Like fish in a pond

This night I woke up with the rain. It was around 4 a.m. and I could hear it tapping the plastic chairs outside the door, by the garden. The wind and the rain made me think about winter, although it’s July, and I felt a strange nostalgia. Will I miss this? I just remember staying awake for long...

I remember some years ago, while I was waiting for a train to come smoking a cigarette and staring at the rails, noticing a butterfly. It was circling around, until it touched the rails and stood there quietly, just slightly moving its wings in the heat. My eyes couldn’t stop staring at such fragile beauty, waiting for the moment when it would rise in the air again, showing all of its colours.

Yet it didn’t. That butterfly had reached right there, before my eyes, the end of its life. Only a few minutes had gone by and already its coloured body was being blown by the breeze, lifeless. Sadness took hold on me and made me think about how we sometimes forget to notice the constant fragile miracles that happen everyday around us. It had reached the end of its cycle, as we all will one day.

I’m used to think about how my existence is empty and worthless. Most of my years have been spent complaining about everything, always wanting more, and forgetting to hear and listen. I really have to change that! Now, as I’m preparing to leave on a trip for a long period, I don’t know where to store these emotions of mine anymore. I realise I’ve lived magical moments without giving them much credit, although my life wasn’t as perfect as I expected it to be. We may be fish trapped in ponds, but even so there’s always beauty around us if we’re willing to open our eyes and see.

I haven’t reached the end of my cycle yet, and from now on I will try to always notice how wonderful it is to be here in this world, and how beautiful things surrounding us can be. I think it’s ok to feel nostalgia on stormy July nights, and to feel a little scared about tomorrow too, but I do hope that now that I’m preparing to jump to another pond the ones who know me never question what I feel about them and the reasons of my decision. It's not that I dislike this pond, it's just that I need a bigger one now. I wish I could take them all where I’m going, but instead I will try to bring back the best of me to rejoin them soon.

(Photography: Porto, Portugal, July 2007 / Text: Coimbra, Portugal, July 23rd 2007)

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1976

Agora tudo é mais fácil. Os dias vão-se sucedendo aos dias e a decisão tomada acaba por decidir por mim as rotinas e os hábitos diários. Agora é só deixar-me levar e cumprir o desejo de outrora como um homem, mordendo os lábios em silêncio para não deixar transparecer a angústia e o medo, não esquecendo de guardar na bagagem a rede encantada de capturar os sonhos nas planícies...

Tinham-me dito, naquele tempo, que haviam anjos em Kinshasa, e eu na tenra juventude acreditei e não cuidei de olhar para o caminho já feito e de notar que eles tinham ficado lá atrás, longe já, agitando as suas pétalas de desespero no lado de lá da fronteira vermelha e negra. Espectros esfarrapados e em desespero lançando na poeira daquele chão martirizado as últimas lágrimas do adeus. Não era em Kinshasa que estavam, não! Os anjos estavam longe dali. Ali quem estavam eram homens fardados que para nos protegerem de nós mesmos nos arrancaram a todos as asas e nos disseram que doravante a nossa vida seria assim e assim…

(Fotografia: Porto, Fevereiro de 2007 / Texto: Coimbra, Portugal, 8 de Julho de 2007)

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