The fox and the lake

This is the English version of a post (in Spanish) published on Nov 7, 2007.

Imagine that you are a fox in the desert. Cunning and sagacious. From your early days as a baby you lived in the desert, where all horizons are equally flat and solitaries.

Your parents tried to help you since you was young, but you always opted to use your own resources and trust in your own intelligence. You got all you wanted, all what a solitary fox could wish: a soft fur, plenty of food, warm caves to sleep; even a cute wool pendant you found and now you show to others in your neck.

You got all in your life, except to see a lake. A lake full of crystalline waters, pure and clean, reflecting sunlight with wonderful blue tones. During all your life you only saw sand, rocks and some plants, but you never had the pleasure to get wet in a water source to refresh your ideas and give you new energy to live. Occasionally you saw the rain, but it wasn’t enough. Some day you believed to have found it, but it was only a dirty spot of mud in middle of the undergrowth.

Now 24 years have passed in your old live of a fox, and you still without knowing a lake. You had deep thoughts that this shouldn’t be something too difficult, because you are not even asking the see, you can settle with a lake, because its waters will be same crystalline and the same essence of sea water. Through the years your anxiety increases and, if previously you searched the lake with so much patience and moderation, now your desires are so strong that your impulses are overwhelmed. You are very clear about how to jump, dip, get wet and refresh in those waters once you see them; you are clear about how you have to round them to find the softer and warmer shore; you are clear about surrounding that lake there will be plants, palms and fruits, because you know that its waters attract life and beauty.

Your face looks worn, thirsty and haggard. You feel tired and you spend too much time looking those sand dunes moving as whirlpools by the wind. In that moment, when you never expected that, you see it: a beautiful lake right there in the horizon, surrounded by green palms and red fruits. The sound of its waters attracts you progressively, and that vision is enough for, despite your tiredness, you ran decidedly to that tasty spring. Your intelligence has not decreased and you are still very clear how you are going to jump, dip and get wet; you are still very clear how you must surround its shore and look for the warmer spot. You know what to do, but your anxiety makes you act accelerated. While you run toward the lake, you stumble, you fall, even your wool pendant have fallen to the ground.

But it doesn’t matter. The lake seems bigger, clearer and more crystalline. Its droplets raised by the wind seem to hit your face and renew your energy. You feel that your abilities are increased and that your life in that desert worth it. However, your desires are too much powerful and you don’t mind in make sure that your vision is true. In the past you believed to see lakes, but actually it were traps from poachers, thorny cacti or pale rocks. This time you are convinced and your determination becomes stronger. When you are just one meter away from the lake, you stop. You look at its beauty, the little noise from its waters and the fish passing by, in the deep.

In that moment, you don’t want to wait one more second. You jump. You can’t wait. You waited long time for this lake to appear in front of your eyes, and now it’s there. You know you must be cautious, but your desire is stronger. However, when you are in the air, in your trajectory to fall in the lake, you realized that it was only a mirage, that fades and denies you to get wet in that nectar of happiness. When you fall, you realized that the lake had become quicksand, and they drag you slowly toward a slow agony from which you will be able to escape, but it will cost effort, sacrifice and survival techniques that fortunately you learned in your life.

While the sands are trapping you, you know you have been a victim of your lack of patience. You thought that the lake will smile at you and it would be happy to receive you, because you was careful to conquer it with your look. But it was not in that way, and now you complaint that the quicksand are shaking in a way similar to water, because you know that is not water. You would like to turn it into blue waters, but you know that probably you can’t. While you try, the palms and fruits want to help you, but you tell them that leave you alone. That is has been your own fault.

I think that’s why I have been unsuccessful in love.