After the success of the first material where Gustavo Musko shared his feelings with the community in book format, called “Five Roots, a Mirror”, the idea was born to continue giving space to poems and texts that arise from the depths of his being.
Phoenix Bird continues to reflect not only his life but that of many who unexpectedly, due to a sequence of situations, fell into a pit that has no bottom. Always present hope ensures that you can move forward, giving yourself permission to relapses that are often inevitable.
Emmaus, the home for the homeless, had a gazette where daily activities were shared with the community and on the back cover, they always published a poem by Gustavo. “Eliana Navarro was reading them and she suggested turning that material into a book and that’s how Cinco Raíces, a mirror, was born,” he commented.
For many years Gustavo did not have a permanent home, so in that coming and going he lost material. “I started writing when I was 14, it was a way to clear my head, so I would go running or start writing.”
His life
The poet was born in Bariloche and lived with his mother in Rolando and Albarracín. “I’m an only child, currently my mom is in a nursing home and my dad… well, thank you.” He added, “I saw him only when I had to go play soccer in Chile and he signed my authorization.”
When he was in primary and secondary school, he was passionate about spending the afternoons playing in a pasture, a little field that was right where Emmaus is. “Sometimes a circus came so one time I was playing next to an elephant, of course, when I tell it no one believes me” he joked.
Due to an accident he had to leave the sport that he loved so much: “It was on the Alas court, five minutes before finishing, a player came at me and broke me, I complained and they gave me a yellow card,” he recalled. She was 20 years old.
Gustavo goes through life hand in hand with loneliness and thought. “So many things happened to me that pushed me inward, I still did theater and that has helped me a lot.”
Problems
He started consuming alcoholic beverages at age 17 or 18, later with friends, but he felt that it did not affect his daily life. “I grew up watching my mother drink, my grandfather was Polish and he also always drank.”
“I started working at the Chamber of Commerce where I earned very well. One day my mother told me that we had to move, so I told her that I was going to Chile for two weeks and when I returned we would look for a rental,” he recalled.
When she returned she saw something totally unexpected, “instead of my mother I found a girl, her mental illness had advanced and I collapsed emotionally because with that, the pillar that she represented was gone.”
All the time I asked him the same things “I didn’t know what to do, no one prepares you for those situations, I had to keep working, on top of that we had to move, I started to become surly and quite intractable,” he admitted.
One night he decided to go out dancing and there he fell in love with a woman. “Two months later she became pregnant and since my mother was in Jacobacci with her family for a while, I told her to come live with me.”
Everything happened very soon, he had not yet processed his mother’s mental health and he was already in a relationship and expecting a child. The baby was born 7 months old but everything went well.
“I worked hard so that we didn’t lack anything, but my partner’s questions immediately began, saying that he wanted to be with me and not with my mother all day.”
Gustavo reflected “with so much pressure I felt like I was going crazy, his whole family started getting involved in our problems, one night I came home and my wife and son were no longer there. At that time he was two years old but they didn’t let me see him grow up,” he lamented.
Homeless
Gustavo lost his job and, unable to pay the rent, they were left on the street. “My mother went to an evangelical church and they lent her a little ranch so we moved, I spent hours waiting on some corner to see my little son pass by from afar and it took more and more.”
“I started sleeping on the street, sometimes in the hospital, I remembered that a co-worker had once told me about Asumir and I decided to go so I could get my baby back.”
Feeling better, he resumed the procedures to achieve that approach. “When I had permission they took me from Asumir to see him, my little son was already five years old.” Now she’s turned 23.
He rented again and worked in different businesses in Bariloche. “I was doing well, but one day I met friends and started drinking again, they kicked me out and I was on the street again.”
In a fight he was brutally beaten and was hospitalized for 4 months. “When they had to discharge me, I didn’t know where to go so they took me to what was then the Hogar Rogelio.”
Then the Emmaus project began to take shape and it still lives in the Home. “Sometimes she drives me crazy and I get lost in the streets drinking, but I always come back.”
This is how Gustavo lives, coming and going to and from his interior, fighting and making friends with life but he never stopped writing.
Phoenix
Knowing part of his life story, it is not difficult to imagine the reason for the name of his second book Phoenix Bird. Each copy has a value of $8,000 and can be purchased at the Emmaus Home at 1170 Otto Goedecke Street.
In addition, it will be presented this Saturday, April 27, within the framework of the Week of Visibility of the Rights of People Living on the Street. It will be at the Municipal Center of Art, Sciences and Technology of Puerto San Carlos, at approximately 6:00 p.m. at the artistic festival.
