Inner Babel / Babel Interior

  I am the kind of person who lights candles. This is now, not then. it is a recently acquired habit, one that has done me well. I light up candles every day. In the beginning of each class I set up an intention, I focus and I light the candle. I ask myself to be the light, to be the container, not the conduit. I am now the kind of person Who walks barefoot on the grass of my backyard and lets herself shower in the improbable rain of Brasilia in May.  The four elements rest now on my desk making my therapist smile when told about them, making her proud of myself and my journey. I am the kind of person that feels the connection with the elements, and nature and the universe, so new. I am again a newborn being. And it is not the first time, I have once died and it’s no secret. This time, however, I did not have to die. I had only to shed the old skin, the one who served me no more. I am still the kind of person who looks in the mirror and who wonders who this new being is. This...

Those who learn the secret do not scream like you do, and if they do, they do not punish themselves forever, like you do. Those who learn the secret remember to breathe in and out slowly and find little things to do to try to make the place a little more colorful, light and beautiful.  Those who learn the secret treat others kindly. They do not buy all the toilet paper from the supermarket or the masks from the drugstore. They are kind and believe in kindness. They know someone will help them in a time of need. Also, if there is no more toilet paper in the world,  they know they can still shower. Those who learn the secret often cry for those who they cannot help, but find reasons to laugh even when in face of their own, so far small, misfortunes. They keep Quarantine diaries to keep them sane or bear witness if the apocalypse is inevitable.  Those who learn the secret understand we were never meant to be eternal, but we can still be meaningful. T...

Sou o tipo de pessoa que não sabe de onde é ou o que lhe define. Saí cedo de onde nasci e cresci em outro canto, com gente de tanto canto, que também não sei se eles mesmos sabem de que canto são. Eu não sei. Por um tempo achava que esse lugar para onde fui trazida era o melhor lugar: “Nesse país lugar melhor não há”. Acho mais não. Acho mais nada, porque por outros lugares andei, em outras paragens parei. E muito que admirei belezas e singelezas “que não encontro por cá”. O que sei, hoje, é que se sou esse tipo de pessoa sem canto pra chamar de meu, faço meu canto dentro do meu próprio eu. ... I’m the kind of person who does not know where she’s from or what defines her. I left early the place where I was born and came to grow up in yet another place, with people from such different places, that I don’t know as well if they themselves do know to which place they belong. I don’t. For a while I thought this place they brought me to was the best place of all place...

Fine and delicate folded paper. White, in the middle of the room, it seems minuscule. It multiplies itself, however, through its projected shadow. Symbol of the beauty extending from myself to the other and returning to me. Small gesture, and gift, that brings me consolation and reminds me of why what I do matters. Because, after writing, someone folds a lovely light Tsuru and returns to me the wings I have helped setting free.

While contemplating the crumbling of my youth, I think of songs which once made sense. Words expressing the pointless sorrows. Drums and guitars, never too loud or too insistent, telling me to recoil or expand. Keyboards providing me shelter or direction. The heart that hoped feels battered.The rain falling outside sounds, on the roof, like fire burning the Cerrado. It will probably bring new uninvited plants to our garden. Like the Heliconia that months ago was just a single leaf sprouting across the red dirt. That was right before we hired that gardener who killed the grass. We still hope it will miraculously grow green once more. I don’t know. I have no more money, disposition or time to seriously think about it. I have no time. I would like to see the next intruder blooming in the garden though. I wish for something as unique as the Heliconia. If that is in fact what it is. I wish for something beautiful. I breathe with difficulty and nothing has ever been  as I...

If you tell me to imagine I'm holding something in my hands. And if you tell me to write about this imaginary object. This thing I imagine will unavoidably be a soap bubble. I have come to terms with my obsession for soap bubbles. It does not mean I understand where it comes from. This understanding is probably part of my mission on Earth, our blue little planet floating away in the universe like one little bubble itself. There is, perhaps,  right there an explanation in the fact that the world we live may be seen as a soap bubble from afar. Perhaps, that is a small part of the whole explanation, the impermanence of life in its large and small concerns, the frailty and beauty of our human dreams. Our imperfect connexions, our frustrated attempts to be truly seen and contemplated, our impossibility of floating towards the other without creating some kind of damage, even if unintentionally. Our flaws, our protective covers scretching against the skin of the ones we love, like th...