Day 18. The cricket.

Saturday, 31 October 2015

The cricket sang as if his life depended on it. It was after midnight already. The day of the dead had started. I was about to fall asleep.

For a moment I thought he was in the room, so loud did he tsjirp. A single one. I hadn´t expected to hear them anymore so late in the year. I love the sound, it makes me think of summer, it makes me feel warm.

I opened to door to my balcony, I am in hostel in Portbou, 72 steps away from the beach, 72, the year in which I was born. I opened the door and the sound got even louder. He was outside. Probably living in the wasteland I can see from my balcony, so different from the view to the other side where I can see the waves crashing on the rocks. There are cars parked on the land where once a building stood. On what used to be the first floor the bathroom tiles are still visible. A pale yellow. It is situated in a small quiet street where no traffic is allowed to enter. There is a terrace in front of the wasteland, it belongs to the hostel. There are usually some people drinking coffee or beer. I am lucky finding peaceful places inbetween the tiresome walking days.

I fell asleep with the cricket singing and in the morning I woke up with the sound of loud waves. I walked to the beach and stared at the waves, at the sea that has been the only witness to many people dying in its merciless embrace. When I returned from my beach walk to sit on the balcony the cricket was there again, singing his song with the same power. I felt at home.

I took the book, the only paper book I´ve got with me on my walk and found the page with the cricket.

"We live in cities, in professions and occupations, in families. But the place we live in is not really a place like that. The place we really live in is not the one in which we pass our days, but the one in which we hope - without knowing what we are hoping for - the one in which we sing without understanding what makes us sing."

"The nature of the cricket is to love its song and to take so much pleasure in it that it does not look for food and dies singing."

- Christian Bobin, The Very Lowly, p. 35