What I’ve been up to lately

Dear contacts only,

No, I’m not going to tell you  e v e r y  single thing I did. A couple of more interesting ways of torturing you comes to mind.

Some of you might remember that I suffered a “being visited mood” disorder early this Spring. But no one here decided to come. What did I do to appease that mood? Nothing. But keep that in mind for a few lines more. Thank you.

Last year in June, Miriam G. went to Annecy’s International Animated Film Festival in France (the festival of festivals for such films). And the photos she showed us were great. And Animated Films are great (Go, Aardman, go!). So it was more or less arranged that we’d go there next year. Claudia M. and Marianne R. would go too. What a party that would be.

That year passed and I booked the plane tickets to Geneva, Switzerland, the nearest airport to Annecy. This was in March. Then I learned that Miriam couldn’t go, that Claudia couldn’t go and that Marianne, surprise, couldn’t go. What the heck, I thought, Annecy’s festival is Annecy’s festival. I’ve the tickets, I’ll go.

No, I didn’t go. I was unable to find lodging there. Even everything close enough was booked. Thought of staying in Geneva and going at least for a day to the festival… but  the Euro Cup was going on in there at the same time. Everything was booked in Switzerland also. Tried the festival’s suggestions. Tried a French site. And then affable Peter S. suggested me to try CouchSurfing.com. I did. Tried to understand the system. Wrote down a fast profile there (http://www.couchsurfing.com/people/papitata) and obtained only negative answers to my “surf” requests. No wonder. Those guys in Annecy are bombarded by requests every year in June because of this festival.

What could I do? Changed the flight to Madrid in August. Couldn’t find another place to go without paying even more money. It was great anyway. I had already pass four times through Madrid without actually visiting it. Before that, in late May and early June, Marianne and I had a great time in Barcelona, with the exception of not being able to meet Peter due to text messages lost in Heaven. Madrid, therefore, lost a lot of charm in comparison.

So I forgot all about Annecy and my frustrated attempts to find a place to stay there.

Until early August, when the requests to stay at my place started coming in through CouchSurfing. Oh, I had to reject much more people than I got to accept. I found myself discriminating people on account of their age, interests or linguistic skills.

The first to book my “couch” (which is a bed) were a Polish couple that has been “surfing” in South America for a year and a half now… Their charter flight was cancelled and they didn’t come yet.  I hope they manage to.

The first to arrive were Sarah and Jan, or Jan and Sarah, from Berlin. As all CouchSurfers, they only requested to stay for a couple of nights. What did I learn with them? Jan is apparently a personal friend of Manu Chao. Very cool. And a conceptual architect at the Bauhaus Foundation. Even more cool. His working materials include music and language, for instance. As he was 31 and she 21 years old, I almost didn’t hear her voice. She seemed to be a nice kid. Probably in five years time their age difference won’t matter so much, if they’re still together by then. Portuguese hospitality seems to have confused and overwhelmed Jan for he told me twice and on separate occasions, “don’t be so nice to people.” Still our talks were very interesting. And after this first experience, I decided that all I want in return for hosting is one nice talk, and that I’ll prepare at least a dinner for every one who comes.

Next, Julia (23) and Christian (31) from München, the Toycity. Indeed, and I don’t remember why anymore, our talks started with a good humoured tone and never changed much from that register. They are a lovely couple. Good-looking and with brains, the bastards. Hope to visit them one day, when they move in together. I learned that Germans are generally extremely rational about such decisions. Especially because that implies letting go of an apartment that they were waiting for ages to rent.

I went to Madrid and when I got back I still got to host Ayako and Gábor, an international couple of 26 year olders. Their names tell of their nationality, so I’ll spare you of that extra information while writing a much longer sentence than if I just told where the heck they were from in the first place. They spent only one night because they had to run next to Sevilla, but we’ll probably meet again in Budapest or Osaka. I learned or confirmed that an educated Magyar is always a good person to spend some time with, and that Haruki Murakami’s characters are inspired by any regular Japanese.

While talking of the CouchSurfing experience with others, I yet got to learn that not everybody is willing to receive “strangers” in their places. The reasons are various, but one is certain: fear. Fear either for his/her own life or for loss of material possessions.

And that is it. My “being visited mood” was fully delivered. Sorry for the long text. I surely tried to suppress a thousand details.

The Border

He visited the western border,

like most western borders,

wild, unruly,

like waves;

and this border’s an ocean.

 

Contemplating an ocean

makes him waver, shudder

and shush, like beauty.

 

He then visited the northern border,

where a language is spoken

with the accent of a split

Gallician family.

 

He then travelled south

and this border was familiar,

the same ocean:

a calmer surface, yet strong

currents underneath,

like diplomacy.

 

Then east, always

from where barbarians come;

ask the Saxons about the Vikings,

ask the American tribes,

the Estonians,

the Greeks, classic or otherwise,

the Finns; ask in Wales,

in Ireland, in Portugal.

 

He thought, returning home,

that barbarians are hordes,

outsiders to his mental geometry.

 

 

 

 

Cortando por entre o mundano

E se mais nada de bom fizer por aqui,

posso sempre reclamar como ganho

o quanto te penetrei para além da superfície,

do palpável, do rígido;

que cresci para um ser comunicativo 

capaz de gravar um impressionante vinco –

vitória de um infinitésimo ser sobre a matéria;

uma impressão para além do muro

que é este ser noutro o que é apenas outro,

saberes de mim o que é apenas teu,

ser em ti o que é apenas percepcionado.

 

Que senti que, em pulmão rasgado e pleno,

o que tinha partido daqui havia chegado

intacto

– doce? –

ameninado,

bastante!

que o mensageiro não havia sido morto

pela sua aparência nem desvirtuado

por aquela relutância que protege

o que é nosso do restante.

 

E que no retorno abri em mim o nosso peito,

que já não era eu nem meu, esse tão pouco,

e recebi um furacão tornado de uma senda

de destruição benigna e rarefeita.

 

E que fui desfeito para ser refeito, disse-te?

 

Não mais percebo, e tu sabe-lo,

porque finda o troféu num egoísta eu.

 

 

 

Letters not supposed to be written, let alone to be read

“It is in us that all is!…”

Fernando Pessoa

 

Spirits, spirits of flight took me back into the reversed dream which is summoning memories instead of memories summoning us. And there I was. Sent inside myself to my own imprinted past. My book where registered is all the life I created for myself, and that life that others found a way to tell me to recreate.

 

November is one of those months that are more of a song. November, nove, ember, re, member, dis, member, no, no, ember, dear ove. And there I was. Escorted by spirits, spirits of wandering on two legs. There was a smile nearby. A busy smile of a working heart – art at work inside our biological machine of so imperfect aptness to create everything we so much think we are.

 

And there I was. Repeating life, as I repeated that phrase. The snow melting in my memory as this tear manly evaporates inside my flesh, a proof of my insane temperature. Touched by myself. Flashes of light blinding my mind. Cold shrinking myself so that my self could enter a past of taverns, cellars and merchants. Surrounded by languages that express differently different views of the same thing, but forming a new reality out of sheer ancestry. Vague, so that its meaning can be filled in by anyone.

 

My feet led me east and west. And I let my feet think they led me. I even let my eyes think they never looked upon a widely searched for pond to the south. And one night my mind even let the body think it was responsible for beastly behaviour. The mind was wild that night, smelling like instinct. And the unpleasant consequence turned into the most vivid memory. That was in room number five. Vague, but not to everyone.

 

Let us jump to July. July is one of those months that are more of a song. July, ly, uly, you. The skin toasted outside and the soul was warm inside the outer side of where the soul lives. Sometimes it even lives in me. Ly, uly, lullaby. I could sleep while you could not. Do you remember that sentiment which we could resume as “nice”? For how do you put such sentiment outside without betraying it, showing but a part of it and yet being that part no part of it at all? A fine time for one of those loud silences of yours. Your greys would describe it better. My green-browns would imagine it. And there we would be, nicely

Finally, I found a reason good enough to think it is reasonable for having reversed this dream. It was a problem with the broken principles. It seems that, when broken, the principles will get back to beat you like two sticks, if you broke them once, and multipliable sticks by two, for every time they were broken by you. But it was me who broke them then. Only once. These two sticks are hard, just like the broken branch of that tree which they came out of. The tree-me. Beaten, my memory was ordered not to break anymore those principles of the interval between relationships. The leaves of emotions must be allowed to fall in their natural autumn first, before letting more leaves grow in the following spring. Before all leaves leave us, finally.

 

Hail, Spring!

This is the night after she talked until her own unconsciousness came. My silence was an imperial order. Her eyelids obedient slaves. Though not Slavic, her entireness gave away. Curious this gift to offer sleep to bodies wearied of their twitchy souls. Laughing, I would summon boredom to explain it. But the mornings after always un-lie me. Then the bed was left one-sided. Four solid feet prevented it from overturning. Such wooden legs I envy to stand on everyday. Would it not be grand to be in bed while we stand? And, standing as a double-trunk tree, where the trunks met to form the main trunk visible would be one small branch leaning down and a woodpecker's hole on the back. Laughing, I would summon boredom to explain it. But, hey, I am amused beyond boredom, beyond sleep, behind beyond. And I am sure many a small branch will grow thick during our short eternity. Hail, Spring! Ha, ha, ha! Thou art in me!

 

Tabula Rasa & A little dance with the lines

She asked her soul to release her

As good memories swamped

Her tablecloth with stains

Of gold forged by a foreigner

 

On her surface a sure face

Set on just one more past

Whilst she thought such pains

Would everlastingly last

 

But a reader and I we read

Her we read somehow

A fiery red present or now

Is participle by and by

 

She will learn that even gold

Rusts as vile metal sold

To purchase diamonds

And set her eyes ablaze

 

The gemologist’s table

Is rich and beyond her reach

But only for one night

Only for today’s tonight

 

She will wash the cloth clean

And admire the tabletop 

Shiny alight alove unseen

Under a light spotless anew

 

 

O fim dos princípios

Princípios são pontos de partida para nada,
São o que apenas impede ser tudo
O que se recusa no início ser.
São quebradiços,
Ao ponto de serem cacos do passado
Que, depois de maltratados, iniciam a doer.

Princípios são meios que embargam atingir os fins
E, violados, roem por princípio
A mente que os ousou conceber.
Altivos são.
Sensíveis à corrupção da carne assada
No fogo que o outro diz que arde sem se ver.

 

The Spirits of the East Land

The spirits roam the East Land,
exhaled by many a tree,
spread by many a wind,
beaten by many a wave,
sailed by many a ship,
stuck in many a marsh,
trapped in many a bog,
sang in many a tune,
told in many a story,
read in many a rune,
tired by many a soul.
Thus spirits roam the East Land.