Month: March 2025

The how

How you move through the world

A stride, a gesture, the tilt of your head;

Some people enter a room like a storm; others radiate calm. Their “frequency” alters the space around them.

Do you rush? Linger? Dance while cooking? Your cadence reveals inner worlds.

The words you choose

Favorite phrases, slang, or even silences—words betray your history, humor, and heart.

How you frame experiences—a scientist might describe love as chemistry; a poet, as a wildfire. The specific vocabulary, phrases, and metaphors someone gravitates toward creates a verbal fingerprint. I’ve noticed how certain people have signature expressions or ways of framing ideas that immediately identify them, even in writing

How you treat others

The small kindnesses or thoughtlessness, who we make time for, how we respond to vulnerability or need – these interactions form patterns that define us. Some people consistently elevate others, while some drain energy from every room.

Your memory

 It’s not just what we remember, but how we remember, what we forget, and how those memories reshape us over time. As Oliver Sacks said  “Memory is dialogic and arises not only from direct experience but from the intercourse of many minds. […] It is a form of storytelling that goes on in the mind and never stops. […] Our memories are, in the end, a shifting, vanishing, mutating thing, a mirage of unreliable glimpses.” We don’t just have memories; we curate them, unconsciously editing our past to make sense of our present.

Your contradictions

Some people manage to be elegant yet unsettling, cool yet chaotic, polished but always a little off.

Each of us is an entire society, a whole neighborhood of Mystery; it is fitting that we at least make the life of this neighborhood elegant and distinguished, that in the celebrations of our sensations there be refinement and decorum, and that, because it is sober, there be courtesy in the banquets of our thoughts.

The Book of Disquiet

The Only Me
By Pat Mora

Spinning through space for eons,

our earth—oceans, rivers, mountains,

glaciers, tigers, parrots, redwoods—

        evolving wonders.



And our vast array, generations

of humans—all shapes, colors, languages.



        Can I be the only me?



Our earth: so much beauty, hate,

        goodness, greed.



“Study. Cool the climate,” advises my teacher.

                      “Grow peace.”



        Can I be the only me,

                      become all my unique complexity?

You was butterflyin’

An archaeologist

A writer

A theatre actress

A prima ballerina

A cello player

A fashion designer

An art historian

A spy

A political scientist

A professor

An artist

A gardener

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

Chen Chen

Who understands Me but Me

They turn the water off, so I live without water,
they build walls higher, so I live without treetops,
they paint the windows black, so I live without sunshine,
they lock my cage, so I live without going anywhere,
they take each last tear I have, I live without tears,
they take my heart and rip it open, I live without heart,
they take my life and crush it, so I live without a future,
they say I am beastly and fiendish, so I have no friends,
they stop up each hope, so I have no passage out of hell,
they give me pain, so I live with pain,
they give me hate, so I live with my hate,
they have changed me, and I am not the same man,
they give me no shower, so I live with my smell,
they separate me from my brothers, so I live without brothers,
who understands me when I say this is beautiful?
who understands me when I say I have found other freedoms?

I cannot fly or make something appear in my hand,
I cannot make the heavens open or the earth tremble,
I can live with myself, and I am amazed at myself, my love,
my beauty,
I am taken by my failures, astounded by my fears,
I am stubborn and childish,
in the midst of this wreckage of life they incurred,
I practice being myself,
and I have found parts of myself never dreamed of by me,
they were goaded out from under rocks in my heart
when the walls were built higher,
when the water was turned off and the windows painted black.
I followed these signs
like an old tracker and followed the tracks deep into myself,
followed the blood-spotted path,
deeper into dangerous regions, and found so many parts of myself,
who taught me water is not everything,
and gave me new eyes to see through walls,
and when they spoke, sunlight came out of their mouths,
and I was laughing at me with them,
we laughed like children and made pacts to always be loyal,
who understands me when I say this is beautiful?

Who Understands Me but Me by Jimmy Santiago Baca

Most people, and I am, obviously, most people as well, don’t fully understand how much their perception of reality is shaped by their own emotions, biases, and past experiences. The line between “knowing” and “feeling” is far blurrier than we often acknowledge. Much of what we consider “knowledge” is deeply entangled with emotion, intuition, and social conditioning. This is why debates over facts can feel so personal. They can even seem existential.

Accepting that much of what we “know” is provisional, socially shaped, or emotionally charged is the first step toward clearer thinking. But, at times, taking this first step just feels too much of an effort.

 The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.

References

Cargo Cult Science

by RICHARD P. FEYNMAN

Some remarks on science, pseudoscience, and learning how to not fool yourself. Caltech’s 1974 commencement address.

Those who invited me into meaning

My father who, for my 10th birthday, gave me a 500 page book on the “History of Men in the last two million years “ so I could satisfy my curiosities and go on learning.

My mother who made me believe that even with clipped wings I could fly.

My grandparents who granted me free access to every book in the house with no concern whatsoever if what I was reading was age appropriate or not.

My great aunt, the delicate, elegant and joyful lady that I did not become.

My uncle who made me admire the preciseness and perfectionism that I don’t have in me. He was also patient enough to teach me Argentinian tango.

Ms Gloria, my first grade teacher who taught a whole class of six year olds to write their first words with a fountain pen.

Sister Clara Lucia who desperately tried to have us all speak the “Queen’s English”

Teresa my high school philosophy teacher who opened the door to the infinite universe of abstract thought

Manuela my philosophical theories professor at university who, in her 60s, dressed in jeans and silk blouses with plunging necklines and no bra and showed us that sensuous and intellectual could be synonymous.

C. Vieira, professor of European studies who tried to teach us that we should never walk down the stairs. I remember this often when I’m tempted to get into arguments.

Eugenie, the French teacher who declared that life is unjust. It does tend to be.

Marthinus, who was not my professor but gave me books and, tried to make me feel as South African as he once has tried to feel Portuguese.

Orlando who sat with me for long coffees and introduced me to magic realism.

Cesário who taught me to use a photometer and to develop photos and allowed me to entertain the idea that one day I could be a new Cartier-Bresson.

Dorinho who showed me who I could be.

Robby, who saw the restlessness and from whom I learned the importance of staying defiant.

Professor Gironès an eloquent humanist whose devotion for classical culture and the Mediterranean always made me look for the common within the different.

Ivo, Diana, Ernesto and Catarina, the patient, neurotic, perfectionist and passionate dance teachers that helped me discover my dramatic persona.

Anthony, the mentor, the role model, the compass whose idea of me was way too generous. As he was. The one who unfortunately was gone too soon and left without me having the opportunity to live up to be the person he thought I was.

Virgílio, the RFI journalist who wanted me to understand that I should not speak as fast as I think. Like in dance, it is the pause that says it all.


…the calling of the teacher. There is no craft more privileged. To awaken in another human being powers, dreams beyond one’s own; to induce in others a love for that which one loves; to make of one’s inward present their future; that is a threefold adventure like no other.

George Steiner, Lessons of the Masters (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures)

At the still point of the turning world

Since I can remember having some sort of conscious thought, my favorite activity has been daydreaming. I would love to engage more with it? Absolutely. Should I? Most probably not. I tend to use it as a way of escaping the weight of the days, even if, sometimes, it has helped me come up with brilliant, in my opinion, ideas.

Being still was not a problem when I was a kid. I enjoyed being alone and left to my own devices. Either forced by the inevitability of growing up into an accountable and acceptable adult or by the contextual speed of life, being still became a problem and, being present became something to be learnt again.

Talent or no talent , dancing— and choosing a form of dance as technically demanding as Flamenco — has slowly helped me regain a sense of connection.


Dancing unites body and mind through movement, requiring presence in a way that’s both physical and emotional. When you’re fully engaged in dance, you’re experiencing yourself as a whole being rather than fragmented parts. In the present.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

T. S. Elliot, excerpt from
Burnt Norton, (Four Quartets)

Happy World Poetry Day!

Impermanence

I stumbled upon this quote by Béla Tarr on A Bitter Sweet Life:

I don’t care about stories. I never did. Every story is the same. We have no new stories. We’re just repeating the same ones. I really don’t think, when you do a movie that you have to think about the story. The film isn’t the story. It’s mostly picture, sound, a lot of emotions.

And, I remembered that one of the first movies that made me feel the same was Peter Greenway’s The Pillow Book, beautiful to behold and impossible to forget. I can’t remember the story but I do remember feeling spellbound by its visual poetry and the idea of being a living book. Greenway employs multiple aspect ratios, picture-in-picture compositions, and superimposed calligraphy that transforms the screen into a living, breathing manuscript. Bodies become canvases, and ink becomes an extension of desire. The film’s approach to visual composition mimics the practice of calligraphy itself—disciplined yet sensual, structured yet flowing with emotion.

It took me another 10 years to get my first tattoo and it was not a written one. I had a leopard done in Johannesburg because I was born in South Africa and the leopard is one of the Big 5. When I finally decided to have something written, I was in San Diego in 2014. For a full 5 hours or so, someone patiently wrote Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act 5 Scene 5 on the right side of my rib cage. Surprisingly, there was no pain. The tattooer, who was very young, asked why I had chosen such a strange thing. I wanted to be constantly reminded of the fleeting nature of life and meaning, I said.

After I got divorced, Richard II was written on my right tight under the leopard. I wasted time and now doth time waste me.

My last one was done in 2024, a very common tattoo written under a flamenco dancer on my left rib cage. Tennessee Williams’ first verses of A Prayer for The Wild at Heart. The tattoo artist thought that having the whole poem would be over the top.

I wanted to show, even though they are not visible, that for me there’s nothing more important than literature. Particularly the one exploring human struggles, mortality, and the desire for freedom.

The “Pillow Book” connection made perfect sense now – like the film, I was using my body as a canvas for meaningful text. Yes, I could use paper, but text on skin becomes something more intimate and embodied than words on a page. I also see them as a way of relating my reminder’s of life’s impermanence and the tension between duty and desire to the struggles of everyone else.

I am now thinking of getting a tattoo of goddess Athena. I have to find suitable words.

There. There you are. You have just dropped a marker pin on your body, to reclaim yourself, to remind you where you are: inside yourself. Somewhere. Somewhere in there
Caitlin Moran, How to Be a Woman

They told me I was everything

Fierce

Bright

Emotional

Hypersensitive

Volatile

Dilettante

Passionate

Detached

Elegant

Regal

Unapologetic

Unapproachable

Big hearted

Generous

Impulsive

Daydreamer

Blunt

Fair

Melancholic

A good person

Serious

Elegant

Shy

Boring

Sarcastic


The meaning of my existence is that life has addressed a question to me. Or, conversely, I myself am a question which is addressed to the world, and I must communicate my answer, for otherwise I am dependent upon the world’s answer.

C. G. Jung, Memories, dreams, reflections

‘tis a lie, I am no ague-proof

References

William Shakespeare, King Lear

Traveler, there is no road

I used to love traveling no matter how. I now hate airports and the tiring processes entailed in flying somewhere .

I used to like road trips or, at least, the idea of road trips.

I think I still like trains.

I still have the fantasy of traveling on a cargo ship .

Reference


Caminante, no hay camino / Traveler, There Is No Road
by Antonio Machado

“Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante, no hay camino
sino estelas en la mar.”

Traveler, your footprints
are the only road, nothing else.
Traveler, there is no road;
you make your own path as you walk.
As you walk, you make your own road,
and when you look back
you see the path
you will never travel again.
Traveler, there is no road;
only a ship’s wake on the sea.
translated by Mary G. Berg and Dennis Maloney

I have no skills for flight or wings

Every comparison would be aspirational. I guess we wished we could be compared to beautiful, bright and graceful, sensuous and brave animals but we seem to lack the effortlessness that comes with nature.

I wish I could be compared with a crow.

Crows are remarkably intelligent problem-solvers who can use tools, recognize human faces, and even understand cause and effect relationships. They’re known for their curiosity and enthusiasm about novel objects and experiences.

Despite their individual intelligence, crows maintain strong community bonds. They live in family groups that work together and even hold “funerals” for fallen members, showing a sense of the collective good that does resonate with my stubbornly public-minded values.

Their reputation for fairness appears in how they maintain relationships through reciprocity and remember those who have helped or harmed them – a form of integrity in their social world.

Though not conventionally beautiful like peacocks or graceful like deer, crows possess a different kind of elegance: the beauty of adaptability, resilience, and intellectual engagement with their world.

Crows remind us that there’s a special kind of grace in curiosity, in paying attention to details, and in maintaining ethical relationships with others.

Also, I find it increasingly difficult to get out of black clothes.

References


The Magnificent Frigatebird

BY ADA LIMÓN

Photo Diana Thoresen

Star

Stella derived from the Latin word for star.

It has been in use as a proper noun in the Anglophone world since it was first used by Philip Sidney in Astrophil and Stella in the 1580s.

Alternatively, it is a feminine version of the Greek name Stylianos, meaning pillar.

Apparently, The name Stella evokes images of someone who is both intriguing and radiant. It suggests a personality that is meant to shine brightly in the world. Individuals named Stella are often perceived as open-hearted and creative, bringing light and energy into the lives of those around them.

Only two people call me by middle name. I think Stella is there because the intention was that the two names came to mean the Star of Hope

What are you going to do?

Followed by

what have you done

any form of question that requires planning of personal time

questions that require spreadsheets to be answered

where do you see yourself in five years

what do you want out of life

what would you like for your birthday

do you want me to go with you

I’m sure there’s long list of other questions I hate being asked but it would be tiresome to go over all of them.

Self love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting

Dear Nadine,

I haven’t written letters in so long that I’m not quite sure how to do this.

If you have made it as far into the future, I suppose you have managed to survive the anxiety and anger you were feeling when everything around you defied a logical explanation. Maybe you have learned that things are not as extreme as you perceive them. Although, being a Leo, I’m intrigued how you have managed to curb your tendency to overreact.

If you have made it as far into the future, I hope you have outgrown therapy or, at least, have found a therapist that does not seem to need help more than you do and, managed to open up and allowed yourself to be helped.

If you have made it as far into the future, I hope you danced as much and often as you could and that you have managed to read all the books you wanted to read and kept your to read pile always high.

If you made it as far into the future, I hope you have understood how to deal with the pain of losing loved ones and that you have kept your friends close by. I hope that living alone has not been too much of a burden and that you have enjoyed your freedom.

If you made it this far into the future, I guess you have mastered your horrible tendency to procrastinate. Maybe you followed through with all your plans and are now living in some Greek island surrounded by blue.

I hope you have always carried with you all the songs that have helped life make sense and that your inner soundtrack keeps growing.

I hope you have not gotten lost inside yourself. I hope you still remember.

I hope you have kept the passion and that you have not become indifferent to people, to beauty. I hope you still believe that elegance is a form of resistance.

I hope you have never stayed quiet in the face of injustice, that you have helped others and, that your world is much better than the one right now. I hope you haven’t given in.

I hope you have owned your choices and that you have always insisted on being the Sun and never a black hole.

Even if you do not look like the AI projected version of yourself, I hope your eyes keep showing that your name is Hope instead of impossible.

I hope you still like poetry even if you have never managed to write a single line of verse.

Dear future self
By JP Howard

If  I should ever forget you,
this is my love note to you

You were loved
You were somebody’s lover
You were loving
You held parts of all the women you loved,
somewhere deep in your generous heart

You were heartbroken
You were a heartbreaker too, girl
Sometimes you were heartache
Your heart never grew heavy though,
I remember that about you

You were silly
You were giggles
You were somebody’s Mama
You always wanted to be a Mama
Mama was the greatest title you ever had

You were jealous as fuck
You were selfish
You were sad
You held other folks’ sadness,
especially Mama’s sadness
You buried that deep in our heart

You were swag girl
Leo charm and confidence
Couldn’t nobody crack you up
as much as yourself

You were cute and you were vain
You wore lipstick under your mask
during a pandemic
because you were cute and you were vain

You loved your family
Your lover loved you for decades
Sometimes you would ask yourself,
How I get so lucky, girl?

You loved people
You were at home on a stage in front of a mic,
sitting with community in a circle,
or talking one on one with a friend
for hours on end in a coffee shop

You were a poet
You are a poet
This is your love poem to yourself, Juliet

References
Henry the V, Act 2, scene 4

Whatever you say

Say nothing


For nations vague as weed,
For nomads among stones,
Small-statured cross-faced tribes
And cobble-close families
In mill-towns on dark mornings
Life is slow dying.

So are their separate ways
Of building, benediction,
Measuring love and money
Ways of slowly dying.
The day spent hunting pig 
Or holding a garden-party,

Hours giving evidence
Or birth, advance
On death equally slowly.
And saying so to some
Means nothing; others it leaves
Nothing to be said.

Philip Larkin, Nothing to be Said

The thread of life

I have a hard time saying goodbye to all the Summers in my life.

I wish I could carry all my summers with me. Both metaphorically and literally.

in time of daffodils(who know the goal of living is to grow) forgetting why, remember how in time of lilacs who proclaim the aim of waking is to dream, remember so(forgetting seem) in time of roses(who amaze our now and here with paradise) forgetting if, remember yes in time of all sweet things beyond whatever mind may comprehend, remember seek(forgetting find) and in a mystery to be (when time from time shall set us free) forgetting me, remember me

E.E. Cummings

To have without holding

As most people, I own too many things. I could, obviously, live without most of the things I have. And I have tried, once when I was moving to a new flat, I gave away most of my possessions. This was, in some way, liberating although I’m not quite sure if I was trying to set myself free or was just to lazy to take everything with me.

I often read (diagonally)the good advices on decluttering and while browsing through this “Letting Go of Sentimental Objects Is Hard. Here’s How to Start.”, this caught my attention:

He eventually realized that he was clinging to things that reminded him of people, places and experiences from his past.

“I wanted to make room for my future,”

From house move to house move I always kept steam trunks, books, photos, my grandmother’s wedding blouse and her dresses, the cake figurine of her wedding (1949) cake my great aunt wedding dress, my grandfather”s camera and photometer, birthday cards, note written by friends, sketches made by friends who have, unfortunately, died, theatre and concert tickets, my journals, my first pair of shoes bronzed in South Africa, teddy bears, notebooks and pens and pencils.

Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open

I suppose this answers the question, What are three objects you couldn’t live without? I just can’t bring them down to three.

I know “our memories live inside us, not in our things” but I still feel there’s a beautiful thread connecting everything I’ve kept to my personal history, relationships, and creative life. They are tangible links to my ancestry.

I’ve kept things that embody memory, relationship, and meaning rather than items of mere convenience or fleeting value. For some, they’re probably just clutter anyway. For me, these objects help tell the story of who I am and of the life of those who came before me. I have a hard time imagining a future without room for the past.

References: To have without holding by Marge Piercy