I do not know if we are different people, or the same ones in a different skin, than those from almost a decade ago, in this corner of the world. I know that our children, who were small then, have embraced other causes, kinder ones, than being among the losers, the unpleasant ones, those who do not stop poking and complaining, like woodworms. The house cats, well-fed and pampered, are very nice. The stray ones, those who have nothing and beg all day, or steal, exasperate us. We are the stray ones.
I do not know if we truly believed, or if it was like a drunken stupor or a fever dream, that we would be independent. If we wanted to be independent, it was to preserve the language that we still half-speak, to stop being subjects of the Bourbons, who from Philip to Philip, passing through the dictator, have never treated us well, and to manage our own money like a finally emancipated wife, distributing it to the little ones at home first, as everyone does, stop hearing the word—interested and hypocritical— solidarity as if we had chosen what to stop paying and what to pay.
I do not know where we are, nor where we come from. On a day like today, the Eleventh of September, the national day of Catalonia, this place where I was born by chance, which I love more than ever, I only want to withdraw and chat with a few friends, who are my own. To perform the act—increasingly mystical, it must be the age—of eating and drinking; of toasting. On a day like today, the National Day of Catalonia, I want to be close to those who contribute to making a better land, in some way. Teaching, making wine or food, making people laugh, writing things, planting and harvesting, helping, cleaning; yes, also cleaning. On a day like today, let us withdraw (what a precious verb) and make some bread with tomato and some local wines and laugh as much as we can, if we can.
