The strange rhythm of rain

Sometimes I just can’t help but whine. I guess it is human, right?

I should be graduated by now. Things didn’t happen as I expected though. It ruined my plans. I was always upset about that, so I used to curse the damn British professor who was so unfair, not only with me, because of that.

So here I am, taking Introduction to Poetry again. I guess I’ve been learning much more than I expected to.

One of these days I bumped into a poem that really caught me. It’s entitled Chosen Places by Philip Casey, an Irish writer. In fact, I bumped not only into the poem but into the poet as well, who was brought to Brazil by the Chair of Irish Studies at USP to lecture.

I know it seems as sort of cliché, chosen places or meant to be, is there such a thing? Am I meant to be here, not there? Do we really get to choose our choices or perhaps is it just much more comfortable to think that we do so? Should we trust that we are exactly where we should be? I often question myself.

I said that I bumped into the poem and so into the author because I knew about the lecture but I really didn’t feel like attending it. It was a rainy day, it was also my car-restriction day, so I couldn’t drive to Sao Paulo and it was going to cause me so much trouble trying to get there. Even so I did. Not particularly because I was interested in the lecture, I have to confess, it turned out that it did make my day.

Today was another day just like that. I was just so tired, it was so hot, the students are starting up another strike in my university; we’ve had so many that I’m done supporting or participating at all. I took this course in poetry once before, I took some other subjects in poetry is it really necessary to go today? Are we even going to have classes with all that mess going on there?

So I decided by going, (not particularly interested in the class I have to confess again but because I had to), the professor had previously notified that she was going to be delayed, almost everyone thought she wouldn’t come because of the strike, there were like five people in class. She actually did and brought along an Indian poet. We started analyzing one of his poems (not knowing that he was the author yet). The poem, Rain, seemed to be a paradox, showing images of drought and flood, sun and rain. It’s very well written. It felt so negative at first describing all the destruction a flood causes. Unlike what I’ve always thought, the poet said in India, nature is neither idolatrized nor glamorized, it is indeed amazing and gracious, yet it brings destruction. But even in terrifying tsunamis such as the ones we’ve recently seen or flood, there should be hope.

The anthology is entitled ‘Confluence’ and the anthology is based in this idea, the confluence between rain and rivers, it all mingles in one thing, the ocean, as a cycle.

I’ve got to thing about this cycle, the more I try to change, the more it seems that I am in the exact same place, in the same situations I should know better by now, stuck in reverse.

And then the author started talking about Indian culture, about the third eye, which was one of the images in the poem. The third eye worn by the Indians is the one that sees on the inside. The two eyes we’ve got can only capture sight, what is in front of us, so we should be able to see through that sight and look for what's inside, so we could realize that many times we spend time and effort where we should not.

And then again I started to think about how unfair life sometimes could be, and again I was reminded that at the same time when some people are really mean to us, for no reason, and we wonder how could these people be so reckless with the feelings of others, at the same time there are people who sometimes come out of nowhere to help us out, we wonder, where did that come from? Why is this person being so nice? It’s just the cycle. Things just balance out in the end.

I guess we should ask ourselves from times to times if we are growing and evolving, as it is the only thing really meant to be.

That was my wake-up call of the day, rain is so effortless, so should life be at times.

Breve nota sobre o sumiço and BJ/ AJ

Antes ou depois de Jersey, existe apenas uma coisa que não mudou em minha vida: a falta de tempo. Sim o mesmo e velho problema. O tempo cronológico, este tal relógio que nunca nos deixa parar. Antes de Jersey eu costumava trabalhar e estudar, professora de Educação Infantil e estudante de Letras na USP, imaginem os milhões de projetos: dia das mães, pais, índio, dia das crianças, dia da bandeira (WTF?) tudo era motivo pra fazer um projeto, que a Soraya tinha que deal with, e inventar alguma moda. Agora imaginem os milhares de textos teóricos e literários que um estudante de Letras precisa ler, Literatura Portuguesa, Brasileira, a tal da Linguística, and so on and so forth, além de ir a igreja com assiduidade, e ser responsável pela Escola Bíblica Infantil e todas as funções que fui adquirindo com o tempo sem perceber. That was me, before Jersey.

Depois de Jersey, sim, muitas coisas mudaram, eu diria quase que completamente. A igreja deixou de fazer parte da rotina diária, ou semanal, (anual? not sure yet) os amigos adquiriram um papel importante, terminar a faculdade prioridade, estágio e trabalho, e iniciação científica, fazer ou não fazer, eis a questão, e outras paixões surgiram ou resurgiram, o Francês, a yoga, a boa música, e o que fazer com o tempo? Back home (or at least the general notion we have from home) decidi juntar o útil ao agradável, dar aulas de inglês e continuar trabalhando com crianças. Uma das coisas que eu mais adoro na vida, sim, dar aula para os pequenos. Eles são chatinhos as vezes, sim, mas na grande maior parte do tempo, eu me divirto, eu aprendo, recebo os melhores abraços, os beijos mais carinhosos, as frases mais engraçadas saem de lá, "tie my shoes, excuse me please" é simplesmete priceless! Mas como nem tudo na vida é diversão, e a vida de grown up requer sempre mais e mais, começei a dar aulas para adultos, e da-lhe aulas a noite, e da-lhe aulas particulares nas horas vagas, e era uma vez o meu tempo livre.

Ok, eu confesso, a minha vida de au pair foi quase que férias prolongadas, eu sei que essa não é a realidade de muitas au pairs que trabalham suas quase 12 horas diárias, mas Thank God, eu tinha muito tempo livre e todas as vantagens que uma lucky au pair poderia ter. Isso não significa que tenha sido sempre um mar de rosas, of course not, but I did have a wonderful time.

A idéia deste blog foi manter estes dois mundos paralelos, o que foi super exciting no início, mas a vida foi ficando cada dia mais corrida, e quando não se está na sala de aula dando aula se está preparando a próxima aula, e ai vem família e amigos (I’ve got to have a life, right?) e o blog se tornou a última coisa a passar pela minha cabeça, I mean, eu queria escrever, mas estava sempre cansada e o que deveria ser fun se tornou um peso, I felt guilty for not writing, e como já tinha abandonado as minhas aulas de Francês, a minha yoga, podia abandonar o blog também, why not?

Um belo dia em Paraty, sim, a minha epifania deu-se em Paraty, eu fui lembrada sobre o porquê deste blog, a razão pela qual eu escrevo e muito provavelme a razão pela qual você, my fellow, irá ler, mesmo que inconscientemente, mesmo que até hoje você nunca tenha parado para se perguntar porque você lê tanta bullshit.

Well, Laura Restrepo, autora Colombiana convidada para a Flip, para os desavisados, Flip stands for Festival Internacional de Literatura em Paraty, anyway, esta autora definiu o ato de narrar de forma muito peculiar: "Escrevemos para perdoar. Para de alguma maneira perdoar a dor das lembranças. A narração é isso." E talvez seja mesmo esta a razão pela qual aqui escrevo.

Caryl Phillips, outro autor convidado, definiu Literatura com as poucas e simples palavras seguintes: “Literature is a mirror which helps us to see ourselves.”

E estas foram as razões pelas quais decidi not to give up on this, escrever, para mim, tem este caráter libertador, lidar com as memórias, de forma nostalgica, talvez, mas de uma forma gostosa também, rindo e aprendendo com os meus erros de percurso, (shit happens, right?) perhaps preventing some of you of making the same mistakes e talvez encontrar o meu path através deste mirror. When Oswald de Andrade raised the question: "Tupi or not tupi?", he knew what we was talking about. Tupi is the answer!

And here I go again. Tudo em paralelo.

BJ/AJ part 2

I said Soraya would continue, but here I am again. So Bear with me, dearests. On the last post I wrote about a few things that have changed since I left Brazil. Here's much more to improve the list and maybe give you guys a preview of how your life will change, how you'll end up shaken by a strong tornado and turned inside out, discovering and recreating yourself.

Before Jersey (BJ) I liked kids. I liked working and taking care of them. After Jersey (AJ), I realized I absolutely love'em. Especially my three. Before working as a an au pair I can say I've never had a job I did with so much pleasure and devotion,that took so much responsibility and care. But then again, I owe it to a boy and twin girls.

I love them in a way that I can't explain. I can say I thought I knew what love was and how easy and unpretentious it felt to love my family, for example. I had to, because they're family, and with that type of love you get used to it. AJ, it still amazes me, even after over 3 years with my crew, how my heart expanded to fit my kids and how much love grew inside of me, just for them, as if they were mine. How I can watch them sleep, how awful I feel when they're upset, how I can say no for their own good while holding a lump in my throat because I feel guilty, how I cheer and feel incredibly proud when they achieve something, whether first or tenth place,whether reading a whole harry potter book or writing a word correctly, whether hitting a baseball or jumping off a high dive, and even how I get sad when they go on vacation and I don't go because my family wants to give me a week off, and all I can think is that I'll miss them. I can spend hours writing you how my heart overflows when they are around. In a way, my way, they are mine.

But I want to have my own children. Even more intensively than I did BJ. Although life's leading me to believe that is not going to happen. It scares me when I think that, but I have faith enough to read through God's lines and see why I ended up in Jersey. It's a soul (and solo) journey to make me endure if I can't have kids.

After my au pair years, I understood a lot more about friendship. I've written here about how some people I met became my family, about how much more appreciation I have for my friends at home and how I am what they are. However, I also learned, hardly, that you won't connect with everybody, even though you might want to. Not every girl or boy you meet will not become a friend. A colleague, if you're lucky; an enemy, because that's life.

Be ready, because even in the au pair world, it's all about meeting the right people, at the right time, always (always!) knowing who you are.