• Admiração

Tenho que dizer isto, senão rebento….

Admiro muito o notório e extremo carinho e dedicação que o povo ucraniano tem para com os seus animais de estimação.

E estou com saudades de ter em casa e na vida um companheiro de quatro patas.

• 40 turns around the Sun

This is me, above, when I was just a dumb dude of 21 years old…

…and this is me now, to the right, being an old bloke of 61 years old.

So, 40 years have passed between the moments these two photos were made.

I don’t feel to be that different inside my mind, after all this time. Sure, my body got older. But I’m still able to play tennis and provide a good challenge to any opponent of any age.

What will expect me in the next years? I believe I’ve always been a hedonist. I’ve already had my fair share of happiness.  Is it still worth waiting for something more?

I’ve practiced euthanasia to my dog. Because it was suffering from frequent pains and its life had no more quality, I thought. I’ve judged in its place for if it would be the right time to stop living.

The thing has affected me. I feel I should do the same for myself.

No, I’m not thinking of suicide. Quite the opposite. What I do have to think is on how to make the years ahead more interesting.

The thing is the universe isn’t helping these last two years…

First, a pandemic, then a war starting that can turn out to be the last one of the human civilisation. The one when we all be extinct, like the poor big reptiles, the dinosaurs.

Well, on what this bloody pandemic is concerned, it has fortunately brought us all a fashion accessory that some think made us look prettier. I can agree on that thought... 

I will pursue wearing surgical masks, for a long time.

And for the war, it might has ruined my plans about the trip of my dreams. And that is to enjoy travelling one day in the TransSiberian Express train, from Saint Petersburg to Vladivostok. For obvious and recent reasons. Slava Ukraini!...

When I was in my fifties, the decade was worth being lived just because of a short period of a little more than a month of pure and intense happiness. Which was provided to me by another soul.

This decade of my sixties hasn’t started so fine. But then again the previous one neither.

Happiness doesn’t last long. In fact, it always too ephemeral. But when it happens, it’s a lot worth the waiting, Damn!…

So, I’ll wait. Sitting on a stone, like that famous Rodin statue, if that’s the price to pay for it.

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If anyone reading these lines can get curious on how it all has begun, just click here.

• O meu Niniu

Nas palavras da minha filhota, escritas na passada quinta-feira e que reproduzo em baixo, poderemos perceber o que aconteceu…

“Rija e guerreira como só uma rafeira sabe ser.
No passado dia 06 de janeiro fez ela 18 anos...
E hoje tiveram, os humanos e a sua ciência, de a mandar embora, que ela não queria ir nem por nada!
Descansa em paz, melhor amiga, para sempre ❤️.”

Era uma cadela. Uma fêmea. Baptizámo-la de Nina. Mas sempre a tratámos como se um exemplar macho fosse. Por Niniu. Foi sempre um(a) companheiro(a) enorme. E eu fui adiando durante muito tempo o que se tornou há uns dias atrás não mais inadiável de todo. Uma ida ao veterinário. 

E tive de decidir por ela se era a hora ou não de abreviar a sua vida. A sua vida… e a sua dor.

Nessa mesma noite lá escolhi o seu humilde e rústico mausoléu. Onde tantas vezes passeámos, longe de todos e do mundo inteiro. Só eu e o meu Niniu.

E onde hei-de ir visitá-lo(a) de vez em quando. Porque o Niniu nunca partiu. Só está a descansar. E há-de reencarnar um dia. 

• Gostar de alguém

Queria ser um chinelo… Mas não um chinelo qualquer. E nem o pézinho da dama del mio cuore merece menos do que este requinte.

Gostar de alguém, algo que fui aprendendo a menudo com ela, é tão-só isto. É desejar estar sempre ao seu lado. Não ter mais vontade de quando em vez de reaver o nosso espaço, depois deste se ter fundido inapelavelmente e duma forma absolutamente natural e fluida com o da outra pessoa.

Já vivi uma realidade assim. E é isto o que eu mais quero repetir, ad aeternum, nem que seja sob a forma dum chinelo.

Quero voltar a consagrar a minha vida, todo o meu tempo, ao serviço do bem-estar de outra vida, que me paga essa missão com o carinho que é o combustível desta.

Gostar de alguém que gosta de nós é daquelas bençãos dos deuses que seria muito estúpido da nossa parte não ver e não aceitar. E não fazer tudo por tudo para manter a chama acesa.

Já falhei muito nesta minha vida. Não vou falhar novamente. Ou os meus erros não terão servido de nada para esse aperfeiçoamento que todos nós deveríamos visar.

Em nome de um mundo melhor. Dum renovado Éden na Terra.

• O Ano do Tigre

Começa amanhã, dia 1 de Fevereiro deste anno da graça de dois mil e vinte e dois. Por estas horas em que este post está sendo publicado no Império do Meio já arrancaram as festividades possíveis, devido à pandemia nunca mais dar tréguas.

E na próxima sexta-feira dia 4 vamos ver como debutam os Jogos Olímpicos de Inverno Beijing 2022.

• Changes

I love changes. I probably should be more wise, but… In all my life I was unable to resist to a sudden and radical change.

And I feel there’s a major change coming my day soon. One more time. Hopefully.

I will get rich for the first time or I will resume once again a life in a couple. Or both. Or I’m going to travel the whole world. Or i will find a meaning to my current life, finally. Or even something else that can be even better, who knows. If that can only be possible.

There’s always something that can improve our lives. I’m not really wishing on anything in particular. I’m good, just the way I am and live today. I’m not ungrateful to the universe and the way it has been conspiring on my favour. But…

Well, let’s wait and see what will happen. Wait and see...

Meanwhile, if I won't have any inspiration to write or feel like posting something else before it... To all my readers and followers, Merry Christmas everybody!…

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Note: this Santa Claus picture above at the top of this post would be a wonderful photo for a barber shop advertisement, don't you think?...

• A fofura em pessoa

Para quem não dominar bem a língua de Shakespeare, aqui fica a respectiva tradução do texto na curiosa foto acima: 

Estas criaturas parecem tão kidas e fofuxas… Mas a mais pequena coisa pode transformá-las em algo tão perigoso e violento que o mais forte dos homens poderia ser morto ou mutilado para o resto da vida.

Aqui se pode observar uma dessas criaturas abraçando um urso.

• Home is where...

Home is where your heart is.

A perfeição num relacionamento entre duas pessoas deve ser isto.

• A friesian cowhide rug

October, the 26th, and I’m still wearing summer clothes outdoors, on the streets of my small town. Then suddenly realising this fact, it comes to my mind that six years ago I was living in a totally different climatic environment. Much colder.

More precisely, I start to relive inside my mind an episode form those good ol’times.

She was stepping on a friesian cowhide rug. Scrubbing the soles of her feet with white socks on the skin of the dead beast. Smiling at me and telling me that was the way to catch and remove all the dirt that was being deposited on the rug.

We were both having some hard work cleaning an empty house of a family in Espoo*, pretty much like the one on the photo to the side of this line.

At the time I didn’t say anything to reply to such a moment of gracefulness on her side. She was so pretty and feminine, acting like she did, being her.

Most likely a moment like this one won’t repeat itself, but if I could go back in time, I would say this…

- Please stop acting like that. Or we won’t do anything else today in this house. I’m holding myself back, in order not to rush close to you and hug you. Because I have this notion that I can’t do that. I’m a responsible guy and I have to respect your job. But you should know that you’re irresistible.

And then I ended making eye contact with her, as she kept herself silent after my words.

But all of a sudden I stare at her once again and add to the conversation this:

- In other words, I just said I love you, girl.

That’s just the way I am. That’s the way I love.

The way I love her. The way I love gracefulness in any person.

Just some minutes ago, I was wandering outside, walking to a cafeteria in this sunny afternoon on the outskirts of Lisbon, Portugal, planet Earth. After taking my daily second dose of caffeine and being relaxed due to that, I felt I had to get back home, to put these memories in writing. And so I did.

If someday someone will write the script of the movie of my life, I believe it will be a quite interesting novel to all the people in this world.

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* If you don’t know where the hell on earth is Espoo, please go to Google Maps.

• Me, Myself & I, one more time

That’s me. No shit!… I most of the times think I’m a god. Or at the least, a member of some brotherhood of divinities. Despite really being an atheist, all the time.

But it’s a bit lonely at the top. In the last years I’ve been a lonesome wolf. Even before this damn pandemic.

I’ve been quite lucky, all during my life. I’ve met some divine people, quite like me. But lately I feel to be wasted. 

I’ve been saving a lot of love and affection, just to drop over someone that will dare to live by my side. Or even just someone who could enjoy spending time along with me, in pure and simple companionship.

Unfortunately, the one - or the ones - that I could gladly call my spouse are not near me. Still, it’s a great feeling just to know that she - or they - exist in this mad world.

There’s no one to “eat” me, even I feel myself to be a quite "delicious" guy, like a vitruviian pizza, as the one to the right. 

Meanwhile, I’m learning to enjoy living alone. And to love myself. Maybe this a phase needed to truly and completely start to love another soul once again.

Time will tell, they say... For now, I restarted to be able to do what I love. And this happened just yesterday, as I wrote in a post on another blog of mine, that can be read by clicking here.

• I also miss this stuff...

Nem só de beijinhos vive um homem. Ou uma mulher, já agora. Abraços também são fundamentais para manter aquela chama.

No último post antes deste mesmo falei da saudade que tenho de oscular. Hoje cabe a vez ao delicioso bear hug.

Já podemos abraçar de novo, não é?… Mas eu não tenho a quem mais quero abraçar perto de mim. E se não puder dar a volta a este status quo em breve, creio que vou desaprender. Praticar o desapego. Reaprender a ser sozinho.

Porque é possível ser feliz sozinho.

Durante muito tempo pensei que tal seria impossível. Mas todo este período de pandemia, em que estive em paz* comigo mesmo, conduziu-me a ver o oposto.

É muito difícil encontrar a nossa alma gêmea. E depois de a encontrar, ainda mais árdua é a tarefa de a conservar ou de nos conservarmos ao lado dela. Ao lado um do outro. 

Mas enquanto a coisa dura, é simplesmente maravilhoso quando duas pessoas alcançam esse patamar de cheirarem ambos ao mesmo odor.

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* Esse meu estado de espírito foi um pouco, ao de leve ou em parte exposto recentemente aqui.

• I miss this stuff...

It has been a while since the last time I experienced this wonderful feeling… It was called back then to be an “instant couple”.