The world broke for me in the year 2017. That year I was diminished, I was overcome by the reality of my country that was starting to go through a fierce inflation and a shortage never experienced by any Venezuelan, but also that year I lost my dad, after having fought for 12 years with a kidney disease. Because of that swaying of external and internal forces, chaos ensued, a big bang, which threw a different Nancy to the one everyone knew and that pleased, until that moment, the social patterns of the moment.

Because I must confess that the Nancy of the past responded to certain conditions imposed by modern capitalist society: I had a car because I was told I had to have a car, I stayed in the best hotels because it gave me status and I shopped in the best clothing stores because I had to satisfy, according to my work, certain professional demands. To accumulate became a verb conjugated in the first person and with all objects.

In 2017, although I had money in the bank, there was nothing I could buy. Most supermarkets were empty and in those where food did arrive, you could only buy five items per person, so I had to learn to live with few things.

This experience, out of habit, was traumatic at first, but then I realized that many of the things I bought in the past were meaningless: I had no reason to buy different kinds of milk, bales of flour, different canned goods, meats for a battalion, different kinds of paint or wallets. At that moment I was pierced by the certainty of the simple, the simple and frugal: I began to appreciate bread with butter, coffee without sugar, salad without dressings, the comfort of flannel. That is to say, I not only began to appreciate the little, I also began to be grateful for it.

Likewise, that same year came the death of my father, which turned me, metaphorically speaking, into an empty space. With my father's death the world stopped and showed me the most naked face of reality: the important thing is not things, but people. You can have a lot, but that won't stop death from coming: we sold everything we had to save him, but it was no use.

So, after that death, I began to fill my emptiness with really important and valuable things: moments, hugs, memories. I began to fill myself with the wonder of the everyday, the richness of the elemental, the fullness of feeling, the communion with the world. I began to fill myself with the things I will take with me when I die.

Now, after having gone through that internal and external chaos, I find myself facing the swell of ephemeral, cyclical, fleeting things. I no longer have the need to consume, to accumulate, to possess: because I am certain of my transitory condition in this world. Gone are the days of shopping in big stores, luxurious trips, signature dishes. Now I rediscover the world in a sunset, in a smile, in a kiss. Like someone who looks at the sea for the first time, for me the ordinary, the everyday and the simple shine.

The images are from my personal gallery and the text was translated with Deepl

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