That's not purple, that's mauve!

Pumping up

2011-04-12T06:05:00.000-07:00

That's it. I started. I started. After 5 years I started going to the gym again. It's called "mise en forme" (making you fit) and it lasts 45m every Tuesday and Thursday at the Sports Centre of the Council, where I work.

It's funny to see your colleagues in spandex and pink gym socks (I also have a pair), or wearing white leggings with butterflies, or shorts so short you can almost see their buttocks. Wait until I see them again in one of our meetings to discuss secure communication and information systems and cyber-protection...

Anyway, it feels great. I'm able to stay upbeat for the first 30m, but the last 15m are a descent into muscle hell. The teacher keeps teasing us (nicely) and that helps to keep us going, but still... I'm on the floor and it feels like climbing.

I'm thrilled though, to be pumping up again. The heart says thank you.

pays de mon plaisir

2011-03-27T05:17:00.000-07:00

Can you imagine, we've had a full week of glorious sunshine in Brussels.

C'est le pays de mon désir, c'est le bonheur, c'est le plaisir.

Vive le soleil! It's better than moonshine, it's damn better than rain! Shine till the end of day.

European Court for Human Rights

2011-02-09T00:35:00.001-08:00

(to the presenter of Newsnight on BBC2 - 8 February 2011)

Dear Mr Paxman,

I have just seen you on TV sporting your supposedly charming macho swagger, badmouthing the European Court for Human Rights. In all honesty, you seemed to be pandering to the lowest common xenophobic denominator with your ignorant comments about the Court:

- unelected judges: as if UK judges were elected, and as if this in any way compromised their integrity and independence.

- a Russian judge deciding on British cases brought to Court: well, British judges decide on Russian cases too. What is so surprising about that? Or are you suggesting that some nationalities are better than others when it comes to professional competence?

What your comments and snide remarks show is a total lack of understanding of how international (voluntary) communities of States work. When you sign up to a Treaty you accept the principle of give and take. Moreover, the Human Rights Convention is a standard setting Treaty that provides citizens of signatory countries with one last possibility for redress when their appeal efforts within national jurisdictions have been exhausted. You should ask the citizens who were able to obtain this redress against the judicial machines of their own countries, including the UK, how important the Court was in applying justice where it was needed.

Perhaps the UK - interestingly enough just like Russia - doesn't like to be reminded that it sometimes fails to protect its own citizens in accordance with its own and international human rights standards which it is supposed to uphold and promote? Maybe the UK doesn't like the Court because it provides its own citizens with the chance of redress when its own national jurisdiction has proved unfair or failed to do so?

Mr Paxman, you either accept the principle of an international community of values, with its attaining institutions, or you don't. You either accept that in a community of values everybody is entitled to enforce compliance with commonly agreed rules, or you don't. If the latter is the case, well, good riddance!

And by the way, leaving the Court and thus leaving the Council of Europe would have very direct implications on EU membership (i.e. withdrawal too). Again, if that is the UK's wish, good riddance!

changing taste

2011-01-31T23:48:00.000-08:00

I didn't really like rock before, I didn't like U2, I didn't like the Rolling Stones. Well, I've changed. I like change. I enjoy changing. I like adding new tastes, new colours, new feelings to my life.

People say you don't change after a while. It's scary to think that might be true. Well, it ain't. I like rock now. Not all of it. But I like rock. It's good to know we are not the same throughout our lives. We change. I've changed.

I like the sound of electric guitars, I like the sound of shouting, I like the sound of coarse voices, I like the sound of drums. I sing the body electric.

So I left the Metro early this morning humming One by U2. One Love. One Life. Sisters. Brothers. Shout. Shout. Strings. Strings. Rock. Electric.

acte définitif

2011-01-24T14:17:00.002-08:00

Today we signed the final act of sale for our new house in Av. Tahon, by Rouge Cloître. I signed my full name. Long, visible, hard, with ups and downs like a ship in wavy waters. A very giddy signature.

The lady told us that the carps are one metre down, by the bottom of the garden pond, waiting for Spring to arrive. Then they will come up and Georgina will learn how to feed them.

The lady said she would cut down the big tree in the front, it lets too many leaves fall down in Autumn. But we like that tree and cutting it doesn't feel right. A shovel will come in handy. May the tree rain many happy leaves on us throughout the years. A tree is like a limb, you only cut it if you must.

I will have a room to paint all by myself. Visitors will be welcome, but by appointment only. I will let in anyone who comes with a song, or a hug, or a question mark upon their lips. Their lips must be carmine of course! Or mauve.

A house. Imagine!

rocky start for the Hungarian Presidency of the EU

2011-01-19T14:02:00.000-08:00

The Hungarian Prime Minister was today in Strasbourg to address the European Parliament at the start of the country's 6-month Presidency of the Union.

Many (mainly centre-left and left-wing) parliamentarians challenged him and his government on the new media laws they are planning to introduce, which independent analysts consider to be a step back in time to a more authoritarian Hungary as seen under the former Communist leadership.

Sometimes the EP is worth our vote, not often, but sometimes one feels glad (surprised?) to see politicians take a stand for what is right. A bit of bullying in this case, including from the European Commission - finally alert to its role in the Treaty also as a defender of the Union's values and principles and not just as an Internal Market prosecutor - is actually a welcome sight.

No pasarán!

Ceci n'est pas un pays

2011-01-06T15:05:00.000-08:00

No comments... well, maybe a couple:

- it's infuriating to see a country being broken apart by mediocre politicians! And while everyday I go to work trying to assist in the creation of a more united Europe, these fools are such a terrible and dispiriting example to watch.

- Magritte, that quintessential Belgian surrealist painter had once made a painting with the image of a pipe and the words "ceci n'est pas une pipe". I suppose a contemporary painting of his would have to read "ceci n'est pas un pays".

BBC NEWS
6 January 2011 Last updated at 17:45 GMT

Belgian mediator resigns over government deadlock

Johan Vande Lanotte, appointed by King Albert II, said he could make no further headway a day after two out of seven parties rejected his plan.

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink," he said.

The king has yet to accept his resignation and is due to see him again on Monday.

A caretaker government has been running Belgium since the election (my added comment: since June 2010!).

Belgium has been under pressure to reach a deal because sovereign debt is close to 100% of gross domestic product.

The plan proposed by Mr Vande Lanotte would see a further decentralisation of power to Belgium's regions, split between the Dutch-speaking Flemish population and French-speaking Walloons.

'Utopia'

The Flemish population has been seeking more control over tax policy while Walloons want greater protection and more money for the region around the capital, Brussels.

The Flemish Christian Democrats said earlier that essential items of the plan would have to be adjusted.

The New Flemish Alliance, which made the break-up of Belgium a central manifesto pledge at the election, said it had "fundamental remarks" to make about the proposal before continuing negotiations.

But the leader of a third Flemish party accused both parties of seeking "Utopia".

"I think the parties who don't see the note [plan] as a basis for negotiations will have to run for election in a country called Utopia next time," Bruno Tuybens of the Flemish Social Democrats said on Flemish TV.

"Those who pull the plug now will have to take the responsibility."

Mr Vande Lanotte, who is also a Flemish Social Democrat, said the parties would have to agree eventually.

"One day the politicians will have to take that step in the interests of the prosperity of our country," he told reporters.

While Belgian media were already speculating about a new choice of mediator, some analysts argued that fresh elections were a distinct possibility.

"If nothing else is possible, you have to vote in a democracy," Professor Carl Devos at Ghent University told Reuters news agency.

"It is not a structural solution to the problem but sometimes things improve afterwards."

"Cabbages are beautiful"

2011-01-04T02:48:00.000-08:00

Yesterday evening I finished reading So Big by Edna Ferber. I found it in Chicago, in a bookshelf of Women and Children First, my favourite feminist bookshop in town. You can't find these things browsing on the web, you need a proper bookshop to find them.

So Big was a great read. The book is about many things.

The telluric power of women:
Selina, the heroine of the story, is a strong, creative, earthy woman, with dreams of getting to know the world, all of it. She ends up marrying young to a Dutch farmer in High Prairie, to the West of Chicago. Selina becomes Mrs DeJong. When her husband dies, leaving her alone with their son, Selina has finally the opportunity to put into practice all her shrewd ideas for developing the farm. Her asparagus become all the rage in Chicago. The rounder, more intense characters are all independent women, by choice or by circumstance. They seem to be the only ones who know what real life is all about. The other women are mocked in their dependence to men, fashion, money, status, convention. Dallas, the female art student that shows up at the end of the book, embodies the power of nature, of feeling, of art, of beauty, of being true to oneself (and succeeding in life precisely because of that).

The spiritual power of beauty:
Selina sees beauty in everything, even in cabbages. The Dutch farmers in High Prairie, where she first goes to be a teacher after her father dies in a shooting accident (he was a successful casino gambler!), don't get this. They like her, but find her "special". Selina likes books. She likes to see the fields bursting with life. Farm produce is more than that, it is the vital energy of the sun and the earth transformed. She understands that what comes from the soil is what gives people their food, and in the process what sustains that great urban enterprise called Chicago at the turn of the XIX century.

The power of following your heart:
Dirk, Selina's son, goes to university to become an architect (with the profit Selina makes from selling her farm produce, including the hogs, of which Dirk is ashamed). But he quits the profession and joins the banking world to sell bonds. Dirk soon becomes very wealthy and part of the jeunesse dorée of Chicago. Selina is disappointed. Dirk sold his soul to the "green devil", the dollar, and abandoned his vocation for beauty, for art. Selina wants Dirk to be curious, to see the world, to open his eyes and ears to its diversity, its colours, its smells, its rites, its peoples. She wants her son to be genuine, authentic, real. Selina wants Dirk to be successful, but also to follow his heart. His heart will empower him and bring him to a place of fulfillment. Eventually Dirk understands this when he meets Dallas, but could it have been too late? One hopes not.

Although written in 1924, the book spoke to me as if it had been written today. It disparages the pursuit of money for the sake of being rich. Success is good, wealth is good, but only when obtained through honest, productive means, and used for our personal growth and that of others around us. In the book, Ferber criticises the quick wealth obtained through financial manipulation as being devoid of humanity, solidity, realness. And it's interesting that she wrote this book just a few years before the great depression of 1929, caused by a financial market that had grown too big and artificial to be sustainable. Sounds like the current crisis we are going through...

So Big won the Pulitzer Prize in 1925. It was a best-seller in those days and was published in many European languages. Ferber is also the author of Show Boat (1926) - the novel became a huge success when adapted to the Broadway musical of 1927 - and of Giant (1952), which also became quite famous when made into a film (1956), the last one in which James Dean appeared before dying in a car accident.

I think Ms Ferber, who never married (wink, wink!) was a Thoroughly Modern Milly Girl! Just the way I like.

And I agree with Selina, cabbages are beautiful!

simpleton's economics

2011-01-01T07:15:00.000-08:00

Denise was here for New Year's Eve. Late at night we spoke about the economy. I brought it up. I mean, I don't know very much about economics but there are a few things that have been bothering me lately about the way European governments have been managing the crisis:

1. there's always money available, not just millions but billions, to save the banks and bail them out, but there's never any money to keep investing in education, and health, and transport, and social welfare, and pensions, all crucial elements of social cohesion and social peace, and the fundamental pillars of the only kind of prosperity that really matters, i.e. quality of life;

2. the banks in question, happy enough during their years of bonanza to keep the government away from their profits, were only too excited to receive the State's bailouts when their investments faltered; for a while they remained coy about their extravagant bonuses but soon after they started distributing them again to their top employees as if nothing had happened, just business as usual. It's immoral and enraging, and there seems to be little political will and power to do something about it (despite the comforting speeches by politicians);

3. the austerity measures in place will hit young people the hardest, many of whom will see their hopes of a proper education and job completely destroyed. What's the point of austerity of this nature when the end result is social instability, strife and possible mayhem? I'm not surprised when I see the protests in Greece, or France, or the UK, or Ireland, I'm just surprised that there are so few of them still;

4. the bond speculators are all out there sharpening their shark's teeth and they seem to be untouchable. They obviously don't care that their betting gambles may result in the misfortune of entire nations, not to mention the lives of very real people. Are they really untouchable or is the system so that nobody cares to bring them down?

5. the more I look at Germany the more I realise the fallacy of the boom years of the 1980's and 1990's, during which we were made to believe that a service-based economy would save us all and bring us fortune and happiness. Well, in Germany they kept their manufacture and they continue to take pride in their "made in Germany" and in the apprenticeship tradition that goes hand in hand. No wonder their economy is strong and was the first one to recover in real terms. Yes, we need services, but the destruction of industry in many European countries gave way to a virtual economy that once collapsed leaves nothing behind, just a gap hard to fill.

I know, simpleton's economics. But one still wonders...

guitar lessons

2011-01-01T07:11:00.000-08:00

Georgie had her second guitar lesson today. Her teacher is a young woman from Lithuania. When we bought the guitar early this week Georgie said: "my dream came true". She had been asking for a guitar for more than a year. Jarl and I guessed this was a serious wish that deserved to be fulfilled. It's nice to sit with Georgie and the teacher at the end of each lesson and hear her play a couple of notes on the guitar. Georgie looks so proud and happy. And so do we. One more opportunity for us all to grow together, to explore new horizons. To grow. To learn. To grow.

sinister people

2010-12-28T14:37:00.001-08:00

I was in the kitchen this morning when it occurred to me that there are quite a few sinister people around; sinister people like the archbishop of Malines-Bruxelles, the highest Catholic Church authority in this strange country called Belgium, who for so long, together with his other pals in frocks, has been hiding the cases of sexual abuse of children by priests. Hiding, concealing, lying, transforming reality, like the worst of Stalinist communication experts.

A man who dares compare the situation of sexually abused children with that of children raised by same-gender parents, or born through IVF. I mean, how can someone be so stupid to actually equate abuse with love?

A man who says that AIDS is a sort of "immanent justice", as if those suffering from the disease were to be made responsible for bringing it upon themselves. I know this is the obvious question, but what does he think about children, or people who were contaminated via blood transfusions, or women who are forced to have unprotected sex? But even those who engage in risky sexual practices more or less consciously, do they deserve to get sick and die? What kind of god does this cruel man serve? Sinister.

And to think that the lawyer for this shit of a person lives in our building... how does he sleep at night? Drunk with shame I would hope!

Sinister, creepy people, all around us. One must be able to say it, and to shout it to their face, so that they realise that they can't fool us with their blessed crosses and rings, their mantles of silk, like veils covering the truth. The truth always ends up coming out. I can hear them tremble. I cherish their doom.

Upstairs, Downstairs

2010-12-28T14:04:00.000-08:00

BBC TV revisited Upstairs, Downstairs this Christmas. Three new episodes with brand new stories about the Bellamy Family, a lot of new characters and a few old faces. Thank you, thank you, thank you for this revival. I loved the new series.

I used to watch Upstairs, Downstairs as a child in Portugal in the late 1970's. It was called A família Bellamy. The whole household, well, just my parents and I really, used to stop everything to watch this quaintest of shows, so far removed from our daily reality, our history, our culture, but yet so close to us, with all the humanity that poured through the screen.

The new series was simply perfect. The actors fantastic and the story lines enthralling. It had been a long time since I had enjoyed myself so much in front of a TV set. I particularly enjoyed the more serious take on history - the situation in Germany just before War World II and the spectre of fascism hanging in the English air too (Mosley et al.).

I was getting used to the characters, but after three days in a row the entertainment stopped. I suppose it's better that way. Better to miss them than eventually get bored by it. Anyway, it was a perfect moment of TV.

Barcelona - Promenade Concert

2010-12-25T15:04:00.000-08:00

Today I wrote to Zé (my former partner) and to Paulo Filipe (a friend of ours), to tell them this:

"I'm listening right now to Promenade Concert by Carles Santos and it brought me memories of our holidays in Barcelona, centuries ago. Do you remember? I bought this record at the Miró Foundation, on top of the Mountain, Montjuïc. Georgie loves this performance-like revolutionary music; passionate, scarlet red in the lit-up night. Who would have guessed? It's not an easy piece, but it's irresistible.

It brings back memories of the Ramblas, the profusion of flowers and birds early in the morning; of the newspaper stands open until late at night. Memories also of the small pensión where we stayed. Of the suffocating heat in the bedroom. Barrio Chino, wasn't it? I recall the infinite sun; the first "dark room" in some gay disco somewhere near Via Diagonal. I recall we had all the time in the world in front of us in the hot summer; the promenade in Parc Güell.

It brings back memories of shorts, and cheap pizzas, and "in" restaurants, unending days and the flavour of suncream on the lips ajar; ice-cream breathing rhythm. The immense will that inhabits us every summer.

I couldn't resist writing about it. What good is to feel if we can't share?

(from Brussels, with lots of snow freezing the heart outside)"

the river lit by the city lights

2010-12-22T07:16:00.000-08:00

Why this title? Because I heard it in a song and I liked it. I still find time to feel tears gathering around my lashes when I hear a beautiful song.

Tomorrow I'll start my Winter holidays. Almost two weeks. I need it. The past four months I felt like a moth flying in the dark. I need some light to dazzle me, no matter how burnt I get.

Work has been hard. I had to learn so much new stuff it literally made my head hurt. It's a good job but it hurts. I'm not sorry for myself, I'm just saying it the way it feels.

Denise was here yesterday from Strasbourg. She always brings a load full of laughter in her bag. I love hugging her, feeling her body under my arms. I love kissing her. Denise's skin is so soft, at times it almost feels brittle; it's the absence of any stubble I guess.

I sometimes dream of a river lit by city lights, just like in the song that I heard this morning, again and again, when driving to the office with Jarl.

Georgie is in the living room with Mona, her French teacher, banging on a drum; tam-tam! I can hear their voices while writing this post. It's soothing. The light is fading and no cars can be heard nor seen outside. Mona is singing and Georgie is listening. Mona's voice like a river. Georgie's eyes like city lights.

Argentina, mon amour

2010-10-05T08:32:00.000-07:00

I saw this new Argentinian film, Plan B, by Marco Berger a week ago and I loved it. I watched in the soothing and intimate darkness of my room.

It has become one of my favourite films ever. The acting was perfect, the love story tender and fun, and the sexual tension between the two main characters was just right.

But the filming, oh the filming, it was just like an abstract painting made real, with concrete blocks literally coming out of the ground. You don't see Buenos Aires, you just feel it, and that's what's so special about this film.

So today I decided to write to the Director, just like that, and here is the e-mail I wrote:

"Dear Marco Berger,

I do hope you get to read this e-mail. There's not much to it; simply to say how much I loved your film, Plan B. I saw it a week ago and it still reverberates.

I particularly liked the fact that you don't see Buenos Aires, you just feel it in the distance, you can almost smell it. I liked the photography too and those "blocks of concrete" that come up unexpectedly in between scenes. Those buildings, caught in midair between ugly and sublime, almost moved me to tears (weird, isn't it?).

The love story was fun and tender, and the sexual tension between the two main characters was just right. And it is so hard to resist to a happy-ending...

I'm looking forward to your next film."

the pain of missing Chicago

2010-09-27T14:25:00.000-07:00

It came this morning when I was getting to the office. It was cold, and early (7:30 a.m.). The streets were empty of people and almost of cars. In the car, Jarl and I had been listening to Griffin House ("if you want to be loved you've got to be the one taking the risk"; "sitting on the rooftop looking at the city lights"). We saw them play at Lincoln Park Zoo in August. Minutes before we had taken Georgie to the school bus (so early for our bundle of joy).

The pain came slowly, as I left the car and walked up the street. It lingered for a minute or so in my eyes, then my lips. Chicago I spelled in silence. I stood there for a nano-second breathing the winter air (there's plenty of it in Chicago too) and longed for the summer, for the trees, for our friends (they called this Sunday), and didn't want to go inside. I wished I had my sandals to take me across the ocean and back in time, to smell the summer of my beautiful Chicago. A walk down North Greenview among the familiar, unfamiliar sights. Becoming my skin, although so foreign still.

I spelled the letters and they lingered on my lips the time of a sigh. And then I stepped inside the office door and turned my computer on and Chicago was gone.

merveilles du Portugal

2010-09-14T02:44:00.001-07:00

I'm back, not from out of space, but from Chicago, where there's a lot of space.

I started a new job on 1 September. Don't really feel like talking about it. It's OK. I will learn a lot. It's a stable job. I like my boss. Well, it sounds good actually.

What I want to write about is what happened just now. I came into the office and looked outside the window, across from the building site of the new EU building, the Résidence Palace. And on Rue de la Loi there was this huge truck with the letters Merveilles du Portugal written all over, in green and red and yellow (the colours of the country's flag). Like a personal sign to me. The sort of thing that makes you smile. Then the truck was gone. It's a kind of magic. The sort of thing that makes you happy. This is what I wanted to post today.

pause

2010-06-07T19:30:00.000-07:00

a little break from my personal blog while I concentrate on the Chicago blog...

My father

2010-06-02T14:48:00.000-07:00

My father was called Dario, not Dário, like everybody in Portugal - annoyingly, irritatingly - insisted on writing. How dare they correct me? I know my father's name, it's Dario. No accent, you hear me? No accent, full stop. Dario, like the Persian King of lore, the father of that other great ruler, Xerxes. From the old Persian Dârayavauš. Also known as Darius. We are talking civilisation here, people!

My father died in 1996. I sometimes miss him a lot, like some kind of physical pain that grows inside my gut and then goes up my chest, straight to my heart. It squeezes. Old Egyptians were right to think that the heart was the centre of our humanity, so many of our emotions seem to grow in there. What would our brain do without the heart and the gut? It wouldn't feel the same...

My missing him comes in waves. Like a tsunami. Like today. I was standing by the kitchen door towards the balcony watching the rain of polen be swept away in the yard, and then this yearning for my father came rushing through my body. I so wished he was there, turning the corner, smiling at me. Sometimes it happens when I'm walking in the street. I just wish he would turn up and hug me. I wish I could run to him and hug him. Hug him long and long, and still longer. I don't cry, I just feel my chest growing tight, a sort of pain. A good pain of saudades.

I don't believe in the afterlife, I never did as far as I can remember. But my father lives in me, in my gut, in my heart, in my brain. And his name still fills the airwaves of my emotion. Dario. No accent. You hear me? You hear me, you fools? How could I not know how to write and pronounce my father's name. It's the same name of a famous old Persian King. Persia is today's Iran. Persia was a great civilisation. Dârayavauš. Darius. Dario. In the name of my father.

Chicago

2010-06-02T04:33:00.000-07:00

We were supposed to leave today, but then we got sick and decided to leave on Saturday instead. I got a phone call from the office this morning asking me what the weather was like... in Chicago! I had to say we were still in Brussels in the middle of a tapotage session in St. Josse to release Georgie's lungs from mucus. Valérie was very nice and gave Georgie two fruit toffees after the session. Georgie behaved so well.

So, here we are, still. Waiting to go to Chicago. We'll start a new blog to report on our three months in the land of the free. It will have photos and bits and pieces of what we do and think while there. We'll send it around to friends. To share. Pour partager. Para Partilhar. För att dela oss.

Wie Sind die Clowns

2010-05-29T06:21:00.000-07:00

Brussels, 28 May 2010. My daughter wants to listen to music from iTunes in the computer. Her choice? The Swedish artist Zarah Leander singing "Wie Sind die Clowns?". Not much to comment. She's a star! Georgie that is. Well, Zarah too, of course.

Zinneke Parade

2010-05-23T12:59:00.000-07:00

Senne or Zenne is the river that runs through Brussels (that's right, the same name as the bigger one in Paris). The river was covered over in the XIX century because of its foul smell from rotting animal carcasses and all sorts of domestic and industrial sludge. It now runs under Boulevard Anspach. Jules Anspach, the Brussels' bourgmestre whose name was given to the Boulevard after his death in 1879, wanted it to be a showcase of modernity. He built beautiful apartment buildings à la parisienne that no one wanted to live in. The Belgian bourgeoisie couldn't really part with their maisons de maître unifamiliales (a sort of national obsession).

Anyway... zinneke is also Brussels' dialect for mutt (many of them ended up in the river) and by extension anything that isn't pure, that is mixed. Like Brussels today.

The Zinneke Parade happens every two years and has been going on for the past 12 years. It's the parade of the mixed, the parade of the mutts. I went there yesterday with my cousin Andreia who was visiting from London. I loved it. It was one of the best Zinneke Parades ever. We stopped by the bar Au Soleil (my hangout in my early days of Brussels in 1996) and watched group after group of ravellers go by. All the mutts of Brussels in a beautiful swirl of colour and fun. I was glad my daughter is growing up here in this town. We are all mutts in here. Yuppeeeeee!!!

Georgie threw paper petals into the air. Some ended up inside a man's beer glass and they both laughed. A lot. We danced to drums and ran away from giant spiders. We saw a cloud that had been caught and brought down to earth. We touched the cloud. I wonder if they released it in the end. I so hope they did.

middle-age

2010-05-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

I now realise I'm getting into middle-age when I notice the beauty of youth. Casually. It can happen in the tram, or coming out of the cinema. Or just standing at a corner watching people go by. There's no lust involved, just a pang in the stomach and the tightening of my jaws.

The realisation that their muscles are supple, their tummies are flat, their necks don't flap, their eyes wrinkle only when they smile. Their hair is all on top of their heads and not coming out of their ears, nor sprouting in bushes of grey in unexpected places. Yes, lately I started noticing the beauty of youth. Not before. I felt part of it. Not anymore.

There's no sadness. Maybe a bit of jealousy. Then again that pang in the stomach, sometimes a nervous twitching of the mouth. Or just the intense look of the eagle. I observe how laughter seems to inhabit the body of youth, how they jump with each step, how the sun shines brighter on their skins. The beauty of youth makes even the not-so-handsome young look beautiful. And that's how I realised I'd come to middle-age.

Lisbon in bullet points

2010-04-25T12:10:00.001-07:00

we went to Lisbon in April for a week and a few more days.
we crossed the river and went to Barreiro to eat Magnum ice-cream.
we spent 7 hours queuing in Sta Apolónia train station in Lisbon to get tickets for Paris because of an Icelandic volcano that decided to erupt and spew ashes all across Europe's skies.
I had marmelada with bread for breakfast every morning.
my mother was having one of her good spells and was really helpful.
Guida was feeling down. I hadn't been to her flat in ages; apart from a new sofa it still felt the same. We had corn biscuits and tea for dinner (my dietitian was thankful, I'm sure...); it felt like the old days at university but then it used to be me complaining about life and seeking her shelter. I wish we could have been to her birthday. It hurt not to be there, and all for just a couple of hours.
at Manuel's and Gonçalo's I had dinner with some Portuguese friends and arguments were hurled across the table like a tennis match. It felt good. I still think I don't know how to show appreciation for the good food they always cook, I wished I knew how to, but my paltry palate doesn't seem to help.
Guilherme gets annoyed with Georgie's attention, but she so looks up to him.
Zé was in good shape and fun to be with.
Carla has brown eyes that shine, or smile, or both, or something in between.
we had my cousins for dinner and I wished we could do it more often.
we went for lunch with my grandmother to a fish restaurant near São Bento; we were all happy.
the usual pleasure of bookshops where most books are in Portuguese.
strange to see so many newspapers in Portuguese and so many news of which I know so little.
Gloria's apartment continues to be a home from home; I sometimes forget it isn't ours.
we spent many hours at El Corte Inglès; the place is a shopping trap but it was convenient and there were a couple of rainy days when it served of refuge (and their toy section is very entertaining for small children and you don't have to buy any of it).
we went to Palácio da Ajuda where Georgie was treated like a princess by the staff; apart from two other visitors we had the rooms all to ourselves.
we ate pastéis de nata almost every day until we got bored.
we went to Portugália for lunch and had a look at the lobsters in the aquarium; they didn't look happy nor very appetizing but I'm sure a lot of people don't care.
we bought hair combs at Martim Moniz, surrounded by ghosts from Portugal's former colonies and all the new people that came with them; it was exciting and it was weird.
we went to the zoo and got rained upon; like waterfalls raining from the sky; then came the magnificent sun.
Georgie got a gold bracelet with butterflies and stars.
we are now positive that the sun in Lisbon is not the same one that shines over Brussels.
Manuel, Gonçalo and their son Guilherme confirmed that they would come and visit us in Chicago at the end of August.
I learned that my cousin Ana Luisa has breast cancer; I wish she could stop smoking; I wish her laughter won't go away.
I wrote my "China in Africa" report in a cyber-café near Chiado called Fábulas where 90% of the customers are foreigners stranded in the blue of Lisbon, this time further stuck by the epic revenge of the Icelandic volcano many miles away.
at FNAC the staff is so friendly I always feel like hugging them or even crying a little.
in Lisbon we never get stuffy noses, it must be the air.
after Lisbon the first days back in the office are difficult; I feel like turning all day long in my office chair and going out for long walks.
I'm glad I'm healing my wounds and Lisbon is starting to feel good; I know the rages won't disappear but it's good to feel them subsiding.
we tried (almost) all the food that they make at El Corte Inglès.
we went to Lisbon's Castle and learned about Dom Afonso Henriques and his mother Dona Teresa. Georgie was impressed that the son could tell the mother to go away forever. She learned that Galicia is in Spain.
the peacocks in the Castle were covered in light.
we saw Paulo Filipe and enjoyed the evening together; he says his flat is crumbling down, but he sounded resigned.
I don't remember any pigeons this time, only water in the fountains; where did they go?
we learned that there's a saint called Filomena. Her tiny statue is inside a little casket made of glass in an old church near Casa dos Bicos, by the river. She was wearing real earrings and a ring with a diamond. We learned that there's a Virgin Mary that protects the staff of the Portuguese customs and that she lives inside that church too.
the church had a statue of Jesus with real hair carrying the cross, and Georgie thought he was alive.
we came back to Brussels quicker than we expected, when the sky opened up and we could fly.

mirror, mirror on the wall

2010-04-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

In the morning, sometimes I don't recognise my face. It's only late at night, under the mirror's light that my face comes back to life. Purple eyes, fleshy lips. What does my face say? I look, I look, I look. I look some more. My face remains silent and yet it seems to speak. Wished I could hear what it has to say. I'm sure I'd understand. If only I could hear it. I try, I try, I try. Purple eyes, fleshy lips. Going to sleep. I never recognise my face in the morning. It must be the light.

the films that shape me

2010-03-28T14:22:00.001-07:00

I decided to list those films that I believe have shaped my way of feeling, looking, understanding myself and the world around me. They're part of my cerebral DNA. Their images and words are kept inside that miraculous ovaloid box of flesh and blood, and chemical reactions that we call the brain. It hosts the soul, or our idea of one. I must have forgotten so many films that deserved being listed, but the good thing is that I can always return to this post and add a few more. There's no priority in the list, and it will always be under construction. How did this come about? Well, just a walk through my bookcases checking the DVDs and Videos that they contain, and a bit of a game down memory lane too. And anyway, why do we Westerners love writing lists so much?

TORCH SONG TRILOGY BY PAUL BOGART
LA LEY DEL DESEO BY PEDRO ALMODOVAR
QUE HE HECHO YO PARA MERECER ESTO? BY PEDRO ALMODOVAR
LES UNS ET LES AUTRES BY CLAUDE LELOUCH
THE COLOR PURPLE BY STEVEN SPIELBERG
E.T. BY STEVEN SPIELBERG
TU MARCHERAS SUR L'EAU BY EYTAN FOX

THE BLUE LAGOON BY RANDAL KLEISER
PINOCCHIO BY WALT DISNEY
THE 101 DALMATIANS BY WALT DISNEY
MARY POPPINS BY ROBERT STEVENSON
THE WIZARD OF OZ BY VICTOR FLEMING
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST BY ANTHONY ASQUITH
LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN BY ULI EDEL
FAME BY ALAN PARKER
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE BY ELIA KAZAN
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF BY RICHARD BROOKS
ZERO PATIENCE BY JOHN GREYSON

LONGTIME COMPANION BY NORMAN RENé

AN EARLY FROST BY JOHN ERMAN
PARTING GLANCES BY BILL SHERWOOD

EDGE OF SEVENTEEN BY DAVID MORETON
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW BY JIM SHARMAN
HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH BY JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL
SOME LIKE IT HOT BY BILLY WILDER
SECRETS AND LIES BY MIKE LEIGH
SHOOTING THE PAST BY STEPHEN POLIAKOFF
SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION BY FRED SCHEPISI
MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE BY STEPHEN FREARS
BLADE RUNNER BY RIDLEY SCOTT
THELMA AND LOUISE BY RIDLEY SCOTT

THE KINGDOM BY LARS VON TRIER
EUROPA BY LARS VON TRIER
LOST HORIZON BY FRANK CAPRA

ARSENIC AND OLD LACE BY FRANK CAPRA

TARNATION BY JONATHAN CAOUETTE
FANNY AND ALEXANDER BY INGMAR BERGMAN
BABETTE'S FEAST BY GABRIEL AXEL
MIDGNIGHT COWBOY BY JOHN SCHLESINGER
THE BOYS IN THE BAND BY WILLIAM FRIEDKIN
THE PIANO BY JANE CAMPION
FARGO BY JOEL AND ETHAN COEN
THE ROPE BY HITCHCOCK
THE BIRDS BY HITCHCOCK
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN BY HITCHCOCK
THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE BY GEORGE ROY HILL
BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S BY BLAKE EDWARDS
KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN BY HECTOR BABENCO
TOOTSIE BY SYDNEY POLLACK
LA CAGE AUX FOLLES BY EDOUARD MOLINARO
BILLY'S HOLLYWOOD SCREEN KISS BY TOMMY O'HAVER
EDUCATING RITA BY LEWIS GILBERT
ANIKI BOBO BY MANOEL DE OLIVEIRA
A CAIXA BY MANOEL DE OLIVEIRA
O PATIO DAS CANTIGAS BY FRANCISCO RIBEIRO
TRÊS IRMAOS BY TERESA VILLAVERDE
UNA GGIORNATA PARTICOLARE BY ETTORE SCOLA
ANGELS IN AMERICA BY MIKE NICHOLS

LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION! BY JOE MANTELLO

MAURICE BY JAMES IVORY

ROOM WITH A VIEW BY JAMES IVORY

DEATH IN VENICE BY LUCHINO VISCONTI

QUERELLE BY RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER

THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT BY RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER

ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUIT BY BEEBAN KIDRON
THE LIVING END BY GREG ARAKI
FAHRENHEIT 451 BY FRANçOIS TRUFFAUT

...

the first boy I kissed

2010-03-27T05:01:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up thinking of Antônio. He was Brazilian. I was 17. He was 18. We were both doing a year of academic exchange in Belgium with AFS. One night, in Brugges, at another exchange student's house (was it Hege from Norway? At least I still remember she was from Norway), we kissed. I asked him to kiss me. And he did. It felt like sugar, there was something bitter too underneath. My first kiss with a boy. I wonder where Antônio is nowadays. I never really thanked him for that clumsy, long, sweet, warm, sexy kiss in the middle of the night. How he held me tight and tenderly, how he whispered and licked softly in my ear. How he kissed me twice.

teachers-parents conference

2010-03-26T15:55:00.000-07:00

We had the Spring teachers-parents conference this morning in Georgie's Montessori school. She is doing very well on the academic side, reading, writing and maths.

She seems to play more with the younger children than with the children from her own class. I wonder why. Lately, Georgie has been talking a lot about having a younger brother or a sister, could that be the reason? I hope she is well liked by the kids in her class. Children can be nasty sometimes when one is a bit different from the rest, there's this kind of "pack mentality" and it starts early. She used to play a lot with another girl named Justina (Polish-American), but lately they seem not to be getting along so well anymore. Oh well, maybe it's just a phase.

The teachers said that Georgie is becoming more autonomous and that she enjoys dancing. I don't see her dancing so much at home, so this was interesting to know.

Georgie needs to become more organised when doing her tasks. Well, she is only 4,5 years old, so no need to worry too much about that, but I guess we can help her a little bit more in that direction.

I wished the teachers had said something about her personality. I think Georgie is so lively, bright, fun, talkative, engaging, friendly. Don't they see that too? Maybe Marcel doesn't, but I bet Mona does too (if only Marcel had let her talk more during the meeting...)

European school

2010-03-26T15:46:00.000-07:00

We are more and more inclined to enroll Georgie in the European school already this year. It will allow her to start getting used to the new rhythm and to make friends before her first year in primary class. It will also help her to get a better level of Portuguese. Yes, Jarl and I have decided that this would be the best language section for her. Her vocabulary seems to be a bit wider in Portuguese than in Swedish. Jarl's mother also said that Portuguese is a language with a bigger international projection, which is true. Let us see how Jarl will react when Georgie starts speaking Portuguese most of time... I hope he won't feel left out.

The school looked huge (there are some 3000 pupils), but the nursery section was a bit more secluded with a special playground and entrance. We liked it and we think Georgie will enjoy it and adapt fast to it. We were a bit worried about how the teachers would react to the fact that she has two fathers, but this seemed to go down well.

Of course, as expected, the question about diversity didn't really ring any bells with the deputy-director. It's like she had never heard the word before. But I liked her answer about the school being inclusive, about there being other adopted children from non-European countries, and about their strict policy on bullying. She sounded reassuring.

So, we have filled in the papers and will bring them next week to formalise the inscription. A big step for our family. Our little baby is growing!

majority thinking

2010-03-08T14:27:00.000-08:00

I was at a birthday party for one of Georgie's classmates yesterday afternoon. It was very nice. The children were clearly enjoying themselves. There's was even a lady doing face painting just for the occasion. I wished I could join the line and have my face painted the colour of Spring. The cup-cakes were lovely. I tried one before the children ate them all!

The non-whites were my daughter, myself, and a Japanese girl and her dad. We were all middle-class, comfortable in life, good jobs, good income, nice houses, nice cars.

I couldn't help overhearing a conversation between an Italian colleague of mine and one of her American friends. They were talking about diversity. It prickled my ears. The American said that he was "so surprised" that there weren't any black children at the European schools in Brussels. The Italian said that she was not really so worried about it "because being in Brussels made you aware of all kinds of people, just by walking in the street". To which the American retorted, "sure, but how many of your children's friends are black? How many of our friends are black?". To which the Italian responded, "but surely, you don't think that adding 10 blacks to a European school would solve the problem, do you?". To which the American said, "yeah, but shouldn't we put our children in Belgian schools instead, there they would meet so many more kids from a diverse background, and after all we are in Belgium". The Italian then said, "well yes, that's true, but there are other considerations to take into account, I'm not going to choose my school just because it is diverse, there's the language and the academics too".

I suppose my Italian colleague has a point, we are not going to choose schools just because they are diverse in terms of backgrounds and colours, but surely that should also play a role, at least to make the school authorities aware that this is an issue and that it deserves to be looked into.

I joined the conversation at some stage and explained that we were planning to enroll Georgie in the European school of Woluwe, but that we were concerned about it being too white. I explained how important it is for us to feel validated by others who look just like us. And this applied to a variety of identity categories. Women enjoy the presence of other women, and so do men, people of a certain nationality enjoy the presence of other nationals from the same country, and this feeling of "community" applied also to aspects such as skin colour and sexual orientation. Becoming ourselves implies finding in others a mirror where we can also see reflected our experiences and our individuality, even though this sounds like a paradox. What surprised me was that she was surprised by this, that it had never occurred to her because in her world she almost never has to think of herself as different, as the odd one out. She takes it for granted.

One example made her realise what I meant better than anything else. I told her, take your hair for example. You are surrounded here by women whose hair is very similar to yours. When you get together you can exchange tips on what shampoos to use, what kind of care to have, etc. My daughter's hair is different from everyone's in this room. She wouldn't be able to join a conversation like that, because the products that work for your hair for instance wouldn't be the rights ones for her hair. Do you get it? Silence and large eyes. I think she got it!

I also explained to her that living in a diverse town doesn't mean that you are significantly engaged with diverse environments. Seeing lots of non-white people in the street, doesn't mean that you know who they are, how they feel, that you can relate to them and see them as equal. People are not meant to serve as decoration, they are for interaction. Somehow, I feel I didn't make a friend...

O Tal Canal

2010-02-26T14:55:00.000-08:00

I watched this evening on DVD, O Tal Canal, that revolutionary comedy programme of early Portuguese TV. The year was 1983, and I was 12 going on 13. No one had ever seen something like that on TV in Portugal. It was hilarious, nonsensical, challenging, a total riot! Could we actually manage to be that funny, so intelligently funny? So modern?

Watching it this evening for the first time after more than 25 years, I realised - with emotion - that Herman José, the creator and main actor of O Tal Canal, was my first teacher in the art of Camp. And that was lifesaving. It brought me a lot of sanity. It was a most needed vehicle to express so much of my own difference, in tragedy and in comedy. Still today, my inspiration for Camp comes from Marilú (the simple servant girl who was a man after all), Filipa from Cozinho para o Povo (the posh female Chef who, still today, brings me down with laughter), Tony Silva (the cheesy super-star of the Americas), and all the other dozens of fantastic characters that he and his team were able to bring to life.

And what would life be like without Camp? High Camp à la portugaise? Oh, life without it would be ever so boring. Goodness gracious!

I don't have a lot of sympathy for the man behind the actor - his personal and political views do not fit with my own - but chapeau to him for all the fresh air, indeed the storm, the tornado, that his comedy acting represented in Portugal throughout the 1980's and still much of the 1990's. You know the caliber of an actor, when so many of the expressions he made popular in his programmes have become part of my generation's own jargon.

With O Tal Canal colour TV became real!

Uganda and anti-gay legislation

2010-02-20T13:24:00.000-08:00

I recently read on BBC News that a Ugandan clergyman, Pastor Martin Ssempa (I actually saw him the other day on TV), decided to show gay pornography to his congregation in an attempt to gain support for a proposed law which would see some gay people facing the death penalty. Apparently, some 300 people gathered at his church to watch it, and the audience included children! He wanted people to "learn" what gays actually do.

Why would someone use these radical measures is simply baffling, to say the least. Equating homosexuality with a pornographic rendering of sexual activity is dishonest and mentally sick. Would he portray heterosexuality the same way?

The situation in Uganda is extreme, but it somehow reflects the general position of those who so vehemently repudiate homosexuality. They tend to concentrate on the sex side of it. It makes me wonder if that is all heterosexuals think about when they fall in love, the sex. Maybe it is. Maybe heterosexuals are so obsessed with sex, they project it on everyone else (no, I don't really think this way, I'm just trying to make a point). Sex is often the corollary of being in love and wanting to get emotionally closer to the subject of your affection through physical contact. Sex is a medium, not a goal in itself. Of course, there's sex without love - and there's nothing wrong with that - but this touches all sexual orientations and is not exclusive to gays and lesbians. It sounds obvious, but not to everybody.

I believe the Ugandan pastor in question should in fact be the one condemned for obscenity and moral corruption. I mean, there were children in that church! What does he expect to achieve with this? I know, to create revulsion at what the nasty, monstrous gays get up to in bed. But how can he possibly justify showing pornography to children? I suppose someone like pastor Ssempa does not use logic very often, nor intellectual honesty. Or maybe he's just crazy and abusive. Likely all of these!

Pastor Ssempa may have been playing with fire too. Maybe some of his audience became titillated by what they saw and will try it later in the secrecy of their homes... if they manage to escape their spying neighbours willing to denounce them to the police (the new law, if passed, will make every single Ugandan, including family members, an anti-gay spy, otherwise they too may end up in jail for collusion. They'll have to build a lot of new jails...).

As US President Obama put it, the projected law is "odious", and what is really upsetting is that some US-based evangelical groups are backing it, and supporting people like pastor Ssempa to promote this agenda of hate. Is that what these groups want for the rest of the world, including in the US? Imprisonment and even the death penalty? These people are crazy, but dangerous because so well organised and funded. Watch out! Human rights is really an ongoing battle.

I hope, almost pray, for this law to be defeated, but I fear that it will be passed - with a few changes to keep international donors "happy" (maybe without the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality", for instance) - but still increasing the punishments for homosexuals in Uganda and basically rendering their lives even more nightmarish than they already are. They really need a merciful god to help them. It's a pity god is always looking the other way when these things happen (I'm an atheist, thus I only believe in human mercy).

Pastor Ssempa's desperate tactics seem to indicate that he is close to a nervous breakdown (or he has already had one). The man needs psychological treatment soon. Hatred of this kind usually indicates a sick mental state.

The US and the EU

2010-02-06T02:51:00.000-08:00

The BBC said this week that the EU had been snubbed by US President Obama because he didn't show up for the last bilateral summit. Here is what I had to say à propos:

The US has difficulties to understand the EU because it is a concept that indeed is difficult to grasp. Not quite a state, not quite just an institution. It's a bit of a cliché, but the word hybrid is still the best one to describe this project of unity in diversity. Those who want reality to be always described in terms of black and white, will always find it difficult to accept the EU.

People are fast to criticize the EU, but they forget that as an operational concept it has only been in existence for little over 50 years, which is really nothing in the larger historical context, particularly if we take into account what preceded it (xenophonic madness and genocide anyone?).

I'm always amazed that, with our historical baggage, we can actually keep talking and struggling to find common solutions in a peaceful manner among Europeans. Yes, sometimes it results in an awful waste of time and resources, but isn't peace worth the price?

People must reconcile themselves with the fact that the EU is not just work in progress, but also the result of forces pulling in opposite directions: national interests on the one hand and the common European good on the other. Sometimes the result is more unity, sometimes more division, sometimes just diversity. That's who we are.

The EU will never be like the US, or any other country in the world, and that's fine. We don't have to imitate anybody. Our chosen path is innovative, challenging, revolutionary, unique, imperfect. It's good that we keep trying, and those who want out of it, well, they are always welcome to leave and let the rest get on with their vision (it is sometimes a bit tiresome to hear the nagging when no better alternatives are presented, unless of course it's the "free-for-all" pre-EU Europe that they want; or a Europe dominated by a few imperial powers, some of which have clearly not yet gotten used to their more humble place at the table... Well, not for me, thank you!).

health

2010-02-02T14:23:00.000-08:00

We have been all sick at the start of the year. I had a bronchitis, then Georgie developed a pneumonia, now Jarl has tonsillitis. And the weather continues cold and inhospitable. And there's snow or rain. And lots of grey. And I'm just really sick and tired of all these bugs!

Aya de Yopougon

2010-01-31T14:00:00.000-08:00

It's my favourite bande déssinée. Yopougon is a middle-class neighbourhood of Abidjan, the capital of Côte d'Ivoire. Marguerite Abouet (author) and Clément Oubrerie (cartoonist), have created a universe full of humanity and joie de vivre.

Aya is the central character. She's serious, engaged, intelligent, gracious. A bit like the cricket in Disney's Pinocchio, she's everybody's conscience in Yopougon. "Give a little whistle, give a little whistle..."

It's hard to remain insensible to the characters, their problems, their dreams, their hopes and their achievements. Yopougon seems miles away from my corner in Brussels, but yet I feel it so close, dêh! It's a wonderful way to learn more about Africa and to realise, if need be, that wherever there's people, our love, our hatred, our happiness, our sadness, our blood, are really the same. Cliché? Well, it doesn't make it less true, does it?

I found the BD by chance. I was coming home some time ago and passed by the BD shop in rue vanderkindere. I had never been inside it in all these years of living here. I looked at the cover of tome number 1 and was transfixed. This looked good, my goodness! A real story, with credible characters, in Africa. Not about wars and famine, but about the daily lives of people I could identify with. The drawing was good too. Full of nerve, and colour, and humour. So I bought the whole 4 volumes and came home. I devoured them.

Today, I bought the fifth one in a BD shop in Boulevard Anspach, that happens to be open on Sundays, and the anticipation in the tram coming home was just so nice to feel. To sit on the sofa and open one more tome of Aya de Yopougon and travel far, and feel so close to home.

snow

2010-01-30T01:09:00.001-08:00

Snow. Again! I'm sick and tired of this white mess!

Division Street America

2010-01-29T15:56:00.000-08:00

The title is from a book by Studs Terkel (1912-2008), a best-selling American author and journalist who lived in Chicago. It's a book of interviews published in 1967, in the midst of one of the hottest periods of XX century cultural transformation in the US; the civil-rights movement is one good example of that transformation, to mention just one major thing.

It's a book about Chicago, and it's part of my evolving love affair with this town. It's a great selection of testimonies, by people from all walks of life, and a fascinating way to get inside America, and inside a city that shaped so much of what we know about the US as a whole; free-market capitalism, sky-scrappers, post-Bauhaus functionalist architecture (by the German-born Mies van der Rohe), the industrialisation of meat production and its consequences on civilisation as we know it, racial zoning laws and Black ghettos, labour and anarchist movements, the birth of urban sociology, the invention of futures and derivatives in agriculture, gangsters (remember Al Capone?), the melting pot, the Blues, anti-Vietnam war protests, a new concept of community work with Jane Addams and Hull House. NYC, move over!

Part XXI, called The Inheritors, a series of interviews with young people, opens with the following lines by Lucky Miller, aged 19, "I love life. I only wish some of it would come my way". Ah, Lucky you, to make poetry so easily!

butterflies in a powerpoint

2010-01-25T14:05:00.001-08:00

And what if butterflies came flying into your powerpoint? Then what? Would you leave the office with the softness of flowers in your eyes? Would you cross the street and see a river? Would you caress the walls? Would you sleep inside a tree? Would you?

Just imagine, you are doing a powerpoint presentation. The world is grey. And suddenly butterflies burst into your powerpoint presentation. Then what? Would you carry on oblivious? Would you flutter your eyelids? Would you sing a love song to your boss? Would you kiss the geranium in its pot? Would you make a bed of twigs? Would you become like light? Would you fly? Would you hold my hand? Would you?

Imagine a butterfly, then two, then three, then four, then five, then six, then seven, then many, invading the screen, one after the other, running, flying. Then what? Would you scream? Would you go outside and lay on the grass? Would you eat a sandwich? Would it be Times Square in New York? Would you become a neon light? Would you sigh? Then what? Then what? I know, I know. What good is there in telling? No good, no good at all. Just butterflies, butterflies, butterflies inside your eyes, into your life, in your powerpoint presentation. Everybody mesmerized. And alive. Alive. Alive. Like in a dream.

Today, I watched with Jarl a short film called Futures & Derivatives by Arthur Halpern of the USA. It lasted 18 minutes. And I agree with Caetano Veloso when he sings that Americans bring lots of happiness to this world. Just 18 minutes. Oh, wow!

Uma Casa Portuguesa

2010-01-15T12:57:00.001-08:00

Uma Casa Portuguesa (A Portuguese House), is an iconic Portuguese song, made famous - I mean stratospherically famous - by Amália Rodrigues, an icon herself of flesh and blood, and miraculous powers some would say...

But I read in one of my recent book explorations - Angola, Terra Prometida (Angola, Promised Land) - that the song was first created in former Lourenço Marques, now Mozambique's capital Maputo, and sung there in 1951 by Sara Chaves at the age of 19 (an Angolan-born, white Portuguese singer). This was two years before Amália would make it known.

This so-very-Portuguese song of all times, was first heard in a contest for young singers in a small theatre house in the neighbourhood of Lhanguéne. This is Portugal the way I like it. Creole. 'Nha Terra.

Brussels was beautiful tonight

2010-01-04T14:53:00.000-08:00

I was walking home tonight after an office New Year reception at the house of my Director General. Entertaining to say the least. All the ambitious people, me included, trying to mingle, get information, be on top of the game. We played a lottery, with all the gifts he gets from foreign visitors and which he doesn't wish to keep. I wonder if they ever heard about this... Some people were lucky. I came away with a book about Raphael's Villa Madamma (chosen from an ad hoc selection; first come first served), which Jarl says costs 60 euros on the Internet. Anyway, this doesn't really deserve a post.

My post is about discovering the beauty of Brussels. It took me 13 years to find it. Yeah, I'm slow in love. I was by the Royal National Library. There's a garden there, with two rows of trees, a fountain, several sculptures, an equestrian statue. It was all covered in snow and there were supertroopers in rainbow colours shining from the roof of the library onto the bushes below. And then, to the side, there was a square of blue transparent glass coming out of the earth. It's the entrance to the new Brussels Conference Centre. It looked precious. Like a cube of ice.

One of the buildings in the garden had been transformed into a Chinese pavilion. Europalia is about China this year, it seems. A bit odd, but there it was, with thousands of yellow and red paper lanterns, like a dream in the night. There was absolutely nobody around. Just me and my footsteps. In the distance I could see the steeple of the Hôtel de Ville, illuminated from within and the Flemish brick houses around it. It smelled of calm and silence. Of order too.

Brussels looked beautiful for the very first time. It spoke to me for the very first time. I could recognise in it a little of my home. I was touched. Goodness, it took me 13 years to get here, to find its beauty. To find it beautiful. For it to speak to me. For me to understand it. Can you imagine? A momentous moment. It really deserves an alliteration.

My footsteps sounded like felt on the pavement. The snow has the power to erase all ugliness. The cold creates a feeling of awe. The empty garden was suspended in light, and glass, and night.

1st thought on new year's first day

2010-01-01T13:05:00.000-08:00

My first conscious thought this morning just out of bed was "ser é uma batalha para a vida inteira", "being is a battle for one's entire life". It came to me while walking from the bedroom to the bathroom. 2010 has started under the aegis of being. It was, is and will be my life's enduring battle. Ser.

Erasure - the band

2009-12-29T05:15:00.002-08:00

Ooh, Sometimes,
the truth is harder
than the pain inside,
yeaah,
Ooh, Sometimes,
it's the broken heart
that decides.

The first time I heard this song, and saw the video, I was 16 or around that age (the band released the single in the UK in 1986). I remember Andy Bell, the singer, with his crisp blue-jeans and immaculate white shirt, and gorgeous hair, and toned body, dancing on a building's rooftop. I wanted to dance like him.

At the time, it was not just the rhythm but the lyrics too, that enthralled me. There was something queer about them, something that appealed to me, deep down, as if I could also speak their language, or they could speak mine.

Been thinking about you
I just couldn't wait to see
fling my arms around you
as we fall in ecstasy.

This wasn't the way male singers talked about their girls in pop songs. This was about a boy, I felt (I didn't have enough words at the time to make it a thought, just a feeling).

Erasure, the band, was part of my gayducation. And that's my own word, by the way.

Erasure - the book

2009-12-29T05:15:00.001-08:00

I said some time ago that I would write a post about this book. I said I was hooked. It's difficult to convey now all the emotions the book made me go through at the time of my reading. It suffices to say that it was a fine surprise of a book, which I bought in a tiny English-speaking bookshop in Brussels, Nicola's Bookshop; sadly gone. I guess it was another victim of the economic downturn. But while it lasted, it was one of the best places to find unexpected books, by unexpected authors. The owner made her own selection, as if she was offering her library back home to the public to discover, and that's what was so special about the place.

Now, back to Erasure, the book. It dealt with race issues in the US, and played with our prejudices, misconceptions and expectations. It was amusing and at times difficult to understand. The main character, a writer and a professor of literature, makes a speech in one of the chapters of which I almost didn't understand a word. But somehow it really didn't matter, I just went with the flow.

There's a book inside a book. In order to get published as a "black writer" - a category everybody seems to be interested in pinning him down into - the main character writes a "black book", i.e. what it's "really" like to be black in America. What's disturbing about it is how entertaining his stereotypical description of ghetto life is. I actually enjoyed it, and it was sometimes easy to forget that although it sounded real, it wasn't real, but a construct, a codified literary construct of what "black life" in America is supposed to be.

Anyway, the real story, with real people, in real time, the one that takes place in Washington D.C., for instance, is what kept me turning the pages, the one I wished would keep on going for a little while longer when the book finally ended, because I liked the characters and got to enjoy their company. But yes, I know that they too were literary constructs.

By the way, the author's name is Percival Everett. Beautiful. And as someone in the novel might have asked, the character's literary agent for instance, "is that supposed to be a real black person's name?". Ah, reality...

Christmas went by

2009-12-28T15:02:00.001-08:00

This Christmas was kind of weird. We were in Lund. There was less snow than I expected, but when we arrived, there was still plenty of it around. Jarl's father was at the rehabilitation clinic, after more than a month in hospital, and everybody was slightly out of synch, I guess. It was strange to visit him there. Sometimes it felt unreal, like a parallel world. Soon, in a couple of minutes, your life will resume its normalcy. I sort of expected a voice saying those words coming out of the blue in the middle of our visits to Bror. It didn't happen.

The bed in our flat was hard as rocks. Even I got a back pain, and I'm not very sensitive when it comes to sleeping arrangements. Was it always that hard? I didn't sleep very well most of the nights and woke up feeling like I needed another eight hours of sleep during the day. Georgie had trouble to fall a sleep. That flat is too small anyway. We need more space. All sorts of space. We spent inordinate amounts of time with food. What for, my sweet goodness? I felt like a fish out of water. Hard to breath. Nowhere to swim. Flapping soundlessly. I feel terrible when I sleep badly. No endurance in the sleep-deprivation department, I'm afraid. Unless it's for a good cause, like writing a blog...

But I enjoyed those tiny moments when Jarl and I could crack a joke together in French. Well, just speaking French sends us both into hoots of laughter, it does. Something only the two of us can really get, or at least that's the way we feel, and we want it to be that way. C'est très tendence! Oh goodness, it was really funny, just between me and him. Private. Intimate. Perfect. Jarl can be real funny in a silly-kiddy-intellectual kind of way. I love that about him. He looks so young and cute, and smart and playful.

And then there was Georgie around, saying things that mesmerize me, amuse me, annoy me, entice me, inspire me, irritate me, elate me, surprise me, embrace me, motivate me, spin me, love me. Georgie has the power to transform trees into castles and mud into gold. Birds can talk. Flowers can cry. You can dream that you flew over the waves. That you made a puzzle of Galo de Barcelos together with papa and papalu. And that's more than magic, it's alchemy.

colours

2009-12-19T05:36:00.000-08:00

Sometimes Jarl doesn't understand that I'm not purple, I'm mauve. Sometimes I don't know either what colour he really is. Sometimes we're both colour blind.

Saga Lusa IV

2009-12-15T10:54:00.000-08:00

The night of the 1001 cousins. That's what I call the dinner party on Sunday in Lisbon. Sandra had the idea of bringing together a group of paternal cousins with whom I had grown up. Most of them I hadn't seen since my father's funeral in 1996. I didn't know most of their children, although a couple of them I had met as babies and toddlers. Two of them were now celebrating 18, and one also the fact that she had a driving license!

It felt a bit like childhood revisited, although all of us had a few more wrinkles, the men with a few more kilos, and the women still quite fit and smart! Who said that men age better than women? Only on TV! It reminded me of one of those birthday parties of long-time-no-see ago, the way we scattered all over the place, as if it were an indoors picnic. It felt easy to talk, no awkwardness at all. Mind you, I was a bit nervous before getting there.

Georgie mingled so easily with her cousins. It was special to see our children playing together. David, Sandra's youngest, said to Georgie "just call out cousin and everybody will come to you, don't even bother to learn all the names". It was sweet and to the point.

I thought of my father. What would he say? I genuinely think he would be happy. I wished he could be there to see us. Because these are the things that really matter, the thread and substance of life. Love, friendship, feeling, hands, eyes, mouth, nose, ears.

I hope to keep in touch with my 1001 cousins, on my mother's and on my father's side. They are the closest thing I have to siblings and the truth is that all over these years of sometimes emotional exile I never forgot them for a second. They remain part of me. Tucked away or out of doors, they're truly part of me.

Saga Lusa III

2009-12-15T10:47:00.001-08:00

I read a book by Adriana Calcanhotto the last night of our stay in Lisbon. Saga Lusa. Does it need translating? I would guess not. A Swedish and a Portuguese word in one sentence. Just like me and Jarl. Trying to make sense. Looking odd side by side, yet so right.

I had been out having dinner with my cousins and drank two glasses of Coke. Enough to keep me awake for the night. I went looking for an antidote in the form of reading and found the book in Manuel's collection. The irony, or coincidence, or fate, or destiny - I never quite knew the difference between all these - was that the story was about pill-induced insomnia. How appropriate!

I read the book in about two hours. The book reads like a long, addictive, gigantic personal e-mail, or a long diatribe against the flu virus and anti-inflammatory pills. Sounds what, lame? But it was really entertaining, although far from high-art. Would it have been published if the author had been someone like you and me? Hell, no! But this is the era of celebrity culture and even a special musician-poet-composer-singer like Calcanhotto falls into the category these days.

I read it all and fell asleep. And there's nothing more to say.

Saga Lusa II

2009-12-15T10:36:00.001-08:00

We stayed with Manuel, Gonçalo and their son Guilherme. They gave us their usual bread of tenderness to eat and made us feel at home. Gonçalo told me that their street used to be called Caracol da Penha de França. For those unfortunate enough not to speak portuguese, I agree to translate: the Curl of the Peak of France. It sounds royal, yet it's so simple and straight to the point. The street raises and falls like a mighty curl, and the penha is like a peak indeed, bursting out of the soil, full of buildings like teeth inside a giant's mouth. From now on, that's how I'll refer to Rua Marques da Silva. A curl is a curl, and it can move imaginations, like a spring. Pling!

Carla and Zé came for dinner on Saturday. Carla came with her two children. Zé came with his lovers, in absentia. We talked and laughed. We talked about our kids and our lovers, past, present and future, who knows... Then we laughed about our kids and ourselves, and our lovers, all tenses confounded. Zé said he doesn't want to fall in love. Ever again. It reminded me of that song by the Fine Young Cannibals, "never fallen in love with someone, never fallen in love, in love with someone, never fallen in love, in love with someone who's never fallen in love with. Did you ever fall in love? Did you ever? Did you ever? Did you ever?". And then my heart went on to sing, but so, so very low and softly, that I could barely hear it myself above the fray of his speech and the cars outside in the streets:

"Some day he'll come along, The man I love, And he'll be big and strong, The man I love, And when he comes my way I'll do my best to make him stay! He'll look at me and smile; I'll understand, And in a little while, He'll take my hand; And though it seems absurd, I know we both won't say a word! Maybe I shall meet him Sunday, Maybe Monday, maybe not, Still I'm sure to meet him one day; Maybe Tuesday will be my good news day! We'll build a little home Just meant for two, From which I'll never roam; Who would? Would you? And so, all else above, I'm waiting for the man I love!"

That's by George and Ira Gershwin, and I'm sure you knew. I didn't say a word. I just sang it softly with every breath I took. Can you imagine me not saying anything? I almost can't. Pourtant...

Saga Lusa I

2009-12-15T10:08:00.000-08:00

I was in Lisbon last weekend. I took Georgie with me. She is great to travel with. We had fun together. I love holding her hand walking down the street watching people go by. I know, I wrote this here before, but I really do. And it sounds like a song. I loved showing her the light of Lisbon, the way the sky bends at the horizon. We went to the Oceanário and saw the sharks, the manta-rays, the sun-fish, the penguins, the puffins, the oters, the fish, the fish, the fish. We also saw the ghost-fish, who shone in the dark. A bit spoky those fish.

We rode the telepheric at Parque das Nações and laughed like crazy all the way up in the air. Like hot air balloons. And then we went to the book fair inside Gare do Oriente, where I bought Caím by Saramago. Ah, the pleasure of buying a book on the Index of the Catholic Church... diabolic pleasure without the smell of sulphur. A book can still move mountains. It's good to be reminded of that.

We saw little children, and big children too, play violin at Reitoria da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, nearby Lisbon's Great Mosque (which looks so much prettier than last time, with a proper minaret shining bright in the evening sky of Praça de Espanha; and go tell that to the Suiss who voted down a month ago the sight of minarets among their ozone-layer-depleting cows!). It felt good to be sitting there next to Guida listening to Christmas music, from Bach to Little Star. Our friendship is like a heart-shaped red box of chocolate pralines. Georgie loved the stripped gloves she gave her. It made her look like Emília, the super-smart, silly-naughty doll in Sítio do Picapau Amarelo. This was centuries ago, when Brazil arrived at our doorstep in the shape of a magic place on TV.

We heard Berstein's West Side Story on the stero in our bedroom. I fell to my knees, tears about to cry, when the shooting gun was heard and the last song was sung. I sang with all my strength "there's a place for us, a time and a place for us, hold my hand and we're half way there, hold my hand and I'll take you there, somehow, somewhere, someday". Something like that. Emotion is never accurate, only it knows what it feels is real. I shared this moment with Georgie. She became a fan. She is a bit of a drama queen too, like her papalu. I'll always be sorry for those who don't fall on their knees with tears in their eyes, with Lisbon in the background, and the sun like a shield of gold, and the sky with clouds the colour and the shape of cotton, when on a stereo plays a record by Berstein with West Side Story. Where do they get their tears from?

small blue thing

2009-11-26T16:17:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-23T14:29:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-21T15:19:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-19T00:45:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-15T14:24:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-14T15:56:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-14T15:33:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-11T13:37:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-08T13:35:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-06T15:35:00.000-08:00

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.

Morrer como um homem

2009-10-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

To die like a man. It's the title of João Pedro Rodrigues' new film. I saw it last Sunday at the Nova cinema in Brussels during this year's edition of Pinkscreens. It is a very beautiful film. It's not just the fact that I know so many of the people and the characters in it - the film is a slice of Lisbon at night as I knew it in the late 1980's and throughout the 1990's. As I told the director during the Q&A session that followed the screening, his film has lucidité sentimentale. People tend to think that those at the margins, like transvestites, live lives detached from reality, but I actually think that they live lives that are intensely real and that is why they dream so much, and hurt so much in the process.

There was someone behind me who said to someone beside him that all Portuguese are crazy, that we are cut off from the rest of Europe, that we have nothing in common. But the themes explored in this film, apart from being universal, are very European. It deals with the quest for identity in general and gender identity in particular, with tragic love in the best classical Greek tradition, with the role of women as the initiators of mankind into the world of dreams and mysteries. Le féminin sacré; sacré féminin!

I loved seeing Maria Bakker (alwyas double K!) in the film. MB became a character à part entière, bravo! I wonder where the German quotations came from. Was it Schiele? Gonçalo Ferreira de Almeida, the actor playing MB, was for many years the flatmate of my former lover, Zé Manuel. I met him many times in their flat surrounded by a haze of creative cannabis. MB is his creation and a powerful one. In the film, it made an interesting contrast to the character of Tonia, who, although apparently free to be what she wants to be, is in reality constrained by many mental strings. MB is free in her essence, not bothering to question herself about whether she is a real woman. No one is a real woman, not even biological women, in the sense that femininity is construed, invented, and is as much the product of its creator as it is in the eye of the beholder. MB does not need a sex-change, because she incarnates her imagined woman.

There are many poetic moments in the film, but there were two high such moments for me. The gambuzinos' hunt in the forest and the tableau vivant of Tonia, her boyfriend, MB, Paulinha and the doctor, resting on a tree trunk surrounded by the red of the night and listening to that song that came from everywhere and nowhere. Was it Antony, from Antony and the Johnsons? Maybe not, but it was close. I think there should be a film about MB, she is ripe for it. I hope she'll invite me to come and sing a song. Ah, me and MB, it would be a riot!

Then there is the last scene, with Tonia singing at her funeral, with Lisbon in the back, the buildings, the cars, and the red-dusk bridge over the river Tejo, with its two arches like the breasts Tonia had to give away.

The film was so sad it felt like singing all the time. And indeed it reads also as a musical, with the songs of António Variações and Marco Paulo providing most of the soundtrack; songs that the characters sing themselves on the road to their destiny. I also go through life singing. There is nothing more natural than that.

MB's relation with Paulinha, her maid, her assistant, her pianist, her lover?, made me think of Fassbinder's Petra Von Kant. It had the same qualities of dominance and submission, dependence and betrayal. After all, where would MB be without Paulinha? And what would Paulinha do if MB started to treat her right? The director said he studied Fassbinder and that there where elements of the German director's cinematography in his own films, but the Petra Von Kant thing had not been intentional, it was just me adding another layer of interpretation to the film. Yep, that's what viewers do too!

sometimes it snows in April

2009-10-23T16:01:00.000-07:00

Today was just that kind of day. I hope you know the song. It's by Prince. If not, listen to it. It's beautiful and kind of sad. Why today? It has to do with the Treaty of Lisbon. Oh, my, now this is becoming a bit of a joke.

But seriously, there will be changes next year that will affect my work, and although I don't risk loosing my job it's hard to tell what I will be doing in say, 6 months time. Since I just started this new job in April this year, and am enjoying it!, I feel a bit cheated by the whole thing, although it was more or less to be expected. But I think the Lisbon Treaty is a good thing for Europe.

Anyway, who said feelings were neat and rational? Nobody. In fact, a bit of snow right now would cheer me up.

I miss the summer

2009-10-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

I was standing by the kitchen window and sighed. Georgina asked, Papalu, why did you sigh? and I replied that I was feeling melancholic. What's melancholic? It's a happy kind of saudade. When you miss something with the taste of honey in your mouth. And what do you miss? I miss the summer. You miss the summer, Papalu.

And then I watched the neighbour in the garden across take a yellow bucket with water to rain on her plants. She was wearing a grey dress the colour of her hair. I saw the orange surf board against the garden window of another neighbour in the distance. Our car was still outside the garage in the patio. Black like the cat who comes to stretch on the roof of the garages.

Today he came to get a bit of sunshine on his shimmering coat. We call to him many times and he looks at us with those eyes-of-seeing-through. The leaves are barely autumnal and there's still a slight swing of warmth from the sun in their fading green. Then the cat was gone. Miao.

Ourania

2009-10-15T09:38:00.000-07:00

Ouranos is "le ciel étoilé". Le Clézio's book, which I'm currently reading, is wet like a river. The sentences are like water and they leave you wet. They taste of water. They are so fresh you feel taken by the current of the river.

There is actually a funny story behind this book. I got it for my birthday in 2008 and forgot about it. It was the time Le Clézio had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Then I took it with me this summer on the plane on my way to Moroni, Comoros. I was going there on a mission to check the political situation. But the book is what matters. I lost it on the plane. I noticed it coming out of the plane in Nairobi. I was enjoying it so much I decided to stay in line for I don't know how long just to make sure that they would find it. They had found no book in French inside my plane. Maybe on the way back from Moroni? The cleaning staff would make sure to keep it safe.

On my way back I again waited for an even longer time to see if the book had been found. No, not really. They had found a Bible, a book in English about fishing, but no book in French, I'm afraid. I guess I felt the way smokers must feel inside a non-smoking flight, anguished, sad. How will I survive all the way from Nairobi to London and then Brussels without my sky with stars, without my river? I survived, but how I missed Ourania on that flight.

And here I am now, savouring again its pages, the language so crystal clear it really feels like water. A cascade of water pouring down inside my head. Ah, it feels good when a book rains all over you!

Keith Haring

2009-09-05T16:40:00.000-07:00

We went to Mons today to see the Keith Haring retrospective - a first in Belgium - at the baM (Beaux Arts Mons). I rediscovered Haring after years of oblivion. What I like about him is the obsession with the black line surrounding the drawings, which both confines and liberates meaning, the pure colour, the paint drops reminding you of the movement of the hand and brush across the paper.

The first time I read about him was in 1988. I had just finished my AFS year of studies in Belgium and there was an article about him in a magazine I got as a farewell present. There was a picture of Haring, naked, with his body painted in what I now know is a signature pattern, but at the time it basically reminded me of African and Aboriginal drawings (actually, these are also influences behind Haring's work, so I wasn't too far from the truth). The reason I also liked the picture so much was because I found it sexy.

Haring interests me too, because he was socially engaged and his art his about issues that have also touched my consciousness as I was growing up in the 1980's and the 1990's, the devastation of the AIDS epidemic in particular. He himself would die of AIDS in 1990. Haring also dealt through his painting and artistic interventions with issues such as racism and the scourge of crack cocaine.

I read in the baM catalogue that he dealt with very serious issues in a light and fun way. I agree. But what I also find about his artwork is that he managed to communicate widely, directly and with force to people all over the world. And he was able to create a language all of his own that didn't need to borrow any meaning from the outside world, because his creations were iconic per se. Haring did signature painting, i.e. a style that could be easily identified anywhere it showed.

I learned about Haring's close collaboration and contact with Grace Jones and Madonna, and their shared involvement in New York's underground culture of the early 1980's (I was faraway in Lisbon at the time just being a kid, but also becoming slowly aware of this other world out there). Grace Jones and Madonna, in particular some of their early work, have also left a mark in me.

It's not just the "gay dance floor thing" and the "alternative club scene" that I like (and somehow identify with), which Haring, Jones and Madonna shared, but also the fact that they brought the "New York City street" into that expression, transformed it and made it universally appealing and culturally relevant, despite the negative pop connotation and the criticised mass consumption label. The street reclaimed a voice in the art world through and because of their work. They were counter-culture and the fact that they appealed to so many people did not necessarily make their art less worthy.

This brings me back to Haring. His mass production art, its mass appeal, instead of reducing the value of his artwork, are just constitutive elements of his artistic production. They actually enhance the relevance of what he did, because so much of his paintings is about communicating through symbols, the most ancient and important art form of all, to the widest audience possible. And all artists want to see their emotions and thoughts reach as many people as they can, because art - particularly how we understand it today - is so much about individual expression and its projection in the world. So many of the roots of my own intellectual upbringing lie in there too.

I guess you can tell that all this made the trip to baM and to Mons well worth it!

that's not purple, that's mauve!

2009-08-30T14:55:00.001-07:00

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.

missing Chicago

2009-08-25T04:48:00.000-07:00

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.

flawless

2009-08-23T15:55:00.000-07:00

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.

KiosK

2009-08-19T14:05:00.001-07:00

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?

hair

2009-08-03T16:42:00.000-07:00

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.

dislocated

2009-06-02T11:46:00.000-07:00

I have a foot inside my mouth and a tree growing beside my ear. My eyes are petals, my trunk a chest. I feel dislocated. Went to Lisbon this weekend and saw my cousins and saw my friends. I wonder what to say, how to sound rooted, how to connect. Sometimes I know. Sometimes I feel like I'm floating, roots uprooted, a plant outside a vase, hungry for soil, happy to be in mid-air. I don't know how to talk to people I don't know. Is this new or was I always this way?

Do I care what they think? Do I still? I guess I do. I feel embarrassed, I search the words, I want to be nice, just right, not too nice, not too eager to please. I don't care so much what they think, I don't, I really don't. But I always wonder. Why is it that I don't know where I fit? I have a leg inside my ear. My tongue is licking my elbow.

I wish I knew how to speak without saying anything. Language leaves me in silence. I swim for words, like life. The sort of wisdom I only see glimpses of when I wake up happy in the morning, or when I make love without constraints. New people make me shy. They intimidate me. They think many things about me. Some are right, many are wrong. I feel unsure of where I am, where I want to be, where I wish I'll be.

Lisbon confuses me. It rains emotions into my roots, it dries my cheeks, it turns me upside down. Lisbon leaves me breathless, feeling awkward. Alone. It makes me want to be loved. I care about hugs and kisses. I care about bosoms and shoulders. The sky in Lisbon is very raw so it is difficult not to look, like a wound. I'm dislocated. Dislocated. Dislocated. With an arm pressing my crotch. Afraid of being unloved. And missing it so terribly, like blood, or a piece of my soul.

a mercy

2009-05-22T13:15:00.001-07:00

I just finished reading "A Mercy", by Toni Morrison. I loved the book, the poetry of Florens, the hope in Sorrow's wanderings, the hard love of Lina. In a society of slaves, everybody is a slave because enslaved by owning and being owned. True freedom comes from within and it is what makes us human.

Of course, I could not resist the a minha mãe of the first pages. My language there, so ripe to be harvested, at the cusp of my fingers. Irresistable! Toni Morrison is a Nobel-prize winner of course. Nothing strange about that. She writes like pulsating rivers, her words are alive inside your heart before you know it. You don't breeth, you just follow.

I still remember her powerful, luminous photo that I saw at the American portrait gallery in Washington D.C. in October 2007. The small room, the emptiness of people. Just me and my words. She rised beautiful like an ox made of light, and love, and wisdom. Her braids were coated in white sugar, you could almost smell her hair. I could have looked at her photo forever. Am still carrying that photo around with me. Can you hear me? O teu leitor.

my cousins

2009-04-16T06:32:00.000-07:00

My cousins are blue and pink. My cousins are red and yellow. My cousins are colours, a thousand different flags flying in the wind. My cousins are fat and slim. They have fat arms to embrace you, and long fingers to caress you. They have lips that sing with kisses. My cousins burst out laughing while eating cake with their mouths. Their eyes are brown and purple.

My cousins live in London. They bake cakes all day long. I love their cakes. My cousins have wings instead of arms. I met them this Easter after many years with no seeing. My daughter wanted to stay over in London. Brussels looks so empty without my cousins. Where are my cousins? They should be here around the corner, down the road, up the stream. Their bosoms are like feathers. My cousins. Where are my cousins? They keep a furnace inside their hearts.

My cousins. They are chocolate and honey. They are vanilla and cinnamon. My cousins are made of sugar and milk. They were born in Angola. Just like me. One of my cousins was a caterpillar and is now becoming a butterfly, transitioning into a woman after being born male. My cousins have love on their fingertips. They give love and laugh while eating cake with their mouths, drinking coffee with their lips. They dance with their hips. Just like me. My London cousins.

the letter

2009-04-16T06:26:00.000-07:00

I got a present today. Three presents really. Two records and one letter. What touched me the most was the letter. It takes time to write a letter. It takes even more time to write a beautiful letter. That is the present I cherish the most. The time spent writing those words on paper. The lines of words like blue waves on a sea of white.

A letter is a precious gift today. The music is good for the soul, but a beautiful letter helps to save the soul. Thank you Gonçalo and Manuel. I will keep your letter inside the box of my heart, where it heaves and soothes.

the hawk in the morning

2009-03-22T10:20:00.000-07:00

Suburban Sundays in Ixelles, our neighbourhood in Brussels, wake up to the sound of little birds hopping in the trees and cars leaving with daddies and mommies to the golf course somewhere in Flanders. I guess, because I have never been there and I hate golf anyway. But today there were white feathers flying in circles by the garage doors. It looked like snow, but in April? I know that Prince sings that song I love, and makes me cry, "sometimes it snows in April", but still.

The dead pigeon was lying with bowed head and stiff legs in the middle of the pavement. And then, and then, the hawk came just out of the blue. It landed like a bomb. It took some more feathers away with its beak. Sunday was transformed. "Sunday, bloody Sunday", by the Irish band U2. That's how a suburban Sunday in Brussels can turn into a feast of raw nature.

I will never look again at the trimmed gardens of my neighbours with the same feeling of beatific awe. The hawk was beautiful, so was the pigeon by the way. No distinction of class, mind you, I tend towards equality, at least in terms of worth. The hawk had yellow eyes and strong feathery legs. The pigeon was all in tones of white, and gray, and blue, and beige. And its feathers twirled like snow in the morning cold of Sunday.

34 hours of sunlight

2009-03-17T13:49:00.000-07:00

I read in La Libre Belgique that we had 34 hours of sunlight in February this year. The average is 89 hours. This was the lowest amount of sunlight since the creation of Belgium in 1830, the year they started mesuring these things. No wonder I felt under a spell in sunny Rome.

the seagull and the ice-cream

2009-03-13T13:56:00.000-07:00

I was all week in Rome for a course on European Defense Policy. I had been to Rome before, but a beautiful town allows itself to be discovered all over again. I went to the Pantheon, and this time I was able to get inside. I could forget the crowds if I just focused on that blue circle of sky floating up there in the dome. Then I saw a seagull fly by. Tomas, one of my colleagues from the course, took me to Giolliti for an ice-cream late in the evening. It's his favourite place in Rome. There is one franchise in Seoul, South-Korea too. The place was almost empty, apart from a few tables with kids, and a young couple, silently, devoutly, eating big ice-cream cones. I had mora (blueberry) for the first time in my life and can still feel the taste. It was tender and cold, dark purple and spicy. It had stars somewhere in the middle and they tickled my throat. I would wrap my tongue around it and dream of the seagull crossing the blue-eye of the Pantheon's dome. My week in Rome condensed to a magic flavour and a circle of light.

it's your day

2009-03-08T01:07:00.000-08:00

I'm the father of a daughter. Today is Woman's Day. Georgie is now three and a half; one day she will be a woman. It is my day too. My single wish is for my daughter to grow into a person, in a world of persons. As Antony, that wonderful composer and singer, says in one of his songs, "one day I'll grow old; I'll be a beautiful woman". Happy Woman's Day to all of us.

you taste of honey

2009-03-04T00:38:00.000-08:00

I took Georgie, my daughter, to school this morning. We rode the usual tram, number 24. Georgie likes this tram because the seats are high. She licked my hand and said I tasted good, like honey. Georgie sometimes likes to pretend she is a little kitten. I kissed her forehead and said she tasted pretty. And then we just held our hands and watched the world go by. And it felt so peaceful, so natural, so true, like the world should be in the morning, before the rain hits the ground, before the wind bends the trees.

It was raining when we got to school. It smelled of moist earth, of traffic jams, of dust and water. And honey, and pretty too, of course. Our fragrant skins.

ten years without touching the ground

2009-03-03T06:27:00.000-08:00

Young albatrosses can stay up to ten years without touching solid ground, just flying up there in the air. They can spend some six hours without flapping their wings, riding the currents. I guess I will always envy birds for being able to fly, at least most of them.

When I was a teenager I used to have these recurring dreams about flying. They felt so real. Apparently, many people have the same kind of dreams during adolescence. It has to do with wanting to be independent, literally wishing to fly away from your parents' nest. It may well be so. But I just wanted the exhilarating feeling of spreading my arms and going up in the sky. Maybe all teenagers are albatrosses in disguise.

the view from Tel Aviv

2009-02-25T14:16:00.000-08:00

Yonatan came to Brussels today. The usual round of meetings, but we managed to find some time to see each other (what, was it two years since last time?). Georgie, my daughter, must have been 10 months or so at the time. We still have a couple of pictures of the two of them posing in the kitchen; Yonatan has that wide smile of his. The funny thing is that Georgie found the photos just last week while browsing iPhoto in the computer and asked me about "him". And then, a few days later we got a phone call from Yonatan, still in Tel Aviv, saying that he would be in Brussels this Wednesday.

My, was he surprised with how much Georgie had grown since then, and how much she is able to talk! Georgie couldn't stop kissing his leg, which was cute to watch. Yonatan must have made a big impression. In fact, anybody with a connection to her "baby days" makes a big impression on Georgie, I have noticed.

We asked him about what it was like to be in Tel Aviv when the madness in Gaza was going on. He told us about the fear of the rockets fired by Hamas, even though they never hit Tel Aviv. "Everybody knows someone in the south, and although the chances of the rockets hitting someone are minimal, you worry for the people you know". His partner went down south for a few days and Yonatan was worried for him. He also told us how people in Israel seem to have hardened their views on armed conflict with the Palestinians and how there seems to be an impenetrable consensus on the need to be tough, and that "they deserve it".

War is chilling. It made me think how hard it is to reconcile humanity with the ugliness of war, when you are in the middle of it, when you can't really distance yourself from it, when it isn't some faraway conflict that you read about in the news. How hard it must be to keep your sense of nuance and balance when you are part of it. Yonatan sounded disillusioned.

I admire him for keeping on trying to find that nuance, for questioning the "truths" from all sides, for being able to talk about it without shrugging it off. I don't feel very optimistic myself about peace in the region. Stubborn as we humans are, it will take a few more generations of suffering for people to realise that they have more in common than what sets them apart. Look at us in Europe and all the wars it took us to come to this simple conclusion; and all the effort it still takes to make sure we don't go back to our old ways.

When Yonatan left, he asked us when we are planning to visit. We told him that Israel was definitely in our travel plans; maybe when Georgie is a bit older. I wonder if he believed us, but we meant it. One day we will be coming around to see Tel Aviv, the bauhaus city, "the bubble". What happens there is so much more real because we know Yonatan; geography is really made of people and emotions, no matter what.

Butterfly

2009-02-23T16:17:00.000-08:00

This morning my daughter, who is three and a half, told me that when she grows up she wants to be a butterfly. Why? I asked. So that I can fly, was her answer. It all sounds beautiful to me.

Gypsie like me

2009-02-23T15:50:00.000-08:00

Tonight I watched one of Todd Stephens' early films, "Gypsy 83". I was already a fan of his more famous Edge of Seventeen. What I liked about Gypsy was the predictable "road-movie" story-line, the missing mother, the gothic makeup, the make-belief so simple, yet so true, in those big American trashy side-of-the-road places where it is both beautiful and incongruous to watch a couple of kids dancing to The Cure in velvety outfits.

I was a Gypsy myself, growing up in Rinchoa, near Lisbon, Portugal, which could be another god-forsaken place somewhere in Ohio, just like in the film. I too stood in front of the mirror dabbing colours onto my face, tracing my lips with red and working my eyes into storms of purple and blue. I too danced away in the middle of the night and hoped to be rescued. I too was a runway. Still am in so many ways. Still running away from Rinchoa, its working-class smugness, its middle-class pretentions, its end-of-the-day boredom. But it is all part of me, and I cherish it too, in a twisted kind of way. Without my memories of Rinchoa there is nothing to run away from and that is what keeps me going.

Gypsy awoke the teenage in me. I could feel him stirring. I will go in front of the mirror tonight and put some makeup on and jive. So good to know this is all still here. Ah, I almost forgot how nice it was to hear Stevie Nicks singing again "Talk to Me". I had forgotten all about it, those afternoons listening to the radio at home after school in the 1980's. "Talk to me, When you are down now, Talk to me".

one cinema and two films a day

2009-02-21T15:40:00.000-08:00

This evening Julia came for dinner all the way from Pristina in Kosovo. She told us that there is one cinema in town, that it shows two films per day. She saw a good Albanian film the other day. I wondered if she was learning the language. Not really, she said, the film had subtitles, in English. I use my free time, Julia continued, to go to the gym, to keep fit, physically and mentally.

I told her I had been to the English Cinema in Vienna when I was there in January. I didn't tell her the film I watched. She didn't ask. It was "Seven Pounds" with Will Smith. I sort of liked it. I sort of felt it was too corny to be good. I couldn't stop crying when it ended. I felt so sad, alone in Vienna, going to my hotel in the cold, with my new leather gloves and my new leather boots from a top-fashion store.

I wonder if Julia feels lonely in Pristina? She says there are no parks for walking. How do you live in a town without parks? I guess she has more friends now. The internationals, it figures. I'm happy for her. It is hard to be an expatriate. I know it myself after 12 odd years of Brussels. I don't have a lot of time to go to the cinema here, mais bon, there is always so much to do at home anyway. I go to the cinema when I'm on mission.

my house with a porch

2009-02-21T15:19:00.000-08:00

Today I dreamed again of my house with a porch, in Chicago. It has to be the right porch, all around the house, with creaking woods and a lovely shade. I should be able to see Lake Michigan while sitting on a rocking chair sipping a cup of green tea. I should be able to hear the laughter mixed with the waves, smell the water, and even feel a couple of sand grains beneath my teeth. I dream of a house with a porch in Chicago, that place I miss so much and which my daughter reminds me of every day.

I have never had a house with a porch, though I know I must have, because the memory is so intense. I suppose that is true saudade. One day I will grow old and I will have a house with a porch, by the lake, in Chicago. I will sail flags from its corners, and hail neighbours from the door, my daughter will play on the steps and I will watch her go to school. I don't feel sorry because I don't have a house with a porch in Chicago. The dream keeps me company. A dream can be fancied like clouds moving in the sky with the wind. It comes and goes with the tide. My house full of dreams, surrounded by a porch, by the lake, around the corner, in Chicago. The town where my daughter was born.

Finally!

2009-02-15T12:38:00.000-08:00

My first post. Nothing special you will say, pourtant, it has been a long time in the making and it's here, finally!