What does it take...

... to work 10+ hours 7 day week with a smile in your face? Motivation, passion and love of what you are doing. Thinking that, somehow, it makes sense... A little bit of hope, a lot of stubbornness too. Thinking this is it, now it is just a few more months...

Of course, these spells cannot last forever, they are the last leg of some interesting project. That last run for the light at the end of the tunnel always puts me in that mood. It was like that a few weeks last November and December, and before that it was last June.

I know my Lyx also does this with a smile on her face. How she takes long hours in academic fairs bringing info to students, making the calls to share the good news of acceptance and scholarship. I can even see, in my mind's eye, her smile as she tells me about this or that event in some state run or posh high school. How she takes the overtime and the extra work now and then to collect free days and money for a plane ticket and two free weeks.

And what does it take to loose everything slowly, without even realizing it is happening... Maybe opening your eyes to a reality that you believed happened somewhere else... Or realizing that it is not gonna be just a few more months... Finding that physics makes no sense if you do not enjoy what you are doing...

Anyway, in January, I had this one thing that I was curious about. Then, I loose the curiosity and the drive on the way. And now, thanks to a pair of very smart friends and colleagues, it has become that and two more things that we want to explore. I can feel the curiosity there, growing slowly, asking what will happen if we do this or that...

Now, it is just about finding the time to do them, to really make it just a few more months to be both in the same place, to go back to enjoy what you are doing, to believe in what you are doing...

What does it take?

I have always worked in something that fills my heart with passion and joy. I cannot compare the joy of playing with Maxwell's or Schrödinger's equation and find a beautiful mode of electromagnetic radiation or some curious behavior in an atomic trajectory.

Of course, there have been those moments when every step leads to a dead end. But even in those dark times, the hope for the light at the end of the tunnel is there and turns my heart alight to take the next step and make the next turn.

I have made of research my life. Afar from family and friends, my colleagues have become friends and family. Endless source of joy, council, help...

Alas, Lyx is missing.

It only takes one person and the realization that time is elapsing and we have not managed to find a way to be both in the same place.

This is what it takes... the realization that time is elapsing...

Life should be Lyx, family and friends... not research.

Casablanca (1942)

Ilsa: Rick, I have to talk to you.
Rick: [Rick is drunk] Uh-huh. I saved my first drink to have with you. Here. [passes her a drink]
Ilsa: No. No, Rick, not tonight.
Rick: *Especially* tonight.
Ilsa: Please... [he pours a drink]
Rick: Why did you have to come to Casablanca? There are other places.
Ilsa: I wouldn't have come if I'd known that you were here. Believe me Rick, it's true I didn't know...
Rick: It's funny about your voice, how it hasn't changed. I can still hear it. "Richard, dear, I'll go with you anyplace. We'll get on a train together and never stop - "
Ilsa: Don't, Rick! I can understand how you feel.
Rick: [scoffs] You understand how I feel. How long was it we had, honey?
Ilsa: [on the verge of tears] I didn't count the days.
Rick: Well, I did. Every one of 'em. Mostly I remember the last one. The wild finish. A guy standing on a station platform in the rain with a comical look in his face because his insides have been kicked out.
Ilsa: Can I tell you a story, Rick?
Rick: Has it got a wild finish?
Ilsa: I don't know the finish yet.
Rick: Well, go on. Tell it - maybe one will come to you as you go along.
Ilsa: It's about a girl who had just come to Paris from her home in Oslo. At the house of some friends, she met a man about whom she'd heard her whole life. A very great and courageous man. He opened up for her a whole beautiful world full of knowledge and thoughts and ideals. Everything she knew or ever became was because of him. And she looked up to him and worshiped him... with a feeling she supposed was love.
Rick: [bitterly] Yes, it's very pretty. I heard a story once - as a matter of fact, I've heard a lot of stories in my time. They went along with the sound of a tinny piano playing in the parlor downstairs. "Mister, I met a man once when I was a kid," it always began. [laughs]
Rick: Well, I guess neither one of our stories is very funny. Tell me, who was it you left me for? Was it Lazlo, or were there others in between or... aren't you the kind that tells?

[Ilsa tearfully and silently leaves. Rick's face falls in his hands sadly, knowing that he's said all the wrong things]

Taken from IMDB.

I have the best girlfriend ever...

Lydia wrote a calavera for me because it was All Hallows day.

In my home region, the Huasteca in Mexico, All Hallows day is known as Xantolo and the indigenous tradition is quite similar to the Irish Samhain: On november 1st, the date is fixed due to Catholic Missionaries influence I guess, as the days come shorter the dead are allowed to come back and roam the earth. We prepare for our dead relatives an altar with their favourite food and drinks. In order for them not to get lost, a road of cempazúchil petals is laid from the street gate to the altar.

By night, Xantolo is a huge party. Los viejos (spanish for the old men) start roaming the streets as they go to the main square. Los viejos are an ensamble of young men lead by a horn holder, half of them wearing male costumes and half wearing female costumes, nowadays women are giving the chance to participate too, who represent the death. They walk the streets from the graveyard to the mainsquare stoping now and then to perform a two line dance to a certain traditional tune played by a violin and a guitar. As the tune finishes they dancers break loose and start chasing children around until the horn holder blews the horn and calls them again to walk the street, I loved this when I was small. Truth be told I still love this now.

In the past, during our dictatorial periods, All Hollows days represented an oportunity to conduct political satire through verses known as calaveras. Also calaveras are written for those you care about. My girlfriend wrote me one for this Xantolo:

Estaba Blas en su hora de comida

saboreando arroz como de costumbre

cuando de pronto aparecio la temida

esa que dicen trae pesadumbre

La figura vestida de negro

comenzo entonces a hablar

no importa que estes en el extranjero

de mi no te vas a escapar!

Solto blas una carcajada

que hizo a la flaca enojar

no digas tanta pendejada

mi novia me va a rescatar!

Los dos me hacen los mandados

y a los dos me los voy a llevar

sirve que ya no estan separados

y juntos x siempre se van a quedar!

--- o ---
Here goes my free translation...

Blas was having his lunch hour.
Eeating rice as usual.
Suddenly, the dreaded,
that they say brings grief,
the black-clad figure
began to speak:
"No matter that you're abroad
you will not escape me! "
Blas laughed out loud.
This made the skinny mad.
"Do not say so much crap,
my girlfriend is going to rescue me! "
"The two of you do my errands
and the two I'm going to take.
Serve you well, that you are no longer separated
and together forever you will always be!"