Quibdó, 26 June 2017

Since your last birthday, you and I have exchanged some twenty-five different communications, each involving at least two messages – one there and one back. Over the course of the year, we’ve seen each other just once, and, aside from the day we met for breakfast, I think I’ve heard you just once more than that: when you sent me a voice note, probably because you were in a hurry. Geographically, we’ve been far apart more than ninety-five per cent of the time. However, you’ve always felt very close by.

I don’t hear your voice, but something makes me feel that I have a part of you. I’m not quite sure what I mean by have, since I’m no great fan of possessives; it’s more the sense that you’re always near, and a strange certainty that I can count on you.

Times of crisis and my own bad manners make me behave selfishly. I’m always receiving encouragement, recommendations, support, and yet I keep forgetting to give them, or at least to give them to you. However, you must know that I’m also simply here. I don’t know what for, but I am. And from within this dense jungle, and from the constant tragedy, the extreme humidity, the sight of sunset after sunset and the stories that save us, you can count on me. You have a part of me.

With love,

Seño Velia