Celebrating Life

This morning my granny died at age 96. She was at the hospital and I made her promise me that she would be there (hopefully not at the hospital) to spend her 97th birthday with me in the beginning of this year. She first said yes, then she stopped and looked up saying, "It depends on the one who's up there...He's the only one who knows when our time is up!" She had such a peaceful smile, she was so lucid her whole life through. Portuguese-born, and very proud indeed of her roots, she chose though Brazil as her primary home, and she wouldn't change her life for nothing. A tremendous pianist and needlewoman (she made the most beautiful cloths and garments in crochet and tricot for my sister and I during our childhood), she just so lived her life so fully, and she did not only teach her sons and daughter piano lessons but most appropriately she chose to leave a legacy about love for we could see the reflection of all that affection on the way they treated her. Or she wouldn't have survived for that long, with not for the loving care they gave back to her. Such a celebration of life, she was still weaving and knitting and teaching. Her last pupil was my mother who just told me, "And I didn't show the towel I just finished for her." The afternoons I spent at her house, all the conversations we had about deep meanings, about life, about relationships, about love, ABOUT RESPECT. But most importantly it was when I held her hand at the hospital and kissed it for the first time that I could realize how much she meant to me and above all of the big lessons she taught without even saying a word. For it was in that moment that I saw that no matter what we do in our lives, in the end it is love that is basically left to us. What makes our life worth living are those cherishing moments, they stay forever, more than words, they are the actions, a simple gesture that is so meaningful and filled with symbolic healing. I write these words with my eyes half-covered in tears, for I know I'm more useful when I pour my emotions down with no restrain, while still able to discern what I am saying. She has always brought me a smile, and I will treasure the moments we spent together forever in my heart. Her sweet laughter and Portuguese accent, something that she never lost over the years, will remain in my memories, as much as her devoted soul. She was the one who stayed there with me all so vigilant and waiting patiently for my recovery when I was at the hospital on my sweet sixteen battling between life and death. Although she never mentioned that, her indeniable love and sacrifices towards me were so uplifting and moving that there were never enough words to describe what she meant to me. So we simply smiled at each other like two complacent souls.

I don't even need to mention what we so commonly wish for a soul who just departed! "Rest In Peace" or to write an anacronysm such as "RIP", for I know she's been resting in peace her whole life through by the way she lived in peace in spite of any turmoil that would rise around her. And I will take her forever with me, for she was the one carrying me around when I was the one who could not walk then. She showed me the way with gestures, not only words. And I'm the one following her steps in heavenly garments. I will always remember her sweetest laughter when on the phone each time I called her and by every year on her birthday, and her tender smile will be engraved in my heart for good.

I love you,
Granny!

Secret, Sacred, Socrates

Today I went to a lyrical gala, with the amazing interpretation of marvellous sopranos, tenor and baritone, accompanied by a chorus, in various arias from famous Operas, all that presented in the middle of a park, near the streets, in a bridge/stage and the sound of the river constantly flowing. No, that was not one of my favourite dreams, but indeed it did happen this Sunday at noon, here in Santiago. A man sat beside me started to cry when the tenor sang the aria "Che gelida manina" from La Boheme, although I myself felt inside the role of "Rudolph" when he said in Italian, "Who am I? I am a poet. What do I do? I write. And how do I live? I live."

Then when it started the duet of flowers, from the Opera "Lakme" by Delibes, my eyes were filled with tears, as I listened to those two angels singing, which transported me into their garden, like a Taj Mahal made of an holographic vision. They were so in sync, so delicate and perfectly in tune that I travelled beyond time and space. I was, then, one of them, breathing in that beautiful scene, living there, between swans of white wings, over the margins of the flowery rivers, softly sliding among mythic creatures, where the bird sings to collect the blue lotus and make a collar of love for our protection.

t'was "a democratic (culturally, not in politics) event, accessible to all" to quote the ambassador of Spain in Chile who had just arrived from Madrid. And I believe Santiago is perfectly "cosmo-polite" city, pleasant to both tourists and neighbours, for this type of eventful content. But then I noticed that even in a public space in an open (democratic;) area, only a selective amount of people was able to appreciate it, like a sophisticated food that only a palatal experience can improve with a trained taste. Opera like Ballet is an elitist art. But elitist not in terms of a monetary access but of a cultural assessment. Education is a matter that money can buy, but the inclination to appreciate fine arts is only available to those who have a refined soul. And to achieve to that point one must experience life, something that no school may teach, though it might show the way. And the way, like a circumference of possibilities might as well one day, as always, return to itself, or "mighty swell" turn into the centre, the source of all life: "Know thyself" as the maximum visceral and exponential search of the human soul. But for a river you don't need to mention about its freshness in the hot summer.

Even in architecture, for all its textures, rhythms and tones, one should take the journey, the enterprise as a feminine role, for it should engage in unity, in comfort, rather than dissuade, separate, concur or conquer. A city must be composed as a feminine entity for it doesn't judge its habitants, it awaits patiently and with a compassion for each citizen, just praying that whoever walks through her streets may feel it belongs in her arms, like a child, or a lover, lost in its labyrinth but finding her way in each corner. Each obstacle is nothing but a challenge that may facilitate the brave ones and digress or dissipate the weak ones in their profanity attempt. So to reach into the core of a city one must first learn how to obey and abide within her limitations, for there is not a definitive place in this world, but many daily places we may call our own.

With paintings from one of Chopin's most favourite artist, William Adolphe Bouguereau, and the Opera from one of my favourites musicians, Leo Delibes (the same who composed one of my most favourites Ballets, Coppelia) here an homage to the feminine in time and space:

Sous le dôme épais où le blanc jasmin
À la rose s'assemble
Sur la rive en fleurs riant au matin
Doucement glissons de son flot charmant
Suivons le courant fuyant
Dans l'onde frémissante
D'une main nonchalante
Viens, gagnons le bord,
Où la source dort et
L'oiseau, l'oiseau chante.

Sous le dôme épais où le blanc jasmin,
Ah! descendons/ Ensemble!
Sous le dôme épais où le blanc jasmin
À la rose s'assemble
Sur la rive en fleurs riant au matin
Viens, descendons ensemble

Doucement glissons de son flot charmant,
Suivons le courant fuyant
Dans l'onde frémissante
D'une main nonchalante
Viens, gagnons le bord
Où la source dort et
L'oiseau, l'oiseau chante.

Sous le dôme épais où le blanc jasmin,
Ah! descendons/ Ensemble!" Lakme et Mallika

Under a dome of white jasmine
With the roses entwined together
On a river bank covered with flowers laughing in the morning.(Flowers Duet)