One day when I woke up and the “thing” appeared the moment I opened my eyes, incorporeal, as if it were part of the filtered light, a ghost made of golden particles coming to life through the intruding beams of light. After all, it's not a ghost, it's just a desire to be in a certain place at a certain time to witness the sunrise - It's there that I'll find that light that I'm looking for for those paintings that have been in the studio for weeks without solution, about which I begin to doubt whether I will be able to solve them. This idea, born with my awakening, is an intuition, an unblocking scheme for those paintings with no solution in sight. It is also a way of controlling the avalanche of swirling ideas - You cannot want to have all the ideas at the same time, that would be chaos, a meaningless cacophony - that is why there is this wall of containment in the form of a mental block that frees things with the necessary precision, one idea after another. These ideas are the substance of what I do every day, filtering the inner, turbulent and chaotic monster, transforming it into a willful disposition that makes me get out of bed every day, with the greatest desire to do satisfying things.
I hurry, first have a quick breakfast, lots of clothes on my body, because today is cold. Take the backpack that is more or less prepared, with notebooks, camera, a towel, bottle of water and hiking poles. The attraction of this expedition is that Baltazar's house is very close to the place I have referenced with the X to catch the star king emerging over the cliffs. Probably at this very moment, Baltazar will be carrying out the ritual of running out the door naked, to dive into the tank of ice water, his concept of a refreshing bath in the morning, I believe this is the reason why he remains healthy at seventy-five.
The dawn advances magnificently from the east. It is in this moment of change, when darkness is pushed to the other side of the earth and the gap between night and day narrows, that seems the entire planet is suspended in anxious perplexity. The anticipation of the next few hours is a silence full of possibilities, anything can happen, the world can continue as it was yesterday, following its path without revolutions, going through its routines and cycles, with its cities waking up to more of the same, with one or another jolt here or there in its vastness, in the usual cadence that won't change much in everyone's lives, at least in the lives of the majority. That's what we expect, but who knows? Maybe it's today that a detail of history happens, the one that could change the course of events forever, the detail that precedes an unstoppable chain of events capable of changing everything for good, like the one in which the Neanderthal looked head-on at the newborn Homo Sapiens, his elegant and modern successor, the lethal heir of the old evolutionary lineage.
I am advancing through a fog that freezes the fields with its milky coating. I quicken my pace, maybe that will help with the cold. When I reach the crest of the hill, close to where I will settle, the light has already advanced a little more and the sky above the horizon begins to radiate a crystalline luminosity. The fog dissipates in the higher areas and only a few patches remain at the bottom of the valleys. There it is, Baltazar's house on a more distant horizon, I imagine he's about to head out the door for his morning swim. Later I will visit him and we can continue the conversation about our routines and interests, or we can address more serious topics and then he will philosophize about the direction of progress. The idea of ​​the confrontation between Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens is the result of his imagination, in relation to AI - We don't know what's coming - He said - What we know is that nothing will be the same as before. Baltazar is a militant activist for the causes of the planet, sustainability and the fight against climate change - He states that out of respect and consideration for the next generations he wants to be part of the solution, he is doing it so actively in the intervals of time between his work in the farm, his animals and trees.
I found the place to watch the sunrise, a flat area protected to the west by a limestone rock that is starting to lighten. The area is exposed to heat and from the experience of my previous visits,I know that soon I will take off pieces of clothing, but in the meantime I dedicate myself to contemplation. I hope in the next half hour I can follow the theater of change, that's why I endured the discomfort of the cold of this winter morning. It was António who told me about this place - The best in the region to watch the sunrise - António doesn't live here permanently, because his children and grandchildren live in Lisbon, but like me, he's a regular visitor, and he's also a contemplator of natural phenomena, spectacular things. Nowadays he travels just to watch an eclipse, or to wander in the heart of any prehistoric forest. He is now retired but spent much of his life repairing household appliances. The other day my washing machine broke and he was the one who fixed it, he diligently volunteered as soon as I mentioned it. He didn't want anything for the service, but my insistence convinced him to receive a symbolic payment, for the cost of lunch, just to shut me up, I suppose. That day we spent some time talking about local issues. Who has been buying the houses that are for sale. What is changing for the better and what is beyond repair. The subject that interests him most is his woods, a five-hectare forest area. A topic of mutual interest because I also have a small forest that is not as good as his, but that I want to improve, so I pay attention to what he says. His forest is larger and has a greater variety of trees, it is also more accessible because António opened a very functional path through the bush cover and created a seating area, where he installed a bench made of rough wooden planks. He says he spends a lot of time there listening to the birds chirping - What I like most is lying down on the grass and looking up to the treetops - That says a lot about António. His face also says a lot about him, as does his expression, which always seems to appease us from a hidden pain in our soul - Cultivating good moments is like cultivating a field, it takes dedication and patience, respecting the cadence and follow the manual of good attitudes and good practices - He stated in one of our conversations. My idea about António's personality does not only result from what he says, but mainly about what he does not say, It's all about what happens in the gap of his short sentences, mainly in the expression that accompanies his descriptions, small nothings in the events of a lifetime. António has a large build, a large head, large feet and hands, a slow body movements, a natural impassivity, as if he were immune to the harshness of the world. His gestures are molded to be effective, his wide face staring, eyes to eyes, prominent chin like a roman emperor, aquiline nose, discreet evidence of a half smile on his narrow lips, all of this is part of the enigma, of what is communicated through silences and which helps us to mentally materialize the avatar of what it is.
António and Baltazar are long-time friends. On my walks around the neighborhood, from time to time, I come across the two of them, both sitting on wooden blocks making slow conversations. Finding them here, in the middle of the fields, gives me joy. Both with a decade older than me, I see them as agents of serenity, people with availability and time for others, builders of small stories with whom you can spend quality time. I envy them for being at this level, for having already silenced the intrusive noises of their previous life, for feeling satisfaction with what they do and for the reach of their simple ideas.
I scribbled six pages in my sketchbook. As the sun rises, the land around me gains nuances of color that have to do with the movement of light. The shapes also seem to change with the displacement of the shadows and therefore the motifs also change, which leads me to execute the drawings all at once, without looking up from the paper, resorting to the fleeting memory of a quick glance. The goal is not rigor, it is the process of memorizing. I will never portray accurately what I saw today, the information captured will mix with others from diferent ocasions to make a model that at any moment could be reborn as a solution to a creative impasse, it could be the suggestion of a sunny slope, a valley, a formation curious of stones, like parts of a whole that will never reveal itself, the nuances that are part of recreating my own way of seeing.