Look who's talking!

To remember my first few months in Barcelona is to go back in time when I had to wake up for an early show stravaganzza in a classroom full of women (in a master nobody clicked to or expected to get any better). With my cellphone-alarmclock and it’s electronic “Vienna Waltz” I’d jump in the shower and sign the assistance sheet right in the nick of time. Unbeknownst to me a larger force was going to change completely my sleeping schedule and routine...every hour of the day.

It seemed a newborn baby had just been the joy of a somewhat called “normal” family in Cataluña. The diminutive and helpless human being (with no other way of expressing its feelings of happiness, anguish, hunger or even vowel movements) discovered an accurate line of attack: crying with all his mighty power and tiny lungs.

So every morning, afternoon or nighttime I’d have a concerto of “aahhs” and “eeeghs” and the heart stopping encore “waaaaahhh”. Weeks flew and many months added but the little infant carried on with its endless overture. Without knowing its sex, he/she became a human being with hidden identity. Every now and then I’d come across some “friendly Catalan” neighbors carrying a child. It would take all my effort in trying to make the creature emit sound but all in vain. No recognition was ever a success. I’d try to be witty, always was funny and never disrespectful, but all I got in return was the most serious face you could ever imagine from a 90 day-year old.

Just recently, as the cold days begin to surround the city (again), I’ve noticed that some of the baby’s crying has been modified to yelling. Now instead of screams of distress I hear claims of demand. The newborn has turned into a toddler. Or maybe worse: a kid!

The point in my saying (or writing) is that life is as it is. Time doesn’t stop for no one, unless you’re dead. Life goes on and on without telling anybody what to do say or ask. It either could be the crying of a little one or the weep of an adult. Either way time slips through our hands and all we can do is remember. At first he/she was gurgling and now look who’s talking.