Sorrow prepares you for joy

Tags

betterment, cleansing, cycle, hidden gift, joy, renewal, Rumi, sorrow, sowing

Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.

― Rumi

The wailing sirens of Israel

Tags

10 am, Holocaust, Holocaust Remembrance Day, honour, Israel, love, prayer, remembrance, sacrifice, saints, silence, Sirens, sorrow, World War II

It’s 10 am on a sunny April day, it’s almost springtime and nature is regaining its colour. The cars are driving by and the people go about their lives as they normally do. Then the sirens go off, the same sirens used to announce to the people they are under missile attack, the doom’s trumpet.

The sirens sounded for two minutes. It did not announce any attack, but a more dreadful thing. The sirens annouced a memory powerful and painful enough to cause everyone who walked to halt, to make the workers suspend their daily activities and the drivers to stop in the middle of the streets and leave their cars.

All stood silent, some gazing at the sky, some looking down to the ground. Some said prayers, some cried. All remembered. The sirens did not sound, they wailed. They wailed profoundly for six million souls who left this Earth before their time, six million lives taken by the hands of stupidity, six million dead heroes, six million saints.

This was Israel this morning, at 10 am. Everyone stopped silently for two minutes while the sirens wailed in remembrance of an abomination which should have never happened.

Today is Yom HaSoah, the Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day in which every single person in Israel stops for two minutes and…

…REMEMBER.

Save the date next year: April, 28.
Stop for two minutes at 10 am you too.

Renting Game of Thrones in Rio

Tags

Brazil, carioca, easy-going, friendliness, Game of Thrones, lifestyle, oath, outgoing, Rio de Janeiro, travelogue, video renting

From the series Things that happen in Rio.

I got my brother-in-law addicted to Game of Thrones. I watched the first season with him two weeks ago (in preparation for the third, which is coming with the winter), and by the last episode he was so into it, that he wanted to get season two right away.

The thing about living in Brazil, though, is that things such as this one may take longer to become available. Maybe for some commercial strategy reasons (which I can’t understand, not in the internet age), maybe it’s because nearly no one speaks English in this country and it takes time to translate the whole thing and make the subtitles.

Regardless of why, the fact was that he couldn’t find it in the video rental store then. Now, going to a video rental store in the Netflix-and-the-such age is something that only my brother-in-law can explain.

This morning he went for a walk by the beach (because that’s what people do in Rio) and he stopped at one of the stores of this chain he’s client to. He was delighted when he found that they had just received a few copies of his long-waited season two, but his joy lived shortly. All copies in that store had just been rented.

Then my brother-in-law, who is a very good example of a true carioca*, with his out- and easy- goingness, asked the clerk to call the other store, the one he usually goes to, and ask them if they still had any copies available.

“Hi, Mike!* Do you still have any Game of Thrones, season two?”

Mike answered something like: “yes, we do, but we’re out of DVD cases. So we can’t rent them.”

“And you won’t rent it because you’re out of cases?” The clerk asked.

My brother-in-law added to the clerk’s remark that he did not at all mind DVD cases and that he would take an oath to return the discs in perfect conditions, should he be allowed to rent them regardless. The clerk laughed and said they had DVD cases in the store and my obliging brother-in-law offered to bring the cases to the other store.

The Contemporary Art Museum (in Niterói) and the Christ statue in the background

Now, I can hardly picture this conversation happening anywhere else in the world, and certainly I would never be the one negotiating with the clerk. Thoug I love Rio, I’m not a carioca whatsoever. I generally stop the interaction at “all the copies have been rented.” But not my carioca brother-in-law. And the clerk apparently liked it. He gave the DVD-cases to my brother-in-law, who resumed his morning walk and delivered the parcel entrusted to him at the other store.

As a reward for his trustworthiness and diligent service, the staff there let him be the first one to rent season two and even better, they allowed him to take the discs in their original box, still wrapped in plastic.

The season has been watched and, according to his oath, sir my-brother-in-law shall return the discs in perfect conditions.

*Carioca: Strictly speaking, people who were born in Rio. Broadly speaking, anyone who decides to take on the city’s attitude and accent.

I get by with a little help from my friends

Tags

dreams, Finland, friendship, help, love, Mea Karvonen, music, share, support, talent

We all have dreams and some of us are “crazy” enough to set out to fulfil them. And I believe this blogosphere is made of people who try, of people who pursue their dreams and dare to dream even more!

You know what is even crazier than go for one’s dreams? It’s when other dreamers join hands with you and help you get there! And this is what I’m asking all of you who are visiting my blog right now.

My friend Mea may have a life-changing opportunity to perform on stage with a very famous band in Finland (where she lives), if she gets enough “Likes” on a local newspaper website. So, here is my humble request to all of you:

Please, go to this newspaper’s page and click the yellow button that says “Äänestä!” below my friend’s video (if you play it, you’ll see she’s really good!) and, a HUGE plus would be if you could spread the word and share the link too.

Please, click on the image to go to the website, or you can access http://featfest.fi/mea-karvonen-its-a-mans-world/

We can make a difference in someone’s life by just taking a few seconds to click a button. As for me, I don’t have thousands of visits every day, but I promise to write a post about something that’s on the blog of everyone who clicks that yellow button full of umlauts (of course, the post will have links to your blog). Just click the yellow button and let me know you did it through a comment, and I will reciprocate your kindness by spreading the word about your art/blog too!

Let’s get her on stage!

Thank y’all!

Paris is for everyone

Tags

beauty, café, cheese, dreams, food, lifestyle, paris, rue cler, travelogue

Paris is a city for everyone. There is no ending when one starts talking about Paris, because it has the world within it and more. I myself went from the belief that Paris was overrated to absolute love to the City of Light. And if Paris has no end, like Hemingway said, it is also too great for beginnings. This is why I can’t think where I should start this post.

Life generally starts early in Paris, at the bakeries, boulangeries and cafés, where the Parisians sit down to have their coffee and pain-au-chocolat (a must have, if you ever go there) and read their newspapers or books. The city is a living being and its people and the toursits walking up and down the streets are the blood running through its veins. Paris throbs, Paris is full of life.

For me, Paris is (also) the city of cafés and good cheese. Try this: go to google maps and search for “cafés in Paris.” *Spoiler alert!* Here is the search result:

Google maps search result for “cafés in Paris” – Can you count the red dots?

As for good cheese, even the average cheese you find in any supermarket is already greater than in most countries I’ve been to. But if you like cheese as I do, you may want to go to Rue Cler and visit the Fromagerie there. I was bewildered when I entered the shop and beheld more different kinds of cheese than I could have ever fathomed! Of course I bought a few of them and went for a pic-nic at Trocadéro Square, by a lovely carroussel, while I gazed at the metallic wonder that is the Eiffel Tower (you can see my happy face then on my Bio page). This is what Paris is all about: you live slow and you enjoy every minute of it.

If you got curious about the fromagerie, here’s the map to Rue Cler, where, by the way, you find many other dainties (there is a great patisserie there)!

How to get to Rue Cler – Click to see in full size

Now, of course this is but a tiny little portion of the City of Light: the portion I did in the first few hours at the very first time I went there. Afterwards, I did what everyone should do in Paris: stroll, or, as the Parisians say, flanner. You are sure to find in every corner a new beauty, a new lovely place, somewhere you will remember and long to be at forever.

This is Paris: the City of Light, the City of Wonders, the City of Dreams.

They believe in enjoying life ­and don’t you think they’re right? If you want to enjoy yourself properly you must go to Paris.

- Ignatius Gallaher (Dubliners, by James Joyce)

This post is in response to the comments left by Isabelle on my previous post “All remembrance of things past is fiction.” Please, everyone, challenge me too!

 

All remembrance of things past is fiction

Tags

A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway, fiction, literature, memories, writing

If, in your time, you have ever heard four honest people disagree about what happened at a certain place at a certain time, or you have ever torn up and returned orders that you requested when a situation had reached such a point that it seemed necessary to something in writing, or testified before an inspector general when allegations had been made, presenting new statements by others that replaced your written orders or your verbal orders, you, remembering certain things and how they were to you and who had fought and where, you prefer to write about any time as fiction.

- Ernest Hemingway (A Moveable Feast – page 236)

Hemingway, in my shallow opinion, was one of the greatest writers of all times. And I could not disagree of his opinion on fiction. This is why everything in this blog is fiction. In a certain way, life is fiction. It happens on each person’s mind and only they know what happened in their story. This is why you may find four honest people disagree about what happened at a certain place at a certain time. In the end, as in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the sum of different stories may shed some light on a certain fact or time.

Although everything I write here is fiction, everything is also as real as I can feel them. And I’d love if you shared your fiction with me and became, together with me, one of the four honest people to disagree about one same subject.

 

Things that happen in Rio

Tags

Brazil, coffee, friendliness, lifestyle, mocha, muffin, Rio de Janeiro, travel, travelogue

This is one of the things that happen in Rio.

I needed a place to publish the post I had just written this morning about the city and I chose (of course) Starbucks. Not that it’s any typical, but that’s my favourite place anywhere I go.

It was 9:40 a.m. and everyone was in a hurry to go to work, as in any regular city in the world. Either because they were late or because they work in a newspaper company, like me, where work starts later.

Entering the coffee shop was refreshing. Not only because of the cozy, inviting environment you find there, but also because it was really hot outside (though it was cloudy) and the air conditioning they had was just perfect. I felt like strolling by the Seine in January.

Then I walked towards the counter to order and, perhaps by some British influence which we did have in Brazil, there was a queue. Truth be said: one guy was ordering as I walked in. I was the one who founded the queue.

Up to this point, there is no story. It starts with the guy standing in front of me.

He had a Starbucks fidelity card which gave him the right to claim a free grande beverage. So he looked at the menu, then he looked at the cakes and muffins, and all I wanted was for him to just order and let me get my grande mocha and my blueberry muffin, because I had a post to edit and publish, and I had to be at work by 10. Not having my muffin and mocha was not a choice.

The guy looked at the menu again and let his doubts out: “I have no idea what I want,” he said. And this is the trigger to a typical Rio story.

The clerk looked at the man holding the line (which, by now, was an actual line, with many people in it) with a sincere smile and an understanding countenance. The man looked at her and asked what beverages they had.

I have once witnessed a situation as this one in Germany; actually, I was the guy holding the line then, and the person behind me frowned, and the clerk told me to leave the queue and decide what I wanted first. In Rio it would not happen. As it didn’t.

The clerk set off to expound all the wonderful beverages they had there: frappuccinos, iced-coffee and the warm beverages. I must confess I felt, at first, the same my good German friend felt a few years ago, though I at least tried to keep my “anger” to myself. Then, as the lady explained one particular item in the menu, the guy stading behind me commented that that was a good one. The undecisive lad in front of me turned back and smiled in appreciation. Then the girl behind the guy who had just given his opinion came forth and told him why she loved what she planned to order, which was something else.

Everyone was smiling and trying to help the fidelity card holder decide what he should have. There was a lot of conversation, laughter and pointing at the menu. The queue was no more. And the wonder of the day is that even the grumpy “German-like” guy who just wanted to have his grande mocha and his blueberry muffin was taken by the spirit of Rio and he found himself laughing and discussing the best choice for the first guy.

In the end the man got some warm beverage and a coconut-water box to go and life whent back to normal. The queue was restored and I had my grande mocha, my blueberry muffin and a great time.

Rio: 448 and ever more wondrous

Tags

anniversary, Brazil, friendliness, lifestyle, love, Rio de Janeiro, travel, travelogue

As I ride the ferry boat across the Guanabara bay, I see through the window all the morning beauty of a city Brazilians call “the wondrous city”.

448-year-old Rio waking up on March 1st, 2013

Today is Rio’s anniversary: 448 years; one of the oldest in the country. And as all of us would certainly like to be spoiled on our birthday, so did Rio decide to keep its cloud-blanket on and sleep in today.

Rio is a most lively city, it invites each and every single one who sets his foot in it to life. Its gorgeous beaches and natural landscapes, together with its incredibly friendly and joyous people, can turn any lonesome soul into a happy lad, a friend of all.

This is Rio. Happy, sunny, beautiful and friendly. It is, indeed, “the wondrous city”.

Watch here what the city looks like when it’s awake:

The moon and the men

Tags

asphalt, bitterness, exercise, growth, hope, human, husbandry, modernity, moon, Naming the World, omens, progress, sceptical, seed, soil, writing

Last night the moon seemed to say something. It shone brightly in full splendour as if inviting life to come out and play. In the old days this would be seen as a good omen, and the husbandmen would make haste to sow the seeds to a merry autumn.

These days there are too few who gaze at the moon; even fewer who can hear it. And even if they did see or hear it, they are too sceptical to see omens. And even if they saw them, it would, in the end be in vain: seeds won’t grow in asphalt.

(Getting Started exercises in Naming the World. I’m trying to write a bit every day while I’m working on my query letter and synopsis.)

Write the truest sentence that you know

Tags

Hemingway, simplicity, writer's block, writing

I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day. But sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made and think, “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

-Ernest Hemingway-

(A Moveable Feast – Miss Stein Instructs)