By these days it’s possible toobserve a phenomenon that distinguishes to my city: a tenuous and quiet mistthat seems to lower from the mountains surrounds the city and later it’sdistributed slowly on it, before becoming the prelude of season drizzles.Several decades ago, this phenomenon was only observable early in the mornings,but now it stays throughout the day, almost until passed the average behindschedule. Perhaps it is a reminiscence of the times previous to our grandparents,when they crossed the cold, spotted streets while the mist was shown just onthe limits of the city, and they hid of the daily drizzle under hats ofdifferent form according to the condition. Or perhaps it’s about a consequenceof the climatic change in the planet, and that mist turns out to be a warningof which all, without concerning some difference, we are exposed to the malaiseof the nature by our persistent polluting attitude in the world.
That also would explain thepresent difficulty to foretell the dry and humid seasons in my city, somethingthat did not cause problem to our predecessors of a century ago. It isimportant to clarify that my city is located in the tropical zone, and do notexist the four stations that characterize to the regions beyond the imaginaryline of the Tropical of Cancer (to the north) and of Capricorn (to the south),so we are customary to live dry and humid seasons during the year. Or we werecustomary, because that has changed in the last years remarkably. The grandparentswould have felt overwhelmed under their habitual clothing –of hat, ruana (atypical blanket to cover the body), dress and accumulated sweat– if they had supported heat waves in October,one of the rainiest months of the year. And the grandmothers would live scareduntil their skirts with the hailstorms that have covered the parks with thecity as if we are talking about snow seasons in the north of Europe.
I don’t know if another effectof the globalization is the homogeneity of the landscapes, but that already ispart of another discussion. Perhaps the mist is not more than a quiet witnessof the events of the city, and that reappears every certain time to be presentat the happened changes, to see how much we have grown, how much we have destroyed,how much we have learned and how much we need to learn. And of being thus, itsjudgment could be ambivalent: we have grown until unforeseeable limits, we havewelcomed in a great amount of people of different places, and we have createdgreat city-planning works and of engineering, and have learned important normsof coexistence. But also we have destroyed many green zones, we have allowedthe disordered growth, we have obtained partial solutions for the contaminationproblems and have neglected persistent social conflicts in the city. The mistfollows the movements of the city while it shuts up.
All we were accustomed to theclimate of the place where we grew. We can support the scorching sun of Julyand the torrential heavy showers of April. We even admitted that there aresmall truces in our meteorology (a refreshing drizzle in July or a sunny day inApril does not bother to anybody). But we did not get used to living in aclimate unpredictable and more and more prone to the ends like which it has touchedto us in these times. As well as I am not accustomed to this legendary mist,the same one with which –metaphorically speaking– many individuals look for to cover their crimes, their acts ofcorruption, their incompetency, their scandalous acts, their lies. Sure themist is not in itself the guilty of all evils in this society. It is only atenuous cloud mantle that all covers it, good and the bad thing, that wonder usand confuses to us, that takes to us to remember other times and to dream abouta better city in all the aspects.
Already sixty years ago,another mist covered skies in my city. The murder of a popular leader, of apresident in blossoming, darkened the political climate of the country andgenerated almost apocalyptic destruction in the downtown. There were deaths,hatred, fires and, later, a long process of reconstruction. And a crime that,spent sixty years, follows without being understood or being assimilated. It’sas if the mist had settled on the collective conscience, on history, on justice.But it is certain what they say, new winds will arrive and they will take themist towards unsuspected borders. And while we hoped to that mist returns tosee how we go, we will be able to order and to fix many pending subjects. Ofcourse, to fix the climate will take a little more time and the effort of manypeople outside our borders… sure, if that is possible.
