to Gerke, Miguel and Rodrigo
Every time we will sit in a bar, order a drink and wait for our companions to arrive, we will remember. Awareness of the privilege, of having survived millions and millions that died, of being able to even seat and order a drink.
I walk with G along the channels of Utrecht, my city. We talk and walk and talk and walk, about everything and nothing. It took a pandemic to make us realize that talking meanwhile walking is the best that you can do in our city, rain or sun, winter or summer. The city changes with the seasons and with us, we recognize new bookshops and restaurants that have replaced old ones, old houses that has been renewed, new houses that have been build. The space that is ours but is also from every other inhabitant give meaning to our stories and also, to our friendship.
The discussion is heated and goes on deep into the night. Strategies, tactics. Elections to come, elections past, populism. Last elections have brought stability to a conservative style of politics that we need to challenge and to stress. We need to make evident how much have we got stuck in the fear and the insecurity of the years under the permanent threat of COVID. The threat is long gone, but the caution is not. We keep talking, and drinking together, and eating together, profoundly aware of the challenge ahead.
And yet another year, yet another electoral campaign. Everything changes so that everything stays the same. Despite the expected and always welcome newcomers, we know what the posters will be saying this time, we know which journalists we can count on spreading our message, we know which media moguls we need to work against. It is true that every election is a new battle, but it is also true that real change take decennia. In the meantime, in the day to day and in campaign after campaign, we plod on.
As every other year, I visit Madrid. The clerk of the car renting agency recognizes my name, and we exchange jokes about being loyal to such company. The rhythm of the other drivers on the highway towards the mountains were my friends M and R live are telling me that I am back in Spain, where every person is his own, traveling fast or slow, meandering or straight. Europe is as different as always, I think when remembering the equally fast lines of ordered cars in the dutch highways.
I took a seat, as I have done the last twenty some years. The first years I drank cafe au lait, then hot chocolate, nowadays a espresso and a coca cola. The waiter nods when bringing what I need not to say, we smile to each other and exchange some comments on the weather, on his or her family. Life goes on, as it always has.