#59 Japan

I pour myself another glass of whiskey. It's not my drink, wine is my nature, red wine, but nature has been strange to me this past year.
It's a 12 year old Chivas but it should be a Santory - I can see Bill Murray raising the glass in front of me now...
Just one hour ago I arrived home. It's Monday night which is cinema night and tonight was Ozu's night again, Japan night again, yellow tea kettler, pale green doors and I will always remember you - japonese movies from the 50's were really good and I said I never seen it and now I have - shall I tell you?
Tomorrow I'm going to wake up late for the first time in a long long time and I'm going to buy the lottery. Because of you. Because of you and mostly because I don't have have enough money to offer myself a vacation in Japan and this 2014 is telling me everyday go there - you, Ozu, my tattoo and the cherry blossoms and Air and, most of all Murakami - Japan!. Finished just 'South of the border, west of the sun' - the rain one - just now, after the movie. And I feel Japan calls me and I look to the right and I'm the cherry blossom girl and today I found your phone number hanging loose on the internet and I was just looking for an email and I wish, seriously, I had never seen it. It takes a very strong girl like me to resist it.
Tomorrow I'll send you a letter. I hope I can make it simple and clean. Just a sober invitation for a cup of coffee and an ice-cream (maybe).

#58 single woman's dinner

Starter - toasted bread with cheese and zuchini and wallnuts jam
Second - turnips greens soup (grandmother recipe)
Red wine
Desert - a glass of whisky and hazelnuts chocolate

(this is just a reminder, because most of the nights it's just apple with cereals and yogurt)

#57 girls will be girls...

"I started questioning gender based assumptions a long time ago.
When I was 8 I was confused at being called bossy because I wanted to direct plays that we would put on for our parents. But the boys were not.
When at 14 I started to be sexualised by certain elements of the media.
When at 15 my girlfriends started dropping out of their beloved sports teams because they didn’t want to appear muscly.
When at 18 my male friends were unable to express their feelings.
I decided that I was a Feminist."

 

I was called bossy all my life. I was called tom-boy. I was told that girls don't run around and should be more quiet. I was told that girls wear skirts and don't kick boys in the legs when the try to grab them. I was told that being a woman is all about being discrete, beauty, make-up, soft-power. Soft, sweet, pale, dresses, flowers, Jane Austen.
I was called "bossy" all my life but no-one ever told me that if I was a boy, "bossy" would be substituted by "leadership skills".
A strong woman is not yet an alpha-female.

#56 we are all lazy and guilty

My mom told me the other day - the only reason I do things is out of shame of not wanting to do anything.
I couldn't even believe it. Always thought she was a decided active person, she was always the one that pushed me to take over the world and now she tells me this. I remember when she dropped me off at the airport for my 3 months internship in US. After months of convicing me - you must, you have to, this is a great opportunity and I - I don't want to go, I don't want to go alone, Tennessee is in the middle of nowhere, I have my family here, my boyfriend here, after I made the decision yes, I'm strong, 3 months is nothing, I'll learn a lot, it's going to be fun, an adventure - she dropps me off at the airport and whispers at my hear - you are so brave, I couldn't do it!
We are all weak, I guess. And it's the pressure of the peers that make us be bigger. It's the image that we have of ourselves inside our head and the image that we project to the others that makes us be better. I'm a lazy lazy person. My house is a mess, my head is a mess, I never make my bed before I leave the house, I postpone things until it's impossible to keep it - projects, ideas, plans, meals even. You wouldn't see it when looking at me. Oh she's so strong, she's so brave (like my mom said), she knows what she wants and goes and get it - what you don't see is the nights I just sit on the couch, looking at the wall and watching all the dropps of yellow on the blue, thinking when will I fix that - that takes only 5 minutes and has been like that for 8 months now.

Persona (1966)

#55 '14=7+7 and 7 is not a lucky number

- It's 2014, sweet heart. I also left my long time girlfriend and I haven't a clue why. - he told me.
- I bet my ex- doesn't have a reason either, so it must be 2014.
Climate change, 14=7+7, the crisis, year with no summer... there must be a reason why bees keep on dying and relationships are falling apart. Another one today. One with kids last month. It's just 2014.
I've been thinking about ending 2014 since February. I decided to hold on to it a little bit longer, just out of curiousity, and then it was too close to my birthday and I wanted to have my friends around. I could end 2014 now. I should end 2014 now, make a huge welcome 2015 party, invite all the friends, I'm pretty sure everybody is already tired of this year, but I already bought the ticket and I'm kind of curious about what these vacations reserve me and after November comes Christmas and I can't wait to see the excitment of the kids waiting for Santa's...
Sorry guys. I should be strong enough to give up on all these things and save the world from 3 more painfull months but like a grown-up I'll accept the future and just hope that 2015 will bring us something better

#54 the things people say without a second thought

some may say "destroy to create" with an indie and hippie look on their faces. what they don't know, is that is the same of saying make war to build peace.

#53 the amazing people I meet

She says that she only dates guys on theirs 50's and, most important, with kids of his own. She says that once they have kids, that's when they become man, that's when their world stops being about their belly button.

A cigarette and a cup of coffee in a rainy morning in the balcony, 5 minutes of conversation, she smiles and says she's still drunk from last night, she needs to rush for the bus, goes back and forth, tryes to send he mom a last minute postcard, before she flyes home, she smiles and says that I look really young (I laugh, she's one year older than I am) and that she'll be back next year and we'll talk a little bit more.

I take a picture of her back - photographers don't like being photographed - and there she goes, Milan.

See you next year

#52 don't expect me to be bright and bon vivant

Sometimes the dead rise up from death and they just show up to hunt me. And I promised I would never look back, back is no direction, crying and trying to find some fairness, some justice, some sense to something I've already accepted  that had none, it's just a total waste of time. Still, having the ghost around, on the mouth of friends, stealing from me those 3 days of happiness, the ticket I bought a month ago and I carry religiously in my wallet as a promise of some well deserved fun after all this - nothing really compared to what I've already been stolen this year - re-hearing stories that don't matter anymore, having to make my heart into stone again, pretending that I'm happier now - I'm not but I'm all right, I'm all right, just weary to my bones, still don't expect me to bright and bon vivant, I'm all right, really am, happy even (not happier though), but only as long as the ghost doesn't find me.
So, dear friends, leave the dead among the dead, at least when I'm around


Many's the time I've been mistaken,
And many times confused
And I've often felt forsaken,
And certainly misused.
But I'm all right, I'm all right,
I'm just weary to my bones
Still, you don't expect to be
Bright and Bon Vivant
So far away from home,
So far away from home.

I don't know a soul who's not been battered
Don't have a friend who feels at ease
Don't know a dream that's not been shattered
Or driven to it's knees.
But it's all right, all right.

#51 things I prefered not to know cos it's none of my business

you feel good and you think that you're cured, the disease is gone, no remains of the pain, no leftovers from the past on the living room anymore, no memories popping up every now and then.

you even doubt if you were really sick, you don't remember crying anymore, you don't remember the pain and the old songs don't take you to sad places anymore.

you think I'm so proud of myself, I've moved so fast, I grew so strong, I'm in such a nice place now. But there are somethings that will always take you down, break you again a little bit, bring the past back to your days. Like when you invite a friend for dinner and she declines because she's going to have dinner with your past life. It's not the end of the world, it's normal, but it's sad.

#50 oh they used to love each other a lot

Come and pick me up after work, I say, we'll go for a drink. I pretend I'm the one that needs a drink and it's him that drinks till he falls everyday for the last 2 months. Come and pick me up, we'll go for a a swim and then for dinner and green wine, I need it.
He doesn't open up to anybody. Do people open up? I'm starting to think that nobody opens up. Nobody talks about problems and pains and egos and the nights without sleeping just crying. It's tabu. As if life was all about flowers and parties and that time I made that great trip. 20%? Maybe 10% of life, is what we talk about. I even know people that go and lie to their therapists not to admit that life has ups and downs.
She left me him, one day to the other. She left him and took his kids to another country 3000km away. I can't even imagine anything worst than that. They bought a huge house last year. They used to love each other. They were not happy all the time, I know, I was around enough to see their fights, their i pick up on you because you pick up on me, you always do this and you're always like that. I know he can be impossible and that she can go crazy, I've seen enough of them to know that, but I always truely believed that if there was love, all of the rest was minor. I learned with my life that that is not true. It is getting harder and harder for me to define love. I thought I knew it, I thought it was the shape of a warm meal on a misty cold summer day and a open botttle of wine or the shape of the eyes that watch you when you sleep. I thought it was that butterfly feeling that told you I want to be here tomorrow and tomorrow and now I don't even know if love exists or if it's just a draft that passes throught our mouths once in a while and disapears as soon as we put the words out there. I used to love a lot, I thought. They used to love each other a lot, I thought. Now they'll have to split the kids as best as they can, sell the house, restart from nothing or from little. Now he'll need me to share bottles of green wine and say silly things and serious things, just like I needed him a couple of months ago and this is what kills me - we all need each other, so why don't we take better care?

She knew he was impossible when they met and that was she liked about him.
He felt in love with her crazyness from day one.
Why don't they just accept it now?

I'll be there for both of you, my dear friends, because love fades away, but friendships are stronger.

#49 the masterplan

I got a plan.
Some may think that the world goes round because it's just used to it, but that's not true. There is always someone with a master plan behind it.
Most people just live their everyday life, but not me. I always have a plan. Call me Machiavel if you want, but I truely think that living without a master plan is just surviving. Or reacting. And I want my life to bigger than that.
So today I finally bought my ticket flight for my vacations and it's not just a ryanair boarding pass, it's a game. Life is a game and I really enjoy conspiring against destiny.
So the ticket is bought and the strategy is designed and doesn't really matter if all the plans fail, doesn't matter if the boy doesn't reply to the challenge, this boy will be there waiting for me.

Boy by Ron Mueck

#48 People always look better in the sun, she says

My dearest,

It's middle of August and it rainned all day. I wore my orange raincoat like I did in July. Eiry. Always this word in my mind. All summer is Eiry. And everyday I'm trying to forget you and I look out of the window and it's misty and it's foggy and it's Eiry and I come home from the gym wearing my orange raincoat, in August, like I wore in July, like you wore in July, and I'm looking for you in every guy in a grey wet shirt and everybody wears umbrellas, nobody faces the rain. I just wish it was sunny, I think I wouldn't think of you as often if it was sunny and Soko says that everybody looks better in the sun and I guess it's true and you just might be the exception.

I've just checked the weather report for that place you now call home and it's sunny and I think that you looked better here, with me, in my balcony, with a glass of wine, looking out and saying it's Eiry and feeling at home.

#47 Intimacy

I'm not a photographer.

Just this year I started taking pictures of something else than vacations or small funny moments. Just this year I got a good camera and even that was an accident. I didn't get it for myself, but for the boy that left me 20 days after the camera arrived my house. A camera that was too good for me, he was the one that used to take pictures and because of that I don't have any picture of myself from the past 12 years. Just this year, this year that changed my whole life, because I had a camera too good for my skills and because I didn't want to  see it a waste of money, I took a basic photography course. Not only for the camera not to be a waste of money, but mainly because I needed to keep myself busy, I needed to have anything but cigarettes on my hand, I needed to have an excuse not to cry and leave the house after work on occasional Thursdays. It's a cliché, but everybody said it - you need to focus on something else, go take a course, learn another language, start a new project and I said ok, not happy about it, but forced myself to it.

I've always loved photography, but always considered myself a terrible photographer, all blured and no light or focus sense but now I think I had never found my subject.

I'm not a photographer. But I do take pictures. And my favourite subject, at the moment, is intimacy. Maybe because I don't have it, maybe because I'm single and I miss the feeling of being part of something. And I am lying now. I do have intimacy, otherwise I couldn't take pictures of it. I have friends and family that are so intimate with me that don't even notice when I pull my camera to capture them, no posing, no smiling, no changing what they're doing - it's almost like I'm invisble and sometimes, being invisible is just awesome.

If I was a photographer, which I'm not, my goal would be this invisibleness, going inside the houses, the beds, the gardens, and capture life and love as if I wasn't even there.

#46 Supermarkets at lunch on a Sunday are for lonely people

I entered the supermarket on a Sunday for the first time in 5 years. I never shop on Sundays. Sundays are for family and for cooking and for parks and for sleeping all morning and having sex in the couch while a romantic comedy continues on tv. It was 1pm. I couldn't see anyone except for the cashier, bored looking at her nails - they definitely needed some attention. I grabbed her microphone and I said, peacefully, Is there anyone here that wants to keep me company? maybe share a bottle of wine? maybe some sex? The cashier continued to look at her nails.
An old lady come off the yougurt hall and yelled, sadly, my darling, my doctor told me I shouldn't drink wine anymore.
A sexy young girl, mini-skirt and doc martins, grabbed her kind of ugly boyfriend, looked at me from the bread section and said we don't do girls!
An old men said I'll go with you. He bought a bottle of cheap wine and we sat in a bench and we held hands (I've always loved the soft skin of elderly people, so much loose skin, so many wrinkles and small scars and tinny dots, constelations) and he said his wife died last year and I told him that I've been feeling lonely and as we finished the whole bottle his bus showed up and he stood up and said we couldn't have sex because he's out of Viagra and I said it's ok.

#45 Do you believe in coincidences?

I don't. I believe in chaos and that because we are always trying to find a sense, a reason, a meaning for the chaos, we add the dots that never exist, like we add the small dashes between the stars to create constelations as if stars had little spider webs attached to their burning cores. there is only chaos, I keep telling myself. whatever will be will be. but somedays, mostly Sundays, which are always the strangest of the days, some things click and I find myself wondering if coincidence isn't just a force, like gravity, that physics never manage to measure.

This neckless has been sitting in my desk for over 6 months, waiting for the rightfull owner to contact me. Today I picked it up and for the first time I looked at it with some attention. It's braille. I don't know braille but now I am curious and yes, curiosity killed the cat and I'm sure curiosity will kill me eventually. It's an H and a P - HP. And you can smile and say Hewllet Packard as everybody else would in the world, but not me because my name starts with an H and today is P's birthday and I've already decided I'm not going to email him the song.

Now I can only wait to go home, drink a bottle of wine and by 8pm, mildly wasted and sad, call it just another Sunday.

#44 Happy Birthday

I'm not calling you babe. Or write you an email. Or think about you. It's a promise.

Today it was your birthday
And I didn’t know what to do
Are you supposed to call the people you love
When you know they don’t love you

Today was your birthday
But I didn’t dare to call
Though I thought about you all day
Even at midnight I wanted to call
To be honored to be the first one to send you my love
And wish you

Happy hippy birthday

#43 he's a very important man, my neighbour

I've said it before - I love looking at my nighbours, at their windows, trying to figure out other peoples' lives, what do they do, how much they love their families, do they dance? are they happy?

This is mister important house. He has books and diplomas framed on his office wall. He is having a meal just now in the kitchen.

My bets are that he's a dentist and he doesn't like his job. He was never a top student and always excused himself for it with the idea that it's not the grades that matter. Later he went to a couple of meetings mainly to show off to his wife who always thought that being a dentist was a highly respectful position. She didn't even finish high school and she thinks she was very lucky to have met him once at a disco matiné. His latest diploma is dated from 1987 - that was the last time he attended a meeting. He doesn't go to meetings anymore because he thinks he already knows everything and his practice is doing fine.Not really well, but pays for all his bills. 

Since I moved here, 5 years ago, I never caught him grabbing a book from the shelf. The last book he bought was 8 years ago because he met an old university colleague in the street, a good looking woman, and she was heading for the bookstore so he joined her. He bought a very thick mistery book written by a well known journalist that had his face on the cover and big red letters saying bestseller. He tryed to read it but always got bored after 5 pages so he said to himself that not everyone needs to be a reader to be clever and the school of life can teach us so much more and he put the book in the shelf and he doesn't even look at it anymore.

He's not in love with his wife. He never was. But working long hours, he needed someone to take care of him at night, cooking and ironing his shirts and all that shit and he is really happy about his decision. She is a good one, she's nice, doesn't bother him much and she still looks good after 20 years of marriage. He never cheated on her. He once thought about it, with a client, but then her teeth got better and she moved on to her life.

His wife loves him very much and loves to keep the house very clean. They have big carpets that she chose from a very expensive store many years ago and she dusts them weekly. It's a hard work because the carpets are really heavy and she does everything all by herself and sometimes when she's dusting it off the balcony she thinks that one day she will fall. She is very proud of doing all the house work all by herself. Some of his colleagues have housemaids and wives that spend all day doing nothing or going to the gym or shopping but not her. She wakes up everyday very early to have breakfast with him, in the kitchen table and then she irons everything perfectly through the morning. He would never suspect, but somedays, after he leaves, she goes back to bed and sleeps until 11 and when he gets back for lunch complains about how the new sheets are so difficult to iron. 

They always eat in the kitchen. At first, when they got married, they would always eat in the living room, but with time they thought it would be more practical to eat by the stove and now there is a big heavy fruit basket and a flower jar on the dinning table. The flowers are plastic.

Before he goes to bed he always has a snack and he sits in the kitchen and thinks that he's very lucky because there are always yogurts and fresh fruit in the fridge.

Before she goes to bed she looks in the mirror and says to herself she still looks good for a 45 year old and then looks at their weeding picture on the drawer and smiles.

They are very happy.

#55 looking for a flatmate

I love living alone. I do. But today, for the first time since she left, 3 months ago, I missed my flatmate. I got home and I opened a bottle of wine and started cooking  and then I thought - where is that sweet girl I could steal cheese from when I didn't have time to go to the groceries like today and it's just sad, sorry Rosa, you were a great flatmate and I just hope I can find another Rosa in September, but I do love living alone  and having a flatmate is just the easiest way for me to be alive in this system that feeds on money. Sorry girl.
 

I love living alone and having the cat and the remote control just for me, but here I am sharing with you (is anyone reading?) the strange life of a 35 year old living in an awesome apartment by herself.

#42 blood is thicker than wine

Blood is thicker than wine.
Blood is thicker than everything.

She could be me, you know. It was cromossome randomness that gave her the black hair. Just that. She could be me and we don't even look alike. Maybe our noses are somewhat similar, we both have the same large hips and twisted knees but no-one would say we are made exactly with the same materials.

She was the first child and the only child when I arrived. She was quiet and spoiled. Not really spoiled, maybe used to all the love and attention. Definitely not spoiled. Quiet and used to a peaceful and loving house when I arrived. I imagine it wasn't easy. I must have been a revolution in her life, tom-girl that learn how to fight even before I was born, restless and loud in her pink princesses and books world.

We, obviously, never got along. Apart from the family, the ones that loved her for what she was hated me for being the opposite. I remember the voice of the my first teacher, who was hers' for the previous 4 years - "how is it possible! she doesn't stop, she screams louder than all of the ther kids together, how can she be your sister, you who sang everyday at the end of the class, you who were the best student" and me the destroyer, the one who finished the first grade without knowing the letters, the one who didn't care about sitting because my energy was too big for that. The same blood type, the same mother, the same father, the same fair skin and nothing else in common.

I was 4 years younger and it had to be me to teach her how to kick, how to fight, how to curse and  not in the nicest way, but I could say now that it was for her own good - how does one survive in this world without this knowledge?

So we didn't got along for the first 20 years of my life and to be truth it never really bothered me or her. It was ok. Our parents weren't really happy about it, but it was not a problem as long as we didn't fight and didn't, we mostly ignored each other.

But blood is thicker than wine. It is thicker than everything.

And now you're thinking about the crisis that brought us together, who died, who's heart got broken, because this is usually how the story goes, but not really, not with us, we don't like to be the rule, we, the ones that share this thick blood, we do things differently, and it was love that brought us together. She got married and I don't have clue why or how or who said something, but she decided I should be her witness. We have a younger sister, a sweet always funny adorable younger sister, loved by everybody and she was the obvious choice - she would have been my choice and somehow the big one decided to go with me.

Love, from where I can see, is always a choice. And it's nothing but a choice. Love forever exists if you decide that it exists and that it is going to be forever and if you stick to your plan. It's a decision. "I will love you now and forever" it's not a hope in my heart, is not a desire that my soul is not going to betray my mind, it's a decision that I will forgive you when you're wrong, I will hold you when you're in need, I'll be laughing with you when you're happy, I'll learn how to like the things you love, I'll try everyday to see the world through your eyes So she decided to love me on that day and I decided to love her back and it was as simple as that because love is simple and is just a decision.

And blood is thicker that wine and is thicker than everything and we may not look alike but we were cooked in the same oven and we made the same choice of loving each other and that is all it matters. And because we decided to love each other, I feel my nephews as my own skin, she feels my pains like in her bones and because we want our love to be forever, we pay attention and we care everyday and the dress and the book that arrived my place of work today, just a minute ago, this package that mister postman decided not to bring to the 3rd floor without an elevator because he is just lazy and he doesn´t care, this package that just by luck was not stolen from the building entrance, is nothing but a pure expression of our love and she didn't even answer the phone to hear me thank and she will never read this text but since blood is thicker than wine and thicker than everything she already knows in her heart, from the moment she thought about buying this book and this dress, that I just loved it!

#41 not the end

i like to know the end.

i never quite anything. i always go all the way to the end because i need to know how it ends. there are only a couple of books that i started that didn't finished. now i remember an awful Nick Cave's book a friend gave me, she picked it up just by the author and i do love Nick Cave when he sings and he breaks my heart everytime, but sorry dear Raquel, i have no idea who told him he should right a novel. it was terrible, it was boring at times and it was painful to read sometimes but i kept on hoping for the final twist, for a good moment, a good sentence that made the time worth it. i didin't find it, but still i read it all the way to the end. i needed to, you know, how could i just accept not knowing how it ended? i could never.

they say curiosity killed the cat and i guess it will kill me eventually.

but sometimes the end is just "and then he said you have my email, right?" and you just go WHAT? this is the end? oh kid me not! tell me that there is a second season for this show! tell me that someone is writing part two, a crappy sequel no-one is going to watch! don't tell me that I'll have to live with this end! don't tell me that the rest of the story will only continue in my head! give me something more! please! tell me that after that he flew and the plane crashed, or that he went back to his ex-girlfriend, or that he started jogging or painting or something... tell me that she wrote him an email and he didn't answer because it ended in the spam box, but he still thinks about her from time to time, or that he saw the email and laughed and told his friends about that crazy girl back from his vacations... give me something more 'cos this end doesn't let me sleep at night.

people that write these final lines are just sadistic, that's what i think. they are mean twisted and crazy and i'd follow them anywhere just to know a little bit more of the story.

#40 no news from you on my my spam box

Sometimes I look for you under the bed.

I sometimes look for you in my spam box. It's just one excuse, another excuse, another believing that it's fate or destiny or something else that it's keeping us apart. You weren't there. But there was another cute boy telling me to loose up my hair 'cos that's how he likes it, that's how he remembers me. I always keep my hair up tight. I remember him saying, as he was leaving, you should wear your hair loose, always, it really looks good on you! I think I blushed - I didn't expect it, we hadn't talked for more than 15 minutes the day before, when I had, as usual, my hair on a bunny. But he didn't touch it, my dear, he didn't put his hand on it and said your hair is so soft looking me in the eyes and I didn't reply it's Gerês still on it. That was you. And it was your voice I wanted to hear on my my spam box and if it was your voice talking about my hair, I would loose it up right now, I would shake it like the girls on the comercials, and I would smile and lie again, it's the forest, or the seaweed or the water springs that live in my hair.


And because it's was not you, I don't know what answer, I don't even know if I should or do like you, take the compliment and continue with my life. So I'll just keep it as it is, as always, discret, up tight, saving me for boy troubles. And wear it loose only in my drawings or the next time your soft hands are around.

#39 the empty hours

I've always wondered what people do when nobody's watching.

What do people do when they are alone on a rainy Saturday in the middle of July?  Or any week day after work, when you arrive home and everything is clean? What do people do?

Do they talk with the cats? Open a bottle of wine? Watch Tv as if the world, the whole world, isn't on the other side of the window?

I know what I do, all the silly things I do, but I kind of wonder if these are the normal things to do - wine and cake and tea and drawings and cat and coffee (gOD I needed it) and writing and photographies and waiting for something else, for something big, that I don't even know what it is, to happen but it doesn't.

I'm pretty sure that there is a study on this, there is a study on everything these days, or a book... maybe one of those "what to do when you arrive home and you live alone and everything is clean for dummies", but I'm no dummie and after so many years doing the same things - cooking, washing the dishes, doing the laundry, planning life for two, now that I don't really feel like cooking, that I use one glass and one cup a day, now that the laundry is for one and can be done once a week, now that I don't even feel like planning my own life, these free hours just seem strange. I'm not complainning, I love having the house for myself, I love that I have time for the gym, and that I can eat something as simple as a salad or a pasta, I love that the house is always clean and shinning, and I love that I can plan my vacations just for me (museums and museums and cafés) but there are some hours, some moments, some free rainy days, that seem too much of another life.

Everytime I go for a cigarette in the balcony I check the buildings around. I check the flowerless balconies, the blinds closed, the flickering lights of tvs, occasionally someone else's cigarette break, but mostly closed blinds, people living in closed boxes and me wondering what are they doing in there and I wished I was living in Holland where I could actually see what do people do, the paintings on their walls, their family or lonely meals. I think that if I live in Holland I would take a walk at night, every night, just to see what do people do.

In those moments I would call you, my love. After the drawings, after the cake, after the plants, with the wine and the cat waiting for the bed, I would call you. And I'd tell you about my new plans, I'd tell you that rainned all day, I'd ask you about your day - you could tell anything, just think about your silly moment of the day - I'd tell you about my new underwear that I'm wearing just now and that the local news says that we'll have more riverside beaches next year.

I would call you on any subject in those moments, just to check on you, just so you could check on me. Isn't it what people do?

What do you do?

#38 home alone on a Friday night

In case anyone is wondering (and truely only because nobody is), I'm home alone on a Friday night, makeup on, wearing only fine underwear and a men's shirt, drinking Port wine.

Obviously, if anybody was really interested, I was wearing a plain t-shirt, jeans and snickers and I was out drinking with some friends, cos that what normal people do!

I do look good, anyway, and thank gOD there's  a mirror on the hall so can somebody see me ;)

#37 it's me by the shore, always me by the shore

I get scared sometimes. My ability to get inside things and leave this world is enormous, it's like jumping a cliff, it's like being on air in this gigantic fall where I can see the pine forest on the bottom, always at the same scary distance. Books, movies, music, I can always get out of this world and jump one character to another, feeling everything like it's on my skin.

I told you, my darling, didn't I? that I live in a world of my own, right? I told you that my reality is different, that I'm not happy with this system, with these people, with humanity and with the fact that there are no wild cats running free in our woods. And I told you that in my world, Adolfo is a lion and my apartment is a small house in the forest and my work is full of beautiful people. I think we had time for the reality discussion, the truth doesn't exist but in our eyes and each one of us can, activelly, select the truth we choose to see. I remember, we were by the river side and I asked you if a butterfly had just passed by in front of us, and I saw it and you didn't, and it was the high moment of my day, how could we have the same reality of the end of the day? You, always pragmatic, answered that you believe in truth, the absolute one, and that only our brains are to simple to understand it.

Well, I am, as always, getting away from the point. What I meant to tell, my sweet soft hands boy, is that I am scared. Yesterday spent the afternoon reading your "Kafka by the shore". At first I was so happy - how can a stranger, after one dinner and one afternoon, select me such a perfect book, how could you read me so well. It's not easy to choose books for me. My older sister, who knows me since before I was born, misses 50% of the times. My brother in law is very good at it and now I'm starting to think that he is a little like me on the inside. But you? When everything in your world is the opposite of mine, who's life story never gave you flowers, and ice-creams by the sea, who never had the possibility of being 8 and spending the whole afternoon on the room floor surrounded by books and watercolours, who could you be so perfect on your choice?

But then, my dear, I'm thinking it might to be too much for me. I'm getting inside of it to the point that after 5 minutes of reading I'm no longer here, like I am in Japan, and I'm Sakura (there is a translation note the first time her name appears - Sakura - Cherry, Cherry Blossom, Cherry Tree and I hear us, in the car, Air playing Cherry Blossom Girl and me telling you that I am cherry blossom girl and you looking at my right shoulder and understanding and me explaining that maybe that was not such a good idea and you asking the tattoo? and me saying that it was not the tattoo itself, but the symbol and you said yes, cherry blossoms are the symbol of death) and you Kafka and you Nakata, the loneliest boys away from home and yesterday, just around 5pm you killed Johnnie Walker and I was so scared that I run to the gym, took 2 classes - gluteus and abs followed by pilates - just to get myself together, put all the energy down to a level where I would be able to sleep without calling you for a hug.

#36 he lives

and this is when i start to get nervous!

#35 9 words

for spam reasons, he gave her the wrong email

#34 oh boy...

... this is killing me!

#33 pranks of a multilingual brain that feeds on music

the only thing I have to say, my darling young one, is soube-me a pouco

#32 Underwater love

 

and most of the times, this is what one needs. a underwater day.

and it was cold, and it was moisty and it was Eire (so he said and he should know), and the water was freezing and still mother nature (oh sweet sweet mother) took us in. and the sounds of the leaves and the sound of the birds and the snails and the snake egg on the way...

and I still think I lost all my toes in those lagoons and just the idea that they may be feeding the little fish makes my heart jump

#31 Woody Allen speaking in my behalf

#30 telling my life with his words

I have no idea of what I'm doing. But, my darling, I said I was going to watch the movie and so I have to and I can only tell you that this just not a good idea and I've only seen the first 5 minutes and I'm already regreting yesterday's love letter and it's mention on Before Sunrise. The only thing that it's giving me some peace is the sincere hope that the letter ended up on your spam box or that you stick truth to yourself and accept my recommendation and never watch it.

First impressions - Julie Delpy is so much cooler than me and Ethan Hawke wished he was half as cute as you.

Minute 17 and you already heard twice the english speaking people speak only one language and I'm laughing hard because it happened to you when we where having drinks and I can't stop being sorry for you!

Minute 23 and I and Celine hate when people say we are so funny. Clowns are funny and I hate clowns. You said I was funny and I had to tell you about my post-grad in Lisbon when everyone I said was so funny and it was not funny at all because being different is not the same as being funny and just because my world is different and my accent is different, here in Lisbon or in US, doesn't make it funny and then you corrected it and you said unusual and I loved it because unusual is close to rare and rare things are unique and I like the idea that I am unique.

(this is going to be a funny afternoon, after all)

and scary
Minute 36 and I would never let a palm reader read my hand and this moment has nothing to do with you, my dear, but if I believed in palm readers I think they would tell me exactly this
"you're interested in the power of the woman, in a woman's strength and creativity of this woman. you're becoming that woman. you need to resign yourself to the awckerdness of life. only if you find peace withing yourself you'll find a truth conection with others"

oh baby, don't ever see this movie! ever, please! and it's just scary 'cos this is a letter that I will never send and I just have to hope that you don't suffer from Saudade and my mad mental disease of revisiting life and decide to check it, just for the fun and it might not be fun in the end 'cos I don't want you to hear me say things like in the minute 64, that I didin't say but you know I would and I couldn't even explain it again that your world is beautiful the way it is and that you don't need to be sharing it around like I do to make any sense out of it!

and BAM my darling, minute 78 and we were by the river and you may not know how that moment was so important for my life right now, and how much I enjoyed spending it with you.

and in the end I'm just glad we had 10 more years than those guys, I'm glad that we had sex and that we didn't waste a minute about the future, or the good-bye and that you kissed me and just said you have my email and I said I'll send you the receipt and that we didn't plan any second meeting and that we didn't have one single awkward moment and that this story is going to be forever and even this movie ended in a trilogy and those guys are married now with kids, since none of us believe in faith or destiny, we can write our own story. And I'm glad none of us sugested a meeting in Vienna in 6 months.

I'm just sorry for anyone that crosses this post because it doesn't make ANY sense and, to be honest, my life doesn't make any sense and there is really cool movie that tells a bit of my story and that is just creepy and great at the same time and I'm kind of ok with that.

#29 a most peculiar men

He was a most peculiar men. This was always one of my favorite songs from Simon & Garfunkel and I never really understood why but I've memorized the lyrics when I was a kid and I sometimes i still sing this song in the shower, enjoying it. It's a sad song and I always thought it was about a sad men and this weekend I met the most peculiar men and despite he lived all alone within a house, within a room within himself, (the most peculiar men) despite he had only 5 friends and seldom spoke, he spoked with me and we talked for hours and he told me everything and the most peculiar men was just the most interesting and amazing person on earth and he just didn't like to share himself with world but he shared himself with me and I can only thank god that I'm sure he would never commit suicide.

#28 a ridiculous love letter

Hello boy,

I was kind of insecure about writing you a long letter but I think I was honest enough with you for you to expect me to write you a long letter so I just needed to be honest to myself and send it. The long letter would eventually be written anyway since I like to write good stories and send long letters to strangers.

I just don’t know where to start. It was easier to have meaningful conversations when you were here, 5 minutes ago, although I don’t expect this letter either meaningful or a conversation. Ok, here we go (just cleaned the bathroom so I’m ready to go at least for a paragraph, before I go for the room). As soon as you left I thought to myself – what an amazing weekend! what a great love story! hiking, swimming, having philosophical discussions, cute boy with the softest hands in the world, laughing and drinking wine and having tapas…  and then I thought, crap! I’ve seen this before! and a movie popped up in my head and I said what a cliché! Have you seen (I know you haven’t and please don’t go and see it, it’s a girls romantic indie movie and I’m almost certain that your truth is different than mine) Before Sunrise? Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy meet on interrail train have philosophic conversations over wine and walks by the river and they know they only have until sunrise to do it ‘cos they are splitting the next day. What a cliché we are! (I’m going to watch the movie later just to see if we made better story - by the way, kind of a cheap tip leaving 1 cent on the hall floor, after what I did for you ;)!). And the strangest thing is me only remembering this now since we talked about the Waking Life movie which is also by the same director and both characters from Before Sunrise show up at some point having interesting bed talk and even when I’m writing you I’m feeling shocked and then Robert Flack sings “telling my whole life in his words, killing me softly” (and, I know, how corny of me… this was the moment when, if you were here I’d say - I know, I’m pretty ridiculous and you would say that you don’t like when I say ridiculous and you would say something like unusual and I would be ok with that).

Well, by now I just hope you’re smiling with your lovely eyes and no longer scared about receiving a letter from a stranger.

If not, I’ll try to explain it to you. And it meets the Saudade conversation. I write long letters to strangers (and I don’t always send them) because writing is a memory exercise. Once you write about some event, some discussion, you select the words and with that you are forced to relive the moment so it just sticks to your memory better. You would say that it’s living in the past, revisiting good memories as if we couldn’t have good moments in the present or in the future, like the Saudade thing we discussed in the car on our way from the beautiful afternoon by the river, and I would disagree and I would change the conversation to today’s 6am and the meaning of life bed talk and I'd just refute the reproduction theory and create a new one where I think that our goal in life is to live as well as we can and get to our last moments and check our memory and say – fuck yeah, what a good life I had, so many amazing stories, so many meaningful events, so many beautiful moments. And because everyday life will always have a huge portion on boredom, and routine, and disappointment, I write about the good things so when I’m 94 I’m able to recheck and say – God (and by God I mean God the expression not the creator), in 2014 I had a movie like love story for 48h and that is just crazy and cool. My grandmother died with Alzheimer’s and she had it maybe for the last 10 years of her life and it was just sad to see her sitting outside watching the roses and sometimes I think she had Alzheimer’s because she didn’t have a happy life so she didn’t have good memories to hold on to so she didn’t even want to exercise her memory. I don’t think she ever wrote a line. Or maybe she did have the happy moments (I’m pretty sure she did) and she didn’t plant them in a way she could revisit them and so she got Alzheimer’s and this doesn’t make any sense ‘cos you cannot prevent a disease just by writing long letters, I know.

And this is the moment when you think (and I have not a clue if this is what you think, how could I, you’re such a strange wonderful different person, I can only guess!) that I’m not really writing you, I’m writing to myself and I write long letters to strangers because I don’t like the “dear diary today I met a nice boy” literary style but, in my defense, if I may, I’d say that at least I’m sharing it and letting you know that I had a great time with you and that is just nice of me. Maybe? Or just the fact that even not believing in absolute truths, showing you my version of this weekend, this can be a funny thing and you can compare it to your memories and just laugh a little bit and say I didn’t see it this way, how strange we all are with our different perspective...

By now I’m kind of wondering if I’m really going to send you this letter or if I just save myself from the embarrassment and publish it on one of my anonymous private blogs that no-one reads. (I’ll leave the decision for later).

And then I realize that it’s not just for me and my memory, this letter. Well… it is in a sense that everything we do freely is a selfish act to make us feel good (and this is another subject – oh, we should have had this conversation! I would love to know your ideas about it!) but I wouldn’t be happy with myself if I didn’t tell you that you are the cutest guy ever and your hands are just so good to hold because they are so soft and that you look terribly sexy in those shirts of yours (and wet, on Saturday night, under the rain… just wow!) and that I’m happy that I didn’t even try to take a picture of you ‘cos I’m so bad at photography that I’m pretty sure that it could never match the image that I keep in the back of my eyes and then I remember the pictures Othe guys from the tour took and my favorite of you is the one where you’re wearing my sweater and it’s so cool of you to accept it ‘cos most guys, even freezing, would say no just not to look ridiculous and it’s so amazing how you don’t look ridiculous just because you don’t even care about it and that is so fucking rare and beautiful! (By the way, if you need a raincoat go for an orange one with a hoodie!) You called me unusual and I just think that you don’t have a slight notion of how unusual you are! And not only in my flower happy world, but in the real world where people go to work and have “normal” (I just hate this word) jobs and mortgages and fat kids and that jog only to look good on the eyes of the others. You, my darling, are the unusual one here. You’re so brutally honest to yourself, it’s just scary and I never met anyone like that. And your quietness on knowing the fucked up world we live in and still peacefully accept it… and I shouldn’t be writing these things, ‘cos now I really wish you were here just so I could steal part of that amazing way of being you got. Bam! Saudade!

It’s 16.24 and I haven’t eaten anything and my world just looks ridiculous (and now it’s really the appropriate word) and I just wish I was more like you and have the organized life and schedules and ability to look at the hours and say I should be eating ‘cos this is not healthy, so I’m going downstairs to get something and be back for this letter with some energy on my brain.

Ok, just did it and also took the walk to go to the book fair and bought Murakami’s “Kafka by the shore”. Funny story here – got there and said exactly what you told me to Murakami’s book something with Kafka on the title and the guys said oh, it’s that one that got destroyed by the rain on Saturday and I was like… oh… the rain on Saturday… and they showed me the book and it was actually another book and yes, it’s in a very bad shape, they won’t be able to sell it so I just asked for them to put a price on it ‘cos it’s still readable and I would like to keep Saturday’s night rain with me. (I’m honestly blushing while I write this and the only reason I can actually say these things is because we will never meet again). I’ll go back there at the end of the week to prevent the book and the rain to be thrown to the garbage – that would be a sad thing! And also – I’ve checked Murakami on internet and I was very happy to see that I will for sure love it (you are so right about it!) and I knew that when I saw that he wrote “Norwegian Wood”, probably the only Japanese movie I saw and loved it. I’m pretty sure you haven’t seen it – it’s not from the 50’s, it’s a 2010, or maybe you did ‘cos that was when you were there, right?, doesn’t matter, I loved it and if he’s honest and coherent with his writing I’m 100% I’ll love this book and hopefully the rainy one too.  And it feels good to have the book here and to see how big it is because that will keep you with me for a little bit longer. I might even need to write you a second letter to tell you my impression on it, I’m just not sure if I’ll send that one. (yes, I’ve made up my mind and you’ll get this silly love letter).

Some (beautiful) people say thank you for the great weekend and some others write long love letters while they could just say “it was honestly a pleasure to meet you and that you became such an amazing story of my life”. 

And because we also talked about Pessoa, the crazy Portuguese poet with multiple personalities (or he just isolated the different aspects of himself like I do) here is poem for you, with the words ridiculous and love letters together for you to find a proper translation (I’m pretty sure that even google translator can help you get the point)

Todas as cartas de amor são
Ridículas.
Não seriam cartas de amor se não fossem
Ridículas. 

Também escrevi em meu tempo cartas de amor,
Como as outras,
Ridículas.

As cartas de amor, se há amor,
Têm de ser
Ridículas.

Mas, afinal,
Só as criaturas que nunca escreveram Cartas de amor
É que são
Ridículas.

Quem me dera no tempo em que escrevia
Sem dar por isso
Cartas de amor
Ridículas.

A verdade é que hoje
As minhas memórias
Dessas cartas de amor
É que são
Ridículas. 

(Todas as palavras esdrúxulas,
Como os sentimentos esdrúxulos,
São naturalmente
Ridículas.) 

Álvaro de Campos, 21-10-1935

I could continue this letter forever and I might need, at some point, to write you another one on some kind of existential question or just to share a point of view, from my world to yours but now i’m about to let you go to your PhD quiet Professor life and I just hope you know that this letter doesn’t require a reply.

Just to finish in a less silly corny style, the author Ricardo told you should check was Miguel Torga, don’t forget to listen to the dialogues of the "Waking Life", watch Von Trier’s “Dogville”,  and read Marguerite 
Duras’ “The Sea Wall” (both on the decadence of the human being as an individual) and  - to finish with a POP touch - don’t forget to keep me in mind.

#27 being an auntie and having cats it's not an unhappy end after all

for a couple of months I needed my friends more than I needed a bath, or water, or air. I needed them at strange hours, I needed their attention, their care, their laps, their hugs.

You don't need a million friends. You need maybe 5 and I am the luckiest friend in the world.  They were there for me ALL the time. they heard things they didn't want, cleaned my tears, let me sleep on their couch, took me out even when I didn't want, made special plans for me, got insulted and didn't reply back. They were patient. They were calm and gave the best advices and the most sweet silences.

I've always needed my friends, to be honest. I love all my friends because they grew into me for so long that they are a part of me. I was the first one of the group to have a house of my own and it was the place for the everyday party, the dinners, the game nights, everything. The house was always full of friends, open doors.

On Fridays I used to call my best friend or just show up in her house for dinner. Today it's Friday so she called me and her baby girl (2 years old) said "Come over! Come aunt Helena! Come!" and it was the most beautiful thing in the world. I'm not going, I'm meeting a guy for wine and dinner and, to be honest, I think I'd prefer to be with that family and not the single girl going on a date but just be aunt Helena and the one that always brings wine for dinner.

Sometimes being an auntie is all one could ask for!

#26 good thing my knee is better and i can run again

the best thing about having a good imagination is that you can always add flowers and crazy and hapiness and amazing creatures to your life, even when it's dark
the downside is that reality always catches you, from time to time!

#25 you should flirt, he says

and he knows, cos he's a good psychiatrist.

i have to be honest that it sounded strange to hear that in this particular context. on a consult, by the doctor i didn't even wanted to go (i thought i could deal with it on my own, like i always do about everything). actually, it was pretty much - either you start flirting or i might need to prescribe you some medication - and god knows how i hate medications and the idea that i need drugs to clean this situation from my mind - i'm not that weak - i am quite strong - he's the weak and he's going around partying like nothing happened - i'm sure i can also do it - and yet i was still crying and hurting because he's dating a stupid girl and he used to love me a lot and other bullshit that actually don't matter anymore.

are you flirting, he asked? and i, tears in my eyes and heavy heart, no i'm not. you should, you know?, you should. naif flirts, 1 month boyfriends, nothing serious cos it's not time for starting serious relationships, you'll have time for that, silly flirting and kissing and dancing, he said and my heart heavy listening and still thinking i can't do that.

and then, after calling all the good friends, mom, sister, crying like a little girl 5 months after he left i just thought - what a waste of time, just like all my girls have been telling me since he left running like a 16 year old kid. what a waste of time!!!

you're so right, dear doctor, as always. flirting!!! flirting around with boys with brains, spreading my charm around, dancing in a mini-skirt and knowing one is looking from the distance, promising wine dates, book exchanges - oh must really read this, i'll lend it to you, i'll read it to you - or having a geographer insisting on taking me home by car after dinner when we are 2 streets aways from my house and seeing him taking 25 minutes, passing all the easy ways home - he knows the city, all the streets and paths - to drop me off.

you're good doctor. thank you.

#24 when life is good

yes, i complain about life, but the truth is that my life is amazing! when i stop for 5 minutes and i see where i am, what i've done, my family and the friends i got... the small business i created... if i died right now, i'd be terribly proud of what i left behind and i'm not sure that this happens to most people. i see frequently on social media the question "do you think your 8 year old you would be proud of you?" and think - hell yeah! exactly like my niece and my nephew look at me and say my aunt awesome!
i complain about life just because someone stabbed me in the back and it still hurts a little bit, but everyday less. exactly because i have always designed my own life, i made plans and follow them, changing them whenever they didn't fit me, because i've always payed attention to details and lived all my life by my own principles, this life is no stranger to me, it's really what wanted it to be.
today i started the day complaining. yeah, no boyfriend, no good plans for tonight, i'm not going to take a friend or a stranger to the realm of the senses so i'll go home alone and eat some cereals for dinner. self pity is such an easy thing to do... and so stupid at the same time...
5 minutes after I posted about it, a small sound came from the common room and i went to check it... and there was one of my guests, from Japan, playing psaltery, a middle east ancient harpa just for fun and just like that, my life was beautiful again.

 and then at the end of the day, and there used to be something special about this day, I was tired and I didn't want to go home, cos sometimes even the most amazing home, with flowers by the bed, isn't where your heart is, and you need some love other than the cat, I got a call from a friend for a glass of wine and only got home by 2 am, happy, to a home that then felt like home, to the love of the cat that everyday tells me I love you just because you exist and I'm happy you're home without asking for anything more than an arm he can lay his head and a hand where he can rubb his nose.

I have amazing friends in my life, I have a beautiful home, I have strangers playing strange old instruments for me, I have flowers and I have love on every corner, I have the sweetest cat in the world. Do I want someone to love me and that I can love back waiting for me at home? Of course I do! Do I want sex and cuddles and someone's shoulder I can lay my head when I'm tired? Obviously! But I don't need it like a drug. I'm tired but I can wait.