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For Camille
May. 29th, 2021 02:31 pm
Day 72 - Limbo
Apr. 11th, 2020 05:57 pmThis day that’s repeated, merged into yesterday and tomorrow.
This slow car crash news, with no end in sight.
These questions from my mother, eliciting bleak statistics or lies.
This shut down little guesthouse somewhere in the Brazilian mountains in the state of Minas Gerais.
These silent trees entering autumn, emptied of bird song.
These WhatsApp messages that are visualised but not replied.
These Zoom gatherings that are full of chatter and silences.
These endless lists of free TV, films, podcasts, books and classes to get through.
These hours that tick along.
This privileged roof over my head.
This diary.
This slow car crash news, with no end in sight.
These questions from my mother, eliciting bleak statistics or lies.
This shut down little guesthouse somewhere in the Brazilian mountains in the state of Minas Gerais.
These silent trees entering autumn, emptied of bird song.
These WhatsApp messages that are visualised but not replied.
These Zoom gatherings that are full of chatter and silences.
These endless lists of free TV, films, podcasts, books and classes to get through.
These hours that tick along.
This privileged roof over my head.
This diary.
Day 51 - Disasters
Feb. 26th, 2020 04:38 pmCoronavirus, Brexit, the Far Right, World War III, asteroids, artificial intelligence, the death of culture...
Meanwhile, here I am, in the moutains in the southern tip of the state of Minas Gerais in Brasil, staring at trees as the rain pours down. My kittens have spent the past five hours sleeping on my bed.
Tomorrow I shave my head and buy a return bus ticket to São Paulo for the weekend. A couple of weeks ago São Paulo was under water after a couple of very heavy days of rain.
May there be sunshine this weekend! May there be peace.
Meanwhile, here I am, in the moutains in the southern tip of the state of Minas Gerais in Brasil, staring at trees as the rain pours down. My kittens have spent the past five hours sleeping on my bed.
Tomorrow I shave my head and buy a return bus ticket to São Paulo for the weekend. A couple of weeks ago São Paulo was under water after a couple of very heavy days of rain.
May there be sunshine this weekend! May there be peace.
1 Second for Everyday - September 2019
Oct. 1st, 2019 09:22 pm
This has been a fun challenge and I look forward to continuing it in the coming months. One thing I noticed, especially after watching ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
diglett's video, is that video footage seems to work better than photos (photos appear to go faster?! Must be something about the way we perceive a second in a moving image as opposed to a still one.)
13. I live in a rural guesthouse in Brazil with my mother, brother and his family. I spend most of my time taking care of my mom, who has dementia, or managing the guesthouse (cooking, cleaning, gardening.) The guesthouse opened in 2006 and ran for ten years. My brother and I wish to re-open it - first as an Airbnb.
12. We have a cleaner called Rosana who works for us every Friday. We've been chatting a lot about flowers and gardening; this past Friday she brought me a cutting of garden balsam, which I planted near our gardening shed.
11. I am a single gay man, just come out of a 20-year-relationship.
10. I lived in a narrow boat in London for a year, as part of research on a novel. I will hopefully pick up work on this novel again once the culture shock from moving to this small village in Brazil subsides. I'm also keen to get back into Portuguese-to-English translation work.
9. I meditate for 15 minutes each day, sometimes more. I also enjoy mindful walking and listening to podcasts on the subject.
8. My brother and I recently did a big clean up of our library. My next job is to reorganise the books by topics (gardening and cooking in the guesthouse's reception area, fiction, spirituality and non-fiction in the library.) I've also dug out a box of my mom's crochet and I'm trying to convince her to get back into it - so she doesn't spend all her time watching television.
7. I secretly enjoy soap operas and I'm now living in the country that produces the best ones (and sometimes the worst.)
6. I got into pull ups last year and wish to resume training here in Brazil, but I'm finding it hard to get motivated. I also love running (but haven't done much of it here).
5. My lovely co-workers in London gave me a Kindle as a goodbye gift. They even got a leather cover for it with a photo of myself and a friendly cat who lived near our office and who allowed everyone to pet it. I still get this cat's photo updates in our WhatsApp group.
4. I'm seriously considering adopting one or two kittens. Not only for the potential benefit of having company for myself and my mom, but for scaring away mice (that invariably attract rattlesnakes to our house). We already have five dogs.
3. I've had a few low days where I didn't even want to leave bed. Meditation has been key for managing my mental health and accepting this new cycle of my life.
2.
1. I turn 44 in less than 13 days.
The First Month Went Past
Sep. 4th, 2019 11:44 am
“You went from living in one of the world’s capitals to living in one of the world’s smallest towns,” said a friend recently as we walked the hills that surround my family’s guesthouse.
…From working in a large UK charity to working at home, from commuting two hours a day to living at my workplace, from spending hours a day in front of a computer to hours a day in a garden, from caring for my career and my social life to caring for my mom, who has Alzheimer’s.
I visited friends in São Paulo last weekend and came back rejuvenated.
At night, we watch a new soap opera, Bom Sucesso, about a rich man with 6 months to live and the not-rich woman who takes care of him. The man owns a failing publishing house and enjoys introducing classics to the woman. The Scarlett Letter, Othello, Sherlock Holmes. I've downloaded free copies of some of these to my new Kindle, a goodbye gift from my work colleagues.
I’ve started running again and doing pull ups on the bar my brother set up in his backyard.
I visited friends in São Paulo last weekend and came back rejuvenated.
At night, we watch a new soap opera, Bom Sucesso, about a rich man with 6 months to live and the not-rich woman who takes care of him. The man owns a failing publishing house and enjoys introducing classics to the woman. The Scarlett Letter, Othello, Sherlock Holmes. I've downloaded free copies of some of these to my new Kindle, a goodbye gift from my work colleagues.
I’ve started running again and doing pull ups on the bar my brother set up in his backyard.
Entre São Paulo e Minas
Apr. 9th, 2014 09:59 amPassei dois dias em Gonçalves, MG, na semana passada. Visitei amigos que tem uma casa linda à 1km da cidade, com uma sacada enorme e ensolarada, rodeada de árvores e montanhas, e uma biblioteca dentro de uma greenhouse, perfeita para aqueles dias de inverno típicos da Serra da Mantiqueira.
Esses amigos me levaram para conhecer algumas pousadas para pegar idéias para o da minha família, e alguns artesões da cidade (marçineiros, escultores). À noite, satisfiz um de meus sonhos: assistir um bom filme numa telona LED, deitado num sofá (embaixo de um cobertor), com uma lareira acesa. Só faltou um cachorrinho aos meus pés. Não resisti e caí no sono no meio de Orson Welles' O Terceiro Homem.
No Domingo, peguei carona com esses amigos para São Paulo: meu Macbook estava finalmente pronto depois de dois mêses de concerto na representante oficial da Apple. Cervejinhas pelo Minhocão, skatistas na Praça Roosevelt, seres excêntricos da noite... sempre um prazer visitar São Paulo.
Segunda-feira, 5 da manhã, a cidade acordou dentro do meu quarto no vigésimo e tantos andar - parecia que uma britadeira estava ao lado do meu travesseiro. Café da manhã numa padaria local e então uma hora de metro e trem para chegar ao Morumbi Shopping, onde me encontrei com uma amiga e peguei o Macbook. Aproveitei para dar uma olhada de novo na televisão de R$100,000 que eu tinha visto na FNAC na minha última visita.
Fim de tarde, no ônibus de volta à Minas Gerais, o motorista deixou um garoto de olhos azuis entrar com uma mala e anunciar que estava vendendo sacolinhas com refrigerante, batatinha e chocolate por apenas R$10. Devia ter uns 12 ou 13 anos. Falou que era o seu último ônibus do dia. Em outra dimensão, teria passado o dia estudando, jogando bola ou videogame. Teria visto nosso ônibus passar do conforto do carro de seus pais.
Esses amigos me levaram para conhecer algumas pousadas para pegar idéias para o da minha família, e alguns artesões da cidade (marçineiros, escultores). À noite, satisfiz um de meus sonhos: assistir um bom filme numa telona LED, deitado num sofá (embaixo de um cobertor), com uma lareira acesa. Só faltou um cachorrinho aos meus pés. Não resisti e caí no sono no meio de Orson Welles' O Terceiro Homem.
No Domingo, peguei carona com esses amigos para São Paulo: meu Macbook estava finalmente pronto depois de dois mêses de concerto na representante oficial da Apple. Cervejinhas pelo Minhocão, skatistas na Praça Roosevelt, seres excêntricos da noite... sempre um prazer visitar São Paulo.
Segunda-feira, 5 da manhã, a cidade acordou dentro do meu quarto no vigésimo e tantos andar - parecia que uma britadeira estava ao lado do meu travesseiro. Café da manhã numa padaria local e então uma hora de metro e trem para chegar ao Morumbi Shopping, onde me encontrei com uma amiga e peguei o Macbook. Aproveitei para dar uma olhada de novo na televisão de R$100,000 que eu tinha visto na FNAC na minha última visita.
Fim de tarde, no ônibus de volta à Minas Gerais, o motorista deixou um garoto de olhos azuis entrar com uma mala e anunciar que estava vendendo sacolinhas com refrigerante, batatinha e chocolate por apenas R$10. Devia ter uns 12 ou 13 anos. Falou que era o seu último ônibus do dia. Em outra dimensão, teria passado o dia estudando, jogando bola ou videogame. Teria visto nosso ônibus passar do conforto do carro de seus pais.
