By Arlett Archundia

Versión en español aquí

Since the passing of Michael Blumenstein I stopped writing. At first I thought it was the blank sheet that the great writers passed and I said to myself, “If they go through that, why do not I?”

Afterward, today, as I took my dogs out for a walk in the morning, I realized the learning that this good man named Michael Blumenstein had left me in that present, which is now a continuous present of a better future. This morning, some guy ran down the sidewalk, his face was desperate and he wore a wrinkled suit. You could see that it was coming out from the subway, with a fabric portfolios. I clearly watched as he ran towards us, looking at the clock, as if time would reach him or as if he would not reach the time. That is where the insight came.

At some point in my life, I think I felt like that guy thinking that time was running out to get somewhere.

I realized, that now, my gaze was not aimed at keeping me alive in a corporate world where I had to take care of every word to maintain my status in my supposed place.

I’m here now. Quiet, walking my dogs, enjoying the morning, after having exercised and read a while. Breathing life, this life, my life! Quitting from keeping me alive and talking me about being alive, what a difference!

I remember one afternoon, when I said in class that at some point in my life, I tried to make it all in a mental/rational way so I did not feel some situations that happened to me and hurt me. Michael smiled, with that mischievous, ironic look and said, “that’s impossible; you can not not feel”. And after that I realized that I was feeling all the time, I became aware, I only acted from my enoughness, realizing that I had done what I thought was right at the right time. And it was correct.

There is no guilt, there is no guile. I just did what was right. For whom?, for me. And that is to identify that I am enough.

I realized that it is not necessary to be keeping me alive. Because I did not dare to walk on solid ground, to feel, to cry, to see that things were changing.

I have enjoyed so much since that day!

Today, I realize, it just was not a blank sheet. It was silence, from which I was communicating with my teacher, to realize that my speech now is about a good life.