Save my soul

Some months ago I met an American girl that lives in Rome, with whom I developed a great friendship, and even went to visit her in the Eternal City. She was kind of my eyes in there, and ears too. With her, amongst many other things, I learned to pay attention to the sounds of the cities. She’s from New York and we talk about everything, just as if we’ve known each other since little kids. I hope we can grow old seeing each other frequently. There’s also a Spanish girl I met in the same occasion, from Madrid, with whom I maintain a nice relationship, although presently only trough mail – I’ve never seen her again, and maybe the time is coming to do just that or simply to let go. There’s also a young Belgian girl that works with me, with whom I hang out a lot. She’s quite nice, and although extremely young we get along very well. She’ll be leaving in early September, and the challenge is to make a relationship last after she’s gone. Last Saturday I’ve spoken with a tall Dutch girl, from Utrecht, and she seemed very nice. We talked mostly about Holland, but unfortunately only for twenty minutes or so. I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again, I think not – sometimes we loose, and that’s not even a shame, it’s just how things work. And today, well, today I’ve spoken for the first time with a German girl, from Dresden (the white dove), which caught my attention on the bus to work the first time I saw her – she’s an architect and beautiful as an alabaster statue! This one I can not let go – she has already made me dream a lot, with her smile, and I simply can’t throw that away!

The phonebook of my mobile phone has lots of numbers preceded by international dialling codes – as well as many others from my home country, of course – but I confess that sometimes, apparently for no reason at all, I enjoy sending messages I know will be read in distant locations in this world, in different time zones, in different weather conditions, in cities with different stories and maybe discussed after in different languages. Somewhere, for some reason or other, someone in this world remembered us at that specific moment! I don’t know if this planet is getting shorter or larger, and I really don’t care about that. I just have this idea that getting to know people from different parts of this world and, most difficult, build with them a strong and lasting relationship, will make my life worth living. I need that! I’m getting addicted to it.

Some years ago, I don’t even remember exactly when or where, I read this: “Some day someone, in a far away city, will say I am dead”. For some reason I kept this sentence in my thoughts always. Sometimes it came to the surface of my mind and just floated there for a while, and eventually it started to make some sense. To be loved and remembered by people from very different places, and missed as well, just as if I had lived all over this blue and brown and beautiful planet, will maybe be my personal statement about how I think life should be: lived without restraints and prejudice! That is, perhaps, the best thing I will ever leave here after I’m gone, and I do hope the ones who met me see it that way also! Maybe it’s not much of a statement, but the ones who met me and like me should maybe bear in mind that I need that to save my soul.

(Photography: Rome, Italy, March 2006 / Text: Coimbra, Portugal, July 3rd, 2006)

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