Good or bad luck is different in Italy than in Pakistan. If a mirror breaks, years of bad luck await us in Rome, in Islamabad, quite the opposite. The seven years is a thing of the Romans, who divided the cycles of life into seven. Your luck is trapped in the pieces of a broken glass. To avoid it, you could only bury those pieces underground or in the bed of a mighty river. Maybe that’s what Narciso saw, a mirror at the bottom of the river when he looked at himself, fell in love and drowned. That is what Pedro Sánchez, Isabel Díaz Ayuso and also in Waterloo must be doing. All those mirrors flattering their owners like a rigged survey.
The mirror of Spain was formed broken and it cracks without breaking, but we are somewhat proud of it today in comparison with other European mirrors. It will last us days. This goes like this. For this reason, let’s take advantage of this post-traumatic respite (some, out of frustration; others, for having stopped the car on the edge of the precipice) and try to look at all the pieces and see who we are, not what we would like to be.
The soul is trapped in mirrors. That is why they cover themselves in the room for the dying and the vampires are not reflected in them. The soul of the Spanish, in lower case, and without epic, please, is in all the pieces of that broken mirror. The soul of a way of being in the form of a country that does not know how to make of its diversity, strength or, if you like, its historical and sociological eccentricity, a different and non-essentialist way of looking at and accepting oneself. A country with many Spaniards who do not feel Spanish. With others who do not resign themselves to the fact that there is only one Spain matrix. With all those who feel unloved, underpaid and forgotten by the former and Madrid residents with and without Madrid. A break to look in the mirror these days, and enjoy being unpredictable, chastened and stubborn in not giving up on trying one more time.
