This weekend was very special for us. As I said in a previous post, last weekend was the inauguration of the Caracas Book Fair, a space where authors and readers meet and writers present their works and readers have the opportunity to acquire, at fair prices, the most outstanding titles of their favorite authors.
But this year was different, more exciting and fun. The fair was filled with recitals, presentations and book christenings. And that brings me to the presentation of a book, written by my boyfriend, Marlon Zambrano and illustrated by me, this book was in our heads for a year, where together we tried to give an adequate aesthetic sense to the ideas that he captured through his letters, a playful book, where he narrates the experiences he lived during the pandemic and his quarantine. Experiences that we surely lived, more than one of us simultaneously.
It was a fun process, although at times I doubted that I could conclude what was needed to give aesthetic form to this book of chronicles related to the pandemic. As you may recall, we met at the beginning of the pandemic, you can read the full story here. That's how we fell in love and learned to know each other (we are still living that process) during the strong quarantine we lived in our country. All those emotions overflow in this, his book called La Pandemia no puede con el Amor (The Pandemic Can't Love).
Marlon insists that it is a book written by four hands, his and mine, and although I do not possess the gift of the word, like him, I ventured to accompany him, not only in life, but also in the projects he likes to undertake, my way of doing so is precisely by illustrating his ideas, so wonderful and funny, that in full presentation, while reading a fragment of his book, the audience did not stop laughing and applauding his words.
But this was not the only exciting moment of the tour, because when Marlon made the presentation of his book he named me in front of everyone as co-author, and that was the moment when I really felt part of that book, because I considered it is unfair since his words and his unique way of using them is the real reason for the existence of this book, which I used as inspiration. So I took that editorial publication as my own.
Days before Marlon had received the Stefanía Mosca national award in the Chronicle category for his book "Guatire, melaza y fogón" and it was a dream come true for which he worked hard and with much love for the archetype of women who, aware of their role in the world, preserved and rescued the culinary tradition of their area.
But although the whole context of the fair, the presentation and the award pointed with strong reasons for a great celebration to close with a flourish this weekend, the truth is that it could not materialize, we were a little late greeting those present, visitors to the fair, So when it was time for the book presentation, Marlon had to run ahead to the César Rengifo hall, where the christening of four books from the same publisher would take place, placing his bag behind the chair where he finally took his place during the meeting.
I dedicated myself to taking pictures of her participation in the program, totally absorbed in her words, and in the people who continually turned to look at me to celebrate the occurrences of the love of my life. Everything continued normally, until a moment, when the program ended, the protocol of the event was broken and everyone came to take pictures with him or with others present, who were also presenting their publications. When in a moment, as disparate as any other, we did not realize that my beloved's bag was no longer there, it had been stolen.
This completely dampened the mood of the celebration and we ended up celebrating alone, eating roast chicken accompanied by a few beers and consolation kisses.
The content presented here is my own.
The photographs were taken with my phone.
The separators and banner were made by me in Illustrator.
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