never look back

Porto 2006-12-27

Why do we look back?
Is that a way of loving, a sweet mellow liquor that gains taste with time?

Time is a mind frame. Changing mind frame creates changes in time…
Coming here is a gap in time.

Mine is a journey of no return. .


PORTO_ NEW YORK_ BOMBAY_ LONDON_ RIO DE JANEIRO_ DELHI

Do you even realise how much learning travelling gives you?
Do you have any idea how much your mind changes when you cross a mountain?
What about an ocean?
Do you know how deep eyes become after seeing ages?
What about cultures?

I am deeply sorry when I meet people who can’t recognize the value of research.
Smashed.
So I seat quietly and look at the city while drinking oporto wine.
And I do it there and then, to forget.

shadows

This year I'm home for Christmas. I came to visit my family which I haven't done in the last five years. "Bad girl", I know, Santa shouldn't be happy with my non attachment in the years passed but life has been so sweet to me I could never interrupt it to celebrate christmas to be totally honest with you.
Christmas feels like that right now: an interruption, a dive into a gap that was there, where a bunch of memories and sensations wakes up and jumps out of places where they shouldn't have been in the very first place.
It is strange to be living Christmas again. Maybe that's exactly why: it feels like a repetition and I'm astonished that my family keeps doing exactly the same thing as they did when I lived here, when I was a child, a teenager and a visitor.The same menu, the same routine, the same music, the same film on tv and even the same arguments...But then that's tradition isn't it, and tradition I don't know why is what Christmas is all about, that's what they say...

Last year I was in Rajastan, in the desert near Pakistan. I woke up and walked through the streets in a different sort of dive. I followed smells, birds, monkeys and my intuition as I never travel with maps or goals. There were many black deep eyes staring at me. Eyes that usually cry, looking deep behind my eyes, validating my own emotions making me realise how emotions are made up choices we take.
It was then, in one of those most beautiful quiet small streets of the village , that this woman dressed up in a nice orange sari called us in her house by moving her hand and using no words. I remember I didn't really wanted to go in because by then we had walked so much and have played with so many children I was exausted and I needed to go back to the hotel and have a rest...I needed the toilet. But it was impossible: her persistence and confidence that we would follow her was clear and her will to have us in her house was too strong to deny.

We went into her small round house made of earth. In the floor there was a small poor carpet and she asked us to seat there so we did. There was a smell of animals and spices in the air and it was colder inside then outside because the houses are prepared to protect from the heat which in the winter as then is not the most convenient. In the center of the house there was a hole in the ceiling and in the floor ashes from a late fire.

She kept smiling to us and made a sign with her hands for us to wait. She might have said something in hindi but by then I didn't speak any hindi so I don't know. She left the house and went out. When she did a donkey popped his head in, his dark eyes staring at me. Silently. Guarding me.

It is very funny when a donkey stares at you. It is a very rare experience because they are not the sort of animal who does that in the very first place but when they do they bring a sort of information we are not used to receive from any other animal....it says: life is empty. Life is empty...but doesn't bring any feelings about that fact. It's just there.

I looked away from the donkey and passed my eyes around the house with humble curiosity. There wasn't much to look except for the sun passing through the walls creating shadows of awareness that there is a world outside, there is one reality that is not yours.

The woman came in again and this time with her came one, two, three, oh no four and five children....and finally the father. I wasn't expecting this and felt suddenly very tight in such a small room without windows, so tight and so low I couldn't stand in with so many people. They were all smiling and they were all wonderfully pleased that we were there. They left one side of the round house for us and just used the other side for them. They were all really tight with each other so it's obvious they are used to share this very small space between them. Their clothes weren't rich and their smell was strong and real- people from the desert have a very specific smell, it stays with you when you leave it, like ashes and earth. They don't smell sweet like flowers or water, they smell a condensed sort of existence and experience. Their hairs is full of mess and sand and some of them actually use ashes and mud to create drads.

The woman went out again and quickly returned with a chocolate cake where it was written: Happy Christmas Day 2005!!!
HAPPY FUCKING CHRISTMAS DAY 2005... WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT? There I was in bloody mary and joseph house with a bunch of kids who got no bed to sleep in having a chocolate cake specially being offered to us...? This was surreal, I could not believe it.
I was really godsmacked. She asked me to cut the cake and eat it.

And for an instant I believed in miracles. I believed in shooting stars who bring voices from other worlds. I believed in gifts from the unknown. I believed how partying is more important then misery.

Just like that, out of nowhere there I was, looking around to all the dark eyes smiling at me, so happy to see me, so sad to watch me leave, so open for me, that I realise seriously what it means: we are all one family. And I realised what Christmas is then.

Just like the dream I'm having now: My mom, my dad, my sister, the dog, the cat....the sun, the shadows, the shadows, the shadows......

and all the unknown realities out there.

May the spirits sing to you wherever you are.
Love
Pray

ANA

New York for London

I was young, and was holding a postcard in my hand with the statue of Liberty in it whilst crossing the Houston in the Staten Island Ferry. I lived in a leafy community house in Staten Island, twenty minutes away from Manhattan by boat.
In Manhattan I met people who have never been in Staten Island, and in Staten Island I met people who have never step foot in Manhattan. Still, the ferry was free and the crossing of this amazing large river would only take you twenty minutes and would allow you to contemplate very closely Miss Liberty’s solid serious face. She was empowering. The statue, that is.
The postcard had large red attractive letters printed on it: the home of the brave, the land of the free. That’s how I felt: brave and free. And lonely, as I looked at the waters and at the distance from one side to the other. I remember there used to be a country singer in the boat. She was black and used to wear the best smile and a big cowboy hat. She used to sing “take me home” and I believed she was from Alabama.
I used to cry when she sang that. I was young and I felt away from home. It was hard.

I need to learn how to forgive myself for what I’ve done.
I blame myself, blame her and blame my destiny.
Only rarely I can accept positively that my choice was then the right one, even though consciously I know that was the only thing to do.

It started to snow early that year in New York. The days were short and cold. The Houston was covered with massive white platforms that looked like little stages for unknown actors and made up for a huge and incomplete puzzle. The boat consequently took much longer to cross the heavy waters and the heaters were poor, so I remained quite and thoughtful staring through the window, my head cupped with a hat, my hands submersed on gloves, my scarf all around me.
Only my eyes were attentive and my mind was thinking of her.

I longed for warmth. I longed for a companion, and I missed my cats.
The postcard was to be written, and the words in it were as important as my actions.
When you have someone you love in the other side of the ocean words become missions. Every single one must bring the exact amount of care, warmth and irony that you want to build up in a relationship. Words can be poetic, they can be fun or they can be short and simple. My postcards always seemed too small. I wanted to write more in them, to give more of myself to it, to loose myself entirely.

Her postcards were the only ones to arrive. I didn’t receive any letters from my family or friends back home because people don’t write letters anymore. They are either too busy or too condescending. Or they use the Internet and write stupidly simple emails.
It’s becoming harder and harder to be real through writing. But she was real. Too real!

I never liked her letters very much. They were written quickly and not very carefully, they weren’t very long, and they were run freely. But I have learnt how to love every single word in them and so I would read them everyday and appreciate every single word in it like a kiss, even if it didn’t make sense.
With time, I started really enjoying her careless free style writing, her non-sense badly grammar long sentences, her lack of punctuation. And her letters became my only possessions, my hobby, inspiration and source of hope.

It was in a very cold evening that I made the final decision. It was snowing and I’ve missed the ferry back home. I was coming from my rehearsals, and had been working in a restaurant in The Village getting one dollar per hour. I was tired, lonely and fragile. I had to wait for another hour for the next boat and I looked for a coin in my pocket. In the ferry waiting room all the homeless were getting their beds ready. It looked dodgy, and I didn’t want to be there. I had to seat for an hour and I was too scare to sleep.
I decided to call her and told her I was coming to meet her in England.

And I made the choice I still blame myself for: I left New York and came to live in London.
With time, I've learnt how to love London. Day by day, like every single word in her letters.
Right now I love where I am. I love who I am. And still, I love her.

Maybe it will snow

I can listen the seagulls in the back of my head,
careful ! here come the planes, my skull gets ready to go...
Come as you are, pay as you go...

the voice says: where am i going? what do i really want?
there's a hand extended towards my heart full of memories
and a beautiful enlightened christmas tree in the backyard

and the voice said: may be it will snow.
she had a beautiful black dress that shinned in her white snow skin
the mince pies sat quietly at the table the all night
and we did not touch them

hi, smile, hi, nervous smile

what sounds do i like ? in between the silence and my breath?
maybe this gap, this inbetween, wanting without willing
staying without wanting
longing
silently
for their touch.

voices all around the room like urges for cramberries
and my silken soft throat crashed in a cramp
can't tell you now can I?
The dress shinning
the champagne glittering
merry christmas
darling
darling

red lipstick on a pie
bitten
silently bitten

waves collapsing, dark and cold out here
come out
leave the fire
come down to see me
baby
come as you are
pay as you go.

ok. who is this really?
and the voice said:
maybe it will snow...maybe it will snow.

Breakthrough

It's the 24th November and it's the day where a major
underworld breakthrough is taken place according to
the Mayan Calendar.

Hope light and perspectives for transformation are
arriving to your under currents as much as mine,
because over my feet feels like chaos and disorder is
taking a collision that fuck the pain away, it tastes
so damn good!

I thought I would drop you a line from this fucked up
crazy world of mine while I cook tofu and broccoli on
cloud 18....I love cooking...cooking is mixing up all
this colours into a big picture of flavours and
textures.
I find so much inspiration for cooking in London,
every day new veggie dishes coming out of my
travelling influences..I got 3 types of different
curries, masalas, and chillies in my kitchen, smells
of garlic, coriander and basil, cumin seeds, gingers
and cardomons, paprika, cinnamon and nutmegs...Houch!
Ain't I a rich lady?

I sit in the living room of my house and ask myself to
be there just there quiet awaiting.I turn my phone
down, and wait for peace, calm and silence to arrive
to my mind. What I'm doing could be called a
meditation of some sort except that my mind is quickly
invaded by thoughts, memories, wishes and needs and I
rather take the moment as a prayer. So I sit and allow
those thoughts to be there without getting really
involved in them, just observing. I sit and pray.
I drop my thoughts again and focus on breathing.

The smell of curry arrives to my nostrils, there's a
sense of satisfaction in the onions fried in italian
olive oil, a taste of dryness and bitterness in my
heart, like a painfull dried tomato, and so I breath
deeply and extensively like the wind or the sea, in a
repetitive rhythmic pattern, that calms my nervous
system and reflects the cyclic presence within me.
My inner rhythm is now clear and the rice is boiled.

I feel connected and I stay near that force of nature
which is breath, life, myself as much as I can...
There's rats in the underground, cockroaches in the
art galleries, where's the backstage door?

Where's the door?

Westerns believe God belongs to another culture. They
don't understand God as part of themselfs due to the
misconceptions of all formed sectarian religions.
People have arguments as stupid as "do you believe in
God?". I mean Fuck me, yeah ? Am I judgemental or is
everyone just completely fucked up by their own
cultural believes or rituals?

It's hard to keep contact with ourselves when it's
hard to contact with each other. Cibernetic toilet
literature...How many of you have I actually touched
in the last 6 months? How many of us touched ourselfs?

And how much fear lives within each one of us to tell
the truth, to express our beliefs- cause we feel we're
being judged.
And in the end of the day the biggest judge is
ourself.

I got to go
smells burn
and I am decided
I am becoming a chef
not an artist.

wake up women

Dublin, 1956
Not so long ago, in Ireland, there was one, in between
many institutions belonging to The Holy Christian
Church where women and young girls would be sent to
when they misbehaved: The magdalene institution for
charity.
In that official institution they would remain, most
times for the rest of their lives, working really hard
and being beaten as a punishment to their bad conduct
so they could achieve salvation and enter the kingdom
of God. That institution worked as a laundry and the
people of Dublin would pay good money for their good
service as helping the good church would also give you
credits in the good way to the good God.

Inside the walls of the convent, the young ladies
faced fear, guilt and misery. They were beaten when
menstruating as that was considered a sin, and made to
work harder when they would show emotions.
Their heads were shaved, their bodies humiliated and
covered in a long black dress, a nun's dress.

Most of these girls, young women, were not allowed to
talk to each other, so it took them a long time to
discover the reasons why they were there in the very
first place. But with time they came to realise that
each one of them, regardless of their differences, had
three things in common: they were sent their by their
fathers, they were not guilty of their circunstance
which happened around a man, and they had to pray in
the name of the Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit.

Most women were raped and pregnant women.
They were God's Women.

Kabul, 2006

In Afeghanistan, now, even with some of the American
and British army present on land to theoretically stop
the Taliban force, there remains the strongest culture
of women's oppression.
Women, and young girls, are being killed every day for
attempting education, liberation or changing their
clothes.
Forced to wear the burkha, a very long dress quite
similar to a nun's, the women live hidden, feeling
guilty and afraid.

There are some organizations working on women
empowerment creating secret schools for girls, giving
them hope and dreams.
Some of those girls are able to go into the army which
is a lucky chance opening and granting them some
opportunity for learning and personal development
outside marriage life.

Most women are raped, and all of their marriages are
arranged, many times to much older man. Most women are
beaten.
One woman per week kills herself in Kabul.

They are Allah's Women.

London 2006

There are women dressed up in many different fashions.
Women are free to choose what they want to wear from
the big shops. Women are free to work to buy what they
want to buy from the big shops.

Women go to schools. They are teachers, and
headteachers.
They go to universities. They get big jobs.

The big shops are run by men. The education system is
run by men.
Women represent 20% in Parliament. Only 1 in 5 big
companies are run by women in London.


There are 30 000 women per year estimated to come
into mental houses in the UK due to rape.

They are Godless women.

Lisbon 2006

Abortion is not allowed.
Christianism survives.

3000 women die per year due to home made abortions.

Today at 7.30pm
on an audition:

I say: I am a feminist.
Director says: Oh, I think we should look for
equality.
Don't you think that's a bit fundamentalist?

I say: Fundamentalist? No. It's just the only
fundamental fucking response in the fucking
fundamentalist world we're living in.

How do you think you gonna kill a lion? With a
Kitten's paw?

Dublin, Kabul, London, Lisbon, It Does Not Fuck Ing
Matter

Stop the pain away. Kill fear. Empower women.

Wake up: this is still the same world and the same
age.

Ps: Didn't get the job.