Common Treasures: janeiro 2015

Today isn’t a happy day… You went away, precisely on this day, four years ago, my brother… It’s hard to believe four years passed. Inside time doesn’t pass, just flows. All times flow together in one. So you are still here and you will be. So many times I wanted to put your things here… you left me thousands of images… and I lost almost everything. I have many of those images in my mind.

Today, I know exactly what I would post here; one of those short movies with fireworks. You loved fireworks, you loved all kinds of light; we were enchanted with light since we were very small children. We always liked more the sea and the wild than the big city, but there wasn’t much light in those immense mountain fields… except the magical light of the sun, the moon and the stars, closer to us than in any other place.

Do you remember those strange lamplights by Douro river in Porto? The first time we noticed its effect on colour we weren’t more than five. I remember very well the first night that happened. There was that floating restaurant-bar boat on the dock and a long row of very high lamplights. And there were white and blue lights around the boat and the wood bridge to enter into the boat. All things seemed bathed in a soft orange-blue fog. It was the vapor rising slowly from the waters of the river, the smoke from the bars and restaurants and from the cars of the ambulant sellers of “farturas” (“fritters”).

On that night we were wearing clothes of the same colour as it used to happen many times; different clothes but with the same colour. Probably that was one of the reasons why some people used to think we were twins. You had a blue pullover and I had a jacket exactly of the same blue. After fifteen minutes walking there, something strange began to happen. I looked at you and said “Look! Your pullover has turned orange!” And you shouted back “And your jacket is red now!” Well, you were always a little bit color blind… When I looked at my own jacket I saw it orange too and then red and later it was almost brown. I remember I became sad and worried because I really liked that blue jacket exactly as it was… and I thought I had done something wrong to cause that change of colour, perhaps walking too close to the fog and smoke. But then I saw mother looking at us and she said nothing. So I thought that only we were able to see the change of colour. Well all colors were changing gradually. Mother and father clothes were a different color too. When we asked them about what was happening to our clothes they said that was natural, it was the effect of the lights on our eyes not on our clothes; they said they still were exactly the same colour, only we couldn’t see it.

It was hard to believe because I felt nothing strange in my eyes… only when I looked a second and third time to the same thing I felt some invisible illusionist was making some trick… It had to be magic in that, so why was everybody ignoring it? Yes, what we believe in shapes reality!

When we returned home our clothes still didn’t look blue… they were looking more or less orange. And in spite mother repeated the same explanation, I went to bed thinking that either someone was hiding something in that story or there was really magic involved.

The next morning, when I woke up the first thing I did was verify the colour of my jacket… It was blue again, exactly the same blue it was before that night walk by the river! I felt happy and released. Things were right again. Magic, yes, but not hidden and completely out of control. If my jacket was meant to change color, I wanted to be the magician not the rabbit in the hat. So I tried the “trick” of changing color with many things. I concentrated intensely in a thing (the blanket, the curtain, the walls, plants, hair, the sky…) and the color would change… and my eyes would hurt. So I didn’t repeat that many times after… but I still make a “magic trick” in summer when I’m in the beach. I lie on the sand and close my eyes, then open them only one millimeter looking to the infinite blue sky. Through that narrow fringe between the eyelashes is possible to see rainbows, mainly if the eyelashes are wet. Simple magic! Magic is simple if you believe it and do it the right way. It’s a pity I can’t apply it to many things and many eyes. Some eyes are not really able of seeing rainbows… some minds never find the simple magic within.

I know that from up there you always know what’s happening here. When it is worth you stare and smile. When it is ugly you wave your head sadly and follow your walk among the stars. Three weeks ago I saw you covering your eyes and turning your head in other way. Yes, those mad fanatical did it again. This time they attacked in Paris with extreme violence. Every day hundreds of attacks like these are stopped before they are perpetrated. They always say they come in the name of a god or a prophet… we know they only come in the name of their blindness and lethal madness. Strange conception of god… god is the product of human and inhuman minds. Good human beings imagine a kind merciful god… monsters can only imagine a monster that despises life and tell them to kill and destroy… And while this happens in this tiny orb spinning in the Cosmos, god remains silent, untouchable and unknown in his wholeness. The universe is crying because in the most beautiful orb in the Cosmos exist such monsters and such madness…

You know I always had many causes and missions and sometimes I can’t just turn my head the other way. I have to do something even if it is insignificant and irrelevant. I did it on 9 /11 (when they attacked in New York, 2001), I did it on 3 /11 (when they attacked in Madrid, 2004) and in many other times and other situations. Since the American embassy is in the back of my school and the Spanish embassy is just 500 yards away, it’s still difficult to understand why I was the only person who did something. In 2001, I just took a big bouquet of flowers and wrote a message in the book of condolences in my name, mother’s name and Luzia’s name… she was only 4… In 2004, I asked my students to write about those events… some did it and some didn’t. The next day I went to the Spanish embassy with a small group of students and deliver those texts and poems and a bouquet of flowers. It was a very simple act… but a few days later that come in a newspaper… only the new was completely distorted. They were saying that the “school” had manifested its support and solidarity to the Spanish embassy. Well the direction of the school did nothing; I was the only one who did something and made no publicity of my action. It’s still shocking to think about that. People talk a lot but do nothing… and some even say the most wrong things in those situations, ignoring the victims and all the violence involved. A few days later, the secretary of the embassy went to my school to deliver a personal invitation. Some more days later, I and a small group of students were received at the embassy and I was very touched for their gratitude. I just did a very simple thing that my heart and mind tell me to do and they were treating me as if I had done something grand.

After the attacks in Paris (January 7, 2015), again no one moved a finger. But I did and I’m still doing it… On the night after the attacks I collected a few cartoons and photos and made a post with a comment on Google+. Then I began drawing and making lots of research. Well, you know my anthological spirit… In the last weeks, after work I stood until very late collecting images and testimonies. I have more than 1 500 now. I’ve been sleeping between 2 and 4 hours each night and I’m very near my limits… I must stop now. Besides it’s very wearing to merge into that dark world… fortunately along the way many of those cartoons made me smile and laugh. But I saw and read much more than cartoons. Almost nothing is entirely new to me, but travel through that mad dark world of fanaticism and extreme violence left me weak, almost ill… I really need to go back to my bright inner world and things. I hope I’ll have the strength to organize everything and make a post at the end of February. I left behind many things that I was doing to pay attention to this… and I still hope that someone cooperates with me. I asked some teachers and students to draw and / or write about this issue… Some promised they would do it… I’ll wait until the end of February. I only made half a dozen of drawings and I wanted to do more… but only after a break. I have so many more things to do, bright things… I’m trying to draw a frontier between that dark world and my bright things…

Frrrrrrrrrrrooooooooonnnnnnnnnttttttttttttiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeerrrrrr! It’s done! I can see the fireworks above our heads! You’re making silly comments and shouting sonorous exclamations of enthusiasm… as if that rain of light could really wash from this world all its miseries and atrocities… At least while we are here, it does! Light always works! The line and motto remains the same: “Only light and love are real!” I know you are pronouncing these same words right now. I can hear the stars whispering and echoing these words across the Universe… If there is a god, he has no other face and no other voice than this… and this is everything…