You forgive yourself for every failure, because you tried to do the right thing. If you have known better you would have done better. So forgive yourself.

Maya Angelou, Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations

My Darling Sara - by Shane Koyczan

“The failing use of my right hand Isn't actually the failing use of my right hand It's just another way to tell the time And I'm ticking So I've been picking myself up at bars With a bottle in each hand I only make plans with myself for the day after next But by the time the sun swings back around into position I forget the context of why I asked myself out In the first place Did I think I was going to score? I let a stranger pour me one more She says My name is Sara Doesn't take much more than that To start a relationship My darling, Sara Cleans rooms for a living Giving her youth and beauty To dirt and dust Understands more than most That family must be the foot you put forward first You must weather the worst together But having never met her family She places love above all else Then protests that I use the word love Too freely in poems And I should really just say what I mean And I suppose what I mean most is that I'm trying She's been buying me time On a maxed out credit card Arms scarred from selling her own blood To pay down the debt Tells me she doesn't mind going broke Just so long as I can giver her a little swear She says Try So I do my best impression Of a pen And when every problem looks like a page I commit ink to paper The worth of the words that come out Determines my wage I've been making enough To pay her the compliment Of not quitting Of not sitting When standing is required She only asks that I put the effort n And in return she's willing To pin a paper heart to her chest Then do her best impression Of a target She tells me that effort Is the siamese twin of success So when everyone else looks like a wrong answer She says she'll settle for being my best guess So we lie in bed like a mess That someone's been meaning to clean For the large part Of a long while We lie there like a pile of dirty laundry And how we'll ever come clean Is beyond me So we don't She says It's supposed to be dirty And if by the end you haven't hurt me Then you didn't try So I do my best impression Of a surgeon Cutting purple hearts out of my own Use my veins like thread Then have hurt sewn to our skin like medals Because when the bleeding stops And that dust settles All we have are our wounds To wear like decorations Upon our chest Sara does her best impression of a war Tells me not to count my pride among casualties Because maybe faith means never keeping score She says there's more to effort than just switching gears And in terms of what one should give in life Sweat holds more value than tears You have to try And even though The failing use of my right hand Means I'll never land a knockout punch In the first round Life is composed of sound and fury Whatever noise is left in me Will be twice as loud when I try So I plug myself into the idea of going the distance And I amplify My darling, Sara Has a throat like a vase She sings her words into bloom Has voice like perfume It's been sticking to my clothes So everyone knows where I've been sleeping She's been keeping me so close You could use my body for evidence Pull her fingerprints as proof That she's been on top so often She's starting to look like my roof But a real sexy roof And she doesn't leak Unless you count the crying She does that sometimes Worries that she's just a back up plan My darling, Sara I've lived long enough to learn Too many choices can destroy a man I will make no exodus I'll be around long enough To watch uncertainty bid us farewell The echo our names into the crater Caused by the impact Of when our lack of conviction fell You've never had to sell me on the idea Of absolute certainty in the trustworthiness of another The first and only time you met my mother Mom said "I like the way she looks at you" And I echoed back to her That I liked it too Eyes like recycle bin blue Sara looks at broken things As if she can make them new More than a few times I've caught her staring Caught her wearing A smile reserved for those busy making plans Sara believes that distance is a fundamental That can be side-stepped by a piece of string And two tin cans And I remember when my tin can rang They said There's no family to speak of So love is next in line And there's not a lot of time but She's asking for her boyfriend In the cab to the hospital I feel my heart bend As if bracing for impact So I do my best impression of a man And face fact It's supposed to hurt A doctor does his best impression of the truth And spares me his attempts to skirt around the issue They can't stop the bleeding And the failing use of Sara's heart Isn't actually The failing use of Sara's heart It's just another way to tell the time My darling, Sara I was holding your hand when you died And even though the failing use of my right hand Prevented me from feeling you leave I tried”

Poem by Shane Koyczan

Toda a gente neste mundo, diziam-nos eles, carrega consigo uma história invisível, e isso basta para merecer alguma tolerância.

Becoming - A Minha História, Michelle Obama

Unused creativity is not benign...it metastasizes, it turns into grief, rage, judgement, sorrow, shame.

Brené Brown: Living with a whole heart @ Oprah’s Super Soul Conversations Podcast

Sara Shakeel

AwardWinning Artist

A eulogy is never about a cv.

Ariana Huffington on @Oprah’s Super Sunday Conversations Podcast

You Are

Lido em 2016

Ler este Com a Cabeça nas Nuvens a seguir ao Vai Aonde Te Leva o Coração é uma volta de 360 graus que vos vai deixar com a cabeça à roda. A autora dá largas à imaginação e invoca um universo quase “Murakamiano” onde a figura central é um jovem de 15 anos alérgico à intranquilidade e agitação.

Ruben decidiu que ia levar uma vida tranquila logo após o seu nascimento, aquele primeiro choro de bebé foi indigno e humilhante, por isso nada de semelhante voltaria a repetir-se. Um pormenor que achei absolutamente delicioso.

A sua vida é passada numa espécie de buraco na terra do jardim, em ociosa contemplação da natureza, até que um infeliz acaso o leva numa viagem louca com uma cega viciada em enredos cinematográficos, um ladrão/pseudo-duplo de cinema, um nobre pervertido e a sua rainha da noite, uma senhora que cheira a bolinhos e planta as flores mais bonitas, um arqueoaviador que procura no céu as conversas relevantes da humanidade e um almirante num cruzeiro louco. 

É uma viagem conturbada, louca, difícil e incrivelmente imaginativa, que não sabemos de facto se aconteceu. Mas será que isso importa? :)

My standards were sliding swiftly. At first I insisted I would only work at a company with a mission I believed in. Then I thought maybe it would be fine as long as I was learning something new. After that I decided it just couldn't be evil. Now I was carefully delineating my personal definition of evil.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

Everybody is a main character to someone.

Amy Harmon (via quotemadness)

Estes miúdos <3

Lido em 2016

“Sabes qual é o erro que cometemos sempre? Acreditar que a vida é imutável, que, mal escolhemos um carril, temos de o seguir até ao fim. Contudo, o destino tem muito mais imaginação do que nós. Precisamente quando se pensa que se está num beco sem saída, quando se atinge o cúmulo do desespero, com a velocidade de uma rajada de vento tudo muda, tudo se transforma, e de um momento para o outro damos por nós a viver uma nova vida.”

Li parte deste livro em miúda e desisti. Não me dizia nada. Acho curioso que o livro seja precisamente sobre isso. Sobre como quando somos mais velhos temos sensibilidade e maturidade para ver e sentir as coisas de maneira diferente.

Uma avó escreve à neta sobre si e a relação entre elas, sobre a sua vida, sobre a perda trágica da filha, sobre o seu grande amor, sobre esta viagem interna e externa que nos modifica ao longo do tempo.

Uma escrita despojada de artifícios, mas plena de intensidade, que me comoveu de forma profunda. 

Lido em 2016

“Happy" was a word for sorority girls and clowns, and those were two distinctly fucked-up groups of people.” 

Eu já tinha gostado do The Vacationers mas este Modern Lovers convenceu-me. A Emma Straub é absolutamente especialista em: 1. Criar personagens complexas e muito interessantes; 2. Fazer-nos pensar sobre a complexidade das relações humanas e a ausência de zonas totalmente pretas ou totalmente brancas. 

Nesta história, o grupo de personagens principais cresce e amadurece, enfrentando os dilemas da idade adulta e o que significa realmente crescer e ter uma relação. 

Make us wonder. E isso é sempre uma coisa boa. Ainda que às vezes não pareça.

Lido em 2016

“There was nothing in life harder or more important than agreeing every morning to stay the course, to go back to your forgotten self of so many years ago, and to make the same decision. Marriages, like ships, needed steering, and steady hands at the wheel.” 

The Vacationers conta-nos as férias de uma família nova-iorquina em ponto de ruptura. Duas semanas em Maiorca que vão mudar o curso da vida de todos. 

Este é um livro sobre casamento, sobre amizade, sobre a adolescência e a perca da inocência, sobre paternidade, sobre crescer e tornarmo-nos adultos. No fundo é sobre as relações entre pessoas e tudo o que de bom e de mau se sofre, desfruta e aprende com elas. Porque é preciso seguir em frente, de uma maneira ou de outra. At end, vai ficar sempre tudo bem. 

Lido em 2016

Depois d’A Princesa do Gelo, veio este Gritos do Passado ou The preacher em inglês e garanto-vos que esteve à altura das expectativas. 

Neste “episódio” voltamos a Fjällbacka, cuja paz é novamente perturbada por um assassinato, aliás, dois. Com mais de 50 anos de diferença entre si.

Desta feita, o protagonista é Patrick e os membros de uma das famílias mais ricas da região. Numa complexa teia de relações humanas e religião, a autora volta a fazer-nos questionar os nossos instintos mais básicos, reservando a surpresa para o final, como qualquer bom policial. 

Se é isto que vos acelera as batidas cardíacas, não percam o segundo volume. 

Visto em 2016

“It wasn't a logical reality, it was another dimension. I'd lost the ability to retain information so I wanted to record this new and terrifying place I'd found myself in."

Outro documentário incrível, a história de Lotje Sodderland, por quem vão ficar apaixonados, uma rapariga de 34 anos que sofre um AVC. 

Parece deprimente? Podia ser, mas não é. Porque a Lotje é especial e decide explorar este nova realidade e os seus novos olhos de ver o mundo, de uma forma incrivelmente corajosa e criativa. 

Deixo-vos com uma frase do David Lynch que me marcou tanto quanto a ela:

"Within your own self there is a treasury...an ocean of pure bliss, consciousness, intelligence, creativity, love, happiness, energy and peace. Within every human being. Experience that and you will begin to know yourself, which is unbounded, eternal totality." 

Lindo.