2 de Dezembro
Um ano volvido desde que retornei da República Checa. E como não somos imunes a simbolismos deste género, bem pelo contrário …
Back to the tropics ;O)
As I promised, here I send a small report with the essential of my impressions related with my return home. For sure there would be so much more to say, but well, I guess that it´s part of life also to accept our limits and imperfections (huge part of mine I would say, although sometimes I accept it too well, and adapt very fast to it ;O)
So, here it goes ... grab some food, some nice music perhaps, eventually someone massaging you, and enjoy your reading
2004-12-02
Last day in Czech Republic. I guess that there´s always a tremendous symbolic meaning in this thing of the last time that ...
Once I wrote, about this thing of the last time, if it´s not the last time when it concerns to space - we can always return (maybe we will faster than we think, maybe we will not at all) - it is for sure when is about time, each second is irreversible and unique, when it happens it automatically gets lost in our so fragile eternity. So, to say goodbye to Praha, to say goodbye to Czech, was also to say goodbye to an entire period of time (and why not to say space) of my life. There were just some few hours ahead, but actually – even seeming so abstract – there was something like 8 months and 10 days behind, and all that happened within them. All that happened ... seems still so abstract. Moments vanish like leaves taken in the wind. What remains? Some memories emerging time to time? Some photos? Some physical evidences?
Well, I think that what remains is everything that really touched the bottom of our existence, what remains we will carry with us in everything we do and are I guess, I suppose.
I waked up and saw for last time (last time?) the sun rising behind some hills that I could see from Judith place window.
I left Judith place (it was sweet Judith birthday, quite special day not just for me but also for our world, I wish we had more girls with her sensitivity spreading more and more velvet revolutions around O) in the morning and rush to the centre with my sweet little sister. For once it was nice (like in these last days I´ve been there) to see Praha more crowded with its natives than with the main plague of Praha: the tourists ;O)
Then we found our selves walking in the streets of Praha that took us up to the river bank. Moments that for several reasons, for sure, touched the bottom of my soul. Then and there, there was this view over the Vlatva, the colours, the smells, this picture around us. In which picture will we be when we physically meet again? ;O)
12 o´clock approaching, it was time to go to the station. Stations and trains always have this mystical aura that I really don´t know how to describe. This magic energy of so many lives, circumstances, converging and diverging from this same point, and the magic spell of the locomotives.
( ... )
At lunch time I met with Brigit, Petr and Micha. Fortunately Judith manage to came and still spend some very dear moments with us as well. It was my “last” meal in Praha and Czech and I could hardly want better circumstances, I mean, not counting with the fact that perfect circumstance would be to have everyone there in that moment.
After lunch it was time to go to the station to pick the luggage and afterwards go to the airport. It´s really a shame to admit that I was flying, it´s so damn polluting thing, and maybe any excuses I might use are just that: excuses, that can not hide the fact that maybe it wouldn´t have been impossible to make it some other way. Well, I promise next time to try to be a better boy in this aspect ;O) (one more to add to the list ;O)
Any way, my fight with the luggage was tremendous ... I prefer not even think about this moment, actually ironically I would say that it was nearly one of the most complicated moments there in Czech and in such a moment, when this mission seemed impossible ...well, I had Brigit there giving me such an essential hand (well, now that I´m reading this text one year after, I think that Birgit didn´t find any convenient way to get my bag in Portugal yet ;O). I can not even imagine what would have happened if Brigit was not there. The same stands for all the so incredible help that I got from several friends in the tough period between the end of my project and my return. Precious help whether with hosting me, storing my luggage, sending good energy, just being ... I feel very touched with everything that happened in this period, my gratefulness is giant to you all my dear people, you showed how reliable you can be and what to be a real friend means, it´s priceless, specially in the context of nowadays society.
Any way, those were my last moments in Czech and actually I didn´t have that much the opportunity to stop thinking about it. Things were happening, seconds passing, faster than the capacity to realise them coming and going.
Obviously it was also a quite emotional period. In the practical point of view, there was huge problem with luggage since I was quite overweight (I guess it was my punishment for flying ;O) and it was very confusing, I wanted to bring my stuff back but at the same time I coudln´t, well, once again Brigit gave tremendous huge help and in the end things were nearly solved up. Apart from that, it was really emotional period, I mean, and sorry if I´m repeating my self, I was not leaving an airport, or even the charming city of Praha, but an entire period of my life behind. And I guess that is very significative that in such moment I was not alone but with a very reliable friend by my side ;O)
Time to get on board was coming and so it came. In last moments I was sending all the sms that I didn´t have time during the entire day. I was spending those moments with friends and so I didn´t have time to focus on what to write, and when I write an sms I don´t like to feel as an office employee just answering daily mail, I like to be attuned with what I´m writing and feeling. It´s hard some times, there are so many small things constantly distracting us, reality and so on, but it´s not impossible when we try ;O)
From Praha to Frankfurt it was quite fast. In Frankfurt I searched for the terminal where I should get flying connection to Porto. Fortunately it was quite near. Suddenly I started hearing “foda-se” (the Portuguese word for fuck it) every 10 seconds, it meant that I was near to Portuguese people again. (Well, I really didn´t like it specially because it was Lisbon way of spelling it, therefore not the real Portuguese that as everyone knows is only spoken in Porto ;O)
There was a delay. SO I had to wait until we were informed that there was a change of gate, once again, fortunately, to another one very near. Since I had lots of stuff I was one of the last leaving the terminal. Frankfurt is quite organised airport, you know Germany, actually some of you are German, with recycling containers and so on, and while I was looking behind to the gate I´ve seen paper, plastic, packages, spread everywhere, a complete “bordel”, and in that moment, no matter how good soccer results might be, even if we were world champions, I felt ashamed of being Portuguese and of the general mentality of this people. Huge lack of consciousness and I´m not even mentioning ecological awareness. On the other hand if I was born here there was some point on it for sure, and I really love the sun ;O), and so such reality just means that it´s my mission, even more than in normal circumstances, to do something to build a new mentality for tomorrow. It´s fucked up to do it here, but it´s here that I must do it, and I guess there´s huge point in being here (or maybe stupidity is just contagious and so I have no courage of getting my ass out of here). And maybe things are never too good or too bad as we might tend to see them. But here in these aspects, like ecological consciousness, when they seem very bad actually they are even worse ;O)
At the same time, and while all this was happening, I had a kind of reverse culture shock, I was starting to listen my mother language again. And Portuguese people tend to speak a lot and loud (sorry for the stereotypes ;O). It was weird in the beginning, I mean, after 8 months, listen to dialogues from which you can actually get the meaning and understand the words again ;O) Well, but the fact is that I´m still adapting. I haven´t been in the street too much yet.
Home was approaching. I started having the first visual contact with the landscape of my country, with the north full of mountains and hills.
And all went as expected and we landed.
On the arrivals gate there was Monica (we know each others for several years ;O) waiting. It was very warm reception and it was so nice to hug her again. You can not imagine how tender this girl is, so sensitive like a flower, I´m still surprised how could her develop something like a friendship for a vandal and barbarian like I am ;O) I guess it was just the worst period of her teenage times ;O)
Any way, Monica had to work next day early so I didn´t want to make her loose even more time. On the way home I had a special request: “Can we pass by the Ocean?” and so we did.
And there he was, with the waves dyeing in the sand. Leça beach, there I spent so many moments of my life ... so many. To came back home means also to came back to Leça beach somehow, and there she was like always. As if in 8 months she didn´t notice that I was away, there she was silently glancing the other side of the Atlantic and all the lands and waters between, more Brasil than USA I would say, but it´s complex to explain you. Any way, Leça beach, I know that she noticed me, her silence has very few secrets to me and mine to her I guess ;O) And our relation can´t be dissolved by any time or space I believe.
Then we went home. Monica went ahead and she was for some moments talking with my parents. On the expected sign, when Monica opened the door, I entered in the house ... well, my mother started crying and hugging me, even thought she quite suspected I was coming (I don´t know how do mothers do this thing but they do, I guess that 9 months with a creature inside means something, you can learn all about it if you watch “Alien” ;O) and well ... how can I describe such moment? I had a camera but actually I found out that I had no film any more, I guess that the Gods wanted this moment to be secret or something like this, not revealed.
In general I felt that it was great to be back home, where I could find nearly all my comfort. At the same time it was a bit sad that I left some really good friends – the word friends in some circumstances is too limited - kind of faraway, but well, they are actually with me in my thoughts, heart, emotions, in everything that I am or try to be. (well, nearly everything ;O)
Well, but there was something missing in my home, there was a part of it very empty, Beckinha, the shecat, dyed in November in an accident. She was very lively and tender creature, she made part of my life during something like 12 years, so many moments and she was part of them, and it was weird feeling to came back home and didn´t find her. There was a huge absence there. Shakinha, the cat, seemed to be, on one hand, very happy to see me again, and he received me in very warm and tender way, and on the other hand kind of sad because he missed his partner.
I guess that this is the way life is and one way or the other we kind of must accept it.
Another lost, that I can not even compare to Beckinha, was my bicycle, that up to some level I rewarded as a pet as well, taking her everywhere and she taking me everywhere as well. It was stolen ... this is a country of thieves and so on, although I never had too significant problems with that. Any way, I bought it with my own money and puff, just vanished like that.
Good thing is that I have another bicycle and when I left I borrowed it to May, a very cool Spanish Erasmus student that was in Portugal last school year, so that she could use it in Porto, and, because I borrowed it, this other bike was not in the garage were it could have been stolen was well. I guess that it was a very good compensation for a good action. Karma thing working, we should pay more attention on this karma thing I guess ;O) Everything we do has necessarily some kind of consequence, which then makes me a bit fucked up considering my C.V. during all my youth and such ;O)
And this is it, do you want a moral for this story:
You should never read (even less write) this stories just before going to sleep, or you will feel even more sleepy.
