Saudades

This post needs to be in Portuguese, because, unfortunately, "saudade" is a word that doesn't exist in English - and that word means the world to me. 

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Começou o pânico. 

Toda a vez que eu venho passar férias no Brasil, a última semana vira drama. Pra começar, a última semana nunca é a última de verdade, porque no último minuto do segundo tempo eu acabo trocando a data do meu vôo pra dali 10 ou 15 dias. Não tem como tirar férias em casa por duas semanas quando a sua casa fica espalhada por um território 26 vezes maior que o Reino Unido inteiro. E mesmo assim, algum quarto, alguma "dependência", como se diz, acaba ficando de fora do roteiro. Nunca dá tempo de ver tudo e todos. 

Mesmo que desse, o pânico se manifesta anyway. É o medo de morrer de saudade.

 

Daí hoje, domingo a noite, dia oficial da nostalgia no Brasil, deitei na cama sem sono e sem ressaca e fiquei lembrando de tudo o que já havia acontecido nesse quase 1 mês de férias. Até então eu estava me mantendo maravilhosamente bem, algo inédito nos últimos anos: conseguindo segurar minha cabeça no presente, quase que totalmente, sem reminicências ou antecipações, Carpe Diem na prática (influência, essa, de Sidarta, o livro de Herman Hesse que finalmente, 15 anos depois, resolvi dar cabo - mais sobre, depois). 

Mas aí virei pro J. e falei,  "tô morrendo de saudades de todo mundo já." E ele virou pra mim e soltou essa jóia: 

"A gente vive de saudade."

Eu nunca tinha pensado no quanto essa frase define o que eu sou, o que somos. Do jeito que eu conduzi a minha vida até aqui, meu destino sempre vai ser esse: viver de saudade. De alguém, de algum lugar, de um hábito, de um momento. Tem gente que vive no mesmo local a vida toda, com as mesmas pessoas ao redor, e vez ou outra sente a famigerada dor no peito, o nó na garganta, quando alguém se muda ou morre. Mas eu, eu não. Eu convivo com o tal do Nó desde os meus 10 anos de idade, quando minha mãe saiu fugida do Mato Grosso do Sul pra fazer a vida em Santa Catarina. Foi o primeiro Nó, um dos mais doídos, porque pra trás ficou sangue do meu sangue. Depois, veio a Internet, e os laços (antes do Nó, vem o Laço) foram se espalhando por lugares diferentes: São Paulo, Rio, Curitiba, Brasília... Tudo, claro, gerenciável. Por mais que a distância era longa, tava tudo dentro do mesmo país.

Daí eu inventei de morar fora. 

E a saudade, que com o tempo crescia a olhos vistos, de repente tomou proporções sufocantes.  Se no começo dava pra matar a saudade com um estilingue, agora tem que ser no mínimo com um fusil AR-15. Um sem número de gente e de lugares e de coisas  e de momentos, em 3, 4 países diferentes, milhares de kilômetros, e datas, e cifras sem impondo entre todos nós. 

Se eu pudesse, juntava todo mundo numa bolha quentinha e confortável e carregava comigo. Não posso.

Posso é continuar minha caminhada mundo afora, colecionando mais gente, mais momentos, mais paisagens... e morrendo, aos poucos, de saudades. 

About Brazil

Yes, I’m in Brazil.

Last time I set foot in this gigantic green land was exactly two years ago, and although being away for such a long time (5 years in total) slowly kills me, it also has some positive sides. For instance, the way I perceive what it used to be my life. I was telling this girl I sort of know (never met, but I read her stuff) that I feel a bit like Neo at the end of the first Matrix, when he started seeing everything in green codes. What a difference, how incredibly weird my life was. Everything, from the smallest peculiarity to the biggest political scandal, has to me the luscious flavour of a new discovery. The culture, the people, the habits, all that has always made Brazil for what it is, all that made ME what I am – even if it means being the opposite of all things Brazilian – doesn’t cease to amaze me.

First, the women. One of the biggest clichés, the most tiresome slogan that defines the country along with samba and football is that here live the most beautiful women in the world. Unfortunately I’m beginning to believe it’s true, as much as I now believe Jazz divas are destined to live tragic lives (unfortunately, yes, because I’m not one of them). Naturally blessed with good genes brought by a melting pot of European, African and Native Indian blood, Brazilian women are also increasingly obsessed with their appearance and go about trimming themselves endlessly, hair to toe, tits to fanny. There are hairdressers and beauty clinics in every corner, always full of stunning, tanned, long-haired, white-teethed and big-butted girls asking for their weekly manicure-pedicure-waxing-blow-dry combo. And that’s when they’re not making appointments with plastic surgeons for their annual nip and tuck, a little fix that 3-hour daily workouts aren’t able to shift. I don’t blame them. The heat during the summer is so overwhelming that it literally demands you to get rid of all garments, and that means exposing your most private bits. Also, beauty treatments, massages, gym, and plastic surgery are, if not cheap, absolutely affordable. As with everything else, Brazilians pay for stuff in small instalments that sometimes extend up to 24 months – beauty and fashion mortgages.

My other surprise is most of my friends/acquaintances are, if not successful, well-established in their own area – none of them working in 9-5 jobs. There’s the tattoo artist, the designer, the DJs, the photographers, the writers, the filmmakers… most working as self-employed or running their own business, earning not only enough to support themselves, but also to have time and fun. In my concept of Brazil, this kind of thing doesn’t happen here: it happens in London, Berlin, New York, Paris. Art, music, fashion, film is stuff that Brazilians don’t grasp, don’t associate with career/profession. Well, it seems not anymore. This people, my people, are proving me joyously wrong.

Then there’s the permanent notion of pleasure that it’s part of the country’s mentality. The Brazilian will suffer if necessary, and DOES suffer a lot, but temporarily – because they always find a way to obtain pleasure from the small things. In their perspective, how can anyone live without eating great food, lying down under the sun, spending time laughing with family and friends? Brazilians need to treat themselves as they need to breathe. They will work hard – because the idea that Brazilians don’t work hard is mistaken; they do give their blood when it comes to make their businesses work – but they will certainly want to enjoy their worth at the end of the day, the month, the year. The British, au contraire, spend every day of their lives complaining about their own bad cuisine, the grey sky and the lack of time to see their beloved ones, then counterbalance by drinking and partying like there’s no tomorrow, so they can spend the next day nursing headaches and massive hangovers.

Then, there’s religion. According to Veja, the Brazilian Newsweek, atheists are the biggest victims of prejudice, more stigmatised than gays or black people. It’s easy to validate in daily life. I say I don’t believe in God, they pop their eyes out and yell “WHAT!? HOW COME, WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU HAVE TO ASK FOR SOMETHING, OR SAY THANK YOU FOR A BLESSING?” It’s such a naïve, silly idea that it verges on the absurd – similarly as in Muslim countries, but without the killing and the bombing part (that’s football and drug traffic’s business).

And what surprises me even more is how religion fits in the country of pleasure seeking – because I’m sure indulging oneself gratuitously must be a SIN in any religion (maybe not for the Universal Church, the biggest evangelic community in the country, as they preach GREED is a virtue). But there is an answer: here is also the country of the “jeitinho”, the “little way” Brazilians find to make things work for them, even if it means disrespecting laws. In the case of Christianity, you only need to say you repent, ask for forgiveness, and everything is alright. Your place in Heaven is safe and sound, where the fun will continue for the rest of eternity, is safe and sound.

As much as it revolts me, at the same time, it doesn’t bother me much. It’s all part of the amusing soap-opera that life here is. Five years ago I left Brazil thinking that life in the First World was much, MUCH better: full of educated, well-read people that didn’t need to resort to corruption to make things work, because there was trust – in the people, or in the government when the people would not be reliable. But I forgot that there are certain things in each country that are not transferable, but nevertheless make life lighter, more bearable. In the UK is the immense variety of cheap literature, the amazing diversity of opinions disseminated by the great number of newspapers, the profuse creativity in the arts and fashion, stimulated by those in power, the certainty that the government will not look away when one needs a helping hand.

In Brazil is the year-round sunshine, the strong perfume of the vegetables and fruits, the two-hour lunch break that you take at home so you can eat home-cooked rice and beans and then take a well-deserved nap, the parties that start at 1am and finish when the sun is high, the cheapness of cosmetic treatments (although fashion is ridiculously exorbitant), the friendliness of its inhabitants, always willing to exchange a smile and little snippets of talk, ready to give an advice or a helping hand, the heightened sexuality (with so many beautiful people, it’s only natural), the instinctive ability to dance all kinds of dance and play football like a dancer, the conscience that, no matter how difficult life is, what is important it to be happy – and happiness, the Brazilians proved to me, is their expertise.

Is this it?

For the first few weeks, I didn't care. Everything and everyone was new, and I was learning new things everyday. I was proving to myself and everyone else that I was capable of doing something else, something different, and that I could change the course of my life whenever I felt like it. I could take the plunge. More importantly, I could show everyone that even if I got a few bruises on the way, I would survive (I always do) - as would anyone else who had the guts to do it.

Then, the Routine slowly crept in, as she always does, walking on her tip-toes and then, slowly but suddenly, she engulfs everything with her giant mouth. It starts when the Repetition, that chubby old lady with gray hair becomes a regular visitor, until she transmutes herself into Predictability - her more sophisticated version. Then Repetition/Predictability's lover, Boredom, arrives to keep her company for as long as he is able to stay, until Crisis, that lunatic but extremely seductive chick, storms in the room and drives everyone crazy. That is, if the sweet Depression - or as I like to call her, The Darkness - doesn't jumps in front of her to show off her little trick of making the colours of everything fade into a lifeless gray.

Now, I'm bored.

I'm on that famous stage when that three-word question keeps popping inside one's head: IS THIS IT? 

The days fly by, one after another, endlessly and meaninglessly. I just keep on going, looking for distractions: alcohol, shopping, magazines, small talk and mindless conversations with semi-strangers. Almost everyone around me is a semi-stranger. I don't know what they want, what they like, what they're thinking most of the time. What is important to them. And to be honest, neither do they about me. Not that either sides are interested in knowing all that, anyway.

I don't feel like saying "sorry", or "thank you", or "excuse me", the trinity that holds together British civilization and which I have proudly absorbed in my own daily vocabulary (an achievement, considering Brazilians traditionally reject their own version of those expressions). 

And it's been only a month and a half of the new life.

But there's a positive side to all this: I'm no longer afraid of throwing the towel. Predictable as it is to start making plans every end of the year, I can soundly say that my hours now are being spent daydreaming and lining-up all the catalysts for a new life. In 2008 I want to eat well, exercise often, sleep better (not necessarily more), lie down in the sun, see more friends, have great conversations, have sex more often, read great books, and write as much as I can. I want to have all those small but essential things that make anyone happy, whatever the background or class is, but that are absolutely scarce once you become a Londoner.

In 2008, I'm gonna get out of London for a while. 

Paris

So, Paris.

I went back. The last place I visited when I left the UK, the first one to visit after such a long spell stuck in the island. My third visit.

It was a last minute thing, planned before I could even know it, and it was the best decision I've made this year (and I've made MANY decisions this year, of all years).

There's something magical about that city. Forgive the banality, because everyone thinks Paris is romantic, magic, blablabla, but that city fascinates me in a way New York used to before I left Brazil (and found out that no, people don't live like they're permanently inside Central Perk - as in the iconic cafe from Friends, not the pArk - or do they?). But it should be mostly because Paris is simply NOT London. It's absolutely the opposite. People there seem to live smaller but better lives. You grow up in your arrondissement going to the same cafes, butchers, fishmongers, cheese shop, book shop, whatever the local business is, but which nevertheless is LOCAL. You don't see the tiresome, ultra boring chains like Starbucks or Boots or Tesco - the law doesn't even allow them to open branches inside the city. There's the love of all things that matter in life constantly present: they cherish their food, their drink, their artists, their social circles in which no one ever cares much what you do in life, as long as it is meaningful to you.

Meaningful. The idea I get everytime I go to Paris is that this is it, life happens only once, and you better make the most of it while you can.

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On my second day I finally went to Shakeaspeare and Company, the legendary bookstore for expats with only books in English. The place is just heaven. Books pile up from top to bottom on every inch of its old but increadibly cozy shop floor, spread in two floor. Among infinite shelves, beds complete with duvets and pillows wait for the next reader to curl up with a book. The beds are in fact there for the staff, peniless writers (most of them Americans trying to emulate the Hemingway experience) who work shifts of 2 hours at the shop in exchange of shelter in the most inspiring workplace imaginable. That said, the shop is constantly crowded, so I'm sure the resident writers must struggle a bit to produce anything, what with the lack of space and silence. But there are always the cafes nearby, with their characteristically small tables, great food, and clouds of smoke, providing that longed-for Hemingway-nian atmosphere.

I would love to be able to spend sometime there as a writer in residence. It's so impossibly romantic and unnatainable that it should be worth the lack of proper food, sleep, or any living arrangements, for that matter.

Who knows. Paris inspires people to try romantic things...

Grown-up. Grown-up?

I remember mentioning here earlier, maybe months, maybe more than a year ago, that the hustle and bustle of everyday life was not enough anymore to make my foundations tremble. Daily or routine problems, like sorting things out with banks, landlords or demanding colleagues/relatives/flatmates/whoever is close wouldn't make me bat an eyelid. I think I even said I was growing up. Ha. How mistaken I was. Not caring about problems did NOT mean I was growing up - it meant I was just delaying it. Until I could not avoid it anymore (hell, I'm even getting my first wrinkles), and then here I am, living grown-up life and bloody hating all the stress it involves. The problem with facing up to your responsabilities means you could never be a perfectionist. Meaning, you SHOULD NEVER expect things to go your way, because if they can avoid it, my friend, they will. But as the nice responsible tax-paying adult you are, you will do your best to make things work for you, and my god, do they stress you out!

So here I am, purely stressed out, mostly because of small things, insignificant details, because they are the ones which nag me the most. I want everything to work perfectly, they never do (they never DID for that matter!), therefore I suffer.

I'm ashamed of it, though.

What I have to learn is not the NOT CARING thing. Is the LETTING THINGS GO thing.

Silence

There are several things that make me anxious. Lack of money is an obvious one. Lack of time, lack of sleep, bad hair day, fear of rejection, not knowing what to say, not being able to see my loved ones... the list is gigantic, and that probably says a lot about the person I am. But the one thing that probably bothers me the most is lack of silence. Not being able to hear my own thoughts and make sense of them, or absorb information and understand my own feelings, drives me crazy - and generally, I can only do this when there's silence around me (or something near silence. People working on their own things with low background music, is fine - but not ideal). After all this years living in London I've come to realise that silence is probably the only and most difficult commodity to obtain, of all the others: money, status, security,family, friends, they all will probably come to everyone at a certain point in life, if they work towards getting them. But silence, in a city like London, only becomes harder and harder to reach with time. Look at my own life: I have a partner who lives with me and (now) four flatmates and two cats; I work full-time in a environment full of people and telephones and and music, day and night. The public transport is similar to warehouses packed full of suffocating chickens, and on buses there's always someone imposing their own repulsive musical tastes (normally hip-hop and R&B) on everyone else via their mobile phones on loud speakers. At home, the TV is constantly switched on, normally plugged in on the dvd player and the x-box, and when it's not, then the iTunes is playing something on one of the 6 Macs currently in the house. Outside, there's the traffic, the people talking, the background music literally everywhere you go... you get the picture.

Right now, while writing this post, two different songs are playing in the background: amy winehouse in the main background, and a dodgy r&b tune from 3 years ago on the cloackroom man's laptop speakers.

I've tried to train myself to switch off and concentrate on my readings and writings while the world shoots and bangs around my ears, but after 4 years, I don't think I've improved much. I remember working in magazine and newspaper offices and nearly crying from not being able to write good pieces because the constant noise was so distracting. It might have been one of the reasons why I gave up the journalistic career so easily: because I wouldn't be able to work competently amidst everyday chaos. I am one of those people that NEEDS to be in close touch with the inner workings of their own minds, so I can be fully satisfied with whatever comes out of it. Not many people need or even understand this urgent need for alone/silent time, so I've always had a hard time trying to make the people in my own circle comprehend my demands. For the man in my life to understand that I wanted to be left alone sometimes, it took a few years. With friends, it was me who had to learn to cherish time with them without worrying if I would eventually get time for myself as well. Sometimes, I would simply ignore phone calls, messages, invitations, or simply withdraw mentally from a social gathering when physically I still had to be there (like seating in the sofa with the paper when there's 20 people talking around you. Horrible, I know). As a result, obviously, I 've been branded anti-social, intolerant, unadaptable, whatever is associated with people who have a weakness for isolation.

Remember that book I've been trying to write? It hasn't gone much far, and I blame the permanently disturbing noise that is part of daily life in London.

And in the end, I don't think I'm asking too much. I know that if I get 2 hours on my own every other day, I'll be the happiest and most sociable bunny in the world - because ater isolation, I need to interact with other people in order to dish out whatever my mind has decided to work on.

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Maybe I should just start waking up at 5 am.

Faux Pas

Every new job is the same bloody thing. There's always the nice people, compassionate souls who are ready to extend their kind hands when you have that look of despair in your face; and there's the patronising bitches, who can't wait to see you making a mistake so they can tell everyone behind your back how dumb you are, after coldly throwing your faux pas back in your face. No, I'm not naming names, are you crazy? I never do. But I like to acknowledge, even when no one that matters in this particular subject will read this, that I am an extremely observant and sensitive person, therefore, I most certainly WILL spend the rest of my day ruminating specific attitudes from specific people in my head - until the next faux pas happens.

But hey, believe me, I care less these days. I didn't even cry when I thought I was supposed to, which is fairly amazing. Two things might be happening: a) I'm really growing up, and b) I'm learning to manage my monthly hormonal mess.  These are good news.

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Normally I don't really mention here the books I've been reading - mostly because I read several at the same time, and depending on my mood, I might get through one a week or just leave it aside -  but tonight I will, just because I feel like. 

I'm reading Clarice Lispector biography, "Eu Sou Uma Pergunta" (I'm a question), written by a PUC (a brazilian private university) student as her MA final project. I haven't read much of her work to this date, and I have always made a mental note to read everything carefully because her style resembles that of my english favourite, Mrs Virginia Woolf. But then I wanted to read more in Portuguese, as my use of my own native language is in a steep decline, and I've decided to have a lo

ok in this book that's been with me for at least 2 years. The writing style is a bit shit, to be honest.  The author tries her hardest to be faithful to the documents she used for the  research (On the morning of 12 of December 1941, Clarice signed the document blablabla), while trying to make her amazing life story flow - and that's where I try to focus on. Her story is just... astoundingly inspiring. It's everything I wanted to do and be (well, not everything, but a lot of it). I want to have that devotion to my own art, and the discipline. I want to be able to translate my pain, not simply minimise it to get through my days in this cold land - like she did so competently. 

  

The Haircut Theory

I've got a haircut. "Oh, really, Einstein?", you might ask. To what I proudly answer, yes, I did. I've chopped off more than half of my long and heavy and tyrannical locks. To most women, and at least most ordinary women, going to a hairdresser regularly for "maintenance" is probably one of the most trivial of feminine beauty habits, one that belongs to their routine as much as brushing their teeth before bed, but to me it is more like a metaphysical experience. It represents much more than a simple decorative method of improving one's image. To me, it represents the most immediate act of rebellion, an emblem of internal transformation, a symbol of life's continuous and inevitable metamorphosis. In the beginning of this month, I've decided to turn my life around, and as soon as I saw the mechanisms of this transformation being ignited in meteoric speed, I knew it was time to bring that idea to the outside. First, via my hair. 

To understand the dimensions of this seemingly commonplace act (after all, which woman doesn't get a haircut when she thinks her life needs a shake-up?), it is best to give a little explanation. I NEVER go to hairdressers. I seek one once a year, when the situation is too calamitous and I need a little help in order not to look like a bag-lady. In my teens I used to be my local coiffeur's best customer, changing lengths and colours according to my hormonal moods, but since I've left Brazil I simply decided to let the thing grow freely and do whatever I needed to do on my own. It was a decision firstly based on money, obviously, and then later based on the principle that I would not waste my precious time worrying about my looks more than I was already obliged to. I could be reading a book instead.

But 4 years down the road, and I actually realised that my long unrestrained hair, which got endless compliments from people who would always say in the end "Don't ever cut it!", was actually imprisoning me. The longer it got, the more demanding it became. The more I took care of it, the more attention it got, consequently, the more pressured I've felt to take care of it. 

If there's one thing that defines me as a person, this is thing is my resilient insubordination. I DON'T like to be forced to do what I don't want to do. I get depressed and bitter if I see myself wasting time by not being myself (which is most of the time. It's not that easy to be original in Western society). And MY HAIR was doing that to me. It was time to do something about it.

So after calling my previous job and saying "Sorry guys, I'm taking the rest of the week off. See you whenever," I went to Central London and wandered in the first dodgy hair salon I found in one of those narrow SoHo streets. There were four hairdressers labouring over the heads of skinny and tanned over-40s men, so when the affected giant black men asked me if I had any preference, I simply said "no. Whoever is available first."

A blonde, nonchalant woman was the first to finish. She got my overwhelming mass of hair out of my low ponytail and said "So, what you wanna do?", I promptly replied "Just get rid of it. Or at least half of it." She didn't bat an eyelid. I took out my mobile phone, started making a few phone calls, and half-hour later I remembered I had a mirror in front of me. The final result was definately not the most amazing haircut I have ever had - it actually reminded me of the first time my hair was stylised in endless layers back in 1991, making my 9-year-old self look like a midget wearing a monumental wig - but it was different enough from the girl who has been a slave of her own long manes for the past 5 years.

Not many people have seen it yet, and the ones who have didn't say much more than "Honey, it's a matter of time until we get used to it." To my immense satisfaction. Because one of the most rewarding realisations is knowing you did what you wanted to do without giving a single thought to what other people think of it. 

The Job.

So. I got the job. Yeah, yeah, I know.  That romantic unemployed moment became, well, just a moment. It's funny how everyone come to London to try and make dreams come true, and it rarely happens. Not that it doesn't happen. It's just that it takes so bloody long, and that is simply because London, on top of being everyone's promised land, it also happens to be the second most expensive city in the world, just behind that other crazeee metropolis, Tokyo. You want to do your shit? Pay the price, mothafuckah. You can do whatever the hell you want in London, be in the most talked about , courses and events and places around the world in London, see and maybe meet some of the most important and watched people in the world in London, and who knows, YOU may become one of those people that make London be one of the most juicy and yummy capitals in the world, but before that happens, you've got to pay your bills. No, that's an understatement. You've got to have money not just to pay the bills, but also be able to attend the events/places/courses where the so-called important people are. Because it doesn't matter if you want to be a writer or a cabaret dancer, a chef or a fluffer, you have to know the right people and be in the right places to get there. It's all too well wanting to be Charles Bukowski, penniless and worse for wear and using that as inspiration for writing poems and novels, or being George Orwell, giving up all comfort and wealth to write a book about homelessness in Paris and London, but these days that's rarer than Victoria Beckham's smiling. Without connexions, my darling, I'm afraid you won't get past the kebab shop on the corner, unless you happen to be very lucky and meet your personal messiah right there, gobbling down one giant chicken shish. 

So, that brings me to the job. 

And this one is proper. With proper contract, health insurance, pension contributions, and even travel and clothing allowance. Clo-thing A-llo-wan-ce .  The works. I couldn't say no. As I said before, and I will keep on saying forever and ever and ever: if someone throws an opportunity in your hands, even if it is not at the right time, JUST TAKE IT. Go on , have a look, try it for a bit, if it doesn't work for you, you can always say "sorry, it doesn't work for me."  Just don't sign anything. And if you do sign, then, oh well, try to be responsible, for a change. It's quite an OK experience. You can always use that as inspiration afterwards.

Eu só podia dizer isso em português.

Eu nunca quis conhecer o fundo do poço que você escolheu. Eu queria conhecer o fundo do MEU poço. MEU POÇO. O fundo do poço que eu havia escolhido podia ser fedorento, gosmento, emporcalhado, cheio de lodo e musgo e insetos flutuando na superfície da água escura e podre, mas era o MEU poço. Ter chegado no fundo do poço que você escolheu não valeu a pena. Foi uma perda de tempo. Do MEU tempo.

Pulling the brakes, part 3,189,287,642

You see, when I said earlier "fuck the plans", I knew I had a reason. I knew that when I make plans, they never work. Not the way I want them to anyway. At some point on the way, there's always a hole or a stone or a cow in the middle of the road that needs diversion. And after diversions I never go back to the road again. Or maybe I do, but never with the same enthusiasm and energy, and I reduce speed until I stop and forget that there's a road in front of me and a destination to reach. I just sit there and watch people pass me by, thinking "How interesting, they're going to that place I wanted to... It'd be nice to be there."

So, here it is. I said some posts before that I was proudly unemployed, looking forward to book a flight to that remote country called Brazil, and then enjoy my free time to push forward some ideas that I had in the back of my mind such as le book and le vintage fashion shop, and then, and THEN! I get a call, no, a text message, from a friend asking me if I want to go for a job interview in this really fucken' cool members club. Shite. I was NOT looking for a job, damnit. I wanted a proper job for so long, since I started university, or since I left Brazil, and no one wanted to give me. Now that I don't want it, they do. It's always like that. When you're single, no one bats an eyelid when you walk by. Then you find a mate, and you're suddenly the hottest dish on the menu. Not that I am at the moment (pfff, hell no), but it happened before.

Anyway. I had to pull the brakes and do the famous diversion, once again. You can't say no when opportunities come knocking on your door. You go there, check it out, and if it works for you, then you go for it.

I'll never reach my final destination, will I?

So many people, and not one able to read my mind.

It's been nearly 18 months since I last left the UK. Pretty long, considering I wouldn't stay with my feet planted anywhere longer than 8 months. Always on the road, since I left that immense country down south, my home. What it used to be my home. Now I'm here, free to go, and I don't really want to go anywhere. Can't think of a place better than right here, right now, in this city I've been loathing for most of the time I've been residing within its chaotic districts. Always hating the grey sky, the toxic air, the coldness of its inhabitants, the trains always late, always packed full of sweaty, sick, frustrated people, most of them dispirited immigrants trying to make ends meet and fuck off back home asap. Thinking, "this is not it. This is not where I should be." And then, 18 months later, the city has finally pushed me on my knees. "Here is the truth, so now you can hate me": I surrender.

I've cried so many times in so many places, in pubs, in buses, on the street, in my bed until I fell asleep with exhaustion, that I can't bear to leave a place that has so many pieces of me scattered around it. The only other place that holds most of my scars in custody is Balneario Camboriu, my darling little beach town, BC. Everything I'm scared to do these days I did it in BC. I was a ballsy little girl back then. All my first-times happened in BC. The drinks, the drugs, the boys, the men, the sex, the tattoos and piercings, the fights, the passions. The going-back-home-stoned-and-barefoot-on-the-beach-early-mornings, the driving-high-on-a-acid-from-one-town-to-another, the blow-job-in-the-car-at-night-on-one-of-my-friends'-brother, the shutting-myself-in-my-room-crying-and-listening-to-TheDoors.

Then after all that, I grew out of my skin, too big to stay in that little town, so I run away. First to Curitiba, then to New York City, then to London. But the bigger the city, the smaller I became. Too many people, and none of them able to read my mind. None of them interested in looking at me, or more to the point, see through me. I was like Alice in Wonderland, when she takes that magic potion and diminishes until she is as tiny as an insignificant insect. That's me. A little insignificant bug in the middle of the jungle, afraid to die smashed under the giant paw of an elephant. 

It was never supposed to be like that.

Now, all I can think of is how to be unafraid, how to make my point come across. How to grab people's ear and say "Oi! listen to me!" Because I don't know how to do that, I don't know how to be visible without worrying about being irrelevant. I don't want to waste anyone's time. No, that's not it. I DON'T WANT TO CARE IF I'M WASTING ANYONE'S TIME. Don't want to listen? Fuck off back home then. 

So, that's why I'm now unable to go anywhere else. Because right now I need to find my place in this spectacularly grand city. 

++

ps: can't stop listening to radiohead's new album "In Rainbows." Must be one of the most beautiful albums ever made. No excuses not to buy it: you can give as little as $0.01 for it. But I were you, would give more, because it's JUST SO WORTH IT.  

Starting from Scratch

I simply haven't had time. Or wasn't clear-headed enough to be able to write a word properly (meaning "hangover-to-the-point-of-not-having-any-brain-cells-left"). But that's because I was too happy. Yes, I know, that's a first. Being happy and drinking my arse off just because I could is something so rare in my life that it felt like it wasn't really me. Only that it is the real me, for the first time, in ages. Not afraid to fuck up anymore.

I'll tell you. Last week was one of those weeks when everything suddenly falls into place through a mix of luck, instinct and, well, balls. It started on Sunday, when I dragged my friends to see Lee Miller's exhibition at the V&A. The first time I heard, well, read about Lee Miller was in this novel by a Brazilian lady that I was slightly obsessed with when I was about 12. It happens to me all the time. Every now and then I get obsessed about some woman that represents part of what I am or want to be in life. Women like Tracey Emin, Virginia Woolf, Juliette Lewis, and more recently Amy Winehouse. All dramatic, emotionally intense, slightly crazy women with a drug or drink problem, but so, SO talented. Fearless women who pour their hearts out in their art, who don't draw a line between their work and their lives. In the novel, the heroine goes through shitloads of surgery to look like Lee Miller - the ultimate beauty with brains - just so she can catch the eye of this famous photographer. I read the novel way before I got access to the Internet, and back in my little Brazilian town it was as easy to find books about 1930s' photographers as it is to elect a Brazilian politician that is not corrupt, so I never really found out much about her work until a few years later - probably until I left Brazil. Then last Sunday I went to see her work at the museum. And it's not that her pictures were amazing themselves, or the fact that she, along with Man Ray, invented a technique to invert highlights in a picture, or that she was the first female war photographer during WWII. No. It was because she was FEARLESS. And passionate, and unstoppable, and audacious, and very, very ballsy.

The first Go For It muse.

Now, think: how brave a woman had to be in the 1930s to demonstrate she possessed  balls? She was a bloody genius, and on top of that, she was sex-ee.

So, after I went back home, I run a bath and while sitting there, like a boiling egg, I decided. This bloody stuckness has to stop. No more waiting for my life to start. Obviously I knew I was still powerless to deal with some aspects, but I could simply, you know, adopt the attitude. And make some phone calls.

So the next day I called my current job in that bar and told them I needed a few weeks off - with no intention to come back.

Then my landlord told us our rent was going to go up and we needed to decide if we wanted to stay and pay more or get out. I said we're leaving. 

Then I've checked my savings and made a few calculations and started to draw a plan to see how long I could be proudly unemployed, while also starting my little fashion business (more on that later) and write my book, the little bloody fucken' tormenting book. In the end I didn't really draw a plan, because plans scare me more than actually help me, so I simply threw caution to the wind.  Fuck the plans. I'm just gonna dive into the unknown for a while and see what happens. Carpe Diem for real.

Then my passport came back after endless, long months at the hands of the British authorities, holding my permission to come and go for years to come.

And so it is that now I've got no job, no home, little money and colossal (but limited) freedom. All in the tiny space of a week. 

I haven't been this excited in a looong, long time. 

Michael Jackson is my guru.

It might sound, like, whatever to you, but I always knew I would go back to my roots. The first album I ever bought was Michael Jackson's Dangerous, and all the following ones were from His Majesty King of Pop as well. I was a Jacko's Hardcore Fan at the tender age of 10, with curly fringe, fingers bandaged, manic poster collecting, all that shit. I even mimicked the guy at a school play, singing "Heal the World" dressed up as in the "Black and White" video, to my mortification years later. I think I actually learned my first English words by translating the lyrics of his songs, which I would not have a clue what they meant afterwards.

Anyway.

Last week I just heard 'Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" playing in the background at a bar and it reminded me of my pre-teen obsession, so I decided to buy (yes, b-u-y, not steal) the song on Itunes, and PLIM! I had an epiphany. Michael Jackson knew it. He always knew. The lyrics of that song, well, they were written for me. It's just the most ironic slap in the face I've ever got, and now I think HE is a bloody genius to have written those lyrics (not to say the beats, which are pure dance music genius too).

Anyway. Pay attention:

I Said You Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
You Got To Be Startin' Somethin'
I Said You Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
You Got To Be Startin' Somethin'

(--> that's me there, always trying to, er, start something. But...)

It's Too High To Get Over (Yeah, Yeah)
Too Low To Get Under (Yeah, Yeah)
You're Stuck In The Middle (Yeah, Yeah)
And The Pain Is Thunder (Yeah, Yeah

(-->see. He knows. I'm doing everything wrong, that's why I'm stuck, and suffering the consequences).

You Love To Pretend That You're Good
When You're Always Up To No Good
You Really Can't Make Him Hate Her
So Your Tongue Became A Razor


(--> well, that's just him telling me the truth. I don't know who is "Him", but it doesn't matter. I'm up to NO Good).

You're A Vegetable, You're A Vegetable
Still They Hate You, You're A Vegetable
You're Just A Buffet, You're A Vegetable
They Eat Off Of You, You're A Vegetable

(--> That's my favourite part. I actually sing that to myself in the mirror every morning.)

If You Cant Feed Your Baby (Yeah, Yeah)
Then Don't Have A Baby (Yeah, Yeah)
And Don't Think Maybe (Yeah, Yeah)
If You Can't Feed Your Baby (Yeah, Yeah)

(--->that's just self-explanatory. Like, "stop that biological clock now.")

Lift Your Head Up High
And Scream Out To The World
I Know I Am Someone
And Let The Truth Unfurl
No One Can Hurt You Now
Because You Know What's True
Yes, I Believe In Me
So You Believe In You

(---> but then, THEN, he finally says "Thais, it's alright. I know you're good, you just have to believe yourself").

That's it. Who needs horoscope when there's Michael Jackson.

Life Is What Happens When You're Busy Making Other Plans

Everything has a price. Tudo tem um preço. That's what I've thinking today - and for the past 4 years, to be more precise. Two days ago I've completed 4 years living in London, and I've just suddenly realised that this idea has always been part of everything I do since I arrived here. I have always had choices - too many of them, I must say. But looking back, I see that for every choice I've made, I've paid a price, sometimes high, sometimes low, that would not necessarily be the same had I chosen something else. In 2003, I arrived at a determinate crossing, and I had to choose a route, a direction to keep moving forward. I only realised that I kept choosing wrong paths 3 years down the road, and from there I've trying desperately not to think about all the possibilities/opportunities/different pathways that I left behind, and just follow my instinct. 

(pause to breathe). 

I still have choices. Still, plenty of them. And sometimes I think that this is some kind of double-faced entity, a curse and a blessing at the same time. I see a lot of people that don't have many choices, or no choices at all, and they can't spend their time writing pros and cons lists. They need to give their best shot, because it might be the only one. I'm terrified of this idea. Because as much as I want to make things work, I don't want to think that it is my only chance. I simply hate being stuck inside a pressure cooker.

But maybe that is the reason I can't make anything work. I have ideas, one after another, and nothing ever leaves my head or the paper. If I'm not stuck inside the pressure cooker, I'm stuck outside anyway... just drifting aimlessly. 

The truth is I've arrived at another crossing and I've been there for over a year, afraid of screwing up again.

I need to make contact with my inner Major Tom again. 

The Worst Party

So, my weekend has been extraordinaire. To the ordinary observer, however, nothing has happened much that deserves special remembrance. But it does to me. To the normal listener, i would describe my saturday night as being defined by the worst party I have ever been in recent years, if not THE WORST PARTY I have ever been since I moved to London.  But that's just my humble opinion, of course. The fact that I don't enjoy, or simply DON'T FIT IN, in a tacky warehouse club full of sweaty, stinking, tasteless people stomping and clapping like monkeys to cheesy and idiotically loud music, is obviously my problem too. Nothing against people who like this kind of shit. Well, not true. I have everything against people over 20 who think it's absolutely normal to dance like a super-thirsty epileptic moron to music as interesting as a malfunctioning washing machine. 

I just feel like saying, "c'mon, darlin', take a look at yourself in the mirror. Silly, isn't it?" Maybe the government should make some kind of law obliging super-clubs and warehouse parties to hang huge mirrors all over their walls, so senior clubbers (those cretins who got stuck in the 90's) who spend their nights out rolling their eyes with a dimwit smile glued to their faces should realise the extent of their stupidity in public.

Or maybe not. People like this would probably think it's funny and say they never had such a good time.

Do I sound like an old snobbish and disdainful granny? Oh well, maybe I am. Or maybe I'm just immensely relieved that I've been through this phase while I was still young enough to look cute while behaving like the silly teenager I was. Not like the silly teenager I wish I was. Sometimes it's good to grow-up.

++++

The other thing I've concluded after 3 very long hours inside that club was that I should, indeed, be immensely proud of who I am. Instead of constantly biting my nails because no one wants to hang out with me because I'm neurotic and obsessed (that's my head working 24/7), I've actually realised that it's ME WHO DOESN'T WANT TO HANG OUT WITH THEM. How can I, when most people around me (and by that I mean the shitloads of Brazilians who populate this enormous city - excluding a tiny smart percentage, which I'm proud to be friends with) are such ignorants in... how can I say... everything? The only way I can have fun around them is by sitting in a corner with a drink observing the ridiculousness of their gatherings - which I actually enjoy, because it provides material for my whinings. I definitely need a new crowd, new surroundings.

Anyone?

Dark Night of the Soul

The Guardian is publishing daily interviews with legendary public figures, from Marilyn Monroe to Hitler, and today Mr F Scott Fitzgerald features. He, who knows everything about writing to keep one's head above water when things are spiraling downwards, explained to perfection what happens regularly to those stupid manic-depressive aspiring writers most of the time when they are thinking about the future:

"Now the standard cure for one who is sunk is to consider those in actual destitution or physical suffering - this is an all-weather beatitude for gloom in general and fairly salutory daytime advice for every one. But at three o'clock in the morning ... the cure doesn't work - and in a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day. At that hour the tendency is to refuse to face things as long as possible by retiring into an infantile dream - but one is continually startled out of this by various contacts with the world."

Now, I'm not feeling particularly pessimistic today, quite the opposite. But I couldn't ignore the fact that the my routine has been extraordinarily described for everyone to see at the newspaper, by someone I absolutely respect. Thank you.

The sum of all things - so far.

So, what on earth has happened within the little boundaries of my universe in the past months? More than I thought it could have happened, since the beginning of 2007. In no particular order:

- I've studied art and found out that I am capable (obviously not impeccably - if there is such thing as "impeccable" in arts these days) to think visually and make my hands produce stuff other than writing. 

- I have, consequently, learned to appreciate the work of artists in a way I have never, ever really done. Once you put yourself in the artists' shoes, you realise the extension of their geniuses. Museums and galleries' trips have never been more captivating.

- I've nervously toyed with the idea of plastic surgery, nurturing and subsequently sending to hibernation a slimmer and prettier image of myself. 

- I have, as Richard Dawkins puts it, come out of the closet as an atheist, to the horror of my weirdly spiritual but not religious family. 

- I've cut relations with all the people that made me feel bad about myself, thus reducing even more my already reduced social circle. Not that these people noticed my absence anyway.

- I have indulged in my on-off relationship with music, and decided to not let it define the person I am. Music can be the answer to all your problems one day, and the most annoying form of art the next. Who the f*** invented nu-rave, anyway? 

- I have postponed indefinitely the pursuit of a journalistic career. Apart from the reading and writing, there isn't any aspect of this profession that appeals to the person I am. I am not extroverted or nosy, I have immense difficulty to verbalize my ideas in a coherent way, I'm anxious, insecure, with a self-esteem more unstable than the Brazilian economy, and I definitely, definitely HATE to shoot questions to people who have no wish or intention of answering them. Going out there chasing stories that are of no particular interest to me is one of my ideas of hell. And living in hell for a salary that can barely feed my cats is like ... fishing in the Dead Sea? You know what I mean. 

- As a consequence of the previous decision, I have inevitably come across people from all sections of society asking me the legendary question: "So what the hell are you going to do with your life?" Variations are: "So what is your plan for the future?", followed by "Are you going to throw away all you've done so far?" If there is a thing all parents should teach their children, taking a leaf from the French book of habits, is to not ask these kind of questions to people. It's rude, period. People are never genuinely interested in your future achievements. All they really want to know is what are the chances of you screwing up badly, so they can continue to indulge in their judgmental tradition, thinking "thank god, at least someone is worse off than me." So, whenever this question pops out, I simply say "well, I don't know. What about you?"

- I've started to hear the tic-tac of my biological clock. Loudly. 

- I've slapped myself in the face and hired a personal trainer, gave up (at least temporarily) alcohol, and started eating and sleeping better. Without any false modesty, I can't remember the last time I've felt this energetic and fit. Oh, yes, I do. That was 1998.   

(to be continued...)

PS: By the way: "thank god, at least someone is worse off than I am"

The Incessant Return

And so, as it could have been obviously foreseen, I am back to the world of blogging. For there is no reason why an aspiring writer would not attempt to publish her own misleading, irrelevant thoughts in a web page lost in the internetic (internetical?) ocean. Writing a public diary, even if there are no readers with lots of time and boredom in their hands left to accidentally bump into this modest journal, can still be seen as practice - not only as in language experimentation, but also in demonstrating the results of a so-called experimentation for a potentially limitless (and scaring) audience.

Which brings us to the age-old but still firmly rooted decision that this scriba has made a little more than a decade ago. I still haven't given up on the romantic idea that I will write a book. Eventually, it will happen. It is simply implausible to think that I've spent nearly half of a quarter of century yearning to do something and spend the three other quarters without seeing it happening. Now, why would you give a rat's ass about my seemingly selfish desire to see my words bound nicely in a square stack of paper, then it's another story. Because, honestly, I don'y give a rat's ass anymore about wether anyone thinks I should or not go for it. What I've found, after all these years muttering to myself the oh-so-cliché idea "I've got a book inside me", is that I've been wanting it for the wrong reasons. Which was simply to expose my self. Get attention. Show off the amazing personality that I think i've got and no one really knows about. Yadda yadda yadda.

Now, does that sound slightly... how should I say this... fuckin' self-absorbed and immature? That's what I've come to conclude as well.

So, after long reflecting about this matter, which now counts over 12 months during which I've tried my best (well, not really) to clean up, if not all, most of my emotional and practical rubbish, I have arrived at the following conclusion: I want to write because IT JUST GIVES ME PLEASURE. Because I JUST FEEL GOOD WHEN I'M ABLE TO ARTICULATE MY THOUGHTS. Because if I'm doing it for myself and taking my own time IT'S undeniably FUN.

Well, the last part is a load of rubbish which will probably not take me anywhere, because writing, as a profession, as a career, is DEFINITELY NOT FUN. I know what it is to spend days agonizing over a blank screen trying to find the right words to express ideas. It is time-consuming, hair-pulling, jumping-up-and-down-screaming-in-agony stressful. And it is also sad. But in a strangely soothing way, when you find those stupid little words, these seemingly small and foolish concoctions of alphabetical characters heavily charged with the meanings of everything you are, it is also deeply rewarding.

So, I'm back.

The End / O Fim

There is no point in keeping this blog any longer. For a long time, this has been a discreet diary, filled with irrelevant posts about things reported by newspapers, and as the quote by this guy called Henry Channon says: "What is more dull than a discreet diary? One might as well have a discreet soul."

There is a lot going on in my life, much of it I would rather not discuss in public because, unfortunately, I'm not mature enough not to care about what other people think. At this moment, and for the past few years, I don't have the courage to describe openly my daily bureocratic problems and even less my emotional issues, which is obviously my main source of interest - rather than what is going on with every one else (unless they have similar stories to mine).

Last night, I've realised I have a lot of issues that I need to deal with, and from a young age I've dealt with them by writing journals. Since I stopped keeping this routine of analysing my own problems, I have developed many others that have gotten worse with age.

I still don't want to go to therapy, so, this is the end of blogging as I know it. From now on, I'm back to paper+pen journals, and whatever fact I want people to know about me, it will make its way thinly disguised in my creative work - be it writings or visual art.

Thanks for coming, and see you around.

--------------

Não há mais motivo pra manter esse blog. Por muito tempo, esse tem sido um "diário discreto", cheio de posts sobre coisas irrelevantes publicadas por outros, e como disse um cara chamado Henry Channon: "Não há nada mais chato do que um diário discreto. É o mesmo que ter uma alma discreta".

Muita coisa tem acontecido na minha vida que eu prefiro não discutir em público porque, infelizmente, eu não sou madura o suficiente ainda pra não me importar com o que os outros pensam. Nesse momento, assim como nos últimos anos, eu não tenho tido coragem pra descrever abertamente meus problemas burocráticos e muito menos emocionais, o que e' obviamente meu maior motivo de interesse - aon invés de saber o que está acontecendo na vida dos outros (a não ser que eles tenham histórias parecidas).

Ontem a noite eu me dei conta de que eu tenho vários problemas que precisam ser resolvidos, e desde muito nova eu sempre tenho lidado com problemas através de diários. Desde que eu parei de manter essa rotina de analisar minhas dificuldades, eu tenho desenvolvido outras que só parecem ter piorado com a idade.

Eu ainda não estou pronta pra fazer terapia, então, isso e' o fim do blog como eu o conheço. De agora em diante, estou voltando pros diários de papel e caneta, e qualquer fato que eu queira que as pessoas saibam sobre mim, será incluído disfarçadamente em meu trabalho, seja ele em escrita ou artes visuais.

Obrigada por ter vindo, e nos vemos por aí.