SINTRA - QUINTA DA REGALEIRA

A Quinta da Regaleira, em Sintra

Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra

VILA NOVA DE CERVEIRA - RIO MINHO

O Rio Minho, em Vila Nova de Cerveira

The River Minho in Vila Nova de Cerveira

PORTO - SÉ

Mais uma do Porto. A Sé.

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Another one of Oporto. The Cathedral.

LINE ("An actor's lines")

Line (No sentido de "an actor's lines", por exemplo) = Fala (e não "deixa")

A deixa é apenas a fala ou a acção que indica a outro actor o seu momento de entrar em cena.

Se um actor tiver um texto com cinco "lines" (falas) e houver um outro actor que sabe que deve
entrar em cena quando o primeiro disser a sua última fala, essa fala é a sua deixa. As outras são apenas falas.

Cue = deixa.

MUSINGS ON A DEPRESSIVE DAY… (A reflection on living with myofascial syndrome)

This text doesn’t really have an introduction, development and conclusion and so you can´t really say it’s a story...

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I guess I keep expecting a new development to take place, but that can take years or even never happen, and if I keep waiting to post it, it might stay forever locked up in some drawer, so here it is:

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Sitting on the chair she avoided to leave, Camila crossed her arms and wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders, not so much for the warmth, but as if she could push away that dampness which not only weakened her muscles but also soaked her soul. Bored to death, she got up to walk to the window and didn’t even pick up the small white wool blanket which fell from her lap, is if the despise she felt for what her life had become extended to that object without a will of its own. She watched the rain outside as if her face was a mask of inexpressiveness. It was a cold persistent rain.

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How could a person feel so angry and so indifferent at the same time?

There had been a time – after the more complicated times of childhood and adolescence, when it seems you’re never good enough for the world and the world is never good enough for you – that everything in life marvelled her. Even rainy days just like that one seemed filled with their own and magical charm. She used to become as enraptured listening to thunderstorms as she did listening to classical music, and the feeling that took over her was the same: the feeling that the sounds did not only enter through her ears but though all of her body, invading her to the tips of her fingers, and that the intensity – sometimes even the violence – of thunder or of the instruments had something liberating about them which made her feel lighter.

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Yes, she had had existential doubts which had dragged her through deep depression and later, actual problems, harder to accept because they’d been the consequence of someone else’s mistakes and not her own. But although it was true that, like other people occasionally told her – sometimes in an accusatory tone – that that had hardened her and made colder her relationships with other human beings, it wasn’t so much the fear of being once again hurt, betrayed or whatever – as psychologists, always so sure of their certainties, would say – that kept her on her guard at each new friendship and made her cautious even in the older ones. It was the fear – the panic – of the practical consequences which she now new could threaten for years the things she was most afraid of losing, like a roof over her head.

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But then, her spirit slowly made peace with the unavoidability that nor religion, nor philosophy nor science – on which she had once put all her hopes and perhaps because of that was now even more suspicious of it than of the others – could never give her the answers for the questions with which mankind has struggled since the dawn of times. And as if a long lost piece had fallen into place, she also realized that happiness does not lie on defining two or three major goals and achieving them – or even just trying to achieve them – before death takes you. Yes, it was good to have ambitions – personal and/or professional – but now, for her, they were just guidelines which helped her find her way through the maze of life; they were no longer the ultimate purpose without whose achievement life is not worth it.

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And she suddenly understood that she could be happy if instead of dwelling on the great questions, she enjoyed the small marvels that the world offers every day. And so she learned to appreciate the presence and singing of the birds, the soft transparency of the water, the tepid warmth of dusk after a sunny afternoon, the briefer or longer moments in the company of those she loved. And although aware that it had been the result of great effort, she felt privileged to be able to work in something she loved so much that her profession wasn’t what she did, it was what was.

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And although she sometimes felt that the gods had decided before she was born that they didn’t want her to be happy – for whenever a serious problem was apparently or actually solved, another one, equally complicated, fell on her – she spited them by being profoundly happy despite the adversities. And so, both the shiniest sunny day and the stormiest night aroused in her such wonder that it was as if her body couldn’t contain it.

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And sometimes she looked at the Camila from before, not in pity, for she had too much respect for the path she had travelled, which after all, she knew had taken her to the place where she was now, but with the benevolence of an older person who sees a younger one making her mistakes and smiles with tenderness because she knows there’s no use in trying to talk sense into her about things you only learn from experience, but also knows that she can trust her to someday find her own way.

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But it was as if Camila’s new found joy was the greatest insult ever to the gods and as if they decided that this time they would have to break her for good. And so they took the only thing Camila valued higher than her own life: her health.

One day, following some work more demanding than usual, Camila started to wither away. Exhaustion as big as the world took over her and everyday her body hurt as if she had been run over by a rogue truck.

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Her mind started to play tricks on her. Her memory, her brainpower, her ability to concentrate, her reflexes, her balance were maimed. Suddenly, she had become not only physically less strong but also less intelligent. That caused in her a kind of insecurity she had never felt before, not even in the most complicated years of her adolescence.

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It was the first time she was faced with a problem which wasn’t external to herself. It was on her body, on her mind, turning her into another person. And she couldn’t like her because next to the first one, she was stupid and clumsy.

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Camila went to see a doctor who ordered some tests. But the cruelty of the gods went further. As if to ensure that for that problem there would be no solution, they did not allow any kind of result to show in any of the tests.

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After waiting in vain for the results of the prescribed therapy, Camila went to see another doctor. And so she saw three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty... She went through several specialties, heard several theories and although there may have been a few that were similar, she never once heard two that were the same. And even with her new mutilated intelligence, she ended up realizing what that meant: none of them had the slightest idea of what was wrong with her. But none of them was humble enough to say – not only to Camila but to themselves – “I don’t know”.

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She knew she was ill and doctors couldn’t help her; no one could. For a brief moment, she put her hopes on time. Perhaps it would cure her. But when she saw that the development was negative, she realized time was an enemy and not an ally.

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Camila started to live like an automaton. She would have preferred to die but she did not ignore the blow that a suicide would have been to those who cared about her. That was when she found out that the greatest sacrifice you can do for someone is not to die for them... it is to live for them. But she was human and even without believing in any superior being who could hear and answer her, every night she mentally formulated the request: “cure me or let me die”.

BRAGA - BOM JESUS... AGAIN

Mais uma foto do Bom Jesus de Braga

Another photo of Bom Jesus de Braga

SINTRA - CORTEJO EQUESTRE 2

Mais uma foto do mesmo Cortejo Equestre em Sintra

Another photo of the same Horse Parade in Sintra

VILA NOVA DE CERVEIRA À NOITE

Eis Vila Nova de Cerveira à noite

Here's Vila Nova de Cerveira at night

MEIO CHEIO, MEIO VAZIO/HALF FULL, HALF EMPTY

Uma citação que às vezes me irrita um bocadinho é aquela de "ver o copo meio cheio ou meio vazio".

E irrita-me porque não me parece que seja apenas uma questão de perspectiva. Tudo depende de como começou o copo. Se o copo começou por estar vazio e agora está a meio, então está meio cheio. Mas se começou por estar cheio e agora está a meio, então está meio vazio.

Por exemplo, se sempre tivemos uma doença que nos limitava bastante e de repente, melhorámos, ainda que não totalmente, pode dizer-se que o nosso copo, antes vazio, está agora meio cheio.

Mas se sempre fomos saudáveis e de repente contraímos uma doença que nos limita, ainda que não totalmente, pode dizer-se que o nosso copo, antes cheio, está agora meio vazio.

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A saying that sometimes annoys me a bit is the one about "seeing the glass half full or half empty".

And it annoys me because I don´t think it´s all about perspective. It depends on how the glass started. If the glass started empty and is now at half its capacity, then it's half full. But if it started full and it´s now at half its capacity, then it's half empty.

For example, if you always had an illness which impaired you quite a bit and you suddenly get better, even if not completely, you can say that your glass, which was empty, is now half full.

But if you've always been healthy and you suddenly get an illness which impairs you quite a bit, even if not completely, you can say that your glass, which was full, is now half empty.

PORTO

Outra foto da cidade do Porto
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Another photo of the city of Oporto

in Pearce, Joseph; Tolkien: O Homem e o Mito

"Por definição, não temos consciência das coisas que ele alega descobrir; portanto, quanto mais as negamos, mais razão ele deverá ter: ainda que ao admiti-las, estivéssemos a provar o mesmo, o que não deixa de ser estranho"; C.S. Lewis

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(Lewis referia-se aos críticos literários que faziam interpretações freudianas da sua escrita, mas eu penso sempre em como esta frase se aplica tão bem aos psicólogos e à própria psicologia...)

PORTO - TORRE DOS CLÉRIGOS

A Torre dos Clérigos, no Porto

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The Clergymen's Tower in Oporto

VIANA DO CASTELO - SANTA LUZIA

A Igreja de Santa Luzia, em Viana do Castelo

The Church of Santa Luzia in Viana do Castelo

EVENTUALLY

Eventually: algo que, mais tarde ou mais cedo, virá, impreterivelmente, a acontecer.

Eventualmente: Algo que poderá ou não vir a acontecer.

Logo, "eventually" é diferente de "eventualmente".

Eventually: Por fim, acabar por...

ADDICTION

Addiction: Vício, toxicodependência, e não adição.

Adição é sinónimo de soma.

INTELLIGENCE e COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE

Intelligence = Espionagem, Serviços Secretos, Serviços de Informação ( e não Inteligência)

Counter-Intelligence = Contra-espionagem

VILA NOVA DE CERVEIRA

Outro dos meus sítios preferidos no país...

Another one of my favourite spots in the country...

INTERN e RESIDENT

Intern = Estagiário (e não Interno)

Resident = Interno

PORTO

A cidade do Porto

The city of Oporto

MOSTEIRO DA BATALHA

O Mosteiro de Santa Maria da Vitória, também conhecido por Mosteiro da Batalha

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The Monastery of Santa Maria da Vitória, aka Monastery of Batalha.

"Não há mulheres frígidas. Apenas maus amantes"

"There are no frigid women. Only bad lovers"

SINTRA - CASTELO DOS MOUROS

O Castelo dos Mouros, em Sintra

The Moorish Castle in Sintra

SINTRA

Era inevitável. Ainda que sem o engenho de outros maiores, um dia, também eu teria de cantar a Sintra a que Lord Byron chamou “glorious Eden”.

Votem, comentem...

Sintra das brumosas madrugadas

Do palácio no alto da Pena

De alma acolhedora e serena

Doces travesseiros e queijadas.

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Os teus verdes eternos tesouros

Avisto-os da alta colina

Onde mora o Castelo dos Mouros,

E contemplo das velhas ameias

Sob o manto de espessa neblina

A História que te corre nas veias.

Com teus palácios, quintas, convento,

Sintra da serra, da vila e do mar,

Onde me dou às garras do vento

Que traz o canto de uma andorinha,

E eu consinto em naufragar

No afago da brisa marinha.

As tuas nascentes cristalinas

Já falham nas fontes em ruínas

Mas o tempo em ti não desvirtua

Os encantos que sempre foram teus,

E é porque há em ti, Monte da Lua,

Afectos que sempre serão meus,

Que por todo o sempre eu serei tua.

PORTO - BARCO RABELO

SINTRA - CORTEJO EQUESTRE

Cortejo Equestre em Sintra (Não recordo o ano...)

Horse Parade in Sintra (I can't remember which year...)