Poetry for the soul

Flush or Faunus

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 

You see this dog. It was but yesterday
I mused, forgetful of his presence here,
Till thought on thought drew downward tear on tear;
When from the pillow, where wet-cheeked I lay,
A head as hairy as Faunus, thrust its way
Right sudden against my face,--two golden-clear
Large eyes astonished mine,--a drooping ear
Did flap me on either cheek, to dry the spray!
I started first, as some Arcadian
Amazed by goatly god in twilight grove:
But as my bearded vision closelier ran
My tears off, I knew Flush, and rose above
Surprise and sadness; thanking the true Pan,
Who, by low creatures, leads to heights of love

I love how some people just make little gumdrops out of words. "And they just roll on your tongue - till thought on thought drew downward tear on tear..." All this to talk about the love of a dog, and for a dog. 

I'm really glad I wrote about the first few months after Cora being born, and during pregnancy, because sincerely, I have amnesia. With great intensity comes weird brain problems in my case. I can't register EVERYTHING, I don't have time to sit down and remember and reminisce and remember, replay...etc...so things slip by. So when I go back and read the words from those days, it's amazing. I'm grateful for writing. Writing and words. One is cooking, the other little morsels. 

Mamma and her own anxiety issues

Mantra to repeat over and over...

I need to write today more than I need to breathe, and I REALLY need to breathe, so there you have it.
My mind keeps racing on and off and my sight gets fuzzy and I get dizzy and panicky.

When people find out I have a blog, I always say, well, it's not really a blog. Ok, it's public and sometimes I put something out for others to read, but that's not the point of it at all. It's not organized in any way around any theme, I mean, just look and read around and you'll see, completely random and me-logical.

Just like this post.

I wish I knew everything about everything when it comes to making choices for Cora and I. I wish I could be a savvy mom who has read every single finding about vaccination and feels confident about her choices, who understands her choices. Substitute vaccination for just about anything else - television, nutrition, in-laws, etc...
I need to trust, though, I just HAVE TO TRUST... I have to trust HER, that she has her own unique needs and abilities and higher self that will start shining through and making itself clearer - trust in a higher power who is watching out for us, who influence things way out of my control - that the people who made these vaccinations aren't just shitting us around trying to do evil deeds. I have to trust they have good intentions at heart. I mean...I can't read everything about everything and know everything about everything. It's just NOT POSSIBLE. So if I'm making mistakes, I am not the only one responsible. There are pros and cons to ANYTHING, seriously, anything. For example, television. Such a bad rep and combination, babies and television!! But what about the other side, which I never hear about - what about how much it helps me not be so lonely or bored here at home? I mean, there's a limit to how much Facebook or a book or playing with my baby can occupy during a day. Same goes for TV, it's not always what I need, but it helps a lot at crucial moments. So when I start feeling too guilty or anxious or confused - should I have the TV on when I do, in front of her? I remember as well - cut yourself some slack, for pete's sake, your mental health is just as important for HER HEALTH as anything else.

There are no easy answers. Somedays I feel like I'm losing it. Add on to this confusion between family, personal, societal, marital, etc... pressures my sheer exhaustion and the combination is lovely. Scary. Dizzying. And also? I'm making it through! So much stronger and flexible and with all these new abilities and energetic rearrangements. I've got to trust that there will be a time for the dust to settle and for me to be able to look around at this new landscape, when the train wagons will stop shaking and I will be able to see the view along the way. Or something like that...I swear that made sense when I wrote it and thought it.

And there she goes again, crying out in one of her night terror fits. Just breaks my heart and scares me at the same time, because it's taking place in a domain where I can't reach her, where her own anxieties take over.
Over and out.

Livrinho da Cora - ainda em obras

Falta um final e uma capa...mas tá encaminhadinho!!

O Livro de Cora, a Menina Estrelinha

The Book of Cora, the Little Star Girl

(Era uma vez, uma estrelinha que morava lá no céu, bem, bem lá no alto. De lá, ela via a Terra e brincava com outras estrelinhas. E o nome dela era Corinha. )

Once upon a time, there was a little star who lived in the sky, way up high. From where she was, she could see Earth and she played with the other stars. Her name was Corinha. 

Way down below, mommy and daddy wanted to have a little star girl. So they looked up to the sky and chose the brightest little star...It was Cora! They called her, "Come, Cora! Come be a little girl on Earth!" 

And Cora went! In the warm belly, with love and expectation of the entire family, with the encouragement from her star friends and the protection of her angels, she became a little girl. 

Cora was born on the last day of September, with the first rains of Spring and the yellow of the Ipê trees. The full moon went to peek on her to see if she was ok. And she was - very, very well!

Cora grew up, but never forgot where she came from. At night, while she slept, she would go ujp to the sky to visit her friends...and also to have a lot of fun.

List of 10 things

"Make a list of 10 things you want right now (material or not)"
So here goes, as honest as possible


1. I want to sleep at least till 10 o clock tomorrow morning
2. I want to get out of teaching kids
3. I want a passion..the rest will follow
4. I want an iPod again
5. A big fat cookie
6. A different job
7. I want a city with subways, cheap (and efficient) buses sidewalks so that I can sell my car
8. I want to be pregnant (don't ask)
9. I want it to rain so much/some other form of natural disaster tomorrow there will be a blackout and nobody will have class
10. I want my face to stop being a teenage acne face and grow up!


amen

Post-Antihistamine Daze Writing

Acabei de ler em uma revista de 1 euro e 80 centavos de psicologia que escrever todo dia têm poderes terapêuticos...e me dei um tapa na mão mentalmente pois tenho deixado essa atividade muito de lado. Nem precisa ser aqui no blog, mas em geral, tenho deixado de lado esses preciosos minutos de escrever sobre tudo e qualquer coisa. 

O artigo diz que o mais importante dessa escrita, para ser terapêutica, é que ela integre suas emoções, pensamentos e qualquer outra coisa sobre o tema, especialmente as emoções negativas...Sei que nãoe stou muito coerente, perdoem-me, estou até aqui de medicação anti-gripe e anti-alérgica depois de trabalhar 12 horas e ainda ter que dar aula.

Ou seja, quero escrever sobre meu cansaço e a descoberta de que tudo tem limite. 

Sim...Não me arrependo de ter aceito esse novo desafio de tomar conta do "marketing" para o novo programa e também continuar com as minhas aulas nos horários mais esporádicos. Não me arrependo pois foi um ato de fé, de me jogar e de perder alguns medos. Foi importante. Agora chega. Não vale a pena enfrentar todo touro no meu caminho só pra provar ao mundo que não tenho medo. Eu já entendi algumas coisas. 

Então vou seguir adiante da melhor maneira possível e depois voltar a me dar alguns limites e luxos. Vou botar limite em ficar aqui o dia inteiro (ou seja, nada de 14 horas!!) e vou me dar o luxo de reservar tempo para fazer absolutamente nada se eu quiser. Ah! Que bênção essa permissão que estou me dando. 

Os extremos são importantes, nós aprendemos muito através do contraste. Precisamos da dor para apreciar o bem-estar, da solidão para valorizar as pessoas queridas, etc., etc...até do trabalho para apreciar o tempo "ocioso" e do tempo ocioso para valorizar o trabalho. 

Vou entender essa fase como parte deste aprendizado maluco que tem sido esses últimos anos e pronto. Nada de crise. Meu corpo vai se recuperar, nem que eu tenha que esperar até agosto. Até lá vamos dando nosso jeitinho e cada dia fica mais fácil. 

Obrigada, minha escrita, obrigada, minhas palavras...Mes amies!

Demain, je commence mes leçons de Français! Oooh lá lá! Je suis contente! :) Sera une chose pour moi seulment!

Month Six

What a month this is turning out to be. 

It is month 6. 

6 of 12.

1/5

0.5

Half of the year, exactly, and I transtion with precision into a different phase.

During all of month 6, I have initiated leaving a job and initiated starting another one. On the same day I gave my 4 weeks' notice and landed a successful job interview. Then initiated both processes. 

Month 7 it will all be complete. 

I almost lost it this week, I started to lose faith in and sight of myself (there's preposition power for you...).

And then miraculously (it always feels miraculous), life shifted back into place, or better yet, life shifted back into a better place. There always is a place, right? Are wormholes space? Hmm...

But I digress.

I've bitten through my bottom lip, a new precious nervous habit I've picked up. It's obsessive to have nervous habits...you begin and suddenly, HOW TO STOP?? 

I can't believe I've found a job and a profession I feel at home with, which makes this city feel like home again. 

It's not a new job, teaching English...but it's changed completely for me. The new school and approach and coworkers...and the experience at Maple Bear has also changed me, for the better. 

During my training week at the English School I kept having flashbacks of my Middle and High School English classes. I loved them so much and during my 5 years at University and intensive Psy training I really missed these classes and this way of looking at the world, through language and the magic of texts, written or read. The attention given to each word, the way they go together, synonyms and similes...

 

In these flashbacks, I remembered Ms. Reynolds, the most influential English teacher I've ever had. She incentivated me to write and recognized my need for this form of expression, and also my ease at it. She nurtured this feeling in me and made it blossom. I wish I could find the letter she wrote me when we parted ways, where she asked me to never stop writing and always keep a journal and free-write every day, for I had material in me for thousands of stories, plays, etc..

She was sweet. 

I always hoped I could get her contact information and tell her how much I remember her and am grateful...As a teacher myself now, I know that would be something she would like to receive.

Ms. R, I hope you get this message out there, somehow...I'll keep looking.

And Who Would That Be?

Night Musings

I want so badly to be me with "no envy, no fear".

Sincerely be me, authentically be me, authentically make my decisios. There is so much crap in between, so much interference coming from different radio signals.

I've been feeling angry and guilty and guily and angry and then depressed and then self-loathing way too often.

What happens when I lose count of the rivotril doses? My eyes are already drooping, I just thought I'd let one last word on this Sunday before giving in and being safe from myself once more.

(Is it really supposed to be this hard? )

Really, who am I? What kind of person am I? What do I believe it to be, at least?

Experience has shown me I am extremely sensitive observant of everything, which makes me a fast learner and very impressionable. Which also means very emotional. I know I have to express all this in some shape or form, it is something that is stronger than me. 

I am an artistic soul at heart. Not political, not intelectual in the more general sense of the word...not academic, not scientific...artistic. Impression and expression are more important for me than...everything.

I have passions in life, I am an not at a lack for that. I am at a lack of a pathway into these passions. Maybe I am blind. 

I feel guilty for feeling like an original in all this, I know most people go through some variation of the theme. But heck, I am here to write about me, so screw that. 

I am a writer, in my own hand with my own pen, I am a writer. I know that, at heart, I could not live without it. I know I love words. I know I could live working with them, reading, studying, writing, translating, etc.

I am not a good people person. I mean, I am, and I'm not. I am when I'm in the mood, the expansive mood. I can make friends easily when I don't have to, especially when I'm on my own and meeting new people. I tend to bring people together, when I'm not trying. It's a curious phenomenon, for here at home, this does not happen. I actually keep away from people and have no intention of being the leader of any crowd or the life of any party. 

Alas, contradictions...notorious. 

I work well with structure, to a certain point. I am responsible, I live up to expectations, I can be counted on...but only for a while, because then I start to be incredibly bothered by this. I hate being counted on, I want the expectations to let me loose and I want the freedom to be someone else other than that. That is the problem with the jobs I take on and inevitably leave. I do not fit in well into pre-fixed molds. I can do it, I'm good at it, but I can't take it for too long. I am far too leonine for that, and when I think about it, I prefer to be a leader or autonomous than to receive people's compliments for a job well done. I prefer to be a leader but then comes a time when I get tired of being responsible for others in such a way.

I'm not saying I know it all and am wonderful, not at all. As I said before, I learn well, I learn fast. I am confident in this position, of a learner and apprentice. But when the learning is done, I ache for moving on. That's where I usually break loose and then have to start all over again (apparently).

Can I live with this? Can this be some sort of start?

g'nite

The Experiment

"Something always brings me back to you, it never takes too long"


Not sure what will come forth tonight.


"Set me free, leave me be, I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity.
Here I am.
And I stand
so tall
just the way I'm supposed to be"


I have a proposition.
An experiment.
I shall write and am forbidden to erase anything, anything at all. So if I change my - there will be a dash - and the writing will continue - but I can't erase. Just spelling mistakes, ok? Is that allowed? I say ok, so there we go.


I chose the star image tonight for its greatness, nothing - It transmits something I want to transmit - that was redundant. Yes, for the greatness it inspired, the deepness of feeling and the bafflement before the size of me compared to the size of THAT. The size of us, all of us. Doesn't life just baffle you?


Sometimes I search for pieces of paper and pens laying around in order to write something down, because it will make things better. For as long as I have known me, I have been writing. When I learned to write, I wrote stories and illustrated storybooks. I always had the urge but it was never really well organized, I didn't finish much of the books, for the ideas rapidly became greater than my ability to write them down. Frustrated, I would abandon the project. I wanted to write like the authors of the books I devoured. I knew it was in me, but I didn't know how to get it out. I still don't, and I still feel it in me. 


I've been considering my bf's remark that maybe I lack some self-discipline in my worry processes. As in, I should get it together and no let myself worry about things that I can't do anything about. True that, I understand the concept. It's just - I'm not obsessing about the color of my dress and my purse, I am petrified, deep down and not so - and also at skin level, aura level, petrified that I am not going to be anything in this life. That my life will resume itself in an endless search of a phantasmagorical goal. I'm scared of never being able to stick it out in anything, of being my worst enemy and not allowing myself to "- no erasing, ok. Not really of being my worst enemy, that's not what I meant. I meant it in the sense that maybe ME, my entire person, is the problem in this kind of world. Maybe there isn't - maybe- it's too scary to write down, even. Scary also because I know someone will read it and will judge it. That's scary as well. 
Do you think Friday will ever get here? 
Do you think July will " " " " "?
I have a good feeling about a translation career. About jobs, about being good enough, about studying it.Part of me is - doesn't want to start because I'm afraid I'll be disappointed again and then the problem will really, really, in reality, be....me!

The Girl With No Opinion

My head is bursting with the need to express.

I hear endless monologues inside myself to an invisible or absent audience. Or better than monologues, I hear entire lectures and speeches I give to the world and then I think, oh god, I've got to write this all down, where's a pen, where's some paper? But alas, none are to be found or, if they are, the pen stops at the first touch with the blankness. 

Suddenly it becomes too much and words so little and ridiculous.

I wanted to follow through today and see where that led me and I promised to myself that I would not under any circumstance erase everything afterwards as I do so so so so (too) many times. 

The school. The school, classes haven't even started and there's so much to say here. I am reporting as psychologist-english-speaking-student undercover spy. They all know this, but they don't actually KNOW, because the implications are undercover. I know there will be moments where someone will catch on to something that isn't quite right in the equation me being there in my position, but I my plan is just to keep them distracted and keep a low profile.

There are so many times when I just have to shut up, literally. Just be quiet, Maya, daze off, cut your little classroom decorations in silence and just go along, because there is so much I disagree with or that really bugs me in a lot of the assumptions or attitudes that go along the whole school thing. That sentence didn't even make sense but I'm not going back to correct or revise it. Let's just keep going. Kudos to you if you are able to follow. I have to shut up when I hear the English being spoken so poorly, I have to shut up when I see that the bilingual purpose isn't really present, or at least the way I understand it, or that way I LIVED it. Especially the way I lived it. I guess this isn't an EAB, I'll just have to make peace with that. Actually, I have made peace with that. It's a Brazilian school with Canadian liscence to kill and a whole lotta people speaking English. But it's not bilingual or multicultural...How can I explain? I can say this better in Portuguese -  a vivência não está lá. Speaking English for the sake of speaking English in a classroom is not bilingual education. I have no idea where I get this from, there is no conscious theory behind this, I have no idea what famous person I would have to cite, I'm just getting all this from a feeling. 

I guess it does annoy me, because I have to shut up so that people don't realize, by mere contrast, that they're just pretending something. 

But in the end, I know they're not PRETENDING per se, they genuinely believe in all that. I don't want to be the one to crush their ideal. 

Fine. So there's that about the school. And it broadens, there is so much more in my imaginary speeches and rampades. 

It goes on to include anything that includes much of an opinion. I have come to consider myself opinionless these days...not really consider, I am discovering this little fact. Which reads into: I am discovering that I am quite indifferent to many matters nowadays. I am indiffirent to many things which if said outloud sound atrocious and unhumane. But truly, the indifference lends itself to irritation which grows into a much more embedded anger and temper tantrum with the world. I don't want to give an opinion because I don't care because I am angry in fact, with all this that makes up the world, at least the one I'm living in. So really, if the whole thing went up in flames, I think I would actually feel pleasure (see, the part about atrocious and out loud thinking?)

I read some psychology texts and I feel angry. It's all theory. Theory about something that is lived. Let me explain...like when I write a paper on some issue, I feel like I'm being so fake and unauthentic, for I am having to report to a theoretical level and make reference to other people who said something on the matter to talk about something that is lived. I live something, then I have to theorize about it, and the lived gets buried under that theorizing. It sounds like madness, it feels like madness. 

I guess in this sense I am an artist at heart. I do not want to theorize, I abhore it actually, I want and need to express what is lived. That is all. I express what I live. And I need the expression to be pretty, I need it to be aesthetic to me, for then my world makes sense. The theory put on top of this removes me from what makes sense. Many times I read a text about whatever in Psychology, let's say, psychopatology or personality theory. Inevitably it happens that at one point or other I lose faith in the author or the text, for I get the gut feeling that this person has not lived what they are writing about and are talking about what they construct around the subject. For example, when writing about a patient, it drives me crazy how we are supposed to be able to describe what that person lives and interpret this based on some theory or model. IT DRIVES ME CRAZY. For as much as we can listen and listen to someone talk, and as much as the setting is set up to give as much allowance for authentic showing, WE WILL NEVER KNOW HOW TO DESCRIBE someone's life as they live it. We just can't. All we can describe is a construction that we made of what that life must be like. So, consequently, it drives me even madder that we are supposed to elaborate on this and interpret and give meaning (and values!!) to all this. What a crazy psychotic thing to do.

I feel out of myself at this moment, I literally am feeling removed from my body and I grow light-headed and faint. It feels like I'm leaning forward and almost falling, the computer is tilting in all ackward directions. But I am just here, and the computer is just here, nothing has changed.  My muscles are cramped up in my shoulders, I wasn't aware they were scrunching up like they did and I wasn't aware that I am barely seeing the screen in front of me.

I need to stop. 

iomeyoeu

I
speak English
speak Português
I am bilingual by nature
polilingual by choice
Eu
traduzo
I
smell coffee
Io
voglio
.
came from the US of A
my yankee father
minha mãe paulista
no planalto central de Brasilia
entre cães e gatos
Eu
traduzo
Eu
medio
Eu
procuro o meu lugar
a minha Itália
I
indulge
cookies
and peas
meus pés
my feet
minhas palavras
têm vida
in my words
in other words...
iomeyoeu

Il mondo nuovo

ascoltare: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rtviy7GioSE&feature=channel

"è meglio una delusione vera di una gioia finta"

Sempre que me sinto presa dentro al buio che avanza, tem uma coisa que viene a dare luce al mio giorno. 
Pero poi arrivi tu, ti siedi dove vuoi e butti giù la mia malincolia di vivere e tutto sembra possibile per me.


Adoro essa canção e tem poderes mágicos su di me.
Quando respeito minha paixão por ele, sem questionar, o italiano salva o dia. Dá um sopro de ar na minha alma, me dá direção "daemônica" como diria alguém que conheço...
Se começo a dissecar esse sentimento, tentando entender, tentando encaixá-lo no mundo prático e pragmático, o sentimento se dissipa e só me resta fragmentos de algo que começa a arder no auge de seu não-sentido.

E adesso sto rissalendo, per favore non fermarti ora!


Quem sabe a meta maior desse ano novo poderia ser, respeitar minhas loucuras e ouvir sua voz com mais permissão?
O que tenho a perder, do outro jeito não estava dando muito certo, não é?

I spent the weekend in a place where the theme spirituality was very strong, spirituality and the search for "truth", and it got to me in a very deep place. In the place where I walked away from my religious beliefs because they no longer comforted me or made sense in my life. In the place where I walked away wanting something else, accepting the risks implicit in so doing. I felt scared this weekend as I saw these people so carelessly flowing through their religious connections.

I kept wondering, where did that piece of me go?

I know I make contact with it when I write, which is probably why I do it so much and so often.
When I write I listen to what's going on inside and then something breaks through, something comforting.
It's more a need than a want.
I get all over the place, like scrambled eggs or water that spills onto the floor. Then I start writing and it's like taking a mop or turning the eggs into a nice little sandwich. And eating it.

Or something like that.

I Know a Spell

"I know a spell, it will make you help

write about love it can be in any tense but it must make sense

I know a trick, forget that you are sick

write about love it could be in any form hand it to me in the morning 

I know the way (so you know the way)

Get on your skinny knees and pray (maybe not today)

you've gotta see the dream through the windows and the trees of your living room

(of your living room!)"

Me and my coffee, my coffee and I.
and B&S.
And a blank page.


perfetto!

Apparently I am exhausted today, went to bed at midnight, woke up at 10:30. Actually, woke up several times between 8 and 10:30 but wasn't able to muster up the energy required to actually get up and wake up 100%. 

Apparently I am exhausted every day. 

I know that 14 hours in a day, most often than not, prove themselves to be too much. Somewhere along the way I take a break or else get utterly overwhelmed (and then take a break).

I missed writing in here this week, even though it's been 3 days only, but I still missed it. 

Caught up in my translations (lost in translation?), classes and getting through 14 or so hours. 

As the plane came down and landed over Brasilia last Monday, the same old thoughts circulated through my bloodlines: always the same plane, the same landing, on repeat, on repeat, on repeat mode. 

When I lie in bed and start to daydream, it takes me away on that same plane. However, if I am feeling rather realistic, I imagine what I could do without stepping foot in an airport. 

The scenario is always an invariable variation of the same scene, something GOES. Out the window. 

I see the dream through the windows and trees of my living room and I go after it. I go after my gut feeling, my unrational self, against all "but what if...what if...what if it all goes terribly wrong!?"

And so I go back to my 14 or so hours with occasional breaks and fantasies. 

I want the world to stop, I want the world to stop

Give me the morning, give me the afternoon, the night!

But you know what, so long as I can write and shout in here, as long as I can shout myself anywhere, I can do pretty well. As long as words are my friends, here we are.

15 year old's Autobiography

Ten years ago, an English teacher gave us the following assigment: to write our own autobiographies in about a page. 

Well, that was boring enough for me and I ended up writing something he would give me a B for but that I have carried with me since then.

I was 15. 

Here goes:

Maya

I used to have this friend, and it's very strange how I can count the time and number the years on my fingers of when I last saw her. I could've never imagined back then that I'd be here, four years older and four years on my own. A lot has happened and I've been to new places and have also left those new places. I've ended back where it all started and to my surprise, life has continued. Changes have occured and there's little that has been constant. All I know is that it's the times between those changes that count, the time we spend inside the new experiences, for that time is most valuable.

Sometimes you're with the people you love, sometimes you're left empty. Not exactly empty, for there's always something that lives on in memory. And of course, there's always the new people. She told me that before she left, I would meet so many new people that I would live on. As always, she was right. New people have com, and enough time has gone by for them to leave...that's how it works.

She used to say a lot of things. She said once that I think too much. I thought a lot about what she said and realized I do think too much. I don't think it's a really bad thing, for it's who i am and thoughts are what we are made up of. The thing was that she knew me, and she was able to see what destroyed and blessed me better than anyone else. I miss the light she was able to shine and how it made me that much warmer. 

She also said that in order to move forward we have to let go of the past. That's why she let go of me. It hurt a lot, but I was able to understand her. I know she would've liked to know, but I wasn't able to tell her. She didn't mean any harm out of it and reassured me that it was for the best. Actually, she didn't really say that, but I know she would've, if she wasn't so afraid to hurt me. People that love you don't ever want to hurt you. They do, but it's never intentional. That's one thing I learned from her without her telling me. If you love someone, you've got to learn to get over their faults and learn to take the wound as a sign of love. It's pretty confusing but I learned it well enough. 

Friends stay in your heart in such a way that it's intoxicating. Sometimes it's a light sweeping of presence in our minds, but not so light to pass by unnoticed. The effect that memory has been changing ove ritme, for now it's easier to smile and laugh at some things we went through, or to think on the absence without breaking down. I have no idea where she is right now, or how life's been treating her. That's what hurts the most, not knowing. I miss her but I'd rather go through this now than to try to imagine what my life would've been like if fate had taken a very different turn four distant years ago. 

Petit Readers

So...a thousand petit reader visitors, who are you? I imagine that about half of 1000 is me myself and I when I don't login, of course...another half of that my bf's...boy and best friend...then what? I wonder about the people I've never seen in my life and who somehow make it onto this page. Do any return after the first accidental encounter? Where do you live, where do you come from? Are you reading the English, the Portuguese, does anything make sense? 

Will I ever know who I write for, if anyone (except the obvious me!)? Show yourselves! (please!)

:P

So, that's the thought of the day. Moving on...

Passando muito mal ainda mas o final de semana + feriado bonus valeu a pena. Não pareceu Brasilia e aí está...citação do dia: "não é onde se está, é o que se faz". Posso dizer, tudo bem, até que se aplica muitas das vezes. 

Deus abençoe essa semana, I need it. Talvez role meu primeiro trabalho de traduçaõ, fingers crossed! 

Pelo menos já começou com uma ajudinha, segunda feira já é quarta!

Over and out.

I am revising the first chapter of my tentative translation of a book and lord, I'm loving it.

Give me a little red pen and the written word and I will revise my heart out, relishing in grammar structures, verb-subject agreements, vocabulary choice and word order...

much of a nerd, I am...

yay!

Well I believe it's love that's hiding here

We find love it's hiding here

In the darkness in the shadows

Maybe it's up to you and I

To bring it to the light

Love when I approach the tears

They fall like rain

You tell me baby your heart's into a thousando pieces

-DMB

O ritual de escrever. Ou melhor, o ritual de finalmente sentar para escrever. Falando nisso, esqueci de botar a água para ferver, a do café básico...Já volto.

(leitores, ouçam os passinhos que vão até a cozinha, a água da torneira na chaleira, o estalo do fogo elétrico acendendo....uma pausa para pegar um biscoito...passinhos de volta ao computador).

Sim, onde estava? O ritual de escrever que agora inclui o café, dedutivamente (se não sobre-estimo a inteligência dos acima referidos leitores). 

O ritual inclui também a tentativa de fechar todas as outras janelas que teimam tanto em ficarem abertas 

* cough cough gmail cough facebook cough msn*

Cough...Escolher um playlist do itunes e deixar rolar. 

Claro que tudo começa com uma inspiração ou uma coceirinha que diz, "preciso escrever!!"

Pausa para o feitio do Nescafé...

(imaginem o que queiram, podem até aproveitar para irem no banheiro.)

Voltei.

Agora sim, tudo pronto. 

Hoje teve aula de inglês e tive a honra de escutar da minha aluna que ela pretende continuar por um bom tempo, não só até a viagem até London in November. 

"Nãaao, você ainda vai ter que me aturar por um bom tempo!!"

 Sorri com um prazer e até com vontade de rir pois imaginava que ela que tinha que me "aturar" no meu aprendizado como self-invented teacher. Se ela soubesse que é peça crucial no meu novo momento de redefinir rumos, minha cobaia existencial, eu que teria que pagá-la pelos nossos encontros. 

Insights são coisas bizarras e conseguem surgir em momentos inesperados tal como em meio a uma caminhada forçada no parque às 16 horas de uma quinta feira. Sofri um ataque de insights encadeados e tive que me forçar a respirar para dissipar a sensação de leveza extrema da cabeça. Foi uma espécie de conexão a outro plano onde tudo fica claro, CLARO e tal como o sol após muita sombra, cega e desnorteia. Cuidei para não perder o fluxo e para não me deixar empolgar demais também em um ataque semi-maníaco de querer salvar o mundo. Tal como os fluxos que levam para baixo, a mediunidade também abre portas para fluxos de entidades que trazem valiosas contribuições. Esses "fluxos" me ocorrem com frequência porém nunca planejados e, quando ocorrem, sei identificar direitinho que é um momento sagrado e que alguém está falando diretamente comigo. 

Eu sei, eu sei, curiosos para saberem o que é que foi dito e ouvido, né? Sinto muito decepcionar, mas isso ficará comigo. Difícil demais descrever e difícil demais transmitir a sensação que acompanha que, para mim é o mais importante, pois eu já tive os pensamentos milhões de vezes, mas eram sempre hipóteses, dúvidas, hesitações, passageiros. Esses outros pensamentos são fortes, ditados, causam uma alteração física e de consciência e estão imbuídos de tanto sentido que não há dúvida. Faz sentido, faz sentido com toda célula do corpo tal como a fé. 

Foi assim que eu decidi ficar no Brasil e fazer vestibular, baseado em um momento desse de influxos poderosos. Estava no centro espírita antes da palestra começar, com a mente matutando meu eterno dilema, o que fazer o que fazer o que fazer após o segundo grau? Me veio em uma frase simples (por isso digo, não é o que é dito, é a sensação):

Fique aqui.

Eu lembro direitinho. Estava olhando pro chão quando escutei essas duas palavras. Foi tão nítido que levantei a cabeça e olhei para trás. Tive um momento de "Que??" e imediatamente eles reforçaram:

Fique aqui. 

Como quem disse, é isso mesmo que você ouviu. Ok, certo, duas palavras. Mas imaginem o seguinte: Eu, que por tantos meses antes disso estava em crises contínuas de ansiedade/pânico/possuída pelo demônio e afins, pela primeira vez em muito tempo, derreti de alívio. Literalmente, derreti, manteiga ao sol. Pois foi sol, foi luz e calor e sentido para minha alma. Me senti tão esperançosa, acolhida e BEM. Tanto faz que saí de lá e aos poucos o sol foi perdendo a força e que eu não fazia IDÈIA do que seria "ficar aqui", mas eu sabia que era isso. Fique aqui. E deu certo, fiquei. 

Enfim, o que queria dizer nem sei mais o que era. Sentei para escrever com outro tema em mente e fui por esses caminhos. Tudo bem, viva o escrever fenomenológico! (uuur!)

Minha mãe me ligou hoje com a voz vulnerável e amedrontada pedindo o número do meu psiquiatra. Pedindo ajuda, porque está reconhecendo sua dependência nos ansiolíticos (são anos, se não mais de uma década, de uso/abuso) e os ataque de pânico estão voltando. 

Parece que estou mudando de assunto mas não estou. Está tudo ligado.

Receber essa ligação me fez lembrar alguns anos atrás e a crise que ela teve após o término do namoro super-conturbado e doentio. Passei quase um ano cuidando dela feito criança, ou melhor, feito depressiva, tendo que engolir a raiva e ressentimento que sentia ao  me dar conta que eu estava fazendo por ela o que ela não pode fazer por mim quando eu passei por algo similar. Nessas horas ou se cresce ou se amargura para o resto da vida, vou te contar. Rezava todo dia para ter essa força de encarar a situação com maturidade e caridade no coração. Ela não conseguia sair de casa e todas as funções que antes ela fazia minimamente agora estavam zeradas. A casa virou minha, junto com as compras e cozinha e afins. Quando ela não conseguia de jeito nenhum evitar ter que ir ao trabalho tinha que dirigir por ela e ela pegava na minha mão e pedia "desculpa, desculpa". 

O auge foram momentos em que ela me pegava para sentar ao lado dela na cama (tudo a meia luz) e começava a falar e falar e falar. Primeiro, detalhes do relacionamento dela com esse tal ex: das traições, das cenas trágicas, da vontade de matá-lo, dos planos para matá-lo, os pesadelos que ela tinha, as palavras sórdidas trocadas entre eles...Coisas que eu não queria ouvir e me feriam mas ela pedia, preciso falar com alguém. Segundo, do passado e de segredos de família que ela decidiu tinha chegado a hora de desvelar, tudo para conlcuir que era por isso que eu e minha irmã não amavam ela como mãe e ela merecia nosso des-amor. E finalmente, finalmente, as crises suicidas onde ela declarava com a voz pingando de dor que precisava se matar porque ela não aguentava, que sabia que iria sofrer do outro lado, mas que seria melhor porque ela poderia se render e não precisaria tentar mais. Eu escutava e o desespero tomava conta, desespero e raiva. "Mãe! Você está vendo isso aqui? EU? Segurando sua mão, te escutando, te cuidando? Tudo bem, você quer morrer para se render mas você está esquecendo, do outro lado não vai ter isso, não vai ter ninguém para segurar sua mão!"

Ela melhorou, sim, isso faz 3 anos aproximadamente. 

Isso tudo me leva ao insight no parque. Estou em altos debates comigo mesma de como fazer para deixar meu "trabalho" na Animax de lado e me perguntando qual é minha função lá e qual a dificuldade de enfrentar esse assunto com minha mãe. E ficou claro. Eu sou o ansiolítico dela. 

Ontem ficou claríssimo, pois ela descompensou com uns problemas com funcionários e eu precisei redigir a carta que ela queria entregar a todos, carta que ela ditava gaguejando e tremendo e interrompido por ataques de raiva e irritação com qualquer um, inclusive eu. Aí lembrei dela me abraçando uns meses atrás e dizendo que era tão bom me ver na Animax e trabalhar comigo, pois a minha presença a acalmava, era conforto. 

A minha presença lá enquanto "assistente direta" é só um meio disfarçado de ter um bichinho de pelúcia sempre ao alcance. Quando saímos para almoçar ela treme e pede abraços, me dá um abraço, filha. 

A volta dos ataques de pânico me assusta. 

Na verdade, sei que eles sempre estiveram aí, latentes, mas o uso do ansiolítico conseguia mascarar e driblar os momentos de quebra. 

Outro insight: Enquanto ela não admitir cuidar de si mesma e ser cuidada, eu nunca terei liberdade para fazê-lo eu mesma sem sentir que estou traindo-la. Meu uso de medicação, terapia, amizades, estudos, qualquer coisa - só faz com que ela se confronte com ela mesma e sua maneira de lidar com a vida e consigo mesma. 

Volto ao ponto ao qual quero chegar. Esses insights serviram para desencadear outros, tal como uma chave que abre o primeiro portal e libera águas poderosas que por si mesmas conseguem abrir as outras portas. Tudo flui quando tenho certas clarezas. Se me libero da culpa e sentimento de lealdade irracional a ela, vejo minhas vontades e meu caminho. Sinto sentido para mim mesma.

Agora estou esperando um tanto quanto apreensiva que ela chegue em casa e me conte se conseguiu marcar uma consulta. Espero um tanto quanto apreensiva que ela perceba meu novo fluxo e retomada de ânimo e se sinta abandonada. 

Preciso que você acredite,

Te amo, mãe. 

So here we are all of us stand around

We're leaning heavy on each other

Always wondering what is it that lies behind

The worried eyes of one another

Well I believe it's love that's hiding here

deep inside both you and me

Maybe it's up to you and me to share it with the light

my baby blog

It’s like I have a new-born baby now and I feel like checking up on it every few seconds, wondering if it’s ok. Wondering if it needs anything through the silence. Blogging... I always thought of blogs as spaces for cultural/intelectual/thematic discussions and expression, and all I see here is me, in the simplest expression.

I know I wrote yesterday, and part of me thinks, shouldn’t I wait before posting something else? Shouldn’t I have a post that sings to the world, that touches souls and consciences? Considering, however, that I’m probably the only one reading this, what does it matter?

It boggles my mind how much I do exactly that – regulate my actions as to mirror some unsaid rule or outside expectation, as if the world actually interprets my every move.

What does it say about me that I write as if my hands were on fire, what does it say about me that I feel the urge about 100 times a day, that the only feeling that parallels the contaiment I get from words is the intimacy of someone’s hands and mouth near mine?

I guess it says exactly what it does. My hands are on fire, the urge urges and holding is what I seek.