Sunday, August 24, 2014

The 19 death messengers

I remember to be in Figueira da Foz in that afternoon, Portuguese time, I was enjoying the last days of vacation before school started in a house my family rented for summer. I was 6.
My mother, my grandmother and me were watching TV, a movie or a series I can’t really remember, sitting in a couch and relaxing while my dad and granddad were out for a walk, suddenly the emission is interrupted and the next thing I recall is seeing a building fall into pieces and seconds later I see an airplane going through the building that’s right next to the falling one, by the time I didn’t understand where or why that happened but that image has been haunting me ever since.
My mother was staring at the images, my grandmother and I didn’t know what to say until I innocently asked “Mommy, what’s that?” and she answered “I don’t know…” in this tone that implies a certain surprise with a sprinkle of fear, that was one of the only moments that my mother couldn’t answer one of my questions.
September 11th, 2001, the day that marked many lives, including mine, and took many others, the day that showed how vulnerable we were, the day that shook the world and still is part of the world’s memory as one of the worst days ever lived. 
It seems a little hypocrite from me to write about an event that didn’t affect me directly, an event that I barely remember and I couldn’t understand by the time and still tell it affected my life, but do we really need to experience these moments to be touched by them?
When people talk about this black event, the picture of an airplane crashing into a building comes to mind, actually I’m here about it writing and my eyes are glowing with tears, many can’t understand why it makes me feel like that but the truth is that it does affect me a lot.
When you think about the number of lives lost, or even when you imagine people fighting to get out of those building desperate to survive, imagining the panic of not knowing if someone I loved was alive, that makes me reflect about life and many times I end up putting myself on the shoes of one of those people.
“It’s all blurry, I can’t see, my breathing is so heavy, I lay down in the floor to try to slow it, but it’s not worthed, I try to drag myself to an exist, everything’s full of dust, I feel corps everywhere, some I know from work, some great friends and some I haven’t seen. I try to cover my mouth and nose with my shirt but it doesn’t make a difference, I keep dragging myself but I go nowhere, by this point I don’t whether if I going to make it or not and tears start so come of my eyes as I think about my family…” – This is one of many images that comes through my mind when thinking about this black day. It has no comparison to a real description of the event but it’s enough to make me feel vulnerable and acknowledge that there’s a fine line between life and chaos and that a simple thing can take that balance in the blink of an eye, that’s how little we are.
I mean 19 people’s actions led to the death of almost 3000 others and cause 10 billion dollars in property damage, those same 19 paralyzed the world with fear, those 19 proved that there’s no such thing as an invincible country and, most important, those 19 made everyone become more humble about themselves. 19 minds changed billions of others.

June 1st, 2014

resheniya (descisions)

What’s happening? When I look back to the past looks like I forwarded years in my left.
Not sure if I recognize myself anymore, it feels like I’m making all the wrong decisions in the life, like I don’t even think about stuff anymore, like I need to rush everything, but then I crash into reality and it spooks me, the decisions I made spook me, the future spooks me.
In one hand I stop being depressed about past things, it’s the first time I feel this way in long time, don’t feel like crying until sleep, because he makes me stop thinking about what happened made me move on, but he puts me in braces with questions that were thought to be answered but they turn out to be wrong or need to be re-thought.
The feeling of uncertain sort of kills me inside, conscience says “A” but I feel “B”, what should I hear, the well thought conscience about things that I developed through the years or the rushed feelings that may be like this because he knows how to put things in a beautiful way?
Well, when put like this it’s kinda easy to choose, conscience wins by far but can it be that simple?
Aff I hate to complicate things but looks like it’s all I’ve been doing for a while back. The person that loves to keep it simple now likes to get it hard to decide, please life… make sense!

January 2nd, 2014

(Early) Break-ups

How many times have I tried to tell myself that I didn’t like him that much, that it’s not a big deal, that I already forgot him, but who am I trying to fool, no of those is true. You know that when you end up thinking about him after a while looking at an empty table as your trying to escape mentally to a better place and then all you can remember is you first kiss.
By the time it ended I lost my words, I knew things weren’t great but I wasn’t prepared for that, it was this huge shock that stroke me, left me speechless and left a tear at the corner of my eye (and it’s still here). I don’t know if there was something I could have done but now it surely feels like that.

If there was any doubt that I liked him, now I can surely say that I did.

June 2nd, 2014 

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Grandfather

Almost 4 years ago, June 9th that was the day that changed everything.
I remember the plays we had, the way you tricked me to teach me the most various subjects, when you said your pen was magical and you had taught it how to write and you led me believing that it wrote by itself, the mind games that developed my logic thinking, so many things that I remember it like was yesterday.
Now I see you fighting against the none forgiving years that age you, fighting against a condition that left you out of yourself, fighting against the loneliness present in the life of someone who became somehow dependent of others, but your bigger battle is the one you fight for your independence, it seems to be lost, yet you never give up.
Are you aware of what’s around you? All that you say sounds perfectly clear and logic to me, but then you don’t who is your wife anymore, you think everyone is cheating you, you run away… Is that you fighting or is it the illness? I can’t tell anymore.
Say something, let me know what I can do to help, I know nothing about your needs, nothing about how you feel…
All that I know now is that you were part of my childhood and I was lucky to have you around me and meeting you in that early stage when you were fine, yet my cousin, your other granddaughter won’t have you around like I did and enjoying earing your stories, charades and teachings that helped me so much trough out these years, but the one thing that she can learn for you is that how bad it may seem you can always fight and that’s not everyone who can teach others the value of fighting.

Love you, no matter the past, present or future you carry
the granddaughter that idolizes you

Angela

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Jishin (Earthquake)

Don't know how long I can keep this feeling inside of me, I know I should tell someone, ask for help but I can't stand the idea that I might be on my way to leaving this awesome guy, I mean, he's so perfect and his the personification of my dream guy (whatever that is) and I'm this close to broke up the things with him
The worst is that there are no doubts, just a feeling of emptiness, of a lump in my throat... It's like suddenly a heart quake shook my world and now it's all upside down.
 Seriously, I don't know what to do, I only know that I need some stability in my life and can't see a way of getting it

Monday, March 3, 2014

John's Jail Journal

This day I was watching this documentary series, Banged up Abroad, and I connected with Shaun Attwood's story about he ended up in the jail with highest rate of death in America after being in charge of an organisation that threw raves and sold ecstasy. Shaun served almost 6 years of his 9 and half years sentence and while in jail he was able to smuggle some letters to her aunt, those letter are shown in his blog "John's Jail Journal". There he exposes the abuses committed within the prison, inmates' rights violations, etc.
Shaun was released in 2007 and since then he keeps campaigning against the prison sheriff and publishing letters sent by other inmates.
It's worth to check out, I've been reading and Shaun is a great writer and what you can read there is sort of life changing.

http://jonsjailjournal.blogspot.pt/

More info
http://shaunattwood.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shaun-Attwood/228166633865948
http://jonsjailjournal.blogspot.pt/2008/07/11-jul-08-meet-prisoners-this-morning-i.html



trepidatio

Twice he tried to held my hands, twice I said no, once he asked me if he had kissed me and asked me if I wanted to be his girlfriend I would have said yes and again I said no, big fat no actually.
Now I keep picturing him trying to kiss me, don't know why, yet he makes me feel safe and cared. After all he was the only person that told me who I really was and not what I want others to think I am and I admire him for that.
Some of my second guessing about my boyfriend have to due with him, not in the way you're probably thinking, only because he's the only one that doesn't paint the situation like a paradise and aware me of the dark side of the situation, for example when I asked him if he thought me and my boyfriend had chances he said "probably no, it's hard enough for couples who live in the same place and you two are trying a long distance relationship. Sorry" all could think in that moment was "He's fucking right...." but I decided to take a chance and now here I am, having an existential crisis every two weeks at least (giggles).
Maybe that's what makes him such a great friend, not being afraid of the things and leaving the euphemisms behind, because life's too short for that.
I'm afraid, not of him, of everything.