small blue thing

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

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

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

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

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

Luanda

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

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

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

Agneta's saying

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

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

fatherhood

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

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

I miss Jarl

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

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

two guys in the tram home

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

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

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

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

Viernes de Cine

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

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

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