small blue thing

Today I am a small blue thing, like a marble or an eye. Suzanne Vega used to sing this, when was it, in the 1980's? I like to sing it to myself in sotto voce when there's rain outside, flowing like tears down the Chicago windows of our living-room.

There was a hail storm today when I left the office. I bought flowers under the storm. A hazel storm. Flowers to give to Susanne who picked Georgie from school. I'm all on my own this week while Jarl is in Sweden visiting his ill father. Still ill.

I hope you make it out of the hospital real soon Bror! Tell me again about the Romans and the British hunting for javelins, and the Christmas drawing that you made of the little flat in Lund where you and Ulla first moved in. Tell me about the window-pane of your first car and about your typewriter. And the photos of the children, and your times in Geneva after the War (the second, the biggest, the ugliest, the hopeless, the ruthless).

Like a marble or an eye. A small blue thing. I think there is a galaxy named Vega, or a star, or a planet in my imagination. Or maybe it is real. The planetology of the mind trickling down like a tear of rain under the grey skies of Brussels.

Just picture me in the dark of Winter, burnt by hail and wind, running fast with a bouquet of orange flowers in my hand to catch a taxi in Rond Point Schuman. Then add some strings and listen. A singer in the NYC underground. Blue. Marble. Star. Today I am. Blue. Marble. Star. Burn. Small. Thing. Rain. Hail. Hazel. Eye. Marble or a star.

Luanda

My mother is leaving to Luanda this evening. She will stay there until the end of January. I thought I might be able to see her down there. There had been a work-related mission in the planning, but the Presidency canceled it today. I was disappointed.

I wanted to see my mother's childhood house in Bairro Operário now that it has been redone. Some other time. It would be fun, and a bit strange, to stay there together. "We'll find you a mattress in a corner somewhere", my mother said on the phone. Her little childhood home in that place of dirt roads and no gardens.

I thought of the earth the colour of ocre, and the bay, and the sky expanse above it like a pulsating heart filled with light. Good to fly, just ask the cranes. Maybe next year I'll go to Luanda, the town of my birth.

Agneta's saying

This evening, Agneta came by for a late dinner. After eating, we sipped tisane with Swedish honey and lit the candles in the leaving room for that extra winter cozy feel. We had a long conversation about many topics. We talked about her pending retirement. Next week is her last week at work. So much to think about. So many challenges. So much excitement. So much time ahead of you and no office to go to. Maybe a long trip on the horizon to Latin America.

We ended the night talking, as usual, about Belgium. Just before leaving, Agneta said the evening's sentence: "finalement, ce pays est facile à vivre parce qu'il est tellement compliqué! ". It is, in a nutshell, just how I feel about Belgium.

fatherhood

I woke up with this intense emotion about being a father. I felt it too while taking the stairs down the metro on my way to the office, after taking Georgie to school. It's a feeling of warmth. It put a perennial smile on my face as I walked. I didn't even notice the dirty tunnels of the Brussels metro, the dullness of its attempts at art, the screeching sound of the wheels on the tracks as the train pulled in.

Being a father is trully growing into being a person. My daughter and I grow in tandem. I love holding Georgie's little warm hand and telling her stories. I love seeing the world through her discovery-eyes. I feel my love for her in my gut. Takes my breath away. She is part of my soul and was born from my heart.

I miss Jarl

Jarl is in Sweden this weekend. I miss him. He went to see his father who's ill. He had an operation on Friday last week. Bror is a funny man. He is intelligent too. And eccentric. It figures! I love him dearly. He loves me too. He just said so this evening on the phone from the hospital. Jarl brings a lot of love into my life. Not just his love, but that of his relatives. All of them.

I miss him. His bumpy head. His gusigness. I miss his frowns in the morning before breakfast and his childish smiles after a good meal, in fact, any meal. He'll come home tomorrow and we'll be complete.

two guys in the tram home

When I left Viernes de Cine I took the tram at Montgomery. I was reading a new book, Erasure (more about it in a future post, because I'm getting hooked and I'll have to share). Some time during the trip these two young guys came in. They looked like construction workers. The lean type. They were speaking Portuguese, but their code was something I thought had died out in the 1960's, or would only be spoken by people who were now close to their 60's. I mean, their accent was so thick and their words so out of synch with my Lisbon-suburbs upbringing - and no, I don't come from a middle-class suburb, more one of factory and supermarket workers, and low-grade public servants, with a few doctors and lawyers thrown in, but very few, mind you! - that I had troube to understand them at first.

At a certain point they started talking about girls. One of them said that Patricia made his balls acke every time they kissed. Sometimes they would spend three hours kissing and his balls would hurt so much he felt like bursting. Patricia didn't let him do it, it was killing him; the pain. He had spoken to her about it, but she shrugged it off saying that it was normal he would feel that way. His friend showed sympathy. How awful that they couldn't just do it. They should be able to manifest the body, he said as we all got out of the tram. Gare Terminus. Not bad, I thought, much deeper than I had expected.

It was a scene truly from another world. I sometimes forget that there are still Patricias and young construction workers like these two guys out there. Kissing for three hours with their balls acking. I wonder how Patricia felt. Was she in pain too? I'm sure she wouldn't tell her lover about it. Patricia wouldn't be that honest with her man. Her man was trying to get her to compassionate, give him some release. Poor boy. But Patricia was tough, she knew how to guard herself. I hope they get married. It would stop the pain. Introduce others. But they'll cope, I think.

My first reaction was to think that those two guys were being sexist, and rude (I never say balls), but then I thought again and realised that they were just being honest and expressing it the way their code allowed them to. I felt relieved I wasn't them. Yeah, a bit smug. So what? That's how I felt. Then I tucked my new book inside my Ermenegildo Zegna bag and strolled down the street feeling the cool breeze in my ears and thinking of home, and Jarl's arms, and my daughter's baby eyes. Love pulsating like dawn inside my heart.

Viernes de Cine

I started yesterday the Spanish Film Course at the Instituto Cervantes in Brussels, Viernes de Cine. Just what I needed. I wanted something that could provide me with another opportunity to communicate and express myself. I'm interested in discovering Spanish Film through the eyes of the two Spanish teachers and learning about a reality that is close yet so unknown to me, coming from their next door neighbour to the West.

We started with a film by Albaladejo, of whom I had seen Cachorro at the LGBT Brussels Film Festival some years ago (when I still had the time to go there!). This one was called El Cielo Abierto, a cinderella kind of story with a twist (the end is actually the most engaging moment in the film because it leaves so much open to speculation). I'm looking forward to the other five sessions. It will also be a way to polish my Castellano ahead of the EU Spanish Presidency (ever the pragmatist, am I not?).

I hope the people in the room (we are some 30 or so) will be passionate about film and the emotions it conveys, and that as we go along we can deepen our sharing. There are at least four Portuguese in the course. I'm sure Saramago would be happy. Olé. Olé.

the warm cold of winter

This evening I went to the Hilton Hotel in Brussels to celebrate Angola's national day (they became independent from Portugal on 11 November 1975). It was the usual stuff. Mingling, talking, gathering information, pretending to be amused, interested; sometimes I was. It was funny to see the Israeli ambassador walking around with her two body-guards.

The music was far too loud, everybody had to shout in each others' ears to get any point across. There was a moment when the singer came out of the stage and started walking around with his mic and singing "My Way", the Frank Sinatra "My Way". He stopped by the Angolan ambassador, like a troubadour in the Middle Ages must have done before his Lordship. It was amusing. So loud. Goodness, can anybody shut him up for a minute? We're trying to do some diplomacy around here.

Anyway, it was on the way home that the evening's beauty had time to wash over my senses. It was cold today. Almost freezing cold. I walked down the boulevard to catch the tram at place Stéphanie. It was Armistice Day today, and shops had been closed all day. There were so few cars, Brussels felt like a village. The air was dry and walking kept me cozy. I was wrapped inside my big Italian anorak. It felt like the cold was warm.

I was walking silently listening to my ipod, and the lights in the shops, the Gucci, the Versace, the Louis Vuitton, the Ferragamo, the Chanel, were shining like underwater ghosts. Soft, very softly. Like whispers of light. Then I caught the tram. The driver was cute and friendly. He said bonsoir. When was the last time a tram driver said bonsoir to me? It was that kind of night with stars. I felt so good.

the unexpected power of the body

I heard the phrase this morning on the BBC's Worldservice radio. I liked it and it stuck with me throughout the day wanting to be written down on my blog.

the geography of love

We were in Stockholm a couple of days ago visiting uncle Dag and aunt Memi (but she only wants to be called Memi). Then Susan and her daughter Sarah were here from Chicago/New York (via Heidelberg and Amsterdam). Susan and her companion, Beth, are going to rent their flat to us in Chicago when we go there next year in the summer for three whole months (Wow, just think of that!). Next summer it will be wonderful to spend time with aunt Becky and uncle Ed, and Ben, Karen and their son Jacob, as well as Debbie and her family, in Chicago.

Tomorrow Fidelma is coming to visit us from Ireland. I wonder when we will next see aunt Denise, who lives in Strasbourg. It would also be fun to go again to London and see our cousins, all of them. I wonder when we'll be able to meet again aunt Kat and our cousins Emil and Viktor in Copenhagen. This Christmas we'll spend it with Farmor and Farfar in Lund. I hope it will snow. The Botanical Garden will look like a fairytale. Maybe the Danes will join us too.

I'm also planning to go to Lisbon with Georgie and see Mami and Vóvó before the end of the year, before Mami goes to Luanda to spend time with the Angolan side of the family. In Lisbon, it would be great if we could meet all of our cousins and uncles and aunts, and our friends too, like Zé, Manuel and Gonçalo and their son Guilherme, and aunt Guida of course.

Thank goodness for our few friends in Brussels, like Pascal, Antonio, Charlotta and Agneta, otherwise it seems our heart is always somewhere else. The (many) acquaintances fill in some gaps, but they don't taste real; like fake sugar.

We are like gypsies of the heart, travelling all the time to meet the ones we love. Elis Regina, the late Brazilian singer, has a song where she says that her dream is to have a house in the country, where she could keep her books, her friends, and her records, and nothing more. Well, I wished I had them all in one place too. Close to the heart, forever, and ever, and ever. Around the corner, literally. It sounds possessive, I know.

When I look at a map of the world, I see these dozens of hearts throbing in all the corners of the globe and their glow keeps me company, but it also reminds me of how lonely it feels sometimes here in Brussels.

And the vessels of my heart are the runaways of airports, and its blood is made of air and clouds, and the cells are airplanes fueled by love and solitude; sweet pain of combustion. Anti-gravity laws. Up, up, and away. Like superman.