«Siempre supe que, aunque las pasara putas, no iba a hacer otra cosa en mi vida»: Miguel Ángel Refoyo ante el abismo.

I started shooting at university, with the feeling of arriving very late to the medium. I didn't have a camera, I depended on others, and out of that rush came very rowdy short films, made guerrilla-style with a MiniDV and with all of us having a lot of fun. None of them aspired to anything. Beer, friendship, and cinema. What more do you want? But they were my first contact, and I learned on the fly: how a shoot is planned, how a crew moves, who waits for whom, how much an hour of poorly used light costs.

'El Límite' was very different. I had many projects and all of them were expensive. This one wasn't cheap either, but that's where I started doing something more serious and laid the foundations of what I wanted, visually and formally. I am still happy with what we did because it wasn't easy, and because a way of looking at things that I identify with came out of it. And I am very proud of the team I surrounded myself with, from whom I learned a lot, because almost all of them had already done things at a professional level in film. One of the secrets of cinema is that the people around you know more than you do.

With '3665' I repeated the lesson, but more thoroughly. There were better scripts, but they were unviable, and I had to adjust to a story that could be shot. It wasn't as exciting a shoot as the previous one. I took it on differently. So much so, that I planned every section of the shoot, even those that didn't concern me, in a sort of obsessive madness that I don't regret, but it was very exhausting. Even so, with a little more means we would have told the story as it was conceived. I say this without complaining, because I also had an amazing team under my command. Cinema has been demonstrating for over a century that scarcity sharpens wit and what you cannot pay for ends up forcing you to decide. What I do have to thank, and very much so, is the involvement of a lot of people who got into the shoot and post-production because they believed in the story. Without them there would be no film, and no budget replaces that faith.

Regarding how the filmmaker and the writer coexist: when I write I don't set limits for myself, and when I shoot the borders are imposed by the medium itself. I learned that if I wanted to shoot again I had to look for a possible story. And, paradoxically, out of that came a futuristic short film, with some special effects and a dystopian society. A fucking madness. But the core remained what I was passionate about telling: memory, what is lost, and who is responsible for recovering it. The writer dreams without restraint and the filmmaker brings it down to earth. They fight, and I think out of that struggle between my screenwriter self and my director self the best comes out. I don't know if that clash of egos will happen again. I doubt it, but I don't close the door to it happening.

It all started reading another blog. It was called 'Nopodemosmás', and it was written by the great Rafa Gil, a prestigious publicist and friend of the Alvariño brothers, who were mutual friends. I looked at it with curiosity and envy. It was an open door to being able to write and having people read it. I told myself: why not. I had a lot of written material from newspapers, magazines, and loose collaborations, a drawer full of texts, and I felt like doing things. I knew nothing about blogs. I jumped in expecting very little, but with enthusiasm. In a few weeks I saw that there were people on the other side, that they came back, that they commented, that they waited for the next text. For a time, I was addicted to writing in the literal sense. I would open the computer in the morning, waiting for the internet hours when I could access the net, thinking about what post I would upload that night. Whatever my body asked for. That space had no character limit, and I was not used to so much freedom.

There is an image that sums up the era well. I lived, went back and forth from Madrid. Once in Callao, among the crowds of Gran Vía, someone greeted me and recognized me. It was the guy who followed the Abyss. One writes alone, in a room in Salamanca or in Madrid, without quite knowing who the words reach, and suddenly someone stops you in the middle of the street to tell you they read you. It was cool. I ended up having beers with him. But the goal was never applause. It was enjoying writing, with a content of effort and work that has little to do with today's content creators. The urgency to produce came so that something would get read. That was written slowly, with the head set on the text and not on the metrics or the algorithm, which I didn't even know what it was. That is why its return is what it is: the attempt by an old-school traveler to create things his own damn way without expecting much in return.

Nothing different and everything at once. It's the best way I have to sum it up. Nothing different because the spirit is the same. I'm twenty-something years older, of course. An old fart. A 'boomer', or whatever the fuck it's called. And that shows in the pulse, but the one writing is still the one who opened that blog with a folder full of texts. Everything at once because in these ten years I haven't stopped writing. What the loyal reader will find is the legacy of the fourteen years until closure, intact and at their disposal, and also a lot of unpublished material: essays, long-form texts, and reviews that I wrote without knowing if they would ever see the light of day. From 2016 until today. The format is the usual one. The Abyss will have plenty of cinema and writing for an audience that wants to read. Networks, immediate feedback, shorts, the visual, podcasts, all of that gives me the shits. And I don't say this with contempt, I say it with the frankness of someone who knows his trade. The Abyss is texts. It always was. Whoever comes looking for a ten-minute video or a hot take is in the wrong place.

Nor am I worried about reach. I'm not returning to measure anything or chase anyone. Initially, I don't want to monetize or be famous. I have nothing to prove to myself or to others. I am returning to write like before, thoughtfully, with rigor, with the pleasure of giving shape to an idea until the text is published. If on the other side there are three, a hundred people, or a thousand, that will be the figure that satisfies me. There will be surprises, but they will be in content and not packaging. That is, perhaps, the biggest novelty in a world that has become so noisy. Screw content creators. I am not there. I am a writer with a career and studies versed in letters, not a celebrated fairground monkey living in Andorra making a lot of dough or freezing garbage while spewing toxic bile.

Reading. Always and hopelessly. It is a devouring hobby, and the best of my luck is that my work includes it. Being able to dedicate yourself to what you do in your free time is the most beautiful thing in the world, with a catch: the border between work and leisure is erased, and one ends up not knowing whether one is resting or producing. But I'm not complaining. Not even for what I'm paid, which is very little. I cannot conceive of a day without writing or without watching a movie, and the days when either of the two fails I find myself disoriented. I also live with music playing. Jazz, soundtracks, rock, whatever. I am eclectic by nature: the same way a Coltrane record can accompany me while I write, a John Williams soundtrack can accompany me while I cook, which is another thing I'm quite good at.

Then there is sports, and there I am truly passionate. Football, only Athletic Club, nothing else. The rest of the teams give me an overwhelming laziness. If I have to choose; basketball, of all kinds and at any hour. And if La Penya is playing, there I am. I am also an NFL fanatic, with my Patriots at the head, no matter what they do. I watch the NHL, and my team is the Philadelphia Flyers. Actually, I watch everything.

Among my vices, a confessable and well-known one is beer.

But the best ritual of the week comes on Thursdays, with a pickup basketball game alongside a group of guys with whom there is great chemistry on and off the court. Years pass, knees protest, shots don't go in like before, and still no one misses. If there is a place where I don't write, don't watch, and don't think about anything, it is that court with these fellows.

I am from Athletic Club by inheritance, but not on my father's side, who is from Betis. It reached me from a very young age from various fronts; through my maternal grandfather, through some uncles, through some cousins... in my family there are a lot of athleticzales. I grew up surrounded by zurigorri shirts, Sundays with the radio on, those Basque leagues and King's Cups. Supporting Athletic Club has never been just a matter of football. It is identity, a sense of belonging, a philosophy that goes ahead of the result. It is in the blood, even if it sounds like a cliché, and clichés tend to be true when lived from the inside. Besides, those of us from Bilbao are born wherever we want.

With everything else, the same thing happens. I have a great sense of loyalty. My group of best friends are those I studied with since preschool. And our reunions are with our EGB (elementary school) classmates, not those from high school or university. If I follow someone or something, it is forever: a team, a film director, a record, a beer, a place to sit. I don't like changes. Some people confuse loyalty with a lack of curiosity, and they are not the same thing. Curiosity is discovering new things, and loyalty is knowing what deserves to be loyal to. I do both. And if everything is fine as it is, why change. That's why The Abyss returns just like before.

Salamanca and its nightlife are important parts. During my university days, it was my habitat; lots of partying, hangovers, excesses, stairs, and early mornings that lasted until dawn. What I had to do, I did, and I stretched that dipsomanic nonsense quite enough. I had a child, and past a certain threshold of age, everything changes. I prefer quiet things. I don't regret anything, but I don't miss it either: I've already drunk those nights away entirely.

It is returning home after crossing the desert, my particular return to Ithaca, only here a kingdom does not await me but a keyboard, a cold beer, and recovered desires to write; and for those who never stopped looking into the depths, the proof that everything is still there.