In the photo, my mother looks very pregnant. He smiles at the camera from a balcony that still exists. It was April 22, International Mother Earth Day. Today I am 46 years old, and they often joke that I was predestined: so to speak, for being born on Saint George's Day and because I write. But I am also there, less than twenty-four hours before, between the love for those mothers and the books, in a protective ecosystem that now needs protection because it has been abused repeatedly.
When you love, it's hard to believe that someone doesn't feel the same way. Little by little you understand that literature responds to a lack; if you had enough with what surrounds you, you wouldn't need to take refuge in what you read and write. You accept that there are people who are satisfied, or who fill the void in other ways. But it is difficult to imagine that they would destroy your environment, your landscape, your home, that land that cradled you, embraced you, fed you, educated you and made you what you are, with the argument of hoarding more , without measure or limits, because yes.
Culture comes from cultivating, from making something bear fruit after hard work and care, from a lot of dedication. Consumption is rampant, exhausting resources through lies: tourism is a clean and sustainable industry, global warming does not exist, vote for us because we are environmentalists, it will rain, excess is profit.
In the politics of this country, culture and the environment are decorative elements that are taken out of the way when they disturb. They may receive some prize or grant, but they are never treated as if they were necessary, much less essential.
The solastalgia with which Ada Castells titles her last book at L'Altra Editorial defines that nostalgia for the loss of home when you are in your own home. Or what is the same: the so-called eco-anxiety, the anguish of not being able to save the earth you love as a mother, the sadness of seeing how it is being destroyed, the difficulties to -almanco- minimize its harm. This is accompanied by an anticipation of worsening quality of life, and an existential melancholy, not so much for you as for those around you. The book and the rose symbolize culture and love. I am the result of this and of the land commemorated internationally the day before. And that, like today, it should be present every day of the year.
