I am sure that within the sadness that we have been carrying these last few days, we have all, at some point, asked ourselves a question; What would we save from our house if we had to flee? Evidently of the tragedy that DANA has left us, the most important thing is the hundreds of human lives lost. That is what is devastating, what is irrecoverable.
But going a little further, things, almost always, are more than things. The flood has swept away entire houses and century-old businesses. Walls that held the life history of families who saw how under those roofs, which are now collapsing, their great-grandparents were born and raised, or that the machines that will no longer be able to grease have fed several generations of artisans who did their work his life.
The flood has swept away entire houses and century-old businesses
These days I have cried with more than one lady who, in despair, was holding a muddy photo in his hands, trying to explain that it is the only one he has been able to rescue from all the memories he had of his ancestors. That’s why I think several initiatives that are going to try to save the albums that now seem like collections of mud are precious. We new generations have photos in the cloud, something we have gained with technology.
I have also been contacting all the writers I know for days to send a Twitter user whom I admire many copies of her books, since water has left its most precious treasure absolutely useless: a library of almost half a thousand copies that he had been treasured for decades. I do it with all the love and sorrow in my heart, because as I write this I look at my bookcase (the one that the movers cursed when they moved all the books to this house) and I think about the hole that losing it would leave me. And I don’t mean physically.
But of course, if there is something that It would hurt my soul to lose several items of clothing from my closet. Maybe not even the ones I wear the most, but some that for me are part of my history. When I see them, I touch them, I travel to the moment I put them on. I can almost smell the perfume she was wearing or hear the conversations at that party or feel my hair stand on end on a date that went better than I thought. Well, and I would also embrace the Chanel that “I stole from my mother” and that I like almost more than if it were my own because it is hers.
Getting dressed is where we essentially become human
Every time someone talks about the superficiality of clothing I remember the testimony of a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, Catherin Hill, who became one of the most important women in the world of fashion after surviving the Holocaust and move to Canada. in the book The thoughtful dresser (The Thought Dressing Room, in Spanish, although it has not been translated), by Linda Grant, says that her love for fashion arose when in Auschwitz she realized that the pleasure we feel when dressing is where we essentially become human. It is in clothing where our story begins.
We are not going to let go of your hand until that happens
Without wanting to make any kind of parallel, I know that the moment each of the survivors of this terrible story that we are experiencing these days can open the closet in their house, after taking a hot shower, and choose what to wear, They will begin to build their new life. Your new story. Because yes, dear Valencians, people from La Mancha, You will get out of this and you will go back to painting your lips red and raising the blinds of the business that bears your grandfather’s name.because at least the rest of the Spaniards, we are not going to let go of your hand until that happens.
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