If this world was made out from paper the sun could easily burn it down

(To my friend Ioana Bohalteanu Caramiziu and her beautiful world)

Sometimes, when I’m alone, the strangest thing happens. When I look to a given point, doesn’t matter what or when, either in the street or indoor, I feel like I’m entering a totally different space and time, a totally different world, with beings totally different from you and me. When that happens I’m always conscious of everything around me, I never loose awareness of where I am. It’s only that in those moments I live, for a few seconds or minutes, in two separate and very distinct realities. It usually happens when I have the sun in front of me and its glare penetrates through my eyes directly into the inner part of my body. Even when it’s cold I can feel the warmth of that other place to which I travel.

Basically, it’s very much like this one. I can’t even tell why I feel time in there is not the same as the one in here, it’s just something I feel without being able to explain. But I do feel privileged to be able to visit that place every now and then, to make me remind, to make me feel more in touch with the human part of me, to make me dream and relax for a little while.

In there I never had the chance to speak with no one. I tried but never succeeded, even though it’s a world full of beautiful beings just like you and me, but different. They’re so ethereal and fragile, like butterflies in summer prairies, like they’re made out from paper tissues with all the colours available. Not at all like us, so strong, so tough, so everlasting and resilient.

Today I went there one more time, only if just for a few seconds. It was in the afternoon and I was in a coffee table in a square. The autumn sun was making damage to my eyes and the people were crowding the place, touching my arms and back and making me feel uncomfortable. I stared up, to the cloudless sky and to the sun, and suddenly I was taken again from here to that place. It was all very brief, but in front of me there was this woman, in red, so beautiful and delicate, made out from paper. In those few seconds I realised how I could crush her but never would. In those few seconds I realised how violent we are. In those few seconds I wanted to kiss her but never could. In those few seconds I realised how lonely we all are in this earth. In those few seconds I understood finally why they exist: to make us remind all we could be if we really tried.

(Photograph: Rézekne-Daugavpils trip, Latvia, September 29th, 2008 / Text: Tomar, Portugal, October 19th, 2008)

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