come away with me on a bus
Come away with me where they can't tempt us
With their lies

I want to walk with you
On a cloudy day
In fields where the yellow grass grows
knee kigh
So won't you try to come

Come away with me and we'll kiss
On a mountain top
Come away with me
And I'll never stop loving you

And I want to wake up with the rain
Falling on a tin roof
While I'm safe there in your arms
So all I ask is for you
To come away with me in the night
Come away with me

Thanks, Norah. This song, tonight, has taken me back.

End of blog

This is the end of this blog.

Happiness?

The Hill, Berkeley, April 2002. On the background, the night at the bay, San Francisco Bay. Closer, jojo, melis, gabor, alyosha. Left, piotr, jose, kwan, bernardo and finally, me. A Corona on my right hand, a cigarette on my left one. Melis seems to be drinking too, I can't barely tell whether it's Cazadores. And there's lots of garbage around, and grass, and three yellow flowers to the left that the flash of the camera suddenly discovered.

I am tired, you know. I don't want to sleep but I have to. Tonight, I chatted with lu, with jojo, with a colleague from work. Again, I missed you by my side, little kwan.