• Kiitos!

When I was recently in their country, one thing I’ve appreciated about finns was that they usually say “Kiitos” when they are getting out of the bus where they had been traveling.

It’s such a sweet behaviour! I always looked at it as finns were thinking that bus drivers are angels who have the mission of bringing them safely to their destination.

And besides, I love so much the sound of this finnish magic word, “Kiitos”!… So cuddly it sounds!... As also that word, “Mitä”, which I've also heard so often in their mouths.

Every time I have heard them said “Kiitos”, I wandered even if the bus driver would listen to them. I reckon it’s not important if bus drivers listen or not. People still say “Kiitos”, anyway. So they can have their consciences clean.

I’ve had several bus trips in Finland. Never alone. Always with the companionship of my personal angel, a second one besides the regular bus driver. Second but the most important one.

And not only bus trips but also tram, expresso bus, train, metro and ferry trips. And rides on private cars. All this thanks to my personal angel. To whom I must say “Aitäh”. Always and forever.

Aitäh, because I’ve got from this angel of mine this above described “full package and services”. But it was not for free.

I had to get there, in Finland, in the first place. And I’ll have to pay that in the next months or even years. Perhaps with slave work. And if I even have the chance to get it. But that I knew it before deciding my departure. It was and still is a risk I gladly took. My angel had often invited me to go and meet her. How could I think twice then?...

"I need you here by my side", she repeatedly told me... Until I could not hold myself back anymore. Any arguments of mine to not going seemed like excuses I invented to myself.

I looked at my credit card and said to myself, what the heck, this is going to be useful for something. If needed, I'm going to spend my available sold like there is no tomorrow. I know, it's a very foolish way to act and think...

I also gave this angel my time. More than a month of my life. But that I got back as well. With large interests. Although, I missed some fine opportunities to make my life more sustainable by not staying in my country, Portugal.

I tried to help this angel, whenever possible. We were both cleaning lady and sir, sometimes. Finn house owners seem to see in my angel a great human being. But I doubt if they really know her immense value, like I do.

I went with her to some direct selling companies events, too. On which I was not of great help, because I felt somehow reluctant to give my time to these. I was there not totally available to other people, as it would be supposed of me to behave.

I went also to some social events. To gatherings at some friends houses. Where despite of always had been welcome by people, I felt sometimes uncomfortable. Because I was for some rare moments separated from this personal angel of mine. And had to share her attention with others. When in a selfish way I would like to have all her time to me.

I’d like to escape with her to a desert island, just the two of us. But I reckon it would be asking too much. I don’t have the power or the merit to ask or desire that.

And besides, I don’t know if the Helsinki bus card that she said for me to keep it - in case I would be able to use it one day in the future - if its credits will be worth for anything on any of the hundreds of desert small islands of Finland. Or that idyllic small country to the south across the Baltic sea.

Someone wrote "givers have to set limits because takers never do". I know how takers behave. I’m a taker, as well. But at least as a taker I know how to be grateful. I often say “Kiitos” to my givers. And when I’m one of those, a giver too, I don’t set limits while I have still anything of mine to give.

Unfortunately for myself, I'm a poor man. Like Saint Joseph, the father of Christ, was too. The financial resources that were available for me to put my hands on sold out too quickly. Due to some several bus and train trips. That I didn't foresee it in advance, before my arrival at this mythical Vantaa airport.

To my angel I have been every since my first day in the land of the thousand lakes a burden. As far as our food supplies were concerned, she always was doing the major efforts to buy these. But there was more expenses which my presence in her daily life brought to her.

I purchased my Lisbon-Helsinki two-way flight ticket with a return date that would allow me to pay the least as possible. Still in Lisbon, my almost random choice was November, the 10th. I calculated all my money would last for staying about a month.

We thought afterwards, while I was already in Lahti, of changing this return date to some day after this last Christmas, at the most. But this change would cost me an amount of money that wouldn't be available to me anymore. Not to mention that my angel would be forced to spend more and more resources with me, as well as her. And this angel is not a rich one, either.

I had to leave my angel to stay alone, once again. This was hard for me to do but even more for her to accept. The expectations I raised on her about me were defrauded. That's a thing she has never forgive me. And she's completely right.

I suffer from being apart from her. But that's nothing compared to what she has been standing for. Nothing. I feel like being this self-assumed monster mentioned by the divine Clarice Lispector, this wonderful mixture of a member of a Lithuanian Jewish family, born in Ukraine, raised and lived most of her life as a Brazilian citizen.

I have my moods, that’s right. Everybody has them. U2, my sweetest angel. And I won’t say anything more about it.

You say you’re not a thing to be thrown away. It's only fair. No one is. I’d like to think neither am I.

Aitäh, kallis ingel. I feel I must have went out of the bus now. But I don’t know where I am. Or where to go from here. Anyway, I will figure it out alone. One more time.

I’ve had one of the most happy semesters of my life, ending at the same time as this year of 2015. Kiitos!

Kiitos, as well, for the inspiration you gave me to write these pathetic lines today and some of the posts since the end of June. And a New Year is knocking at the door, already.

I wish at least we could stay good friends in 2016. But I'm afraid my words - any words that I may pronounce, whatsoever - will not be understood no more.

The monster that I am is going to start to ask his forgiveness directly to the gods. Not to angels. I often used to say I am an angel too. Now, I've been expelled from paradise. I'm the only one to blame. And that's not the first time it happens.

Should this be what christians call an "Act of Contrition"?... Well, this is me. This is my wonderland. This is my life.

• Lõpuks*

And my hiding place is you. Even when you're hiding from me. And me, I can't hide from you. You are always in my mind. Always will be.

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* Eventually, in estonian. It can have in this language other meanings also, like finally, ultimately, at last, in the end, lastly.

• Can't buy me love

“Tell me that you want the kind of thing

that money just can't buy

I don't care too much for money, 

money can't buy me love”

A famous lyrics by the Fabulous Four

This will be me being too naif, writing a post in this blog at 2 o'clock of a saturday to sunday evening, after this last Christmas, almost at the end of this good year, not being able to sleep properly, with my mind full of wandering thoughts...

That money can't buy us love, that much is true. However, those who will say it can’t buy happiness are sooooo wrong!…

I had to give up on my happiness because of lack of money. 

I was living with you, being happy like hell, just by being able to watch you working with your Mac on your desk. You with your back turned on me. Me sitting on our angry bed just watching you, peacefully, and playing a game on my smartphone.

Doing time, waiting for when it would be time for us to go to sleep. Or go out for a walk. Or some work assignment. Or when it would be the time for cooking or improvising a simple meal for both of us.

Oh, how our meals were all of them simply divine... It's even difficult for me to enjoy now eating the very same food I always had been used to eat all my life!...

In those moments we were all alone the two of us, I enjoyed mostly to watch you sitting on your chair, with your two feet with those so cute socks with floral Muhu patterns, barely touching the floor…

We were so happy back then!… And now, neither you nor me, we don’t have the enough amount of money to live again those lovely moments.

Love, there’s plenty of that between us, I think. Happiness, no. Just because of the damn money thing!…

We should had been together this Christmas!!!... If there is fairness in this world... We should had taken a cup of your wonderful glõgi the two of us, staring at each other's eyes.

We need this bloody damn money to be happy because we are separated by these 3,417 km, or something like that. And to make things worse, the world today is more and more denying chances to earn money by increasing shortage of job opportunities. In a worldwide basis nowadays, I think.

In a world today, where people can get together starting from living very far away from each other in the first place, there should be created some means to make the 21st century love affairs could be much more sustainable.

This pursuit of happiness by these new kind of couples in love should be a major concern for all mankind. Mostly for those who can have the destiny of our planet in their hands.

In the seventies in last century, in a time it seemed the world could allow itself to dream more than today, there was a slogan that goes like this: “No to gross domestic product. Yes to gross national happiness.”.

I wish "your" angels could listen to my words, if they ever want to pay attention to this fool that I am... You talk to them too, please. They will surely listen to you more.

I'll try to get some sleep now...

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To hear this post’s original soundtrack (ost), click here, please. But not by the Fabulous Four this time...

Note: This is the second time I write a post in this blog about money. The first time was this another post, a very old one, here.

• Minu isiklik jõulukaart*

“A essência da arte é estar apaixonado,

é de facto a melhor essência.

Se eu não estivesse sempre apaixonado,

até por aquilo que eu não sei que estou,

estaria morto.”

Artur Bual

pintor, escultor e ceramista

Este anno da graça de dois mil e quinze ainda não findou mas eu já posso dizer que até ao dia de hoje estou a viver um dos melhores semestres da minha existência.

E neste Natal, à falta do meu primeiro desejo de todos, o plano B do que eu gostaria de pedir a Papai Noel era…

…uma varanda envidraçada com vista sobre o mar da serenidade, onde eu me pudesse encontrar sozinho, bem a sós comigo mesmo, com a alma ao abrigo de ventos e marés, e com tempo para estar apenas a escrever memórias e sentimentos ainda frescos. 

Com todas as minhas necessidades básicas e vitais satisfeitas e ainda com um chá quentinho, a toda a hora. De vários sabores e aromas.

É bem provável que não haja nem plano A e nem B neste meu Natal. Mas ao menos estou apaixonado.

E por quem esta old soul que eu sou sabe bem que está.

E por isso, desejo a todos os que lerem estas linhas - e aos que as não lerem também - que tenham não um FELIZ NATAL apenas mas sobretudo um Natal em que se apaixonem. De verdade. Tanto ou mais do que eu. Se para tanto tiverem engenho. E arte.

Assim é este o meu postal de Natal para todos vós, mortais.

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* O meu postal de Natal, num dos dois principais idiomas da família das línguas fino-bálticas.

• Renascer

Eu já me apaixonei muitas vezes nesta minha actual existência. Tantas que já julgava que não o voltaria a fazer. Assim p’ra valer, mesmo!

Depois de ter sobrevivido a este último lustre, estava crente que já teria perdido essa capacidade. Mas não. Parece que não.

Renasci. Voltei a viver. Sei que posso me apaixonar de novo.

Nestes anos depois do traumático fim da minha última relação, até que tive outras paixões antes desta. Mas nunca houve aquela sensação de que poderia me entregar por inteiro.

E posso reconhecer até que nunca fiz essa entrega de mim sem reservas antes. Em nenhuma das relações que tive. Não quero ser ingrato com quem fez o favor de se apaixonar por mim também, mas… Nunca foi como agora.

Tu mostraste-me que ainda estou vivo. Que posso voltar a sentir o coração bater. Eu estava dentro do buraco e tu tiraste-me de lá.

Mas apesar de tudo o que aconteceu, o cepticismo que tenho em mim próprio não pôde deixar agora de me fazer questionar… A tua missão comigo será apenas isto?… Não! Não, não pode ser, pelos deuses todos de todos os Olimpos!…

Eu fui ao teu encontro como uma fuga para a frente. Porque me desafiaste a ir. Porque vi no teu desafio a minha última oportunidade para ser feliz. E porque havia uma ligeira hipótese de poder ser algo que ia ser para sempre.

Não foi. Eu não consegui ficar contigo mais tempo do que umas escassas quatro ou cinco luas. Por incompetência minha. Mas foi o tempo mais que suficiente para desejar da próxima vez ser eterno. Assim o queiramos e consigamos ambos.

Querer, eu creio que o queremos na mesma medida os dois. Outra história será consegui-lo. E a nossa paciência para esperar anda a ser duramente testada.

Pelo meu lado, já me terão levado a fazer esta introspecção: e se não for ainda contigo que ficarei até ao fim dos meus dias? E se alguma das minhas antigas paixões renascer de cinzas que se supõe ainda não totalmente frias? Se um de nós desistir de esperar, serei capaz sequer de me apaixonar de novo?

Capaz, acho que serei. Tu despertaste-me para a beleza que sempre continuou a existir neste mundo mas a que eu estava cego. Mas…

…Eu não quero. Eu quero-te a ti. Porque te vejo como o único ser neste mundo que pode coexistir comigo até ao meu último suspiro. Eu sei que mais ninguém o consegue. E eu só queria que visses em mim o mesmo para ti. E talvez vejas.

Foi bonita a harmonia que tão espontaneamente nasceu entre nós os dois. Foi algo que nunca vivi antes. Todas as nossas promessas se cumpriram. Nós não podemos de todo viver sem abraços.

E só nós dois somos assim em todo este planeta Terra!...

Nós dois juntos é uma ideia que o universo tem de acarinhar. Que os teus anjos - oxalá um dia meus também - deviam nos conceder.

Assim o espero. Assim o merecemos ambos. Porque somos grandes. Porque poderíamos ensinar o nosso exemplo ao mundo inteiro. E para um mundo melhor estaríamos todos caminhando.

• Mõnikord*

Sometimes I despise everyone else in the world. Everyone else but you, girl. You can be my last chance of a safe harbour.

Because you are the only one with whom I can talk to. Even if we don't agree on everything and we don’t think alike about any subject whatsoever, we still understand each other quite perfectly.

I despise people because they often don’t seem to give use to all the faculties our Creator made us with. Mainly intelligence. And its most valuable kind, sensitiveness.

But us two, we are not like everyone else. We are truly very old souls.

That’s why it feels so good when we are together. Doing anything whatsoever. Even doing nothing. But together. Feeling the presence of one another.

We have had this life experience lately. During a whole month and a few more days.

Now that we are once again separated by this distance which seems like between the earth and the moon, I live my days supported by the memories of all the moments we had together. And I feel my heart warmed by these.

I think you sometimes can be afraid that this 3,349 km distance might lead our feelings towards each other to freeze or decay in time. Well, I don’t think so…

We have a lot to learn from one another still. We should be back living together one day. The harmony that we have found to exist when we are side by side cannot be wasted. The gods cannot allow this to be just an ephemerous happening. No.

We have just started to love each other. We have a lot to give one another. We are the unemployed angel of one another.

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* Sometimes, in estonian.