RAQUEL VILLAÉCIJA/ALEJANDRA GARCÍA

Updated Saturday, March 30, 2024-1:49 p.m.

The first "it all started" was in India, where people said things to each other with flowers. They were hung on necklaces around their necks, they were in ceremonies, birthdays, weddings and funerals. Later, in Cape Verde, it was difficult to get them, they were expensive and most arrived frozen in cold stores.

Alejandra realized the importance that flowers had in her life.

This is how his flordiary was born:

Hoy Florea

.

The second "it all started" was in Madrid, just one year ago today, about to pack our bags to go live in another country. It starts like this: "It

all started with a loss of references

. I took my dog ​​out and I didn't know if the cars that were coming were close or far away. Thank goodness the traffic light always ended up turning green. In the end I ended up stumbling with him on the grass from home, him with his wheelchair like the one I use now and me trying not to fall.

"Whenever they asked me, I said that I was like on an uneven level: the bubble outside its square. Now I see myself more like a Daruma, a Japanese doll. The custom is that you make a wish and you paint one eye and when it turns "You paint the other one.

I hope the day comes when I can paint the other eye, even if it's over my eyepatch

."

Alejandra uses a wheelchair to move around and wears an eyepatch over her left eye. A special one designed by a friend. She jokes that her best way to promote the book she has just published is to record a video like Kate Middleton's, "although she would have to retouch it, and on top of that she doesn't wear the eyepatch."

Alejandra García Fuertes, author of 'Camino del sol'EL MUNDO

Between the first "it all began" in La India and this last one in Madrid there is one thing in common:

their passion for flowers

, and a sensitivity to tell, in the most delicate way there is (with the fleeting nature of the petals), the human feelings, especially those from which we try to escape.

During the pandemic he published a book full of hope

, which sought paths of light. It was called

Everything Will Pass

(Asymmetric Editions). Through compositions with flowers he explained the emotional mess that we all go through. He put color and heat to the uncertainty, the fear, the pain...

Now Alejandra

publishes

Camino del sol

(Asimetric Editions)

, "a roller coaster on that path of searching for light." A compilation of feelings, emotions and stages within a process that she tells through sunflowers, lilacs, peonies, roses, tulips, orchids and carnations.

Because between that first "it all started" in India and that last one, in addition to that passion for flowers, there is also

a diagnosis

.

Alejandra tells it through a yellow Banksias (

Banksia Hookeriana

): "Inoperable brain tumor." The paragraph (titled 'Diagnosis') that accompanies the flower is barely a dozen lines, but it begins like this

: "I still feel the cold of the day they gave me the news

," and ends like this: "I exchanged the cold for the warmth of everyone." those who visit me, write to me, call me, give me flowers... And I don't burn. It is an eternal heat that never burns."

IN PICTURES

Literature.

'Path of the sun': a story of survival through flowers

  • Editorial: EL MUNDO

'Path of the sun': a story of survival through flowers

PROCESS

At Alejandra's house there are always many flowers, several bouquets. It is full of heat. Alejandra García Fuertes is "Keka" or "Ale" to her friends and family. She finished her degree in journalism and then became a diplomat. She has worked in several countries, such as India, where everything was said with flowers, or Cape Verde, where they were scarce.

She thinks not, but

in reality she has been a journalist for many years

: all of them telling human stories through her flowers.

In these months there has been

decomposition

and

recomposition

(two antupios, one cut in half and the other sewn), a

vie en rose

(the story of the peony, one of her favorites), a

Damocles

(Indian carnation),

radiotherapy

( black hellebore of Hippocrates) and

prickles

(a sunflower).

The first photo she took as soon as they gave her the news was

a burning cave

, which is the last one that appears in the book.

His favorite is

camouflage

. It is a phosphorite yellow orchid that tells the story of a pachyderm who is in a meeting and feels increasingly bigger and more visible. He changes size and his skin becomes rough and rough, while the staff follows (or tries to) his script.

"The terror of breaking the seat makes him shrink more and more.

Nobody wants to be proof that things can go wrong

from one day to the next. The meeting ends and one of the speakers stays and asks the pachyderm: How are you? "Are you okay? The pachyderm, surprised, hugs him with all his animal grandeur."

She explains it like this: "It's the feeling that you're at a table and you're an elephant, because you make visible something that no one wants to see: that at any moment life can go to shit." She tells it while, laughing, she talks about the Botijo ​​Museum in her town: Toral de los Guzmanes. A space with more than 2,000 botijos, which it turns out are now for sale and that she wants to recover for her flowers.

In Alejandra's house there are those flowers (they appear in acknowledgments, in order of appearance), there is light and laughter. She says the important thing is to play a lot. An image is repeated a lot in the book: that of her mother stroking her hair, because that lap is "where you forget everything, where nothing has happened and the world stops."

SUPPORT

The book is called

Camino del sol

because it refers to a poem by Joan Salvat, one of his father's favorites. He talks about

an army of ants that achieve what they set out to do

. His text begins: "I make my way and turn to see if the rest of the army follows me. There we are all lined up, like disciplined ants."

In his book there is also

Volar,

a flower that emerges very dignified, despite being held by a stone at the base; there is

pause, helplessness,

intruder, touch I and touch II

. But above all there is

sustenance, together, family, desires, strength, opportunity, breaths of life, afloat and light

. She says: "I like sustenance because of its meaning, because no one lets you fall."

In reality,

Hoy Florea

(and Camino al Sol) is not just Alejandra's project. It's Pablo and her. Also Juan, his friends and his family. "The authorship of the photos is mine, but now more than ever I am a director and he is an executive producer," she jokes.

They both have a tattoo on their wrist, which is illustrated in the book with two tulips that are joined by filaments. It's called

Together

: "I have you tattooed on my skin. Invisible blades that cross both of us. You and I are us."

They both discuss the book. They talk about their favorite flowers, the stories behind them, and whether

Camino

del Sol

is sad or a song to life.

"Let's see, it's a little sad," he jokes.

She disagrees: "Well, I don't know, there are people who say it's a song to life."

What

Camino del Sol

is is a song to love.

("Despite the regrets, today more than ever: today Floreo, today Florea." Prologue of

Camino del sol

)