Nadia Jiménez: 'Time is a place to travel to'

Nadia Jiménez has just presented her third book at the Casa de Colón, 'Es el tiempo', by Mercurio Editorial, a set of short travel stories as a continuation of 'Dátiles por la vereda'. Nadia Jiménez (1968) returns to her memory as the only refuge, convinced that time never weighs, "it simply is." "Time is a place to travel to, because traveling and remembering are linked to time," the author points out in this interview. Throughout more than 100 destinations around the world, the Canarian writer suggests that "forgetting has a good memory" that is why "time belongs to those who take it to live it." Nadia Jiménez is the daughter of the poet Juan Jiménez and the painter María Castro, to whom she dedicates 'Es el tiempo'.

 

‘Es el tiempo’ is conceived as a continuation of ‘Dátiles por la vereda’ (2022). Once again, the characters with whom the author shared each trip become bearers of memory, to which she seems to cling to to overcome human relocations like the ones she had to experience during the pandemic. “My relationship with these characters, who are real, is approached without regrets, even if the soul, which is so given to nostalgia, contradicts the head. The texts were written in special circumstances with the conviction that the effects of the pandemic were going to last..., over time. With the words about those trips, she brought me back to my memory as the only refuge. At least, as long as it stays awake in the face of established canons that try to make us forget something that was a shock, that entered our lives and that it may take us a while to shake off.”

 

Both books by Jiménez, even with the interval of the second ('Ukraine without Heaven', 2022), recreate a globalizing connection with more than 100 destinations almost all over the world, in which religion, culture or race does not matter. If anything, only time weighs. 

“I don't think time counts. Time simply is. In reality, time is a place to travel to. Any trip is valid to enjoy time, to slide on its needles. Traveling and remembering are united by feet, hands and soul at the same time. I record this fact in the dedication to my parents, the poet Juan Jiménez and the painter María Castro, 'authors of my first and longest journey', says the Gran Canarian writer.

 

 

 

 

As he comments, throughout the creative process of ‘Dátiles por la vereda’ and ‘Es el tiempo’, he aligned himself with vitality. “I bet blindly on happiness. I was inclined to enjoy the certainty that wherever each journey is, you are where you belong. You can travel without flying. It happened to me (and I tell it this way) in front of a cup of hot cocoa, in Paris, on which three elephants in a caravan were drawn. It was a small chocolate shop on the Island of San Luis, with Occitane blue wooden doors and glass panels, full of characters on the walls who watched you at every moment. It was a trip around the world in 80 days that Sylvie and Varina, one French and the other Sri Lankan, offered us. ‘La charlotte en île’ was a soul full of aromas,” she recalls.

 

For the author, “forgetfulness has a good memory, whether sleeping in a cup or floating in an aroma. We return to any destination with a simple noise or by rolling the pages of a book. I am convinced that happiness is something as simple as a cup of chocolate, from which desire is always nourished.”

 

His father said in a poem: “Living is the only thing that is true.” Perhaps that is why Nadia Jiménez understands that “time belongs to those who take it to live it. Life is lived while it is being lived. Without missing anything. Even during confinement we were able to recover the hours of memory, like a rumor in the air or "like tears in the rain", as Nexus said in 'Blade Runner'.  Nexus is a fascinating character who plays with our deepest feelings and vital, sheltering himself in the memory of time. Rutger Hauger embellishes the role; I like him more than Harrison Ford (laughs). His speech, at the end of the film, is hopeful: "I have seen things that you would not believe. Attacking ships in flames beyond Orion. I have seen C-Rays shining in the darkness, near the Tannhäuser gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain. It is time to die..." That is why I say live always and It is paradoxical that it is an android, now that artificial intelligence is so popular, that reminds us of our reason for being,” he adds.

 

If I had to define a favorite destination in 'It's time (stories of other trips)' I would do so by linking the destinations to a sensation. “Bethlehem smells like freshly baked bread; Florence hides the worn snout of a wild boar that brings luck; The house of the great poet Cesare Pavese in Turin moves me because I hear his voice when I touch his desk. In London I stepped and stepped on the Abbey Road zebra crossing dozens of times; and in the Plaza de La Verónica in Setúbal I learned the heroism of some sailors who saved their lives thanks to the dolphins,” concludes the writer.