I'm for the first time in my life experiencing the gradual withering of Nature. I can see a long shadow projected on the ground at noon, most trees have no leaves anymore, it sleeted just the other day, peaches have disappeared from the grocery. It's a bit strange to witness all this without creating a whole ritual with a group, or chanting invocations and prayers. Just letting Nature do Its work. Winter, and its brand new order, finally begin to finds its way to my life.
The Light shows signs of wanting to be born again, yeah, though the ice is still on the way. On Thursday, I attended a panel about Homossexuality and Religion in a local university. One of the participants represented Wicca. I felt much more connected to what most of the catholics said, and didn't really feel represented in the Wiccan talk, so I decided to take a chance at the end of the event when everybody was done speaking (Spaniard style, I'd say) to mention that contrary to the idea the Wiccan on stage gave, Pagan traditions are very much community-oriented and, yes, Love is also paramount on my Path. I think I got to actually close the night when I quote Doreen Valiente's bit of the Charge: "All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals". I just had to add my two cents, that's me. Nevertheless, I got the contacts of the speaker and am still to get in touch with him.
On Saturday night, Lady Bartlett hosted the Faerie Heart Circle. I was all excited for it, left my gay meditation group early to attend it, but in the end, I let shame, guilt and the boyfriend all together ruin the experience for me. The group is to meet again. I'll hope I know better next time.
The Osho Zen Tarot I bought on Amazon.com finally arrived and I started playing with it this weekend. I'm doing the card-a-day thing till I light up all the symbols in there and assimilate the whole vision behind that deck, which by the way is SO beautiful. I first used that deck in an Osho meditations workshop I got some five years ago in Rio. Now I finally own it.
So, I could bet that I am now just before the break of Dawn. Sometime soon, the Sun will rise again and the Light will be back. Meanwhile, I coccoon and hold the vision.
At this point of my life, with already a great deal of my identity figured out, much of my talents and personal weaknesses uncovered and a vision of what I want to do with my life pretty clear, I figure that the Red Thread's tossed me across the Ocean all by myself and partially language-deprived to force me to learn how to sort through levels of relationships. Specifically, to try to figure out how relationships and that mind-boggling 1+1=3 effect that you get more often than advisable for a predictable social life or the preservation of innocence.
I'm writing with a specific scene in mind, and while the topic of the writing is new, the scene itself is not. Yes, it's one of those meals with Jose's friends I'm still totally unused to and generally deprived of means to live through without feeling like an emotional mess afterwards. Last Saturday night, which is traditionally NOT my favourite part of the week, the topic was me. Me, overeating at the table; me, and the bad choice vegetarianism is; me and my tummy; me and how I am one of those people that love appearing on photos and everything else petty people love to talk about. I recall one of these cheesy posters with landscape backgrounds and pocket-wisdom sayings in cursive fonts that have always been pretty popular in Brazil from when I was a kid:
"Pessoas grandes falam de idéias. Pessoas medianas falam de fatos. Pessoas pequenas falam de pessoas."
[Big people talk about ideas. Medium people talk about facts. Small people talk about people.]
I can relate. And maybe due to seeing that poster so many times over and over, it probably sank in for good, and just staying in an environment where other people are the topic makes me sick. Being the topic is even worse. Let alone the little fluency in the language that frustrates a profoundly language-oriented person like myself. There were days when it used to be pretty simple. Back in my teens, when I was a loner, or in my early adulthood, when anytime I found myself in a freak show I simply phased out and moved on to swim in healthier waters. A frustrated coven, workmates, feri witchcraft, neighbourhood gossipers and--the ultimate crucible--extended family are people you can easily forward somewhere else you're precisely avoiding to be. Leaving money for your share of the bill, standing up and walking away used to be so easy.
In a good deal of not-so-recent, teenage, witchcraft-theme films, samples of the collective hysteria that a group in which relationships deeper than the intelligence of individuals comprised therein brews seem pretty much veracious and have been proven very much truthful and true in my own experience. And after a certain point in your life, when life becomes a little more complex, the risk is still present, but the on-off relationship switch ain't so close at hand.
It is possible that what makes people's irrationality looks worse and worse over time is the contrast you feel with your own level of (un)awareness(?) and sensitivy to your own Shadow, but I'm actually inclined to blame it on the 1+1=3 equation. When you take somebody else into your life and slowly begin to live life as two, you're necessarily bringing in whatever life they've lived so far. Bad luck it's a bunch of fossiles from the eighties, obsessed with looks, driven by the extremely old-fashioned perfect-body craze and heeding no spiritual callings whatsoever. Legacy. Dowry.
I'm pretty glad I've lived my own life before moving in up here, and I comprehend it's probably hard for him, too. Taking wonderstock again, I realise that too much of what I've been writing and musing about is actually the part of my life that used to not be my life. I might just as well use all my powers to deal with the new 'past' as I successfully did with my personal-individual one.
The Travelling God rules over Wednesday, but I've come to realise that the old nursery rhyme is more accurate. We, Thursday babies, have Far-to-go in our genetic programme. At least, I do. And the further I walk, the closer I am to a spiritual home.
Over these past two blogless months I have trodden many roads. In motion, roots naturally grow stronger: my relationships are more solid and mature and I finally get a sense of serenity around me, if only a bit over half of the time.
I have a job now. I can't believe I haven't been able to record this here in the Book of Crossroads yet, but here it is. Probably the biggest achievement I could've gotten in this first phase of my settling in Madrid. I do subtitles for Portuguese television, Fox channel. I used to be translating, but they decided my Brazilian flavour on the language is not welcome here in the Developed World, and now I'm just synchronizing the text the Europeans translate with the US actors' voices.
The office is way far from my home and due to bureaucracy and other visa issues, I'm having a real hard time getting my hands on my money (I still haven't received the October payment yet), but at least I have got a huge window behind my computer screen, wherethrough I can lay my eyes and let my spirit take off above the oak grove every now and then.
I dumped the old vocal coach. Too much shit to take from a very unprofessional person, to whom I had to pay 20 euros an hour, so I just decided that Der Abschied was in order. Because the Red Thread is always there, about two weeks later I got a heads-up for a more interesting (if only more expensive) vocal coach.
Speaking of which, I finally debuted as a working artist here in Spain. Last Saturday, I performed with my choir in a wedding ceremony in a small, well-off village just outside Madrid. The Wheel does start spinning after you say the first Yes.
And besides having some needs met, after two months of broken computer I've confirmed how important it is for me to write and to remain in touch with this Otherworld that the Internet is. It connects me to my kin across the Ocean and makes my world larger, giving me more room to roam. It performs a sort of chiropractic on the road ahead.
And the farther I wander, the more aware I get. The clearer I have what I want and what I need. If the Ways of the Land are my Religion of choice, I can certainly listen to the answers the Land gives me and I caress it with my moving feet.
On I walk. No Merry-go-rounds.
Image: The symbol of Camino de Santiago, the most important pilgrimage in the Western World, going through the beautiful city of León. Shot on one of my many trips this Autumn.
***You Would Be a Pet Monkey***
Smart and unbridled, you are truly unpredictable... and a little crazy.You're very playful and funny, but you're also moody and aggressive.You're have the personality of a wild animal, which is both scary and entertaining.
Why you would make a great pet: You're very smart and you know how to charm people
Why you would make a bad pet: When you don't get your way, you're a bit of a monster
What you would love about being a monkey: Playing interesting games with humans
What you would hate about being a monkey: Not being quite smart enough to be a human!
What Kind of Pet Would You Be?http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofpetwouldyoubequiz/
Image: One of Lady Cottington’s victims, displayed in her ‘Pressed Fairy Book’, by Brian Froud. Do not pity him. As soon as the book is open, he’ll be alive again.
1. First name and middle name? Middle names are uncommon where I come from.
2. What holiday is your birthday closest to? Spring Equinox (in North Hemisphere).
3. Favorite fruit? Any berry, but lately bilberry is the chart topper in my fridge.
4. Does it bother you when someone says they'll call you and they don't? Lately, I’ve been happy nobody calls me. Peace rules!
5. Are you allergic to anything? Anise.
6. Is there someone/something you want? Yeah, all the time. Also, I’m usually working on getting them.
7. When was the last time you went swimming? I can’t swim.
8. How many U.S states have you been to? None.
9. How many states have you lived in? Two. RJ and SP.
10. Have you ever lived outside the U.S.? Yeah, my whole life! :D
11. What's your favorite kind of alcoholic drink? Morangoska, I guess (Strawberry caipiroska, a very Brazilian thing: squashed strawberry, sugar/honey and vodka!)
12. Does anyone like you? Hell, yeah!
13. Do you have any strange pets? My boyfriend.
14. What is your dream car? A zeppellin. How do you spell that?
15. What'd you do yesterday? Wrote a poem, composed a blog entry, listened to Julia Cameron’s CDs ‘Reflections on the Artist’s Way’. I also gave my boyfriend head in the morning.
16. Are you bipolar? Yeah, but fortunately, I’ve truly learnt to live without the worst part of it.
17. So do you and your ex's have a good relationship? Yes, with ALL of them, except for one—who doesn’t have a good relationship with anybody except for his dog. Come to think of it, I’ve got more than enough reasons to believe that dog lovers are usually sociopaths to some degree…
18. Where would you want to go on a date? Neuschwanstein Castle, on a romantic date, but there’s no chance my boyfriend would enjoy that, so I guess the only time in my life I’ll be able to be romantic is when I go to a scorching hot nudist beach with roving dogs and no trees around. Or a place with tecnically perfect eighteen-century architecture and smoker-allowed restaurants. On a dream solo Artist Date, I’d choose Alex Grey’s Church of Sacred Mirrors, in NY.
19. When's the last time you were kissed? 40 minutes ago or so.
20. Has anyone ever sang or played for you personally? Yeah.
21. Ever been kissed under fireworks? No. I’ll have to try that one, but being kissed under the rain is marvellous!
22. What was the last text message you received? In the mobile, Diane telling me it was ok that I didn’t come that morning due to a last-minute change of plans here. Online, Somebody telling me his husband wanted to have a shower with me! :D
23. Have you ever bungee jumped? Oh, Gods, NO, but it’s on my to-do-before-I-die list!!
24. Have you ever kayaked? No.
25. Has anyone ten years older than you ever hit on you? All the time. They seem to like me better than ppl my age.
26. Are you an extreme racist? No, I am not.
27. What sound are you listening to right now? Nothing. Jose asked me to put his favourite singer, a VERY BORING greek moaner, and I pretended I didn’t hear him, so we’re in silence. The more I can postpone haris alexiou, the merrier!
28. What's your favorite song at the moment? Bon Jovi’s ‘It’s My Life’. After moving from my parents’ house, I lost much of my grunge roots and now I find myself loving one of the most anti-grunge groups of the 90s…
29. What was the last movie you watched? A documentary about Dragons.
30. When was the last time you went on a trip? I think two weeks ago, we went to a miserable, hot, dry village in the middle of España Profunda called La Seca.
31. Have you ever seriously vandalized someone else's property? Only companies I worked for. No, serious, I have received much more damage then caused my whole life.
32. Have you ever been punched? Yeah, at school, several times x(
33. What's the first thing you notice about the same sex? Lips.
35. What do you usually order from Olive Garden? Ok, no Olive Garden anywhere I’ve lived, so I’ll tell you what I order from Chinese deliveries: Fried Tou-fu/Tofu with spicy sauce.
36. Say something totally random about yourself? I hate the heat.
38. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity? In Zaadz about every two weeks somebody totally unknown came out of the blue to tell me I look like Orlando Bloom. In a way, I agree. Do you?
39. Do you have freckles? No, since when I was a kid. My shoulders used to be all freckled.
40. Are you comfortable with your height? Yeah. Now, I am.
41. Do you love someone right now? Yes.
42. How tall are you? 1,79 m. I think that’s 5’ 10” in English.
43. Do you speak any other language other than English? Yeah, lots o’ them!
44. Have you ever ridden in a limo? No, I’ll do what on my Oscar evening.
45. Has anyone you were really close to passed away? Hm, I’m not sure I was close to my grandparents.
46. Do you watch MTV? Only when I’m in somebody else’s house, in a party.
47. What TV show do you hate? Anything too heterosexual.
48. What's something that really annoys you? Well, everything I can think of right now is the average Madrilean habits. Smoking like there’s no tomorrow, angry shouting, spending over six hours sitting down spilling useless opinions on the table, general empty vanity, inability to truly listen, conservativeness and unleashed, uneducated dogs.
49. Do you think Paris deserved jail time? I don’t care.
50. Do you have a celebrity crush? Kinda. Not strong enough to be called a ‘crush’, though…
51. Do you have a pet? No.
52. What is behind you? Clothes Jose hangs on the back of the chair.
53. Do you drive when you go on long trips? No, I hate driving.
54. What's the latest you have ever stayed out? Well after sunrise, at university.
55. Have you ever thought that you were honestly going to die? Yeah, when I had the Dengue fever. The sensation is the worst possible, because your whole body inflammates, and when you take any medicine, it’s even worse.
56. Were you ever rushed by an ambulance into the emergency room? Yeah, less than 4 months ago!
57. What are you wearing? Yellow t-shirt and underwear. My uniform.
58. Who do you live with? Don José.
59. What color is your hair? Brown.
60. What color are your eyes? Hazel.
[Image: me in La Seca. Even there, the Moon shines, and the underground river flows. Despite the Drought.]
An underground river flows. The tepid waters won't leave us in need, and the flow itself connects all of us, despite our selfishness and greed.
And above, over the ice, we glide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDGuJfb--i8
Brian Boitano again, doing Nessum Dorma (performed by Pavarotti).
Brian Boitano performing Gypsy Kings' 'Un Amor' on solid ice. Beauty glides.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwh7dQtAjOI
Losses are for real. And a certain quantity of them can’t be made up, compensated, fixed, forgotten, forgiven, and not even substituted. Some things only come once in your life, and once they’re taken away no matter how hard one tries, sooner or later it has to be admitted: you lost something/someone dear. And you even though are can travel back in time to experience what you lost in your imagination, you cannot freeze time there, and you don’t have the power to un-do what has been done. You certainly can go ahead and revive what you lost ten years after, but that brings an awful feeling of retardation and immaturity that makes the whole experience even worse than it would be to just admit the loss.
I don’t think our culture is equipped with what it takes to deal with the feelings that an actual loss generates, and sadly there’s no disguise to the hard pain that an actual loss is. So we just use our best intentions and the sharpest knife culture equips us with: Denial.
When I share the pain of an actual loss with somebody, I am sometimes showered with reparation plans, make-up for the scar tissue and general useless Denial tools; or, more usually, I’m labeled with the victim-complex-that-lives-in-the-past thing. All in all, I’m in actuality unable to share the painful reality that I am living, so I just make the decision to not attempt it again. And another consequence of actual loss arises: loneliness.
When you lose, you’re alone in your loss. That’s how things go, and I don’t think it’s because people don’t want to share the loss, it is just that they can’t. A loss is ultimately an experience of radical inability to commune and communicate, a deprivation that cannot be fulfilled. That’s why to lose is the opposite of to win, and in turn that’s why when you win, you feel in community.
Rainer Maria Rilke, in his essential ‘Letters to a Young Poet’, wrote that we are all alone, and that this loneliness must be loved and trusted, because it teaches us to not demand counsel or rely on understanding. Furthermore, it gives us space to grow.
That way, embracing the loneliness, we are still not able to unwrite what has been written, but we can certainly garner the power to freely write our story from now on. The pain is there, what was lost isn’t; however, you guarantee that the real cause of actual losses—overboard interference in your natural processes—won’t ever again do you harm.
Therefore, just this time, I would like to ask that nobody leaves a comment here in my blog. Just for this entry. All your comments on my other posts are welcome, and have a profoundly positive influence on me, but this time I wish to savour the protective power of my loneliness.
Thanks for understanding.
I remember when I moved to São Paulo, lots of secret doors opening for me where many people took for granted as solid walls. Once, on a quite magical day, my mother went to visit me, and we went to the Japanese district. Passing by a huge fenced gate with a thick wall of treetops behind it, I ringed the bell. That’s an odd (if not risky!) thing to do, but it’s certainly something that sounds like me. Somebody must have pressed a remote-control button inside, because with a buzz, the fenced gate opened wide. I checked to see if there were dogs, and entered. Inside, I discovered a temple of Sukyo Mahikari, a pretty young Japanese religious tradition whose practice of Okiyome helped me ground, cleanse and break free from much of the garbage I had with me from my previous life experience for the whole first half of my São Paulo days.
I love these moments when my impulsiveness leads me to great discoveries. I sure feel that they are my connection to something higher than me, something that has received many names, but is much more of what brings us together than what tears us apart. A nimble and compassionate intelligence that sees us through and follows us so close that we very seldom acknowledge its presence.
My story here in Madrid, although a bit harder, at last begins to reveal this Red Thread weaving pieces of it all together, too, it seems. First, I take a free magazine on the bar. I always picks these up around here in Madrid, that’s how I give the Thread a helping hand (but the neverchanging skeptic Jose calls this a symptom of Diogenes Syndrome—when he’s generous, otherwise it’s just ‘collecting junk’). It all began with an article in a magazine about a place that has exhibitions, concerts, events and, my favourite thing to do in public, workshops! I took a workshop there on Sufi Poetry and Music, met Iñaki, who mentioned some weekly Harmonic Choir meetings almost for free downtown. There, I got the heads-up for a Tensegrity group on holidays for the Summer, but that will start again in September.
The other Red Thread I can track by now began with the Europride events. At the parade, some people were distributing fliers nobody took. I took them all, and looked to check what they offered. Of course 99% were those boring barbie sex parties with drag queen performances and ultra-expensive tickets, but one was about a group of gay buddhists who meet twice a month for yoga and walking meditation. For free, too. Today, I took the heart to go to the first meeting. Since I left São Paulo, I haven’t seen so many nice people together in one single place!
I’m confident more good things will come from there, if I stick to them. If I ever ‘made sense’ and said no to any of these, I’d have broken the chain, and blocked my own unfolding. The Red Thread is always there, and it takes you as far as you keep saying yes to it. Say no, and you cut yourself short of your promising blessings.
[Disclaimer: The Diogenes Syndrome entry on Wikipedia says that frontal lobe injury may be a cause. Don’t tell anybody, because everytime I talk to my mom she asks everything twice to test me and check if I had permanent injury from the accident in late April. I’d rather be collecting junk than being considered impaired by people a lot less capable than myself!]
Here’s a song I wish to dedicate to the omnipresent, multinamed Presence that guides, inspires, opens doors and weaves bits of the story of our lives together in one single piece. Written and performed by the great Dougie MacLean, ‘She Will Find Me’:
He walks he does not run
He has no overwhelming need to fly
His heart remains unbroken
no need to search the sky
But me I’ve found that place
I wander recklessly ..and
CHORUS
I know that she will find me
I know that she will find me
Even if I vanish without trace
O and though I’m running blindly
I know that she will find me
Hiding with the shadows that I chase
No-one can rock his boat or make standing
waves upon his sea
Everything is calm and even steady safe
as it can be
But me I’ve never found that place
I wander recklessly …but
CHORUS
Sometimes we search too deep
that’s when the darkness feeds our fear
We turn away from one another
just in case we get too near
Me I stand this mountain top
I shout so she can hear …and
CHORUS
Today is the full moon here in Madrid, so I figure this is the right time to wish everybody a happy harvest season. May you treasure all your goodies, count your blessings and honour your achievements. It is my considered opinion and personal experience that we're all usually more blessed than we can understand.
I wish you a merry Lúnasa, whatever you call it. Lammas, Thanksgiving or Croquet Party. :)
Yesterday I had one of those depressing five-hour meals with Jose’s theatre group, late night and a LONG way from home. Honestly, I should’ve known better by now that these things have a more devastating effect on me than staying alone at home eating ice cream. (Yum! By the way, I’ve tried Ben & Jerry’s this week, and feel in love!) But I’m always concerned about disappointing Jose, because I know that these things are very important to him, and he loves having me around. But I should’ve been cockier (this one’s for you, K!), and just declined when the invitation came. But the fact that I didn’t do my Morning Pages yesterday certainly didn’t help get me through the day without major emotional damage.
The whole talk went as usual, with the wisdom being judged by the volume of the voice, and although this time they fortunately took a couple of hours before starting talking about the two guys who left the group last month in bad terms, the first half of the meal was centred in the fact that I don’t cook meat for Jose and Jose cooks vegetarian food for me.
[Cultural Shock Interlude: In Spain, everybody is supposed to cook like a master chef, and every household features at least three cuisine books. In bookshops, a large, hardcover wonder full of pictures and printed in glossy paper costs about one-fourth of the cover price of an ordinary pocket novel or self-help book.]
Honestly, from the bottom of my heart, there’s a thousand things I can come up with from the very top of my mind that feels worse than cooking corpse pieces, so I don’t think I’d refuse cooking meat for him, but as I worked my way in defense, through all the shouting from all sides in tandem, the cigarettes and the AWFUL sandwich I paid lots of euros for that didn’t taste good or fed me (besides having TUNA when the menu said it was a VEGETABLE sandwich!), I didn’t know if it was more depressing to continue shouting or to just ignore everybody, keep fanning myself with my hand fan and be still. Naturally, for me the first possibility was the easiest, however high the price turned out to be. Again.
I could totally have survived the bizarre situation that’s somewhat part of my routine now in Spain, but as I shouted and remembered everything I cooked that Jose so promptly labels as ‘Feces’, including my first night here in Spain, when Jose invited his friends to eat my risotto and NOBODY at the table liked it, and made sure I KNEW they didn’t, I liberated emotional garbage I had been accumulating for the past three months. The torrential outflow of hurt feelings just covered the table. Of course I am aware that that kind of ride is usually a downward spiral. I didn’t surrender to it due to ignorance, though, but due to lack of strength to hold alone all the weight I had on by then. And down I went.
After midnight, we simply had to go, because very fortunately the metro here closes at half past one a.m., and Jose had to work early this morning. On the LONG journey home, the downward wild ride went on and on, and the haunting ghosts gained power. I realised how stupid I was for not fastening my seatbelt before the devastating experience of an extended meal with Spaniards, and felt worse. Then, I remembered some of the precedents. And especially, I began to resent Toledo’s procession in Spring, when they cover the city streets with thyme blossoms. It sounds like an impressive experience. We were in Toledo that day, but not for the procession. We were having a whole-day meal in about seven different bars and restaurants talking mean about people I have no idea of.
That metro ride was long enough to give me a waking-life nightmare.
This morning, I received a lovely private letter from a friend here on Tribe. He confessed calling me cocky in a private conversation with somebody else. I was immediately healed some because I knew at least somebody thought that high of me. Even though I put too little salt or too much cummin in it.
I need drumming, and I need the Bitch Medicine. To consult with the Bitchy One in the Otherworld. But alas, it’s too hot to lie down for fifteen minutes.
Image Disclaimer: Alas, no fruits last night. Only fish, meat and, thanks Gods, fried potato!!
Diane ordered me an extremely bittersweet task: a comparative review of two of my favourite chocolate truffles around, Trader Joe’s Truffle Bar and the brand-new Hershey’s Truffle Kisses, and provided me with the materials to deliver a good job. So, I took on the mission of trying both ambrosiae and enlighten those stuck with the tough choice.
Hershey’s is probably my favourite industrialized chocolate, and it’s one of the things I miss the most in Spain. Everytime they release something new, it’s certainly worth trying, because being such a small-town-America mentality company, if they’re releasing something, it’s gotta be good! Recently, I was amazed to discover that they exist only in three countries outside North America. I felt really blessed for being brought up in one of them. So, just imagine all the resistance new projects for new chocolate has to overcome within the company’s board of directors before it reaches the candy shop. Like babies born before the 18th century, every new treat from Hershey’s is victorious just for making it to the factory.
Trader Joe’s apparently has tons of neat stuff to try, and looks pretty experimental, risk-taking and avant-guarde from a distance, especially by the reports Diane deliver me regularly, so the fact that the Truffle Bar stood out within the wealthy and colourful treasure chest is worth notice. It’s definetely my favourite bar available, and probably the coolest idea in the history of Chocolate since the English added milk to it.
So, I was basically torn. However, while the Hershey’s Truffle Kisses are certainly delicious, I decided to stick to the Trader Joe’s Truffle Bar, for a myriad of reasons. First, because a bar truffle is certainly more innovative than a kiss truffle. TJ’s definetely has some merit in inventing a new way to deliver my favourite variety of chocolate.
Moreover, the filling of the bar is more creamy and less solid, like truffle fillings are supposed to be. When you bite a truffle, you’re expecting your teeth to sink slowly in the thick, silky core of dark chocolate and fat after it breaks through the hard shell of milk chocolate. Yum… The Kiss, however, feels too homogeneous on the way to its core. So one more point for the Bar!
Finally, I’ll risk to say the Bar has a merit in taste, too. Again, the Truffle Kiss is for sure a real delight, but it doesn’t taste like an actual truffle as much as the Bar does. There’s a bitterness to the traditional truffle that apparently Milton’s heirs were not able to reproduce faithfully in their new product. Trader Joe’s candidate, on the other hand, even when refrigerated, renders the exact sensual experience a homemade truffle would.
So, if you cannot get both, I say: go for the Bar! And ship me some if you like this review and find it helpful.
Or get me a job as a chocolate conoisseur. I have what it takes.
Something pretty neat happened yesterday in La Seca, a miserable village in the middle of the Castillan desert (a/k/a nowhere), a thirsty and sweaty two-hour drive from Madrid.
Two months ago, my boyfriend, his army of Very Serious Persons and me went to see a low-budget production of ‘Bodas de Sangre’, a play written by national playwright Frederico Garcia Lorca. The cast was all Cuban, so was the director, and producers, therefore the company obviously got around the way they could, inventing different (and cheap) ways to render works written by a hispanophonic writer Very Serious Persons love to petrify, to set on stone.
After the play, the VSPs army went all down on Julian, one of the actors in the company. Juan, his boyfriend, began the gangbang: “Julian, ¡es horrible!” Then down came the other two with their blades craving for creative-busting bloodshed. I was asked what I thought of the work. I happened to have enjoyed the show, and told them the truth. But certainly, according to them I was the Brazilian illiterate who didn’t know anything about Lorca’s genious and the definitive way it should be rendered. Experimentation and creativity is the original sin for VSPs.
They went on, smoking like their lungs are toys from the Chinese junk shop, drinking a barrel of beer, and trying to destroy Julian’s company, about twenty minutes after the performance we all won the tickets to watch as a generous gift.
Yesterday, in a awards ceremony for amateur theatre groups, Julian’s group won several awards, including best production, and Julian himself got a best actor in supporting role award. Jose’s group got only one award—for best actress.
The Very Serious People lost.
About twenty minutes ago, Jose and I were talking about how my sister likes to feel like a diva dancing in parties. He says everybody wants to feel like a diva, and I told him I have been one. He asked when, and I told him about Sampa, and my regular storytelling and singing to 150-200 people. He told me people never really paid attention to me, they were bored and looking in other directions. Mind you, Jose has never ever watched my performance on stage, and already had such a destructive idea on it.
Very Serious People have addictive, irrational behaviours, and never learn.
I just decided I’d post this entry. Jose won’t mind, because he knows nobody reads me, or looks at me, or even knows who I am.
When you are able to look close enough with the priviledge of immersion, it becomes pretty evident why Spain is the country that invented the most perfect icon of the dreamer who, against everybody else, fights for a cause only he sees. Like the Japanese Godzilla reflects Japanese national obsession with size and destitution of space, Don Quijote is a persona so suppressed in the average Spaniard’s psyche that no other nation would be able to so beautifully translate the faith in the Quest against all commonsense into a literary character like Don Quixote de La Mancha.
Listening to Blackmore’s Night song ‘Windmills’, dedicated to the valiant knight who sees powerful giants where commonsensers see mere windmills, an uncourted noble lady where average eyes see a filthy prostitute, and the urgency of a noble quest in a world gone meaningless for everybody else, I am reminded of my Friday late-night talk with my boyfriend´s pal Brunno, a Spanishman in love with the plastic Brazil I have never met other than on TV and touristic brochures here in Spain.
Brunno is an academic researcher dedicated to Brazil. He’s recently published a book on the diplomatic relationship between my native country and my current home, and is particularly enthusiasted about everything Brazil that is part of the tourists’ routine and have never really whetted my appetite. He acted surprised when I told him I don’t listen to samba in the house, and that I can’t cook feijoada. He was expecting to enjoy a circus ring freak show when Jose invited him to meet his Brazilian boyfriend and was caught surprised when he met an actual person committed to his own 3-D Humanity.
Brunno, as curious about me as almost everybody I’ve met here in Spain, asked me lots of questions about how I felt about my racial inheritance, about Internet relationships, about Brazilian politics, and many other things he already had particularly cristallized visions on. Everytime I gave a very personal reply and told him my personal stories, he put everything in check with statistical facts, remote historical distorted information, and vivid descriptions of how things were about 30 years ago, pulling me down from my flight, back to the black-n-white lenses Spaniards have permanently on. He was so invested in contradicting me he didn’t mind at all contradicting himself twice or three times in every point I made and he wanted to refute.
Sitting there on our balcony, making me speak my heart out to try to wetblanket everything I said, Brunno was the perfect picture of the stereotype I’ve designed for Spaniards over the past two months. Suave, confident, too sure of his convictions for his own good, ever ready for a good verbal time-out and profoundly envious of my sensitivity.
After a long chat, Brunno did acknowledge in private to Jose I’m very Brazilian. Maybe because I retain the abnormal sensitivity to the Unseen and an irresistible attraction to spiritual things, being from one of the spiritually wealthiest nations on Earth, something the average Spaniard deep inside seems to crave for. And deny.
Here’s the lyrics to the song ‘Windmills’, written by Candice Night on a melody by Ritchie Blackmore:
Far from the worn path of reason
Further away from the sane
He battles his shadows and demons
Fighting to light the way
And the dust and the dirt cloud his vision
Onward he rides unafraid
He fights the good fight for good reason
A star that refuses to fade
Still he braves his path…
Windmills only laugh
She was wounded and wild when he found her
He saw her through child’s eyes
She fell for the spell he was under
Each day a brand new surprise
And she watches with strange curiosity
She wants so much to believe
Trying to break the chains of reality
Dying to set herself free
*
Though he may appear tattered and broken
His clothes are shabby and bare
Still he glows like the light from a candle
With passion of one who still cares
There was always a rhyme to the reason
Peering out from tired eyes
The truth finally came in treason
So wrong, but so justified…
So wrong but so justified…
Windmills close their eyes…
Image: Don Quixote and Sancho with Miguel de Cervantes (their creator) on top, and my sharp eye. A beautiful monument in Plaza de España.
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