Old Cows and Falling Mata
I´ve just said goodbye to the Iracambi team for good. Virjilo made it sweet sweet sweet for me-he talked to me-and touched me on the arm or face or shoulder and connected with me-shared with me and let me share with him-as we walked to the bank together in the dying heat of Murie dusk-people still everywhere and kids just getting out of school-filling the narrow sidewalks so we could play ´meet again after the car´as we connected in portuguese. He was lovely. Alexandre tamben-as well-was lovely as he showed me his soaps at the rodoviaria in Murie where we all had met together-and spoke in english for me-the heat and time passing over me and me hardly aware of it passing. Gustavo and Karen came too, and Neia was there with her notebook for me to write in about Marcelos shirt which I wanted-and which they will make another for me.
It was perfect-so perfect like so much of Iracambi for me-like dream or a book or good tea-too short and too long and just fine in the end-fine demais-almost too fine in the end to let go and not want more.
Almost.
And the bus ride here when I saw an old cow and it taught me a few things-I thought-oh poor cow-old and thin with nothing but this little grass to eat all day-every day until it dies. Poor becuse its old and less beautiful and less valued and close to its death. And I looked again and the cow was so fine as it was-eating the grass as it wished and moving slowly-and sometime between its right foot moving and when it stopped I remembered my pity for it was born from fear of my life and death that cacthes me so fiercely. This time the cow was the bodeira-the cow herder-and I the cow to be herded-and it was good.
Good to see the tiny casa´s I´m getting to know all over Minas Gerais-that can be so beautiful inside-through cleanless or simpleness or a bit of luxury like tile-satilite dishes along with the Iparuba and Feridoso and Primafeira trees (local names I spell through phonetics) expansive land and rual and technology and people who are people who are people like all over the world.
I´ve know technology all my life but I imagine it swept the world off its feet. Because the people on these farm watch tv like you or me but they have the tv´s in these casas in this falling mata atlantica.
It was perfect-so perfect like so much of Iracambi for me-like dream or a book or good tea-too short and too long and just fine in the end-fine demais-almost too fine in the end to let go and not want more.
Almost.
And the bus ride here when I saw an old cow and it taught me a few things-I thought-oh poor cow-old and thin with nothing but this little grass to eat all day-every day until it dies. Poor becuse its old and less beautiful and less valued and close to its death. And I looked again and the cow was so fine as it was-eating the grass as it wished and moving slowly-and sometime between its right foot moving and when it stopped I remembered my pity for it was born from fear of my life and death that cacthes me so fiercely. This time the cow was the bodeira-the cow herder-and I the cow to be herded-and it was good.
Good to see the tiny casa´s I´m getting to know all over Minas Gerais-that can be so beautiful inside-through cleanless or simpleness or a bit of luxury like tile-satilite dishes along with the Iparuba and Feridoso and Primafeira trees (local names I spell through phonetics) expansive land and rual and technology and people who are people who are people like all over the world.
I´ve know technology all my life but I imagine it swept the world off its feet. Because the people on these farm watch tv like you or me but they have the tv´s in these casas in this falling mata atlantica.
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