2010.

Great new friends and a handful of good old faithful ones. A thriving new business (I'm so fortunate to be completely in love with what I do and have a partner who's also my friend). My own apartment, again. A family I can't even begin to describe. A grandmother/mother who's gone. A huge heartache. Lots of books. Lots of therapy. Tons of living. 2010 was absolutely full, difficult and amazing, with the intensity every year should have. I couldn't have asked for more. May 2011 remain everything but dull. Amen.

the men of my life

I don't talk much about them here, but these are the two most important men in my life: my brother and my dad. Spending the years in their company has raised my standards and has taught me to expect nothing less than absolute kindness from any male figure I come into contact with. They've somehow managed to survive in a house with 3 very opinionated women and still love us to death – and that should speak volumes about them.

my dad doesn't get the internet

Me: You need to learn how to look through pictures on my Flickr. There's a bunch of photos of you there and you don't even know.

Him: OF COURSE THERE IS NOT. I never put anything on there... You know what I also don't get? The Facebook thing. You put your face on there? Is that what you do? Put your face on there and that's it?

Me: Have you ever even google yourself?

Him: Ok, now WHY would I EVER do that?

Me: There's a bunch of stuff about you there too.

Him: Yeah, I never put anything on there either.

today i'm feeling in portuguese

Minha irmã leu isso pra mim hoje. É do Fernando Pessoa :

"Basta pensar em sentir
Para sentir em pensar.
Meu coração faz sorrir
Meu coração a chorar.
Depois de parar de andar,
Depois de ficar e ir,
Hei de ser quem vai chegar
Para ser quem quer partir.
Viver é não conseguir."

Eu pensei nisso o dia inteirinho e fiquei triste, triste.

Que tristeza é a gente ter que abrir mão de quem a gente gosta para nos tornar indiferentes, sejam quais forem as circunstâncias. Seja por uma história que não deu certo, por improbabilidade de vingar, ou porque outros acham que não é pra ser. "Larga disso, parte pra outra".

Como se essa fosse a ordem evolutiva das coisas, e não o contrário! Você gosta, aí ama, aí fica indiferente. É isso? Confere? Como se o amor que morre de morte prematura, de aborto, sem chance de sobreviver o dia, nos tornasse pessoas melhores, mais fortes e evoluídas.

Não faz sentido nenhum pra mim. Pobre deles que nem conseguem gostar.

"Amar não é um vexame. Escândalo mesmo é a indiferença."

there she goes

Just the other day I brushed her hair, left it kinda wavy to the side and styled it with some pomade. She hated it, and kept looking at herself in a little mirror I gave to her a million years ago and that she carried with her everywhere.

As soon as I left the room, she combed her hair the way she always used to, real neatly all to way to the back of her head.

When I went back to confirm what I was absolutely sure she would do she said "I swear I didn't touch it. It's just... THE WIND WAS BLOWING AND MESSED IT ALL UP. I swear I like it!"

I'm gonna miss her. Not quite sure how to exist in a world where she's not part of.

phd

Guess who's going to be a doctor in Psychoanalysis soon?

Yup, the smartest girl in the house.

I might be funny and all, but we all know that I'm really just "street smart". Plus I also learn a lot from mistakes.

Parabéns, Dri! Orgulho grandão de você.

i am my mother's daughter

It's scary how much I look like her sometimes.

28

I was rightfully accused today of neglecting this blog once again. The thing is there is just not enough time in a day to do all I've been trying to do lately and still maintain the decent amount of posts I used to.

So, to correct this absolutely awful scenario, here's my 28th birthday. Today! Yay me! How wonderful is it that I spent 7 years away and I get to come home and gather in one room all my old faithful friends and a few more who I'm growing to adore like family?

Turns out that the right mixture of the friends, family and Lexapro actually works wonders for me. I'm pretty damn happy.

baby boy is now a man

And then one day, he suddenly grew up and made us all proud. My brother is graduating.



I remember a few years ago when I was still living in Indianapolis there was a Tide commercial going on that had this really pretty song and I used to think about my brother every time I heard it. Hopefully he'll find his way here, listen to it and cry.



(And congrats to this girl here, too. Not too shabby!)

sometimes people ask me why i came back to brazil

Those photos are from our Christmas, and the images they're holding were my present to all of them. [more here]

ana

My sister says this is my song. I believe her. And I like it.



(a better, live version is available here)

talent clearly runs in the family

Photos taken by my brother-in-law at Ana Cañas and Móveis Coloniais de Acaju's concert this week. A thing of beauty, right? (Click on the images for full enjoyment)

go to Argentina, have a good ol' time. ask me how.

I just came back from a lovely trip to Argentina that's consumed every ounce of energy I had and that checked-off my "to-do-before-I-die list" a couple of items.

First, I SAW MADONNA LIVE!!! Yes, me – the crowd-avoider, que "don't-touch-more-than-once-or-i'll-hit-you", the "get-me-out-of-here-it's-too-damn-hot"!! I f*cking did it. And loved every minute of it.




I'm too tired to talk about the whole trip right now, but I plan on writing something decent sometime this week. For now, you can check out my flickr. If I look happy and a little tipsy in the pictures, it's because I was.

better than a box in the basement

written and sewn by Wood, Juniper's mom.

email exchange with my brother in law

I sent him an email telling him for the 25th time this week to start using Twitter. I'm always pushing him to be as "virtual" as I am and join every social network I am part of. His response:

If I join all those mechanisms, I can't work;

If I can't work, I can't pay the bills of our house;

If I don't pay the bills, your sister and I will have to move to a third floor apartment with no stairs;

Then, with less space, we'll argue more;

With more arguing, less babies;

Less trips;

Less love.

The internet is against love.

my first father's day in brazil after 7 years

grandma's chair

My grandma died last year, sometime in February. She was my godmother. Because of her I was born with fair skin and blue eyes. My father’s family always gathered around her table on weekends, she was a matriarch. She was the strong figure in my family – not my grandfather, but her. She could barely read or write by the time she was a grown woman, but she had a passion for learning that I am still to see in another human being. She had six kids, and she made sure they all graduated from university. She also managed to go back to school and get her own degree by the time she had a bunch of grandkids. I was a little girl at the time, and I remember notebooks piled on the dining table, where warm coffee and homemade pastries would sit, always fresh. She was a fighter, a woman with balls. She wrote a letter to the president of Brazil once asking for a job, and for some reason – maybe because she was a phenomenal woman – he responded and met with her one-on-one.

She was adorable and I don’t remember not wanting to be around her once. Not even for a minute. She always had a story to tell, always a smile on her face. The only time I saw her sad was last year, about a month before she died, when I went to see her in the hospital. I was still living in Indianapolis, and I hadn’t seen her for a year. She had been really sick for a while, and I think she probably thought she would die without saying goodbye to me. I remember walking in the door and as soon as she saw me she raised her arms and thanked every saint she could possibly think of because her goddaughter was there. She was frail, pale, but her smile was strong and as powerful as ever. She had this thing about her that made me feel like I was the most special human being alive. I was the granddaughter who clearly inherited her genes, and I’m still the woman in the family who resembles her most. We had always had a different connection from everybody else, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.


When she died, my father and his brothers found out she had her whole life – and death – carefully organized. She had mapped out how the little money she had accumulated throughout her 90-some years would be distributed amongst each child and grandchild. She left money for her funeral and burial. She didn’t miss a single detail.

Today something was deposited into my account. It was the money she left for me. I thought about her all day long. I felt her around me the whole time, and I thought about what I should do with what my grandma set aside for me.

I went out this afternoon and bought a beautiful white chair I’ve been dreaming about getting for my studio. I think if my grandma could have chosen something to give me, she would make sure it had sometime to do with my education, or how I provide for myself. She would have contributed to that somehow. So I bought the chair. It’s big, the most expensive item in my studio. I know I will be thinking of her every time I’m in there. She’s a part f my environment now, and she is making it more beautiful and practical. Making my life more comfortable. Just like she always did.

she made them for me

Do I have the baddest grandma or what?

pra dri e pro flor - MY FIRST FLICKR VIDEO!!

(flickr videos can only be 90secs long. You can watch the original version I uploaded to Youtube here.)

they finally did it