quarta-feira, 23 de setembro de 2015
terça-feira, 11 de agosto de 2015
terça-feira, 4 de agosto de 2015
Pick Up A Weirdo - First day in Cusco
I walked past by 499 directly to 565. Where the
hell was 504? Was the universe on some kind of conspiracy against me?
I asked two men passing by if they knew the
hostel. One of them, the youngest, took out his phone and searched it on maps.
I wanted to take my rucksack and put it on the floor so I could rest my shoulders,
but I didn’t want to look weaker than I already was with my fluttering voice
and quick breath. I was still getting used to the altitude in the Andes.
Instead, I shifted constantly the weight on my back.
The hostel was ever further. I kept walking and
when I finally saw it, it was on top of a steep staircase, every time I lifted
one leg to take another step I felt the weight of the bag leaning me backwards.
Cusco was a city that seemed to not have been
touch by time at its fullest. You could hear the occasional noise of cars but
they were mostly muffled by the sound of screaming children playing, the birds
chippering, and tourists talking all over the restaurants. Sometimes even the
clock made its presence duly noted.
I sat on one of the park bench people watching
while I wrote on my notebook. Everyone was travelling in pairs or with their
families and I never felt more alone. How was I gonna make those four months
when every second that passed I was constantly reminded of something I had not
allowed myself to think about for so long? When there was no
distraction, no one to keep me busy?
An old woman sat next to me asking me if I was
writing on my diary. I tried to explain to her in the little broken Spanish I
knew that I was a writer, I was surprised when more Spanish words came out of
my mouth I had never been able to have a conversation with Spanish people when
I’d tried before. I guess it really was true that you need to be in the country
to learn a language. But as she started talking about how she was a divorced
women with the same number of children my mother had, and go figure… one of
them even had my name, I realized I was being scammed. Still I did not accept
to buy anything from her, gave her a few alms and she left contempt.
Soon after that I called it a day and returned
home. Home! That was a joke. I had no home. When I went back, where was I gonna
go back to? Portugal wasn’t for sure. But I still didn’t know my place in the
world.
sábado, 21 de fevereiro de 2015
sexta-feira, 20 de fevereiro de 2015
quinta-feira, 19 de fevereiro de 2015
Why writers lead better lives than others
As I was
reading an article on writing I came up with an advice that said “turn the
lights and music off, and listen to the rain”. This advice especially moved
because on that very same day as I was leaving the house I had been attentively
paying attention to what I like to call “the sounds of London”, my brain just
kept working as I was trying to absorb all in and trying to come up with ways
to describe how the two floor bus sounds different from the everyday car, and
how the planes fly over my head …
Later that
day I went to my bedroom and sat on my bed, that normally causes me to face a
wall of pictures and memories, but it was raining and there were small drops on
my window. I did not want to face a white wall, I wanted to look outside and
see the naked branches dance unrithmically against each other. I wanted to see
the tall pikes of the nearby church visible from my bedroom trying to touch the
grey sky, and I wanted to see that black small bird that had already wandered
too much from its tree.
The point
is, I did not needed to follow that advice, I was already doing it. And yes,
Beethoven’s Spring Sonata may have been playing in the background but that was
because the rain was a simple pitter-patter.
Writers,
just like artists, find beauty in the outmost ordinary things in life. My mum’s
green eyes smudged with brown near its iris amazes me. The cold seaweed smell
of the ocean soothes me. The way each note is played in a piano sends shivers
down my spine and the drumming of a djembe feels me with energy. We just record
everything in our minds and find beauty in what is simple.
A fellow writer once told me “writing is the
only form of art that does not require sense”. People need their ears to listen
to music, their eyes or touch to see and feel art, their mouths to sing and
their bodies to dance. Writers just feel all of those senses intensely but do
need none in order to perform their art, they just put one letter after the
other and make people feel with their imagination… is imagination a sense? I do
not recall learning that in school.
quinta-feira, 12 de fevereiro de 2015
Porque o amor é para ser celebrado aos pares
For this was seynt Volantynys day when euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.
Primeiro poema do dia de São Valentim
Reza a lenda que São Valentim foi condenado à morte por realizar cerimónias de casamento a soldados proibidos de se casarem. Durante o seu encarceramento, Valentim salvou a filha do seu carcereiro e ao escrever a sua carta de despedida, antes de ser executado, assinou-a "O teu Valentim".
O Dia dos Namorados está repleto de folclore e, por esta razão, porque não aproveitar para desfrutar com uma mistura de romance e mitologia ao ler "Sombras". (Lê o excerto grátis)
Promoção válida para encomendas registadas entre as 00h00 de dia 11.02.2015 e as 23h59 do dia 17.02.2015 (GMT+1), nos livros que integram esta seleção.
Por cada compra de dois livros que efetue oferecemos-lhe o de menor valor.
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