'Yellow Day'

The Porma reservoir, where the literary route takes place.

It seems that June 20, that is, tomorrow, is considered by psychologists and by scholars of our behavior the best day of the year, as much as to have declared it, with the name of

(these things always come from the world Anglo-Saxon), the happiest of all for those of us who live in the northern hemisphere. Psychologists rely for this on the weather (on the eve of summer, the weather is usually good, without the heat that will come later) but also on daylight hours, which are the longest of the year and, of course, on the proximity of the holidays. The

thus becomes the opposite side of the

, which corresponds to the third Monday in January and which is considered the saddest day for the opposite reasons to those that make

the best, even with

, which at the end of November marks the time of lowest consumption , so traders, who know how to turn everything around, have made it the most profitable based on lowering prices. If there were days off when you don't have to celebrate an event,

, which will soon become fashionable and, of course, will become business. It is already celebrated, in fact, in some places by giving away yellow flowers, from daffodils to sunflowers or roses.

In Spain it has not become fashionable yet, but, since this year falls on a Sunday, many will celebrate it without knowing it enjoying the beach or nature or walking through their cities and more after the months of forced confinement because of the covid pandemic. I, for my part, will do it by following the route that an institute in my province inaugurates today through the landscapes of a novel of mine that gives voice to the neighbors of the towns that the Porma reservoir submerged and in one of which I was also born. That they are the teachers and the students of an institute leads me to tell it, not the author's vanity, because in times like these in which the value of education is questioned so much and, interestingly, by many that of public education, companies like that of the Boñar Institute,The smallest in the province due to the depopulation and aging that plague the area, are worthy of being highlighted, since they represent an example and the demonstration that with will and ideas, education does more for literature than all the plans of the Ministry and all advertising campaigns. Turning a book into a landscape and integrating the characters into it in the form of silhouettes (technology allows it) is what the teachers of that institute have done in collaboration with their students, who have thus understood that literature is not something alien to your reality and that reading does not have to be boring, the other way around. As a writer, I will never be grateful enough to those who have devised this route and to those who have collaborated in its creation (the Boñar City Council) and not only because the source of inspiration is a novel of mine,but because of the recognition it brings to my ancestors, who had to abandon their landscape and their lives for others to benefit from them. I can say that today is the best day of the year even if it rains.