After 17 years living in the civilised world I returned in July 2003 to my home country - Portugal. I have been Lost in Lisbon ever since.
INSULTS, COMPLIMENTS, ADORATION FAN MAIL: lost_n_lisbon@yahoo.com
Lately, whenever someone illustrious dies, I look out for their age. Were they over 50? Were they over 70? What did they die of? Was it a good death (natural causes) or was it a bad death (cancer, Alzheimer’s). At what age did they create? Were they married, did they have children, was their life relatively devoid of domestic tragedies but rich in adventure and heroic choices?
Lately, whenever someone illustrious dies, I sigh with relief – death bypassed my lover, once again, and chose a writer, a musician, a philosopher, a politician. This time death chose Christopher Hitchens, whose opinions I often find in my lover’s rants against religion, power, the empty lives of the overprivileged, and, crime of all crimes, the right wingers who turn right on Great Western Road in Glasgow, and hold up traffic for the others.
I sigh with relief – not him yet, we have some more time.
My lover is 62. He is so young, so vital, so bursting with projects and ideas and hopes (even though he claims to be mastering the art of doing nothing!), sometimes even at the cost of just being, with me, enjoying the sweet treacle of love on a boring Sunday afternoon, that it baffles me that he could ever not be.
This is the man who brought me love, possibility, a vaster, richer, purer future than the dullness of a life following the whims of the mediocre and unambitious – which I was fast becoming too. This is the man gently removes the rose-tinted glasses (spectacles!) I have on and shows me how reality is even better, even though it sometimes stinks. This is the man who mocks my neurosis and holds my hand during an anxiety attack. If he is that man, how can he depart sooner, leaving me to fend on my own, at an age when most women are yelling at their husband to take out the garbage.
I try to impart on my lover the sense of urgency, so that we may live and experience in, God-willing, a 20-year period, what others do in twice the time. His will obviously be a good death, as far away in time as it can be. I put all my faith and my belief in these thoughts, sometimes bartering with God in late hours, when he is snoring away into the back of my neck, oblivious to my machinations in keeping him alive just a while longer.
It can’t come as a surprise then, that I see bad deaths as a particular blow to my plans. If giants as Christopher Hitchens just vanish at the hands of cowardly cancer, why shouldn’t my lover suddenly go as well for some stupid, unforeseen reason? Is God not listening (Hitchens’ reply: there is no God, you silly woman. Now get me a drink!)? His stance on almost anything is different from mine though I subscribe entirely to the overratedness of champagne, lobster, anal sex and picnics – and, I would add, that green-coloured blemish corrector thing that is very much in Vogue. And cheap sushi. But his style, oh his style – punch after punch of the right word, the right “fuck you” attitude, the balance between knowledge and stylization. Teach me master.
As for my lover, I send him some quotes that will have him roaring for their bluntness and honesty. And I anticipate my delight the next time I see him, and feel his hands on my waist, his sparkky eyes looking into mine, letting me know I am the loveliest fat girl he has ever met and pretend to be shocked for his further delight. I cannae wait. And, each time I will throw my head backwards and laugh, a part of me will secretly pray that we get to keep this banter for as long as possible.
As for Christopher Hitchens, well, I shall (gasp!) have a nice, tall, gin tonic, and smoke one, maybe two cigarettes in his honour. God, do I live dangerously.
Life goes on, until it doesn’t.
29.5.11
Ya Sadiqqi,
Last week, during yet another endless, and pointless, meeting, I found myself doodling in Arabic – nothing special, the usual, long-standing qalila/kabira debate – baiti qalila aw kabira? – and was taken back to our evening Arabic classes, every Tuesday on some high floor of the DavidHumeTower.
I recalled the older lady (I love the Middle East) who, completely confused, was trying to decide between adjectives, only to have the extremely earnest Indian girl sitting beside her repeat endlessly qalila…qalila…qalila, and she trying not too look too aggravated saying I know… clash of civilisation right there and then.
And do you remember Paul, the oil rig worker, on his way to the Middle East and hoping to blend in, all 2m, 150kg of him. He sat behind us, overwhelmed, and overwhelming those old tiny 1970's chairs, sticking his tongue out as he painstakingly outlined each alif, each lam, with the smallest pencil he could find. There were times when I couldn’t even see the pencil, just his gigantic hand slowly moving across the paper, right to left, right to left. During our first language test, our earnest tension was palpable as we tried to construct meaningful sentences from a reduced vocabulary pool (bait, bint, bayna, bijanib, sayyara, zujaja, kalb) – and, from the deepest, most focused, most intense silence in that swaying classroom filled with Open University romantics, Paul's whispered frustration: “Bugger!”.
I remembered you telling me that you couldn’t roll your “r”, because something was up with your tongue, you couldn’t even stick it out. I didn’t believe you and made you show me.
“I don’t believe you. Show me.”
And you stuck your tongue out. “You’re joking, right? Come on, stick it out further.” But that’s all there was. “Dude, your tongue’s tiny”. You weren’t happy, I felt bad for making you feel bad. I resolved to show you crappy stuff about my body (like the mole on my forehead).
I recalled our teacher, the Greek yet German-looking Dr. K., whose life I idolised - intelligent, married to an intelligent man, studying interesting things, knowing exactly what she was up to. I also feared her, as I knew she could read through me and figure out that this, the learning of Arabic, was yet another project that I would not see through. I could sense her despise of me, or perhaps it was my own despise at myself.
She always wore a dark green velvet headband, and never any make-up, reminding me of a Christian missionary. As the weeks went by, and winter set in, Dr. K showed up with long woolly dresses. She also took to patting her belly, which I interpreted as nothing. But you told me that she was pregnant. You noticed. Perhaps because you had noticed one of your highly fertile sisters doing the same (how many nieces and nephews you had? It felt like 10 or more…). And so she was pregnant. I was extremely happy when she announced it – that meant a university teacher could be happily married and have a husband. What a relief!
And I recalled our dinners, after class, at the Taj Mahal, for a kebab with everything. (what was the name?). And sometimes, because of my sweet tooth, we’d have a lassi – each time, you’d order it in a Scottish accent, each time I found it hilarious. Sometimes we’d do the homework as we waited for the food. (Taj Mahal - Shah Jahan -Mumtaz Maham - the grade I always wanted, geddit?)
Then we’d walk home – you to Morningside, and I’d be off to Marchmont.
It was perfect – I knew then that it was perfect as much as I know it now. What I didn’t know then is that it was as perfect as it would ever be. A platonic friendship filled with possibility – a commonplace, I know, but perfect.
Our sharing an apartment, our long night talks, our drunken outings, our eventual falling into each other’s arms – not so perfect. Separations, letterwriting, silent phone conversations, bad choices, solo drinking, raging hormones – even less perfect.
The news of Bin Ladin's death surprised me this morning. Soon after hearing it on the radio, my mother called: "They got him! What great news!” For those who know me, my mother's joy is fully explained - on 9/11, I was home, a few blocks from the World Trade Centre. Along with thousands of others, I was evacuated and lived as a refugee in a very modern city. Luckily in my case, this was only for two weeks.
The impact of the events was lasting. Decisions that to this day affect my life were made back then. My mother's joy betrayed her hope that this death would release me from sadness and melancholia that should have never been mine, from the residual guilt of being so safe when a few blocks away, 2606 lives were burnt, crushed or vaporized. (Even today, just writing the number of dead fills me with anxiety - what if it isn't accurate? What if they have forgotten to account for someone who died there and no one knows? Am I complicit in erasing the memory that this person existed?)
And I must confess that, at first, I felt some relief. Finally! Finally they got the guy. Finally, they killed him! Finally. Then, almost immediately, the sadness returned, with the realisation that it would never really go away. This man, who so publicly barged into people's lives, who so violently interfered with the lives of some of us, eventually died in an anonymous confrontation, and was buried anonymously. Did he realise he was going to die? In that millisecond before death, did he grasp the magnitude and horror of what he did? Did he feel regret?
Make no mistake - it is for people such as Bin Ladin that I agree with the death penalty. I do not cry for his loss, and I do not care for his suffering. What pains me, as a survivor (I hate this word), is that he was spared what for him, I presume, would have been the most humiliating and vile treatment - a trial, with a defence lawyer, in the Hague Penal Court.
I feel that I have been cheated. As I was cheated when Slobodan Milosevic died, even though he was in custody; or when the British sent Pinochet, and the Scottish sent al Meghrahi, back to their home countries to die peacefully. As I feel cheated when I think that Fidel Castro will never face those he oppressed.
But, obviously, in the case of Bin Ladin it feels much more personal. I feel cheated of my closure, my very personal closure. And especially of the vindication of the social system in which I believe, in which I have unwavering faith - democracy. Failing and fallible yes, but that awards me a louder voice, a wider choice and yes, greater freedom, than any other system. And an integrant value of this system is the concept of Justice.
I never yelled for a Dead or Alive Bin Ladin. In fact, Bush's cowboy language was one of the greatest difficulties I found during my post 9/11 life. I always very much wanted Bin Ladin Alive, so that he could be tried like a man, defend himself like a man, and die like a man. This stripping of the human condition makes me sad and uncomfortable.
Even though I feel - I know - that he received just punishment, I cannot put a full stop on this subject. And now, these events will always be a part of me; they will drag alongside me forever - the unreality of what went on, the loss of lives, of energy, of all the creation that could have happened since that day. The loss of faith in the values of absolute good, of protection of the state, of just reward for a life well lived. This loss is present, it resurfaces, and now, with this "hidden death", will continue to resurface for the rest of my, of our, lives,
In a few months, we will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the events. I had planned, after that date, to never mark it again, to finally let this behind me, to pack it away in my storage box of memories, having paid my dues for having made the right choice that day of not venturing out into the street. Not being a victim, or a relative of one, this was a luxury I could afford. And I always assumed that "the disposal of the Osama" would help in this process. Yet, the initial moment of relief set aside, I realise that it really doesn't.
So bear with me if I seem too sanctimonious, but when President Obama says we can tell families of those who died that day that "justice has been done", I cannot agree. While I certainly do not presume to speak for the relatives of those who died what happened was retribution, not justice. It was a collective sigh of relief of finally seeing a manhunt that was becoming almost as humiliating as the attack that had originated it come to an end.
Justice would have been to feed and clothe the man, throwing in a bath for good measure, and send him to The Hague. Justice would have been to subject him to that long and complex process that constitutes a trial, ruled by laws based on values of humanity, respect for the others and for the intrinsic value of each human life. Values which this criminal so haughtily ignored. Justice would have been to see his conviction - preferably a death one, which is why I am not a judge at The Hague - and imprisonment.
Bin Ladin's death takes me again and again and again to the same question: If, at times of greater difficulty and tension, we cannot behave in accordance to our collective values, then what are our values for?
In reading this text, most of my friends may imagine me with a wagging finger and a facial expression apoplectic with indignation, my word debit per minute reaching full speed.
My friends would be wrong. More than indignant, I am sad that this is how it all ended. It saddens me that we have been deprived of seeing that sample of man, of looking into his eyes, of listening to his justifications based on silly extrapolations of a poorly interpreted Qur'an.
Therefore, while part of me is relieved to finally know the man's whereabouts - at the bottom of the ocean, where no fans will converge on an annual pilgrimage - I now know that for me, as well as for many other, what happened 10 years ago will forever remain unsolved, another loose thread that each one of us carries without being able to tie it to anything, or even knowing what to do with it.
And I feel that my sorrow cannot be that different from that of some families of victims, survivors and witnesses of what happened.
So while the world around me gets ready to yet another round of "Were we right? Were we wrong?”, I pray that God may bless not only America, but all of us.
13.4.11
Monte Estoril, 12 Abril 2011
Suddenly Spring arrived. The bare trees, their branches held up to the sky were gone. My window a Fauvist canvas for all shades of green, on all shapes of leaves. A domestic jungle of my own. A lush, gorgeous explosion of greenery.
This time last year I was in South Africa, driving through the Karoo, marvelling at the beauty of God’s creation. It was during that time that my grandmother went into hospital.
My Year of Magical Thinking is ending. And this greenery outside is telling me what everybody knows, but that, until that first time when your world shifts irrevocably, you never quite grasp – it’s time to carry on. Life is beckoning and the only way is forward - even when it's circular.
I sit by this window and look outside – I’ll wait for night time, when I can lie down on the sofa and look at the sky. For the first time this year, I will fall asleep looking at the stars, at the pitch black sky, wrapped in a blanket, because it is just that hot.
While still remembering how my Grandmother’s hand felt inside mine as she napped, I stretch out my other hand. É de quem a apanhar.
There’s a Portuguese children’s song about three doves flying. One is mine, the other is yours, the other is for whoever catches it. É de quem a apanhar.
... e sem esquecer, a Lianor, a Zé, a Adelaide Cabete, a Tina Fey, a Héloise d'Argenteuil, a E. Annie Proulx, a Carolina Beatriz Ângelo, a Christine de Pisan, a Tia Juca, e todas aquelas que se levantam de manhã, seguem os seus sonhos, e não deixam que lhes pisem os calos...
(la musiquita: sisters are doing it for themselves, Annie Lennox e Aretha Franklin)
Last Sunday 13th June, I went to sleep with a slight sense of trepidation. Just back from a 3-day long roundtable on centres and peripheries, where I stomped through the debates with my usual charm and tolerance, I had returned reinvigorated, ready to take on the world or, failing that, the local authority that currently employs me.
Not alien to my sense of trepidation was the young man I had met there, who happened to tick most of my boxes. Straight (a welcome plus), intelligent (he had me at “positive differentiation”… or was it “differentiated positivism”?), self-deprecating (“yes, I was a young idiotic right-winger”), and, most importantly eager to hear what I had to say, he seemed to perfectly combine a rigorous train of thought, hard-working ethics, unpretentious expression, and, most importantly a non-judgemental, yet moral, stance on life. All the things that matter.
Certain issues needed of course to be resolved before he actually realised that I was a woman, an available one at that. Firstly, he was in a committed long-distance relationship. Being utterly unable to do anything about that (that’s my moral stance on life) I was resolved to wait it out and, in a few months, reassess the situation. Secondly, he didn’t live here. Something which I could easily solve by moving to wherever he was. Yes, I am that kind of feminist. Then, there was the physical incompatibility, him being lithe and limb and I being, well, the stomping kind. Nothing some long overdue exercise on my behalf and a hipercaloric diet on his behalf wouldn’t remedy.
Resolutions in place, his words echoing in my head, why are you complaining? You want change? Go be change! Do something about it!, I felt shamed into action. Yes I would do something about something in the upcoming weeks! Yes I would embrace change! And I would begin by twisting his arm into meeting me for coffee the next day, as he was about to fly half-way across the world.
Hence my feelings of trepidation on June 13, as I went to sleep.
At 5.20 am I was awoken by my aunt, who was at the farmhouse up North. “You know what I am about to tell you?” Partly because I was asleep, partly because I wanted to delay her saying it, I said no.
“Grandmother died”.
I can’t remember how the rest of the conversation went – only that, in spite of my aunt’s instructions that I get some sleep before I got into a 3.5 hour drive on my own, I could not sleep. To fall asleep then seemed preposterous, almost sacrilegious, disrespectful towards my Grandmother.My father was unreachable so it was up to me to keep trying his phone. So, for some three hours, I walked around the house not knowing very well what to do. It was almost 8am when I was able to tell my father that his mother had died. By then I still hadn’t cried and I didn’t cry on the phone to my father. Actually, I was surprised that I was handling it so well.
Because I hardly ever wear black I went shopping for mourning clothes with a friend, then went to Lisbon to my aunt’s house to get her and my uncle their mourning clothes. The experience was surreal.
I didn’t make it to the farm until the end of the day, having picked up my sister, flying in from Brussels, at the airport. That night and the following day were lived in a complete sense of insulation from the rest of the world. A war could have started we would not have noticed, and more likely would not have cared. My Grandmother’s casket was laid open in the formal living room, the double doors opening into the garden and the camellia. That evening, and the following morning and afternoon, sunrays of different colours, bluish in the morning, golden by the afternoon, filtered by the leaves, made their way to the stone doorway. That evening and the next day, before we left to church, time stood still for us.
I was worried about the open casket. During the drive – an incredibly long, arid, lonesome drive, I prepared myself, wishing it would be closed. Yet there she was,, looking rested and restful, dressed in a silk blouse and scarf, with a white silk coverlet draped over most of her body. Silk blouses were a staple of my Grandmother’s wardrobe. When I was a child, I would sleep in her room when visiting and watch her get dressed in the morning – her palette was mostly black and whites, with some beige and greys strewn about. Except for the odd robin egg blue, flashy colours were not her thing.
My Grandmother was tall, lanky, with an understated elegance that at first surprised the folk when she arrived at the village as newlywed, nearly 65 years ago. A Lisbon debutante, the daughter of an important figure of the regime, she entered a drastically different life when she married a 17-years older countryside lawyer, with local political ambitions and no desire to live anywhere else other than Arouca. Amused, she often recalled when, going to the village during her first months of married life, she overheard an old lady, Ha, they said that the Doctor had married a beautiful lady from Lisbon! Look at her, she’s so skinny... that Doctor is a fool!
Another of my Grandmother’s features that I envied was her hair, which she always wore in a classical, full bun. As a child, I watched her comb her long, thick, white hair, and, forced by mother to wear an ear-length hairdo, with a side-part held by a simple pin, I begged my Grandmother to, at least once, wear a ponytail, or even side plaits.
As people poured into the visitor’s room, to view the body and offer their condolences, I recognised some I knew since I was a child – childhood friends of my father and aunt and uncle, former maids and fieldworkers, the seamstress, who reminded me of how often Grandmother would take me to her workshop for fittings – fittings for my Grandmother of course. My very few handmade clothes were made by Granny. One day, I was to go to the river for a bath with my aunt, but had no bathing suit. In 20 minutes, she made me a pair of white briefs with horizontal blue stripes, and I couldn’t believe that something that was sold in shops could be made by her!
Her sewing machine was one of the few things she inherited from her mother, whom she lost to typhus at the age of 9. She was then taken in by her father, as they were separated in those distant 1920’s. Together, they embarked on a “getting-to-know-each-other” journey through some of the country’s spas. One of the few photographs that my Grandmother recognised until the end was taken at Luso. In it, she wears a black dress and, curiously, a side-parted, ear-length bob, held by a pin. She always remembered that period fondly, reflecting the incredibly close bond she forged with her father, which they kept throughout her life – sometimes at the irritation of her husband, my Grandfather. When in Luso, she was taken aside by ladies who were there on a cure, and asked about who she was, why she was dressed in black, and who was that man with whom she was staying. It did look strange to them, I suppose.
Granny married late – at the age of 27. A true beauty, she did not lack suitors, and her explanations on how she broke up with each of them were, for the most part, quite funny. One, a doctor, asked her to marry him and follow him to the colonies, where they would live like kings, and have servants, and leopard skins and all the exotic wares she could want. Upon sharing the young man’s pretences with her father, she heard And you would be able to just leave your father behind?. That’s all my father had to say. I refused straight away.
Another poor soul had the terrible idea of writing her a letter detailing the decoration process of his new house, the home he was hoping to share with her one day – I am now in the process of finding the right curtains. He may have assumed that my Grandmother kept his letters close to her heart. She may have, but she also read them to her father, who, upon learning of the quest for the perfect curtain, exclaimed That is no man for you, minha filha! And another bit the dust.
One suitor almost got her – were it not for his supposed gambling habit at the Espinho Casino, duly reported and censored by my Granny’s chaperones. As she broke off contact with him, and he moved on to a life of adventures, giving her a book, La peur de vivre.
So it almost comes as a surprise that my Grandfather managed to snatch my Grandmother – when they first met she was 13, and he was 30, and he thought she was a kid. My Grandmother was sparse in her details on my Grandfather’s courtship. All we got was the chestnut tree episode. Some years ago, long after he had died, my Grandmother’s sister called her saying she wanted to tear down some chestnut trees to clear a field. My Grandmother threw a fit, she would not allow one particular chestnut tree to be torn down. After intense prodding on the reasons why – after all, she never had cared much for trees or animals or whatever; if it needed to die, it died – she finally relented. It turns out she and my Grandfather first kissed under that one chestnut tree. The tree got a reprieve.
Her romantic, almost tragic, approach to life reduced her to tears on her wedding day – she felt beyond guilty that she was leaving her father behind. After the reception, as my Grandfather waited to take her on their honeymoon, she and her father fell into each other’s arms sobbing. When a family friend hinted that my Grandfather was waiting, that it was time to go, my Great-grandfather replied This moment is long enough for all of us. And off she went, crying like a Mary Magdalene, to join her, I imagine, bemused husband. For a long time I assumed that theirs was a formal marriage, without much spontaneous affection, more of a partnership. Perhaps because of their age difference, or because people always told me stories about my Grandfather’s temper. Some of his clients were mountain people fighting for property or water rights – every now and then, my Grandmother would be summoned to his office by his shouting: Maria Antónia, come here! Can you tell this idiot how the law works?! And Granny would patiently break down into intelligible pieces what my Grandfather was trying to say. From my great-aunt, always more generous in gossipy details than my own Grandmother, I learned that my Grandfather would throw temper tantrums that Granny heard in silence – and then did whatever she wanted anyway.
One day, my preconceptions fell apart when, visiting the farm to heal my broken heart in privacy (if you cry in the middle of the woods and no one hears you, did you really cry?), I went for lunch with Granny on one of our last solo outings.I told her how much I missed the guy, how sad and alone I felt – and she said something such as you’ll find someone, three months with someone is nothing. She then told me about the night when she dreamt of my Grandfather, a dream so vivid that she actually believed he was lying in bed with her. Still sleeping she reached out her arm to drape it over him, and woke up when her arm fell on the mattress. She told me she cried herself to sleep that night. I cried, and still do, thinking of my then eighty-something years-old Grandmother crying for her long-gone husband.
Her beginnings in Arouca were somewhat difficult – she initially moved into the farm in which Grandfather was born, in which his mother and unmarried sister still lived. Cohabitation was not easy, as the two ladies resented the presence of this new woman, with her city manners and behaviour. Eventually, my Grandfather moved to another farmhouse further down the road – the house in which my father, aunt and uncle grew up, the setting of my childhood games and fantasies, adolescent broodings and longings during endless summers and incredibly cold Christmases. It was in this house that I, and my new, more nuclear family, now relived my memories and the stories of my Grandmother’s life.
In the same manner that she eventually conquered her husband’s family, so did she with the village that at first viewed her with suspicion. As the time to leave the house for the mass and burial approached, more people came in. Standing between my Father and Sister in the receiving line, I shook the hands and two-kissed people whom I never met. People who, when they entered the room, signed themselves and knelt at her coffin, kissed her forehead, caressed her cheek. Who then shared with us stories on how my Grandmother helped them. Many of them shared the same regret – that they would no longer see her driving around in her white Renault 4L. The epic Renault 4L, driven by one octogenarian Grandmother and hundreds of Portuguese lumberjacks!
A whole village stopped by to pay their respects, to thank her for her dedication, to say goodbye to someone who, after becoming a widow, did not return to Lisbon, where her children now lived. She chose to remain in Arouca, her home for another thirty-six years, where she had her routines. Alone, she managed a working farm, with its crops, overseers, day workers, harvests. Her daily routine was a comfort for any child in search of peace and stability.
She would wake up early, and go to the village to run errands – I’d often go with her and on our way back to Cela, the farmhouse, just as we were crossing the river, my Grandmother would say Cela to which I would reply deArouca! And we would yell Cela de Arouca, Cela de Arouca until we parked in the driveway. I often tried to replicate this game with my parents, but they never seemed to have the same enthusiasm. Every day she bought the newspaper, and filled out the crossword puzzles. When I morphed into a sleepy teenager, she would wake me up with Ai, the crosswords hint for laziness. Ai, tanto ai! Tanto ai! So much Ai.
After lunch, she would go back to the village for coffee with her friends – other widows and spinsters who lived in the area. They all went before her, and one day I noticed she was going alone for coffee after lunch.
Their children and nephews were at the wake – and they were an absolute consolation to my Aunt, my Father and my Uncle, with whom they were comfortable enough to cry as much they wanted.
My Grandmother’s last years, especially since she broke her hip, were a mixture of good times and bad times. She was often frustrated that her movements were more limited, that she could not run the house properly, panicking everyday about lunch, waking up my aunt with the questions of who was coming and what was she supposed to feed them. No matter that my aunt had settled the matter the day before. But we also discovered a freer, more spontaneous person, hilariously bossy and frank, perhaps the side effect of a general anaesthetic used so late in the game. Losing her usual reserve, she moaned about the lack of servants on Christmas day, pointed out the sad state of my cousin’s hairstyle and told me that I was fat, oh so fat. She would also repeatedly tell the stories that most marked her in her life – and, as time went by, I listened with increasing attention, lest this be the last time I would be hearing them. The last few times I saw her, we sang together. The last time, my dancing toAgulha e o Dedal had her laughing out loud. Old Portuguese movies – O Costa do Castelo, Canção de Lisboa - French classics such as La Vie en Rose, J’attendrais, were sung in loop. I put the visitor’s sofa next to her hospital bed and we both napped, holding hands – and I am so grateful that I can remember exactly how it felt.
Looking back, I did question the wisdom of going to that Roundtable. I feel tremendously sad that I was napping when my aunt called me from the hospital on Sunday 13th June, and I didn’t hear the phone. I could have talked to Granny last time. And I feel particularly silly and wasteful that I was wasting my time thinking about some guy instead of being in Arouca, with her. But I thought that she would hold on until September, her birthday. We all did.
By late afternoon on Tuesday it was time to leave to go to the cemetery. That day, Portugal played against Cote d’Ivoire in the World Cup. We were worried that Portugal would win and my Grandmother’s last goodbye would be marred by a concert of vuvuzelas and assorted honks through the streets. God was on our side, and so Portugal drew. Praise be to God, I suppose.
We, the family, had a private moment as the coffin was closed shut, and then the men – my father, uncles, and cousins – picked up the coffin and went out into the golden light of the late afternoon. The same light I saw when I arrived the day before.
Each forward journey always comes with a return journey attached.
As the coffin went down the granite stairs, through the entrance portal, on the men’s shoulders, the sea of people parting in silence to let it pass, I saw this as my Grandmother’s final exit to her first entrance in this house. So as she disappeared from view, I mentally waved her goodbye, and imagined her first entrance in that house, a newly-married Lisbon girl in her late twenties, climbing those steps for the first time, inspecting her new home, where she would raise her family, at a safe distance from her meddling sister-in-law. I saw her inspecting the old mansion and demanding her husband a real bathroom – not the old outhouse and a tin tub, or whatever system he had going on. I saw her sitting at her sewing machine for endless afternoons, training the staff, explaining the law to the mountain people. I saw her drive to the village, stop at the Fire Station to ensure the firemen had enough milk for fire season, and drop her knitted wares at the children’s shelter. I remembered her staying awake on Friday nights until we arrived safely from Lisbon for the week-end, and waving us good-bye from the road on Sundays when we returned.
And so this was my Grandmother’s exit to her first arrival. Greeted by a few, she was waved goodbye by over one hundred. Born in uncertain times, she is mourned by a family of nine.
Portuguese burials have no eulogy, no acknowledgement of the individual traits, achievements, uniqueness of the person who died. Only some semblance of rejoicing because she is now going to eternal life. I wrote this text in a spirit of eulogy. And I also recalled the anguished testimony of a Holocaust survivor, that any acknowledgement of the existence of her brother, who vanished at the age of 7, would cease once she herself was gone. So I wrote this in the hope that, just as I carry with me the memory of a 7-year old boy whom I never met, you may carry with you a little bit of my Grandmother whom you’ve never met. But who, as all grannies are, was adored and is now missed beyond words.
Tara Lynn, na V (Primavera 2010) por Solve Sundsbo
Lady, for the hypocritical reasons that dictate life in Portugal, I have to have lunch with you on a regular basis – and by regular, I mean more than once a month.
For a year now, I have said nothing while you explained, very much unprompted, and in the presence of third parties, the make-over you had in store for me - because you have such a pretty face.
Two weeks into my job you had in mind a diet, a trope that has been recurring in your discourse. In fact, you have followed my weight fluctuations with greater ardour than I ever could muster. Today, you insisted several times, in two different settings that I should have highlights done – grey hair makes you look older and drearier,
Lady, you could be my old aunt, and my parents taught me to respect my elders. So I have subtly tried to indicate you that you are being beyond inappropriate. Changed the subject, smiled feebly, and vehemently explained that I like how I am, to no avail. And the more I think about your petulance, the more irritated I become. So, lady, and others ladies in this category, it turns out I do have something to tell you.
I am barely 33 and I have lived in four different countries, speak three languages fluently (plus all the other ones I can sort of guess at), and have managed to learn good lessons from all the places I have been. I have been a refugee in the same city in which I was living, and I have travelled to places that as child I never even knew existed.
Barely 33, I feel passionate about what I do, grateful that people recommend me to their peers as a knowledgeable and reliable museum professional. I have curated exhibitions, published, taught and am so lucky to have access to archives with a wealth of untapped information that reveals individuals struggling with their creative process, their place in the world, the righteousness of their quests – showing me that these essential questions are truly timeless. How comforting to know we ar enot alone.
33, and I have had the pleasure of having people come to me and tell me that I made a difference, in the way in the way they work and, even more, in the way they see the world. More importantly, I have had the true delight of telling people that they have changed the way that I see the world, the way that love, the way that I work.
Only 33, and I work sufficiently hard to ensure that the only reason why I'll ever need a man is to love and encourage me, not to pay for my face creams.
If I died tomorrow, two books would be left behind to explain my views and my reasoning with the world in which I lived. Hopefully, these would be read, dissected and critiqued, in the same manner as I do in my learning process. So, even if I died tomorrow, I would have taken a chance and put it out there. I know that what I do makes a difference and has a ripple effect.
Lady, how much do you think I actually care for your views on me being obviouslynoton a diet?
I have had the luck of meeting everyday people with extraordinary stories – some were accidental encounters of two people who were engaged with the world around them, others were absolutely sought after by me. I also was able to meet and, in some cases, befriend, writers, poets, academics, community leaders, in museums, at university, at friends’ houses, on the street. These were people who took time out of their lives to show me other ways to live, other ways to think, who inspired me by their own willingness to risk the opprobrium of people such as yourself, by exposing themselves, their doubts and their quests, to the world.
I have crossed paths with academics who are world-wide authorities in their fields – most of them true humanists, completely unpretentious; generous with the information they had, absolutely aware that the only knowledge worth having is the one that you share. From meeting them I carry the responsibility of passing on not only their information, but their way of treating it, to others.
Lady, the people who truly enrich us are Linux, not Vista. Which one do you think you are?!
I have been flirted with, desired, loved, and made love to by men who were taken by who I am and, yes, very much so by my body – which at times was fat, at times was less fat, at times was hairy, at times not so much, whatever… and I can't even tell you what their feelings were about my hair, as we had more fun things to talk about. I have looked like a butch lesbian while in a relationship, and I have looked like prim lady while single. If it only were that simple.
And let me tell you about the women I admire – they are of varying ages, from many places, some are in relationships, some aren’t, some are incredibly stylish, some make me look like Coco Chanel in comparison, some have high power jobs, some just have jobs. Some of them don’t even get along with each other. In common they share a joy for life, creativity for what life throws at them, thirst for new experiences, a sense of loyalty and propriety towards, and unconditional love for, their friends. My friend Rina fought in one of the Israelo-Arab wars, married her American husband in non-orthodox ceremony, wearing her (gasp!) short, cropped, dark hair, and a magnificent strapless dress, with a fabulous cleavage. Later she went for a PhD just for the fun of it, and today she walks through Central Park to the Met Museum where she volunteers in her sneakers, comfy sweaters and slacks, and the most incredible large ladylike straw hat you can imagine – it even has a ribbon! Rina and the others inspire me in the way they live their lives everyday, not in the awesome way in which they coordinate a $500 belt and shoes.
Lady, do you realise how silly your views on blonde highlights on my hard earned grey strands of hair sound just about now?
Oh, make no mistake, I love clothes, shoes, and fashion magazines. And I most likely will dye my hair at some point in the future. But such a decision would most likely be taken on a whim, to see what it looks like. Certainly not to look less “old”, less “dreary”, and more “perky”. The time I spend on these issues accounts for little more than 2% of my time. And never, in a million years, would I even dream of, unprompted, informing others of the makeover plans I have for them.
And, what shocks me more, what a waste of time it is - why don't you tell me about a film, book, documentary, exhibition that has touched you, changed you? I am yet to have a good conversation about the Great Meaulnes, Lady Chatterley, or Glee!
So while I really want to ask is Whothefuck do youthinkyou are? I will not. Having said “fuck”, and this being Portugal, my words would have meant that I was being rude, an occurrence which, by the laws of Portuguese stagnation, void any just claim I would have had.
So understand this, lady: There is nothing is your life that I envy. Nothing. Not your blonde hair. Not your gel nails. Not your perky (argh that word again) breasts. Not your shoes. Not your clothes. And certainly not your personality. Besides a taste for the same pastry store, we have nothing in common. None of your core values correspond to mine. For some hidden reason or insecurity, you have been rude, disrespectful, insensitive, and purposefully passive-aggressive towards me. And, in yet another demonstration of how truly different we are, you took my polite silence as agreement with the insanity sprouting from your mouth.
Unbelievable as it may seem to you, when I look in the mirror I generally am quite pleased with what I see. I am well-rounded in more ways than one. I am proud of what I have achieved, relieved that I rely on no man to pay my way, beyond grateful for my friends and mentors, and look forward excitedly to what's coming ahead. Not having highlights doesn’t even compute on my system (go figure!).
So lady, should you be willing to listen to one of the lessons I have learned from others at such a late stage in your life, here goes: if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all.
Tara Lynn na Elle francesa (Abril 2010) por David Oldham
PS. FYI, no one in Portugal does decent highlights – you really have to go to John Frieda in New York and ask for the Belgian colourist who works there (or worked in 2001). Just a little tip from me to you, orange face.
(...) Já repararam nos efeitos tremendos que a música tem nos brônquios e nas laringes do nosso respeitável público? Vai-se ao teatro, ou ao cinema, e a saúde da população parece ser absolutamente normal, fora um ou outro catarro próprio da estação. Mas vai-se ao concerto, seja qual for a altura do ano, com chuva ou com sol, com frio ou com calor, e é uma desgraça: espirros, roncos, tosses de arrasar, narizes que se desentopem a tiro de canhão, é um tal cortejo de faringites, laringites, bronquites, sinusites, tuberculoses pulmonares, tosses convulsas, alergias ruidosas, que corta o coração! Sem falar nos casos de flatulência e de dispneia, que também abundam. Ora o que eu ainda não consegui determinar é se só vão ouvir música os doentes crónicos das vias respiratórias, ou se é a própria música que dá cabo da saúde aos frequentadores dos concertos. Aqui peço a ajuda de algum médico melómano para me tirar desta perplexidade. É que o problema é grave, não só porque diz respeito à saúde pública, como até porque tem sido motivo de espanto e de dó por parte dos artistas estrangeiros que nos visitam.
(...)
MARIA DA GRAÇA AMADO DA CUNHA Desenho de JOÃO ABEL MANTA da "GAZETA MUSICAL e de Todas as Artes" nº 112/113 de Julho/Agosto de 1960
Portrait d'une négresse Marie-Guillemine Benoist 1800, Musée du Louvre Endechas a Bárbara escrava Aquela cativa Que me tem cativo, Porque nela vivo Já não quer que viva. Eu nunca vi rosa Em suaves molhos, Que pera meus olhos Fosse mais fermosa.
Nem no campo flores, Nem no céu estrelas Me parecem belas Como os meus amores. Rosto singular, Olhos sossegados, Pretos e cansados, Mas não de matar.
U~a graça viva, Que neles lhe mora, Pera ser senhora De quem é cativa. Pretos os cabelos, Onde o povo vão Perde opinião Que os louros são belos.
Pretidão de Amor, Tão doce a figura, Que a neve lhe jura Que trocara a cor. Leda mansidão, Que o siso acompanha; Bem parece estranha, Mas bárbara não.
Presença serena Que a tormenta amansa; Nela, enfim, descansa Toda a minha pena. Esta é a cativa Que me tem cativo; E. pois nela vivo, É força que viva.
- Luís de Camões
endecha : composiçã poética de tom melancólico e triste em versos de cinco ou seis sílabas agrupados em quadras segundo os esquemas rimáticos ABCB, ABAB ou ABBA
29.9.09
Às vezes, passo horas inteiras Olhos fitos nestas Traseiras, Sonhando o tempo que lá vai; E jornadeio em fantasia Essas jornadas que eu fazia Ao velho Douro, mais meu Pai.
Que pitoresca era a jornada! Logo, ao subir da madrugada, Prontos os dois para partir: Adeus! adeus! é curta a ausência, Adeus! rodava a diligência Com campainhas a tinir!
(…)
Depois, cansados da viagem, Repoisávamos na estalagem (Que era em Casais, mesmo ao dobrar... ) Vinha a Sra Ana das Dores "Que hão de querer os meus Senhores? Há pão e carne para assar..."
Oh! ingênuas mesas, honradas! Toalhas brancas, marmeladas, Vinho virgem no copo a rir... O cuco da sala, cantando. . . (Mas o Cabanelas, entrando, Vendo a hora: "É preciso partir").
(…)
Arouca, Setembro 2009
(...)
E a mala-posta ia indo, ia indo. o luar, cada vez mais lindo, Caía em lágrimas, — e, enfim,
Tão pontual, às onze e meia,
Entrava, soberba, na aldeia
Cheia de guizos, tlim, tlim, tlim!
Lá vejo ainda a nossa Casa
Toda de lume, cor de brasa,
Altiva, entre árvores, tão só! Lá se abrem os portões gradeados,
Lá vêm com velas os criados,
Lá vem, sorrindo, a minha Avó.
(…)
Ó Portugal da minha infância,
Não sei que é, amo-te a distância,
Amo-te mais, quando estou só...
Qual de vós não teve na Vida Uma jornada parecida, Ou assim, como eu, uma Avó?
Longue, mince, en grand deuil, douleur majestueuse,
Une femme passa, d'une main fastueuse
Soulevant, balançant le feston et l'ourlet;
Agile et noble, avec sa jambe de statue.
Moi, je buvais, crispé comme un extravagant,
Dans son oeil, ciel livide où germe l'ouragan,
La douceur qui fascine et le plaisir qui tue.
Un éclair... puis la nuit! — Fugitive beauté
Dont le regard m'a fait soudainement renaître,
Ne te verrai-je plus que dans l'éternité?
Ailleurs, bien loin d'ici! trop tard! jamais peut-être!
Car j'ignore où tu fuis, tu ne sais où je vais,
Ô toi que j'eusse aimée, ô toi qui le savais!
— Charles Baudelaire
24.9.09
Praia da Poça, Estoril - Inverno 2008
L'Homme et la mer
Homme libre, toujours tu chériras la mer! La mer est ton miroir; tu contemples ton âme Dans le déroulement infini de sa lame, Et ton esprit n'est pas un gouffre moins amer.
Tu te plais à plonger au sein de ton image; Tu l'embrasses des yeux et des bras, et ton coeur Se distrait quelquefois de sa propre rumeur Au bruit de cette plainte indomptable et sauvage.
Vous êtes tous les deux ténébreux et discrets: Homme, nul n'a sondé le fond de tes abîmes; Ô mer, nul ne connaît tes richesses intimes, Tant vous êtes jaloux de garder vos secrets!
Et cependant voilà des siècles innombrables Que vous vous combattez sans pitié ni remords, Tellement vous aimez le carnage et la mort, Ô lutteurs éternels, ô frères implacables!
é o que me dá quando numa conferência sobre museus, uma piquena tenta explicar ao C.O.O. do MoMA - e a todos os participantes, que também tiveram que ouvir - que, se calhar, a razão pela qual a entrada do British Museum é universalmente gratuita é porque, e parafraseio a menina, como eles têm peças dos Egípcios e dos Gregos, porque é que os Egípcios e os Gregos deveriam pagar para ver o que é deles, I don't know, maybe.
Um argumento perfeitamente lógico, está bem de ver. Até porque se há coisa que o BM tem são hordas de egípcios e gregos, os "bons", que, pelo que a Dra. dá a entender foram preservados criogenicamente desde a Gréca e Egipto Antigos para se poderem apresentar enquanto legítmos herdeiros, a entrar pelo museu adentro a gritar Não Pa-ga-mos! Já visitantes Britânicos e de outros países europeus e americanos (os "maus" ), têm que deixar o seu rim direito e/ou primogénito na bilheteira para ver as raridades do dito Museu.
Conversa de café em conferências deixa-me muito constrangida. E bastante irritada.
mesmo a calhar vem este artigo no DN (http://dn.sapo.pt/2009/03/05/artes/cidadaos_querem_reaver_tesouro_vendi.html).
Interessante ver como o argumento de uma venda ocorrida em 1922 parece consensual, explicando a manutenção das peças em Madrid, enquanto o argumento de uma venda legal, ocorrida em 1801 entre o sultão Otomano e um lord inglês, vinte anos antes da guerra de independência grega, trinta anos antes da fundação da Grécia moderna, é tido como pouco ético e, para alguns mesmo, ilegal...
