jane bowles. querida frieda

Querida Frieda:

No pretendo ser cruel, pero te escribo precisamente sobre aquello que considero son tus errores y espero sinceramente que lo que escribo te sirva. Como la mayoría de las personas, no puedes enfrentar más de un miedo durante tu vida. Además, te pasas la vida huyendo de tu primer miedo hacia tu primera esperanza. Ten cuidado de no terminar, por tu propia picardía, en el lugar donde empezaste. Te recomiendo que no te pases la vida rodeada de esas cosas que crees indispensables para tu existencia, independientemente de si son objetivamente interesantes en sí mismas o para tu propia mente. Creo, con sinceridad, que solo aquellos hombres que  alcanzan ese estado en el que pueden combatir su segunda tragedia interior, y no la primera una y otra vez, merecen ser considerados ‘maduros’. Cuando piensas que alguien está avanzando, asegúrate de que no esté estancado. Para avanzar, debes abandonar cosas que la mayoría de la gente no puede dejar. Llevas tu primer dolor como un imán en tu corazón, porque de allí provendrá todo el cariño. Debes llevarlo contigo a lo largo de tu vida, pero no debes dar vueltas a su alrededor. Debes dejar de buscar esos símbolos que solo sirven para ocultar su rostro. No debes ilusionarte con que son variados y múltiples, porque son siempre los mismos. Si no te interesa tener una vida tolerable, quizás esta carta no sea de tu incumbencia. Por el amor de Dios, ver un barco partir es todavía algo maravilloso de observar.

J.C

Jane Bowles, New York, 1917- Málaga, 1973

Versión© Silvia Camerotto

Dear Frieda,

I don’t mean to be cruel but I shall write to you exactly what I consider to be your faults and I hope sincerely that what I have written will influence you. Like most people, you are not able to face more than one fear during your lifetime. You also spend your life fleeing from your first fear towards your first hope. Be careful that you do not, through your own wiliness, end up always in the same position in which you began. I do not advise you to spend your life surrounding yourself with those things which you term necessary to your existence, regardless of whether or not they are objectively interesting in themselves or even to your own particular intellect. I believe sincereley that only those men who reach the stage where it it posible for them to combat a second tragedy within themselves, and not the first over again, are worthy of being called mature. When you think someone is going ahead, make sure that he is not really standing still. In order to go ahead, you must leave things behind which most people are unwilling to do. Your first pain, you carry it with you like a lodestone in your breast because all tenderness will come from there. You must carry it with you through your whole life but you must not circle around it. You must give up search for those symbols which only serve to hide its face from you. You will not have the illusion that they are disparate and manifold but they are always the same. If you are not interested in a bearable life, perhaps this letter does not concern you. For God’s sake, a ship leaving port is still a wonderful thing to see.

J.C.