If I were a cat, I would have three lives left. I tend to say that in my writing I keep what few people know about me, for fear of thinking that more is known about the one who says little.
I write slowly so I can enjoy things slowly. I reread myself, perhaps because of the traces left by the insecurity that came from feeling that speaking was not always worthwhile, as if doing so were a matter of deserving it, or a privilege granted only to a few.
Today it is worthwhile, and without shame; and doing it through the written word is worth even more. Because it is on the page, and through it, that I convey what I think, what the world makes me feel, and where that same world is often re-signified.
I have already written — probably many times — about the craft of writing. I have written about what I write, and I know it is a way of shaping what it means to me to do so: even that which dwells in the unconscious and which, if not put into words, would have to pay the toll of being contained.
I hold great affection for this version of myself: the writer capable of convincing others through words, yet incapable of convincing himself.
I trust that my words belong to me up until the moment I write them, because once they take shape in writing, their meaning becomes independent of me; and that is one of the most gratifying pleasures I find in doing it. For words change form, like water. And, like water, words wet, soak, nourish, give life — but they also drown.
Photography by Ana Valeria Nolasco Infante
Writer and psychologist working in education. Fond of letters, cloudy skies, music, my people, coffee, and mezcal.