Sunday 30 August 2009

that's not purple, that's mauve!

It's said by of one of the characters in Tony Kushner's play "Angels in America". I saw it first in Lisbon, in Teatro Dona Maria II (When was that? Before 1996, the year I came to live in Brussels). A revelation. Like a miracle. Then I watched it on DVD, directed by Mike Nichols for HBO.

I bought in New York, in a shop in Trump Tower (Was it 5th Avenue? I think so, but I can't remember the year). I couldn't wait to come home and watch it, which I did, the whole 6 hours of it, in one single go, totally enthralled by it and on the verge of tears. The tears did come at some stage.

Later, I will explain why this particular line touched a chord or more. Why I made it the title of my blog. Later. But now at least the origin has been revealed. Wings. Flutter. Trumpet. Wings.

Tuesday 25 August 2009

missing Chicago

I'm here in the office looking at the photo of Chicago. How I miss the joggers along the lake, and the tornado-breeze around the top of the John Hancock Center. And the horse-driven carriages by the Water Tower and me and my daughter going for a ride (with that unfriendly woman-driver who didn't even smile for the photos). I even miss the cars and the cacophony of sounds and fuels.

I miss the vibrancy of summer. Heck, I know winter can be gloomy and frozen on those shores, but I'm talking about the summer here. The summer. Eating glowing red apples and trotting with my ipod down Michigan Avenue. Hushed voices at the Art Institute and a fright in front of those Asian masks that Georgie says look like monsters. And the Fantastic Fountains. Hello Crowne Fountain! Hello Buckingham Fountain! How are you doing today? Let's go and see the clouds travel through the space-age surface of The Bean.

I miss the vertiginous speed and the twang of the mid-western accent. Chicagoans can be real cute. I miss the buzz of the asphalt and that lake. Oh, that lake of golden pure and artificial sandy beaches. I want to be there, just there and nowhere else. It's my kind of town.

Sunday 23 August 2009

flawless

I came by the library this evening before bed. I looked at the books, rejoicing in their existence. Then came upon that photo of Zé and Guida taken by a friend, Maria João I think, in Rua Augusta, some hundred years ago. They are embracing, and their smiles contain a ton of early sunshine and boundless hope.

It's a black & white photo, eaten at the edges and a bit faded here and there. But it captures the rapture of youth so well that it aches to look at. Zé is posing, but fooling no one about his eagerness to soar, and Guida sports that shy giggle of hers, half-way between regret, mockery and willfulness. They both look flawless. And I love them so much. Both stuck in that photo, like a feeling stuck inside my mind in time. They both look so damn flawless. Like pure emotion. Flawless.

Wednesday 19 August 2009

KiosK

Lemonade and queijadinhas in Principe Real. Lisbon through a window on the second floor of a building with green doors, blue tiles and stairs smelling of cat's piss.

Buying vegetables at a small mini-market in Rua da Escola Politécnica and chatting with the cashier about how fresh they are and that they came from a friend's horta just outside Lisbon. And seeing the shiny blue of the river in every end of street, and through the veil of our imagined waters; our pregnant eyes. The river is everywhere inside you.

Butterflies fluttering their wings in the Botanical Garden, stepping carefully on flowers of raspberry and thyme and some other flowers that looked blue sometimes and purple other times. More lemonade and queijadinhas at the pink kiosk. People who look like people going nowhere, others going somewhere, others just there. Then rushing to the swings for Georgie and happy chatting with the neighbourhood kids. Like swallows.

It all came easy, like pearls on an elegant neck, like water flowing from a jug in one of those days of green summer breezes blowing leaves on a tall tree. Waking up to the benevolence of the sun-god. Bathing in the warmth, just melting with pleasure. Then strolling down to Chiado, crazy with dust and wind under our wings. At the museum there was a giant beanstalk and we climbed to the clouds. And stayed there, stayed there, stayed there, watching the city below like glass beads around a castle, like droplets of honey skidding on water. Who would ever want to climb down?

Monday 3 August 2009

hair

My mother used to straighten my hair when I was a child. She used the hair-dryer and a roll-brush to make it all smooth and white. Like white. Roll. Pull. Roll. Pull. Pat a cake. I later learned how to do it myself. I learned how to be afraid of rain because it curled it all up again. I learned how to be afraid of damp and humid weather because the blackness came back into my hair.

One day, I was in Luanda on holidays and, I must have been around 16 or something, I tried on some hair gel at my aunt's place. My hair went frizzy in the space of a second. My long, smooth, white hair, went black. I got into a panic. I begged my mother to take me home to the safety of my hair-dryer and my roll-brush. Otherwise, I refused to face the world. When I was 17, I used my mother's "chemical bomb" to straighten my hair. It left in its wake a smell of rotten eggs, but my hair looked so white I couldn't hide the smile. My hair was so white, my mother would be proud. One of my friends said I looked like George Michael, I almost swooned.

I have hair no more, and I feel cheated. I don't care that I'm bald, but I'm finally proud of my curls and would like to show them off, to parade them in bold strokes of orange and blue. My blackness multicoloured, just like I am. Roll. Pull. Roll. Pull. So much work of hands. Such waste of beauty. My curls!

Today, as I braided my daughter's hair, I felt the joy of her hair invade me. It's long and coarse. It's rough and tender. It's full of attitude. I'm becoming a pro! I braid and I braid and I braid. And in each of her braids there is one of my curls. Hidden inside, there it is, curling up pretty, like the hair of an angel. In each of her braids there is orange and blue. There is blackness. Blackness proud and shimmering. Like a scintillating, brilliant, shining precious gem, my daughter's hair is teaching me proud. And I want her proud too.