#11 - ‘Historias del gas’
This morning, as I started on the rooftops, I didn't have anything to write with, and it was really itching me. So I started ringing doorbells, and in barely an hour, I had already collected a nice haul (…)
or ‘Gas meter stories’
02/09/23 — Thoughts
I was the girl who, on her first day at middle school, wore purple ballet flats with orange socks and green polka dots. People were whispering as I walked by, but I was smiling, handing out candies. I had no awareness of how ridiculous it all looked. I was coming down from the mountain, you see.
God, how I’d love to return to that state of (un)awareness. But I have gone too far. I have built a corset over the years that has worked wonders. As I tightened it, my face turned purple and people applauded. Now, I am doing everything I can to find myself again.
It's painful, frustrating, terrifying, even. But no, it goes further than that. It's agony, actually. The birth of the authentic self through the death of the fabricated self. You better hang on. —
Sunrise over Barcelona, from the rooftops —
19/10/23 — Núria
I think there is something in the phrase ‘I need help’ that the universe is particularly sensitive to.
This morning, no one is opening. It's NO, and NO, and NO, and a boss who says I'd better not go home until I achieve [such] percentage.
Upon entering her home, though, the voracious monster that, night and day, devours me from the inside, suddenly calmed down. Everything is dark, but it is a warm darkness. In the kitchen, alone, a lit candle and a tiny image of Mary.
I exchange a few words with the lady, Núria, who is quite elderly. She tells me that she has difficulty walking. I tell her that I've had a bad day, so suddenly, two souls connect. She takes my hand and offers me a pear.
‘Wait a moment, I'll wrap it up in a bag for you.
— No, I said. Please... I'm hungry.’
In those two words, ‘I'm hungry’ and the pity my gaze must have inspired her, she read everything. She said nothing, rinsed it under water and handed it to me.
So here we are, another awful day, but soon everything will be better, and I'll only remember this gesture: a hand reaching out and one person talking to another as if she were human.
It's nice, for a change. —
“Careful with the dog (he too has feelings)” —
There are two types of gas meters: those located inside people's homes and those found on rooftops. When we have to knock on people's doors, the company, by law, is required to leave a notice — an A4 paper sheet stuck on the door of the building the week before. It is on this paper, collected throughout the day, that I write most of the time.
This morning, as I started on the rooftops, I didn't have anything to write with, and it was really itching me. So I started ringing doorbells, and in barely an hour, I had already collected a nice haul (of sheets, that is, not meters. At that hour, no one answers the door).
And I started thinking... One year. I didn't think I would last that long. A year ago, I hit rock bottom. I had €1.47 in my bank account and I was counting my coins to buy wrapping paper for my parents. I cried a lot, prayed little, and put more trust in bad relationships than in my own abilities in God to get me out of the pit. A year ago, I was afraid to take the underground, I was singing my first concerts. I was anxious about everything and sweating day and night over money. A year ago, I cut my own hair with Ikea scissors and used the weekly grocery budget to buy a jacket that was supposed to solve all my problems. A year ago, I was losing heart, I was losing myself.
Well now, it’s been a year I've been humming as I get off the bus and practising my solos in stairwells. Now, I find it hard to recognise the person I see walking onto the stage and standing in front of everyone, whispering, my heart bursting with gratitude: ‘Here I am.’
There was a miracle, and it started like this: with a community. So yes, we have to put up with each other, day after day. We have to learn not to judge mistakes, excuses, moods and bad days too harshly. Because without each other...
Finally, it occurred to me this morning, as I watched the sun paint the whole city gold, that I no longer have any reason to fear anything. I have reached a stage in my relationship with God that gives me the certainty (and the peace that goes with it) that everything is under control. He takes care of every little detail of my life, like a painter in love, and I have nothing to fear. Bosses will get angry, money will run out, friends will be stubborn, that's the way the world works and I can't blame it for that. But I no longer let these things hurt me. I write, I breathe. The sun rises, and from the rooftops, I’m smiling.
* * *
In that building, practically no one answered the door, a dog bit me in the lift, and some idiot slammed the door in my face. But when I left, I didn't care, I had a smile on my face. For my bosses, it was a failure. For me, it was a resounding success: everything I've written since earlier, I did on this very paper. —
Morning street sketch —
My collection of staircases
07/02/24 — Nayla
She fell to earth like a comet crashes into the desert.
I've been having strange dreams for two days now. Sordid dreams, to be honest. When I wake up, I can't shake the shivers that run through me when I think about them.
There was a bombing, secret underground tunnels, people I knew who were going to die; I knew it, and I couldn't say anything. The visions were so strong that I couldn't get up right away. I crawled to the sofa and went back to sleep, trying to dream about something else. The coffee was brewing. And I dozed off again after breakfast.
I wish I could say that after getting on with the day, things got better, but it wasn’t the case. I dragged myself from one street to another, suspicious, counting the minutes until 3:30 pm (I started late, obviously).
That's when she appeared.
I rang a doorbell (one of the 416 I had to ring today) and all I got in response was a racket, a bang, a muffled commotion behind the door. I waited. Nothing. Waited some more. ‘El gas...’ I tried, unconvinced.
Then a little voice through the door said, ‘Wait. Wait, eh?! The door is locked.’ I said, ‘Okay, I'll wait,’ in the same tone as the little girl who had given the orders. ‘The door is locked,’ she repeated. ‘He went to get the keys.’
A moment later, “he” finally opened the door. A tall man, speaking in monosyllables. She must have been seven or eight years old. The brown skin of desert children, eyes as black as ebony. She stared at me without saying a word, as if it were the most natural thing in the world — that I should be there, in front of her, and that she should be there, in front of me, opening the door of her home, naked as a jaybird.
She let me in, and the father followed us. I finally found the meter and took my photo. The grandmother was in the kitchen — you could see at a glance that she wasn't quite sane. The house was dirty and messy, my shoes were sticking to the floor, and it was best not to touch the walls.
She said something to me in her pretty, impetuous tone, something that rolled off her tongue. I didn't understand and it almost made me want to apologise. Her father translated: ‘No, nothing. She's just telling you she has candies.’ I replied — to her — that she was lucky.
I wanted to ask her a thousand questions. As if within the body of this wild child laid all the answers in the world, a thousand-year-old wisdom, this profound connection that, at its core, links all cultures together.
If I had said, ‘What is time?’ or ‘Why are we on earth?’, she would have had the answer, I was certain of it.
But instead, the door closed. She disappeared, along with her wildness, her strange little air and her furious freedom.
I went down a few steps so that no one could see me, then I began to scribble down all my impressions, the tiny details that had struck me in a matter of seconds.
I named her Nayla, because it means “she who has big eyes” in Arabic, and because it's the name I would have given to the queen of a free country of the desert if I could have created one.
Then, as I left the building, I turned around and looked up at the floor where she lived. A strange feeling came over me. I checked the time, then looked at the window again. Shouldn't children be at school on a Wednesday at eleven o'clock? —
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#10 - La chica del gas
Barcelona isn't what I imagined. Crowded, noisy, and relentless. No matter what, it never takes a break. Going out in the morning during rush hour feels like being swallowed by the beast. (…)
Recent revelations:
The divine never acts alone.
The entropy of the universe can only increase — second law of thermodynamics. (What is entropy? A measure of disorder.) Applied? After a whole day spent cleaning, all it takes is a pencil on a table for everything to be done again. In other words: disorder attracts disorder (the same applies to evil).
Find a job that doesn’t cost you too much.
Repair things as soon as they break.
Make your home a place where you enjoy living.
Buy a plant.
Choose a book.
“El gas… ! Lectura del gas!”
I always start my day on the rooftops. It helps me stay away from the ground, and since I always have trouble getting started — to be honest, I should say: as I still struggle to believe that this is what I do now, reading gas meters — I take my time to enjoy the view before diving into the hustle and bustle.
Barcelona isn't what I imagined. Crowded, noisy, and relentless. No matter what, it never takes a break. Going out in the morning during rush hour feels like being swallowed by the beast.
Jonas in the heart of the storm.
I thought I would find here what I didn't have the courage to look for within myself. In other words, I was devastated when, upon arriving in the Promised Land, I realised that being myself wouldn’t be enough to get me papers, a job and an insurance number.
“But… I’m a good person!” I can still see myself stammering in front of the police station. Without a doubt. Take a number.
After a year of unemployment, I was already lucky to be able to put on a uniform and shout “El gas!” ¹ all day long.
Suffice to say that we see of E-VE-RY-THING, every day. From all social classes to all kinds of possible reactions. Once the doorbell button is pressed, what happens follows a dichotomous order:
So there are those who open the door immediately and let me take a photo of their meter in the kitchen. Then they say, ‘Goodbye and have a nice day,’ and close the door. Those are very rare. I know how to appreciate them.
There are those who open immediately, but only to say NO. ‘You shall not pass.’ (Think of the hoarse voice of the wizard in The Lord of the Rings). Frank and to the point. I appreciate them just as much.
Then there are those whose footsteps I hear behind the door. They come closer, look through the peephole, then play dead, holding their breath until they see me turn around and leave.
Finally, there are those who open up only to give free rein to their frustration at being born into such an ungrateful and meaningless world. For those, I simply write a little note at the bottom of the screen for the colleague who will be coming back in two months: No picar. Do not knock on the door.
After two weeks, I must confess I contemplated the possibility of throwing everything out the window.
However, everything changed after the encounter.
9 o'clock in the morning. G. avenue, far away in a neighbourhood I don't know very well. It's grey and I'm cold. I couldn't wake up, so I have to run and start the day's list without even having time to drink my first coffee. The building is brand new, which is a bad sign — usually, no one lets you in. But she's the first to answer and she seems nice. The meter is on the balcony. I follow her. She's elderly and has trouble walking. As we pass through the hallway, I notice a magnificent portrait on the wall. A young woman in charcoal looks at me calmly. She's confident and smiling. Auramar², I whisper. It's written in the bottom right corner.
I take a picture of my meter and thank her. Looking up, I realise: it's her. Forty years later, but the look in her eyes is unmistakable. ‘It's you... The woman on the wall, isn't it?’ She nods. Walking back down the corridor, we both stare at it, somewhat dreamily. ‘It's a self-portrait,’ she finally admits. I'm speechless. ‘Did you do it?’ So, as she told me her story, we got a little sidetracked. I forgot about my meters for a moment, and she forgot to take her medication.
Because I told her that I also liked drawing, ‘but writing, above all... yes. Writing...’ she kindly showed me more drawings. Then texts. And poems. The table was covered with them. I had never met anyone who spoke so beautifully about the sea and solitude.
The coffee had cooled, and we had to say goodbye. ‘I have work to do,’ I said, inspired, and I wasn't really talking about reading the gas meter. She got the hint and, at the door, advised me to get to work without further delay. I nodded and thanked her. Poco a poco, I said. Little by little.
She grabbed my arm. Poco a poco, no. Trabajo duro. Like a prophet, she warned me: it will be a difficult path. Very few people succeed because very few people know what it means to make real sacrifices.
Then we said goodbye with a hug, like old friends. With tears in her eyes, she said, ‘Most of the time, we meet people... But today, I met a person. A beautiful person.’
After that, whenever I wondered what I was doing in this seemingly hostile city, wandering the streets and enduring this treatment, I clung to her words. ‘I'm doing my best,’ I kept repeating in my head. Then I realised it was time to make myself useful, so I started taking notes. When the old man on the eighth floor, started crying in my arms because I said, ‘Hmm, it smells good in here’ over the saucepan, and he said, ‘It was her favourite dish.’ Or when I complimented the paintings of the young man who lived under the eaves in Sants and said ‘Come on, you can’t give up now, your paintings are beautiful.’ He was so moved he gave me homemade cake, to help me finish the day. Every day, when I got home, I wrote down these anecdotes, which I unoriginally called ‘Las historias del gas’ (gas meter stories). Just for me, decorated with what I was collecting in the street. I felt a bit like Amélie Poulain sometimes.
So it's true, for now everything seems to have disappeared. My childhood dreams, my young adult ambitions, my desires for glory and fame. Useless burden of beauty... But on that day, the day we met, something came over me. Everything seems to have gone up in smoke, I thought... But don't cry, look, said the little voice inside me. Beneath my feet, a green shoot sprouted from the ashes. You are exactly where you need to be right now. Have faith. Stars are born from their own collapse. ³ —
¹: Reading gas meters is quite a skill. We get paid to walk around the city and go door to door reading gas meters. Four hundred doors a day, six hours of walking. But since everyone is suspicious (thieves are notorious in Barcelona), no one wants to open the door. So we ring all the doorbells of the floor at once and shout: ‘El gas! Lectura del gas!’ That increases our chances (we get paid by the meter).
²: Pssst... Auramar, the woman I met, is a real writer. She has published a book, illustrated with her own drawings. A beautiful tribute to her journey on this earth. — Available here (in Spanish only).
³: See Article #8, The Aftermath.
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