A Letter to Barbara

Dear BK, What a joy to hear from you and to know you are doing well and kicking! And how encouraging is to be told that the Greens won a lot of seats in Germany’s elections. After all, through you and my beloved GH I was able to meet some of those political leaders when we were young, fresh and easily to be enlightened. Hopefully, at some point politicians will begin to work for the benefit of all of us and not for the few who surround them and play strange so called political games. But this letter is not about them but about you and me (of course).

Lots of people get to interact with lots of people, but few get to engage in conversations about everything on everything for no other purpose than to explore the topic and enjoy solving, dissolving, resolving, and then solving, dissolving and resolving again until one cannot continue in the marvelous circle where to talk, hear the other and try to understand, and if not, just to talk is "la razón de ser".

We were and still are able to do that: to talk and talk. Pragmatism has killed epistemology (my own quote as I love to quote myself and claim it as a discourse tool named nowadays, intertextuality) and our conversations are hardly pragmatic: we talk and that is it. We have talked about everything: from Ricky Martin fan club in Italy picketing the American Embassy during the Vieques crisis to the whereabouts of the last true German flower power representative, la Foegel and his latest communal activity (La Foegel changing islands and entourages is always an interesting topic: sometimes sad and sometimes fun, but never boring.)

Doctors, medical interventions and illnesses are common topics of conversations among the so called golden age gang. But not with us, we mention it as a matter of fact but quickly move to other discourse venues: Young European born Islamic girls choosing to wear scarves, veils or caps while dancing hip hop and listening to rap; old and jaded political self appointed leaders in the USA wanting to go back to purer times and using words and codes such as tea, mama, and other seducing sublime terms disconnected from the daily lives of most of us; schools functioning on late nineteenth century frameworks while the students create new languages as they travel thru virtual space.

Oh yes, we do; we talk about everything with the sole purpose of to talk; perhaps, no. Perhaps we talk because old brains need to be fed; boost and our talks keep us from becoming obtuse and not feeling like we are not part of the world. This larger world that moves and it seems as if it is beyond our control. But we know we can shape it a little bit through our talks as we clarify its ways and goals.

Yes, Miss B, at times when cultural differences are excuses to kill and discriminate is always a pleasure to know that this Puerto Rican man can talk with you, a German woman, about everything, everybody, everywhere for the sole purpose of just to talk; and have fun.