Who am I?
An existentialist question answered mostly mundanely to introduce a writer to his readers.
There´s a bit of an answer in the subtitle isn’t it? Hi, I’m a writer, that means a soul, a consciousness that expresses itself through language, implies a respect, sometimes an obsession, a kind of awe for words; implies wordsmithing, wordweaving, word shampooing and rinsing, word ruminating and word digesting; implies alchemy, solve and coagula; implies creation, implies appropriation, implies copying, knowingly and unknowing. Not necessarily implies a reader other than myself, unless you are there, I hope you are.
Is that my essence? No, that’s something that I do, that I have been doing at least since I´m 14 years old; I’m 42 now, and getting older, until I die. What’s my essence? You know it, I´m a soul, as is every living thing, so my essence is God. You don’t believe in such a being? Then you can create an image of what my essence is from the words that I write, and let’s leave essences at that.
My story? Ny name is Camilo, I was born under an almost full moon on a Wednesday night, I have been in love seven times (of course I remember them all), I have been blessed with a loving family, lost some of it and am still learning to cope with that. I have known heartbreak, and probably the thick of my story is in there, but I would not talk about it now; if you want to know, it will take some time, until you and I had built a relationship, trough words and screens, when you will know me and I won’t know you… or maybe I will, if you comment and write back, I would like that. I believe in love but am a victim of anger, I believe in giving but I´m way too selfish. At my work, that has been blessedly mostly personal for the last few years, many times I try too hard, and then get unmotivated and lazy, probably I get exhausted for straining myself, I don’t know, maybe it’s that. I have very few friends, used to have many, or thought that I had; used to party hard, now I don´t party at all, but still love to celebrate, to bask in joy, gratitude, love and kinship. I used to trust easily, now I treasure my trust and give it sparingly. I believe in freedom, equality, true equality, seeing all as drops of the same ocean, beams of the same divine light; all means all, not just the ones that I like, not only those who act lovingly, but also those that do harm. My ideals are high, but I fail again and again to live up to them, yet I try, I think I really try, If there’s something good I can say about myself is that I try to be honest, all the time, to myself and to others. Maybe it’s not a surprise that it’s easier to be honest to others than to yourself, its as easy to fall into self-deception as it’s difficult to truly know yourself.
That’s not a story you say? It absolutely is! You are just lacking the anecdotes, I bet you can see the plot, if not, lets spell it out, I´m looking for myself, I´m looking for God, I get lost, then I’m taken to the path, and try again. There’s no more than that really, but let’s give you some details, even if you already know the most important things about me, you probably will feel that you know me better, after all, God is the details, the Devil is in the details, maybe more of the story is also there, and me with them.
I´m a vegetarian that often goes vegan and then eats some cheese, man, cheese… From some months now I’m the main cook of my house, so Nubia, my girlfriend, is both enjoyer and victim of my culinary experiments. We live with Kiba and Wanda, our dear doggies, and Diogenes, our pet rat, who unfortunately must live in the garage because the last three and a half years My allergies flared up. We have a little terrace where Bogota’s golden sunsets shine beautifully, a punching bag that we barely use because Wanda doesn’t like (at all) punching sounds, hitting, or generally loud noises. She is the intense, yet adorable earthquake dog, Kiba is all love and fluff, lots of fluff, lots of love. We live in a fifth floor with no elevator and have a view of the park and its huge trees, that dance slowly with the wind, their foliage fluttering in the sun shining like liquid treasure. We ere very much in love, and feel fortunate sharing our lives, joys and fears. I call her Gibo, which means hope in Japanese (I love Japanese culture, and you can bet that manga and anime have a lot to do with it) Her name is Nubia Esperanza, Esperanza means hope in spanish; she liked the nickname and calls me Gibo too, so this is Villa Gibo or Gibo village, population 5.
If you caught the word Bogotá in the last paragraph, you may have guessed that we are in Colombia; yes we are Colombian and I have lived most of my life at Bogotá, but the last years my time have been divided between the apartment in the city and the family farm in Subachoque, a little town nearby, were we are fortunate to enjoy a little native forest, a creek, oaks, willows and lots of other trees, a rosemary crop, two little ponds with frogs, a mare called Dulcinea and eight dogs. I can’t tell you how blessed I feel about that, nature is so huge for me, a source of inspiration, revelation, joy and peace. I´m not active enough to say I´m a proper environmentalist but try to live a green live.
Yeah, I have received many blessings, among them a higher education. I’m an historian, have a degree in journalism and an MA in aesthetics and art history, and as I said, have been writing for a while and have some publications under my name, academic, literary, technical, as an editor and as illustrator. The last six years I have been working as a visual artist; studying art history made me understand art better, and realize how much I loved it and how I want to make it, not just enjoy and analyze it, you can check my portfolio here if you want; but lately, for months now, I have been hearing the call of the words louder and louder, so besides having written professionally from time to time, I want to give literature a serious try, not just write for the sake of itself, can’t say copywriting is what I want to do, but this are difficult times and income is getting lower for so many of us, so you never know, but if I can, I want to write fiction, poetry, chronicles about myself and others, and some essays and articles about things I’m passionate about like art, comics and cinema, so if you are reading this, I’m up to a good start.
I’m a huge geek, really, enormous, love comic books, fantasy and scy fi with passion, from the pulpy and entertaining to the deep and nurturing. If you wondered how I learned English, it was mostly reading comics, the interaction between image and word is an incredible pedagogical tool and I encourage you to take advantage of it if you are learning a foreign language, comics rule, rock and slap. Having said so, I might throw some advice here and there, but I’m definitely not a life coach of any kind, and don’t want to be one, but I do hope that in my lines you can find some insight, some perspective, and a way to connect with yourself, with your feelings; that is not always enjoyable, but it’s always worthy. I hope that you can learn something about people, places and subjects that you may or may not know, but can get a chance to see them from another vantage point. I hope that my words can become a company that you can enjoy.
Pleased to meet you. Let’s meet again soon.
Originally published at http://hansanaam.wordpress.com on August 29, 2022.
