"Say Goodbye..."

Here I go towards another life-changing trip.

Going to Italy isn't anymore a wanderlust extravaganza, Lucas is on the verge of the end of an era. When I return from Europe college will start and responsabilities I've taken on this first semester will be so real they'll be knocking on my door, demanding for action.

It all feels like growing up, but surprisingly or not, I'm not scared by it anymore as my Blogger profile says. I'm actually looking forward for maturity and all its implications. As for falling in love - well it still scares the shit out of me, and it seems I'm on for a rollercoaster ride again... It's silly to be deposit hopes in one place, but I'll be trying my best to have the best of funs in this trip to Italy and enjoy whatever kicks in. W-H-A-T-E-V-E-R!

Wish me luck and good trip y'all!

[Song: Chasing Pavements - Adele]

Rambling Over Margo

"So many people know me. I wish I did. I wish someone would tell me about me."

-Margo Channing

It's funny when you start living with people for a while and they start to think they know you well. So well to the point they know you better than yourself. In some cases it's not impossible, after all there are a bunch of individuals out there either so predictable or unaware of themselves, that strangers might know the lines on their faces better than their own mirror reflections. I, however, do not aply to the case.

Last night a guy told me I seemed to be those headstrong people who defended so much my views that didn't accept none other. I may act by my mind and follow my own instincts but I'm not as shallow as that; I'm always open for changes of heart by second or third opinions as long as they make any sense. Nevertheless that guy barely knows me. And normally I'd go with Madonna and just spit a full and somewhat rude "nobody knows me" - but tonight I prefer a more sarcastic but utterly classy approach.

I just watched All About Eve with two newbies who got mesmerized by Mankiewicz's quick-witted dialogues and Miss Channing absolute and unquestionable bitchy charm. And as one of them claimed loudly his resemblance with Margo, I kept mine in check for a while.

The path to self-awareness is bumpy and endless, although I can say I'm not a retarded in it. I could in fact say that I'm a great runner. I don't completely know myself because I'm not a race with endline - as I said, there's always some energy to go the extra mile. But it's my own marathon and although there are plenty of intersections no one can tell me they know my road better than myself.

That's why I quoted Margo Channing in the begining; like a protest against those who love to fill their mouths to say they know people too well.

[Song: Intuition - Feist]

Jump

I have a thing for young men. Teenagers to be specific; I like the soft skin, the naivité, the eagerness. Once I kind of fell for one of those, but that's history. But truth be told adolescence is not something I like to deal with nowadays; when the teenager isn't kissing me or trying to rip my clothes off he just bores me.

Well you might say I'm being presumptuous, after all I'm just 19. But when I was 17 I was trying too hard to be oh so mature, that somehow I learned earlier that trying wouldn't exactly work if I didn't have the tools to be so. When I was younger I liked to think I was "an old mind trapped in a young body." Today I see that all I was was a boy wanting desperately to pose as a man. I'm not saying I'm a grown man now, heaven forbid, but I'm done with posing. I've changed, I know I grew up from back then to now. The best part is that I'm aware of these changes; I won't be arrogant in saying I'm in total charge of them but I at least know they're happening and that they must happen.

So, one thing kinds of hits me to the nerves: when people don't get it; better saying: choose not to get it. I don't seek for people's aproval of what I've become or what I've decided to be, I just want them to let me be. I have these friends who recently have been telling me I've changed, but not in a good way [in their conception]. Well I agree I changed, I'm more careless about little trivial details of life, like do-they-still-care-about-me's and am-I-being-dissed-on-the-back's; I'm more conscious of who I am and what I want for myself; I'm more careful with my actions and words; I'm more sarcastic and bitter than before - that's a good thing in my world; I'm a bit more sociable; and at this moment I'm bored with this self-celebrating little list.

The thing is, when my friend found a link from my first blog [I won't link it, too embarassing!] escorted by an "emotional bill" I felt pissed. I'm pro evolution, I agree people have the right to change and grow up; once done you'll never go back to where you started, you might revisit feelings but there's no real trip to memoryland, you can only see the pictures you've taken when you lived that. The bill consisted in "do you still love us like when you said you did back then?" Honestly, I felt pissed about that kind of question. Love is a living thing, it changes and evolves and we have to accept it; G-d knows I love those people but why should I define it? Why should I label it as "strong like before" or "a bit weaker"?

My reply to her question was bitter and sarcastic. Maybe she'll laugh [I doubt], maybe she'll just feel more fucked up. In any case I'll keep on doing what I'm doing; as a non-teenager I refuse to play those games, as a not-yet-adult I just keep on embracing the shifts and turns life gives me.

"I'm not afraid of what I'll face

But I'm afraid to stay."

[Song: Let It Will Be - Madonna]

Fonda And Nin

"What I did not anticipate was how the story of my journey would also resonate with men."

- Jane Fonda -

After the excitement of my first Anaïs Nin reading, Delta Of Venus, I was looking forward to read more of her stuff. So during the long dull hours in Guarulhos airport, walking around while I waited for my flight to Salvador I made a little book shopping spree and among my items I got Nin's A Spy In The House Of Love.

Little time after I started it, I did something I've not done in ages: I Googled intel about the book. I found out that it had a lot of psychoanalysis content and that the heroine, Sabina, had many of Nin's behaviors and attitudes. Okay, I don't know if I've mentioned it here but I'm very into biographies and non-fictional books lately; so, to read a novel that has many auto-biographic characteristics... I was in heaven!

"A Spy" is a dense, sometimes tense, deep book about a woman who lies. Sabina has multiple lives that last as long as a love affair of hers last. What is initially an erotic and exciting atmosphere becomes a breathtaking and overwhelming report of a disembodied woman.

The word "disembodied" makes me think of Jane Fonda. In her auto-biography, My Life So Far, she said about how long she lived without trully knowing and taking who she was for herself and lived disconnected from her own body, her own voice. Sabina jumped from a lover to another in order to validate her various souls, her various masks. And the encounter with a young lost man like her made her realize how far she was from herself.

In another moment Sabina says that when one is hurt, one should run away for a while from the places and people that reminded the hurt. At that instant I remembered a passage in Fonda's book when she said one day during the making of They Shoot Horses, Don't They? she found herself driving miles away past the set's entrance.

The point in all this I'm saying is how fiction/reality affects reality/fiction. In a short amount of time I read two books that affected my life in ways I've never experienced before. First Fonda's saying how important it is for us to find our own voices and connect to our boddies; then Nin's reassuring that thought.

Looking at myself I feel rejoiced to certify I'm on my way. When I see so much young people like me lost from themselves till the point of not knowing what they want or where to lead, I feel both like crap and like a hero, for having overcome that obstacle. A self-proof is the previous post with the Dully Lighten Room poem that is exactly about a person who chose to be separated from herself.

So, to everyone I advice to read first Fonda's "My Life So Far", then Nin's "A Spy In The House Of Love"; or even Nin's before Fonda's, doesn't matter. The importance lies in finding ourselves inside ourselves, without outer validation, whether it's in lovers, substances or even religion: "happiness lies in the palm of your hand".

[Song: Secret - Madonna (cliché I know, but fuck it!)]

Recollections

Okay, first of all read this poem:
“Dully Lighten Room”
When the mirror is broken
It's a sign that you don't look so good
Especially if the mirror shows
What is hidden inside
At the top our your tribulations
You should've put your forgotten self-esteem
Trying to live like Amelie
You forgot how it is to breathe

You, silly girl,
Are trying to build the impossible
By turning the world upside down
You, silly girl,
Have been walking on the ceiling as if
It were the greatest deal
But here I tell you so
You're so against the flow
You'll drown

The room is dully lighten
So the view's not exactly clear
Especially in such biased room
You call comfort zone
At the top of your pretentiousness
You spoke loud about yourself
When actually you were
Still in the hard dark shell

You, silly girl,
Have been walking on the ceiling
Have been holding on the grieving
You have neglected yourself
Thinking you were doing the best
I'm just like you so why
Don't we hook up tonight
I wrote it couple months ago inspired by that photo above.
Tonight, as I talked with this guy about nostalgia I came to read this poem again and it remitted me to my adolescence. Nowadays I don't speak loud to conceal my self misregard, but I find it funny to look at my past and see how I used to neglect myself more easily.
It's like this: I used to complain for never having what I wanted. But the problem was that I never knew what I wanted. When we're immersed in a situation we tend to have biased visions about where we stand, like a "dully lighten room". When we know ourselves well we know when we're playing dramatic, therefore we can stop and try to look at the big picture.

We often say that it's hard to do that when we're in the game, but I believe that it's because people are lazy and always choose to remain into the closet [stick to ego] than to "sacrifice your comfort, make your way in a foreign land". Nowadays I thank the Light for helping me to see that and then be more self-conscious, in a way of knowing myself.

So, the silly girl in the dully lighten room is just a reflection from a past of mine that, now embraced, just adds to my experience and maturity. It's oh so good to feel you have some control over your life.

[Song: Isaac - Madonna]

"I don't want to stay here...

... I want to go back to Bahia."

Well, I'm back home and I already miss Bahia, nah... Salvador (SSA). My plans to move back to SSA next year became stronger when my dad threw me a proposal: I should stop my course here, go back to Vitória da Conquista and study hard to get a college spot in Salvador. I said yes of course.

I'm sure I'll miss my friends here, but to move to Salvador is something I feel I must to do to grow up. I think that Marilia have already given me everything I needed in what it comes to maturity, since in the way I relate to people, but especially in the way I relate with myself. Marilia helped me to embrace my sexuality and to accept the fact that assume it to myself isn't the same of going public on it. I know things happen when they're supposed to. But you see, lately, to be in Marilia isn't the same of learning anymore and I miss that feeling. I know we learn all the time with every little thing in our lives, but I don't feel it in here anymore. I crave for new, I crave for more, more than what I've been getting here.

Uhg, I'll miss this town and the freedom I have here. I'll miss its ridiculously gorgeous and beyond hot men. I'll miss its proximity to my sanctuary, São Paulo. But I feel that in Bahia now I'll get more of what I really want: culture.

[Song: The Man That Got Away - Judy Garland]