He was driving his car on a two-way road in Valencia and just for once repressed the urge to pass the vehicle in front. He could have done it very easily, like so many times. Just by squeezing the sole of his shoe, his car would have gone off without any danger. Overtaking, always overtaking was his objective in all walks of life, but on this trip he had decided to slow down to contemplate the landscape. Of course, other cars that came behind him asked him to pass and Miguel experienced a hitherto unknown pleasure by turning the indicator to the right to make it easier for them to overtake. Some truckers thanked him with their horns, other motorists insulted him loudly for going so slowly, but Miguel contemplated the field of sunflowers, or the hill brushed green by spring wheat, or simply got into his thoughts or drove without think of nothing It was a pleasant feeling, unimportant, but Miguel decided to apply it to his way of life, to the point that his future was divided in two, before and after that trip.
This experience led him to assume that nothing happened if he admitted that there were writers who were ahead, who had more success, more prizes, more talent, more official recognition, more medals, academies and other honors. Every day, looking in the mirror to shave, Miguel did an act of humility. He began by acknowledging the destruction of his face. He was an old man, nothing more. Everywhere youth constituted a glorious landscape that Miguel had to traverse. For many years he had done it with some resentment, although in the end he ended up accepting it as a shipwrecked person who came to shore every day and was saved. It was evident that his time had passed, but all these young people wanted to grow old and he has already arrived. That delight that one day he felt on the road when he did not overtake the cars of worse brands that preceded him was the same that he felt now when some young writer asked him to pass and Miguel put the turn signal to the right and even lowered the window glass. and he put out his hand to indicate that he had the expedited way. And for nothing in the world would it have occurred to him to enter the competition.
This pleasant feeling of being left behind was applied to culture. She had stopped reading the latest news that hit the bookstores. For nothing in the world would she make such a sacrifice to read the Ulises of Joyce just to be able to say that she had read it. At first he felt liberated from having to be up-to-date with what he needed to know in order to give his opinion in social gatherings. He experienced a secret liking when asked about the latest novel and he said “I haven’t read it” or the latest hit movie and he said “I haven’t seen it”. He had stayed in film noir and American comedy, he repeated sardonically. He had sold and given away much of his library, which now consisted of just 200 essential volumes. In his house no more books entered. He had decided to start rereading everything that he had liked until then. The essays de Montaigne was the first volume to come to the rescue. When taking it in his hands, he felt that he had a residue won by time. he went back to Crime and Punishmentto War and peaceto Madame Bovaryto the Aeneidto the Odes of Horacio and from there all followed towards the adventure books that reminded him of his adolescence, those of the Austral collection that took him to the hammock of the summers of his youth. Tasting an old wine gave him the same taste. Sometimes, in the late afternoon, he would read some triplets from the Divine Comedy with wet lips of his favorite liquor.
On the other hand, he felt like an analog being. It had been a long time since he had been left behind, on this shore of the digital river. He had become clumsy, every hour asking for the help of his daughter or her granddaughters to get him out of the quagmire he had gotten himself into with the computer. But he knew that in this part of the river there were still many things to learn about dogs, birds, insects, and the disastrous passions of humans. Miguel felt an inner harmony by staying behind, where the four seasons of the year were with their flowers and fruits.
When anxiety made him feel like a failure or a writer who had not reached the goal, to console himself, Miguel always remembered what Borges had said: “We all walk towards anonymity, only the mediocre arrive a little earlier.” At this stage of his life he cultivated the friendship of beings who took old age with irony and accompanied them in the conquest of small pleasures to which they were entitled. No nostalgia, just a bit of melancholy, like the drops of Angostura that propel the lovers towards perfection. martinis dry.
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