laurinha-ae

[laurinha-ae]

Tenho um lado bem bobo que ainda acredita na bondade das pessoas. Só que a vida me trouxe um lado que desconfia, ergue a sobrancelha e fica com o pé atrás.

Clarissa Corrêa  (via cultivastes)

Estranho pensar que essa frase fez tanto sentido um dia. Mas agora, as coisas são complexas demais e ela dá uma sensação de quase conforto. É incrível a capacidade humana de traduzir de forma quase simplista o que a gente sente em meio ao caos.

[laurinha-ae]

Me divirto me sentindo anônima. Mas ser anônimo é só um acaso. Faço uma aposta com o universo e espero que não me achem por aqui. Nunca se sabe.

[laurinha-ae]

Adoro a sensação do frio quando encontra meu corpo e me abraça logo antes de me consumir.

[laurinha-ae]

Alguém um dia vai achar essa página e descobrir que sou maluquinha.

[laurinha-ae]

Vida

Vejo de longe meus pais envelhecerem. 

Até sair de casa tinha em minha mente a imagem deles com 30 e poucos anos, a idade que tinham quando eu era criança. Acho que preocupada demais em crescer acabei perdendo a parte em que eles começaram a assumir tudo aquilo que os avós fazem. As mãos que vão ficando mais finas, o lanche da tarde que agora eles tem tempo de arrumar na mesa, as selfies nos restaurantes que eles nem se preocuam em olhar se ficaram boas antes de enviar. As dietas maluquinhas, saídas com os amigos, porque agora não existe mais a responsabilidade de cuidar dos filhos. As missas. As novelas. Os jogos de futebol. As faxinas infinitas.

Sinto orgulho em saber que tudo o que sou são eles. Sinto-me grata em encontrar fragilidade em sua existência. Não são mais meus pais, não são só meus pais. São meus amigos, as pessoas que escolheram me ensinar a amar.

[laurinha-ae]

Amor

Quando estava na nona série tive de escrever um texto sobre o amor. Escrevi cinco antes de chegar em um que achava razoável. Cinco.

Desde então, nunca parei de falar sobre amor. Só sei que amo, e que amei. 

A vida me forçou a aceitar que nossa alma também é plural. Que a gente ama sim, toda vez que fala ‘eu te amo’. E que essas palavras são sempre verdades quando deixam nossa boca. Nos não falamos o que somos, nós não somos o que falamos. Porque falar e ser são um só. Eu existo em português, eu amo em português porque só sei sentir saudades em português. Enfim. Não importa.

[laurinha-ae]

Hoje

Saí de cidade grande pra cidade grande, de cidade grande pra cidade pequena. E agora me encontro aqui, sozinha, no fim do mundo, no fim da ilha. Vejo os veados todos os dias, e os patos, e as focas, e as baleias. Bem, na verdade eu vejo as baleias na minha imaginação, elas nunca apareceram para mim. 

É tranquilo, é calmo, é cheio de paz. Mas me faltam palavras pra comunicar o que sinto, conectar. Me sinto rasa quando falo com as pessoas. Ainda assim, feliz. 

A palidez que me veio no inverno está indo embora. E pela primeira vez em anos me faz bem ver o sol, sair no sol, pedalar pela cidade. Também saio para fazer caminhadas com desconhecidos. Aquele tipo de coisa que seria perigosa, se não fosse minha única opção. Subo montanhas. E quer saber? A vista é sempre linda do outro lado.

[laurinha-ae]

Vancouver’s public transportation map

- source: translink.ca

[laurinha-ae]

There were no pictures taken the last time I saw you. 

Neither the time before that. 

If you spend some time trying to remember we only ever took pictures when we met. That summer we spent abroad. I never expected to allow strangers to invite themselves to have lunch with me. And, yet, that’s the beginning of our story.

The scene of you approaching me will be forever imprinted in my brain. I was apprehensive, but someone else closeby was so quick to accept the invitation that I had no reaction time. I suddenly found myself seated with two people I barely met, and exploring Vancouver with them. After completely disregarding the “don’t talk to strangers” rule for the first time all sorts of scenarios were created in my mind. Catastrophic endings to that day were traced in my thoughts, none of them ever became true.

Conversation flowed so naturally we kept matching our schedules day after day after day. 

We ended up seeing each other nonstop that month, going to every park we could find, hunting sunsets at the beaches, entering random stores to buy locally produced gifts for our families, tasting a variety of restaurant food… We would sit on the big tables with the city map opened to locate the neighbourhoods we hadn’t been to, just so we could hop into a random bus, expecting our newly acquired knowledge of Vancouver’s public transportation system to be right. It usually was. We called that “intuitive tourism”. 

We used to take pictures in every spot we visited. Pictures of the places, pictures of ourselves, and lots of pictures of the flowers. Don’t ask me why. And we had so much fun. I’m up to this day really fond of the conversations we had. It’s not every day that I find someone who can pretend to understand the art in the museums as well as I can. And who can actually elaborate complex logic theories about the paintings and the styles, without proclaiming anything “meaningless”. We reached a silent agreement that art can never be meaningless if it is in a museum, although we recognize sometimes it is just beyond our comprehension, and that’s okay…

At some point our conversations shifted to our personal lives. I remember you were heartbroken, and I had just started liking someone. The funny coincidences of life. 

Someone could say the pictures diminished around that time and try to find a deep complex meaning, as we do with all art. We both know that is far from the truth. Photos stopped being taken the second my digital camera broke and we had to rely on your cell phone to take them. Simple as that. That camera was never fixed after Vancouver’s summer, so our other trips back home never got a chance to be registered.

I found in you a forever friend. And I’d like to admit I don’t miss the pictures. All of our little adventures live rent free in my heart.

[laurinha-ae]

intuitive tourism: to explore a city using logic, not Google Maps. To practice intuitive tourism one should try to remember all they know about a city, to try to reach the desired places based on their memory or by asking other people in the street (only in emergencies). By adhering to this modality, you are likely to find super great places and exercise your observation skills.

[laurinha-ae]

Interactive museum in Vancouver

- source: my own phone gallery, picture taken by me

[laurinha-ae]

Flower picture from the broken camera

- souce: my own phone gallery, picture taken by me

[laurinha-ae]

This room resembles the room we met

- source: https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/153966880982541522/

[laurinha-ae]

I lied to you.

All those years.

Pretending I didn’t know how we met, how could you fall for that? You know too well I remember everything. I didn’t get a chance to tell you that after you came back from Finland. Pandemic. And I’m sorry I’m making you break your isolation next week to say goodbye, but I’m moving away soon, you know that. After two years without seeing you smile I couldn’t go away without giving you a hug. It would be wrong and impossible to endure.

It’s funny how much we changed after the last time I saw you before your departure. I wonder if anything will feel odd once we meet again. You became bald, now you have a full face beard. I adopted a brand new wardrobe. You lived alone for the first time, and now you have decided where you want to establish your career. I entered university and completed a whole year of it, without ever stepping on campus. 

It’s been more than 700 days. 

It sure doesn’t feel like that after we spent nights awake on calls, trying to fix my codes. I was so happy after my first programming lab, after I finished my Arduino project… I credit a lot to you, for believing in me and for having patience to explain to me how arrays work. There was also that time we decided to workout together. Cameras on, we were both wearing yellow! Instead of exercising we spent a great deal of time talking about our matching shirts… 

And yet, you still think we became friends naturally, as if it was destined to be. 

Let me tell you, before it is too late, how it really happened. 

I met you at a school meeting about the newspaper. We just said “hello��� cordially, as one does when they see someone for the first time. I learned your name. The following day I came back to the meeting room during lunch time. I was a little sad, and a lot overwhelmed. You were there, editing the newspaper and you let me stay. We talked a little bit, you made me smile. I bet you have no recollection of any of that. A couple weeks later, someone in the newspaper team decided to change something in your design. I backed you up because you were not there, but I really couldn’t avoid anything, the changes were made. I remember you were appalled all the spacing was uneven once the changes were made. After that, you taught me how to use InDesign, while you tried to save as much as you could of the lost symmetry and organization. And then, only then, we became friends.

So, yeah… We can actually trace all back to the very day it all started. 

[laurinha-ae]

The cover of the 1st newspaper we published being both on the team

- source: picture of cover of Jonal Carpe Diem - Fundação Torino

[laurinha-ae]

- source: painting from my cousin’s house made by her