Curves and Spiral
Learning Iracambi
Things here move differently. If you watch things then you see them in curves-only pieces visable at a time-shades different each time you blink. Like watching the Mineiro, the beautiful one from Minas- who plays the guitar like nobody´s business-you see it in curves... first- an unintelliable stream of Portuguese and half-smiles..then you can notice later that he spoke only to two people and later yet that he looked at you too many times...
Curves of what was happening, and no picture of the whole thing-curves and curves of the same thing..And you can´t follow anything for too long without curving yourself, becoming more of the curves you try to follow and starting to spiral. This is the Brasil at Iracambi that I´m beginning to know. How can I explain these sensations-they feel like truth and reality.
What do I mean?
If you aren´t flexible, you will hurt and eventually break. Flex when people can´t understand you and don´t want to continue the conversation of hand movements and slowly repeated phrases..flex when it´s so much colder than you thought- and the rain-chuva sem pare- rain without end...flex when you cook carrot soup on your night in the cozinha-when you´ve made it sweet and spicy- but the Brasilians don´t like it-can´t eat it-it´s that bad to them.. and what can you do?
So you flex-bend and curve..you spiral. Curves and then you spiral, and you are then the curves and what can you do- you are what you were seeing. If you didn´t like what you saw, what does that make you? Questions you only ask when it´s late and you aren´t sleeping because there is a spider behind on your shelves and the day was too long-when your sleeping bag is slightly damp and the vista-the view from your back down- prostate position shows you bits of the sky where the roof holds its buracos-its holes that thread neatly throughtout it..Then there are days that push at your capacity to hold beauty-days so good you don´t want to think or write or talk because that could only dimish everything that is that moment...
Like the nursery- viveiro.. when I walked through it..
Oh-passing through rows of growing seedlings in the nursery-the sensation that spread over my back- like the thought of an old lover..and it needs silence-there is such a need for silence here-and to write.
These days..and then those days...
God if I didn´t take a walk alone and sit-even for five minutes-I don´t know.I had no idea the extent of the learning curve-God-it´s huge. The never ending stream of Portuguese-it´s so hard to maintain stregth and composure-I can´t underatnd so much of it-only such small pieces when I put myself into it-and I just can´t say what I need to-forever asking ´how do you say..´hoping the person I ask knows...Frustration like walking through a marsh and the water around my ankles always. Not so horrible or impossible but constant constant constant. And the confusion-the noise of this place and these people-how can you know-it´s huge-like the florestas around us. And there´s so much inside me calling to be sorted-to be recognized even-if not worked through-that´s huge. God to learn so much, and my impatience to learn it-huge huge huge. Everything here has that feeling.
And the thought-of course the thought-the one that hides above my eyelashes throughout the day-the thought of 3 months here-of the work here-of not making it .. and it´s huge. So fucking scary, and so fucking huge.
And the nights...so many festas in the nights...
The trick of being able to appreciate the small things..when they´re so sweet it almost feels like an illusion.
Like the milk here-from cow to you, God it´s good. With this milk I´ve had moments that make me sureI will always drink whole milk if it tastes anything like those moments...Like a 8.30 am moment with the taste of your sweetened steamed milk and the thought of the vaca perto-the cow close by that gave it..que cheira bom-what a smell-and the vista-the view of Iracambi green and mists...mists that you can feel in the slightly damp air-just cool enough to make you shiver once..an 8.30 am moment in a day that started at 6.15 am, dishes were done before, and theres work of course to be done after, but that moment with the milk-the whole milk from a cow that might be right inside the vista -I will always drink whole milk it if tastes anything like this moment.
And last night-just one more festa. I felt like I was in the womb of Africa, Brasil and Antarctica-I get dazed thinking about the reality of it. Was it reality? I don´t know-bodies spinning, candles faltering in the playing breezes that the rains bring-the music-God these beautiful and sensual brasilian songs-playing along our skin and the darkness hugging it all closely. The bench I sit on must remember it-the reality of it-the bodies lay out on it-the anklettes and feet and hands beating it-trying to move with the music-and more-it must hold so many more nights like it-and different too. Rectangles of wood and circles of light and lines bent stragely that danced around the fire and then around again-sweat and smoke and the smell of wet earth settling into piles of unruly curly/wavy/straight and dreaded hair.
This movement-it´s different from what I know.. and I only know it in curves.These are my days and my nights in curves..only pieces of it- there is more and then some..and shaded with different feelings and different atmospheres and different people..different each time things move and curve. Things here move differently..but it´s just life here-changing continually and spiralling like me.
Things here move differently. If you watch things then you see them in curves-only pieces visable at a time-shades different each time you blink. Like watching the Mineiro, the beautiful one from Minas- who plays the guitar like nobody´s business-you see it in curves... first- an unintelliable stream of Portuguese and half-smiles..then you can notice later that he spoke only to two people and later yet that he looked at you too many times...
Curves of what was happening, and no picture of the whole thing-curves and curves of the same thing..And you can´t follow anything for too long without curving yourself, becoming more of the curves you try to follow and starting to spiral. This is the Brasil at Iracambi that I´m beginning to know. How can I explain these sensations-they feel like truth and reality.
What do I mean?
If you aren´t flexible, you will hurt and eventually break. Flex when people can´t understand you and don´t want to continue the conversation of hand movements and slowly repeated phrases..flex when it´s so much colder than you thought- and the rain-chuva sem pare- rain without end...flex when you cook carrot soup on your night in the cozinha-when you´ve made it sweet and spicy- but the Brasilians don´t like it-can´t eat it-it´s that bad to them.. and what can you do?
So you flex-bend and curve..you spiral. Curves and then you spiral, and you are then the curves and what can you do- you are what you were seeing. If you didn´t like what you saw, what does that make you? Questions you only ask when it´s late and you aren´t sleeping because there is a spider behind on your shelves and the day was too long-when your sleeping bag is slightly damp and the vista-the view from your back down- prostate position shows you bits of the sky where the roof holds its buracos-its holes that thread neatly throughtout it..Then there are days that push at your capacity to hold beauty-days so good you don´t want to think or write or talk because that could only dimish everything that is that moment...
Like the nursery- viveiro.. when I walked through it..
Oh-passing through rows of growing seedlings in the nursery-the sensation that spread over my back- like the thought of an old lover..and it needs silence-there is such a need for silence here-and to write.
These days..and then those days...
God if I didn´t take a walk alone and sit-even for five minutes-I don´t know.I had no idea the extent of the learning curve-God-it´s huge. The never ending stream of Portuguese-it´s so hard to maintain stregth and composure-I can´t underatnd so much of it-only such small pieces when I put myself into it-and I just can´t say what I need to-forever asking ´how do you say..´hoping the person I ask knows...Frustration like walking through a marsh and the water around my ankles always. Not so horrible or impossible but constant constant constant. And the confusion-the noise of this place and these people-how can you know-it´s huge-like the florestas around us. And there´s so much inside me calling to be sorted-to be recognized even-if not worked through-that´s huge. God to learn so much, and my impatience to learn it-huge huge huge. Everything here has that feeling.
And the thought-of course the thought-the one that hides above my eyelashes throughout the day-the thought of 3 months here-of the work here-of not making it .. and it´s huge. So fucking scary, and so fucking huge.
And the nights...so many festas in the nights...
The trick of being able to appreciate the small things..when they´re so sweet it almost feels like an illusion.
Like the milk here-from cow to you, God it´s good. With this milk I´ve had moments that make me sureI will always drink whole milk if it tastes anything like those moments...Like a 8.30 am moment with the taste of your sweetened steamed milk and the thought of the vaca perto-the cow close by that gave it..que cheira bom-what a smell-and the vista-the view of Iracambi green and mists...mists that you can feel in the slightly damp air-just cool enough to make you shiver once..an 8.30 am moment in a day that started at 6.15 am, dishes were done before, and theres work of course to be done after, but that moment with the milk-the whole milk from a cow that might be right inside the vista -I will always drink whole milk it if tastes anything like this moment.
And last night-just one more festa. I felt like I was in the womb of Africa, Brasil and Antarctica-I get dazed thinking about the reality of it. Was it reality? I don´t know-bodies spinning, candles faltering in the playing breezes that the rains bring-the music-God these beautiful and sensual brasilian songs-playing along our skin and the darkness hugging it all closely. The bench I sit on must remember it-the reality of it-the bodies lay out on it-the anklettes and feet and hands beating it-trying to move with the music-and more-it must hold so many more nights like it-and different too. Rectangles of wood and circles of light and lines bent stragely that danced around the fire and then around again-sweat and smoke and the smell of wet earth settling into piles of unruly curly/wavy/straight and dreaded hair.
This movement-it´s different from what I know.. and I only know it in curves.These are my days and my nights in curves..only pieces of it- there is more and then some..and shaded with different feelings and different atmospheres and different people..different each time things move and curve. Things here move differently..but it´s just life here-changing continually and spiralling like me.
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