You forgive yourself for every failure, because you tried to do the right thing. If you have known better you would have done better. So forgive yourself.
Maya Angelou, Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations
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My Darling Sara - by Shane Koyczan
“The failing use of my right hand
Isn't actually the failing use of my right hand
It's just another way to tell the time
And I'm ticking
So I've been picking myself up at bars
With a bottle in each hand
I only make plans with myself for the day after next
But by the time the sun swings back around into position
I forget the context of why I asked myself out
In the first place
Did I think I was going to score?
I let a stranger pour me one more
She says
My name is Sara
Doesn't take much more than that
To start a relationship
My darling, Sara
Cleans rooms for a living
Giving her youth and beauty
To dirt and dust
Understands more than most
That family must be the foot you put forward first
You must weather the worst together
But having never met her family
She places love above all else
Then protests that I use the word love
Too freely in poems
And I should really just say what I mean
And I suppose what I mean most is that
I'm trying
She's been buying me time
On a maxed out credit card
Arms scarred from selling her own blood
To pay down the debt
Tells me she doesn't mind going broke
Just so long as I can giver her a little swear
She says
Try
So I do my best impression
Of a pen
And when every problem looks like a page
I commit ink to paper
The worth of the words that come out
Determines my wage
I've been making enough
To pay her the compliment
Of not quitting
Of not sitting
When standing is required
She only asks that I put the effort n
And in return she's willing
To pin a paper heart to her chest
Then do her best impression
Of a target
She tells me that effort
Is the siamese twin of success
So when everyone else looks like a wrong answer
She says she'll settle for being my best guess
So we lie in bed like a mess
That someone's been meaning to clean
For the large part
Of a long while
We lie there like a pile of dirty laundry
And how we'll ever come clean
Is beyond me
So we don't
She says
It's supposed to be dirty
And if by the end you haven't hurt me
Then you didn't try
So I do my best impression
Of a surgeon
Cutting purple hearts out of my own
Use my veins like thread
Then have hurt sewn to our skin like medals
Because when the bleeding stops
And that dust settles
All we have are our wounds
To wear like decorations
Upon our chest
Sara does her best impression of a war
Tells me not to count my pride among casualties
Because maybe faith means never keeping score
She says there's more to effort than just switching gears
And in terms of what one should give in life
Sweat holds more value than tears
You have to try
And even though
The failing use of my right hand
Means I'll never land a knockout punch
In the first round
Life is composed of sound and fury
Whatever noise is left in me
Will be twice as loud when I try
So I plug myself into the idea of going the distance
And I amplify
My darling, Sara
Has a throat like a vase
She sings her words into bloom
Has voice like perfume
It's been sticking to my clothes
So everyone knows where I've been sleeping
She's been keeping me so close
You could use my body for evidence
Pull her fingerprints as proof
That she's been on top so often
She's starting to look like my roof
But a real sexy roof
And she doesn't leak
Unless you count the crying
She does that sometimes
Worries that she's just a back up plan
My darling, Sara
I've lived long enough to learn
Too many choices can destroy a man
I will make no exodus
I'll be around long enough
To watch uncertainty bid us farewell
The echo our names into the crater
Caused by the impact
Of when our lack of conviction fell
You've never had to sell me on the idea
Of absolute certainty in the trustworthiness of another
The first and only time you met my mother
Mom said
"I like the way she looks at you"
And I echoed back to her
That I liked it too
Eyes like recycle bin blue
Sara looks at broken things
As if she can make them new
More than a few times I've caught her staring
Caught her wearing
A smile reserved for those busy making plans
Sara believes that distance is a fundamental
That can be side-stepped by a piece of string
And two tin cans
And I remember when my tin can rang
They said
There's no family to speak of
So love is next in line
And there's not a lot of time but
She's asking for her boyfriend
In the cab to the hospital I feel my heart bend
As if bracing for impact
So I do my best impression of a man
And face fact
It's supposed to hurt
A doctor does his best impression of the truth
And spares me his attempts to skirt around the issue
They can't stop the bleeding
And the failing use of Sara's heart
Isn't actually
The failing use of Sara's heart
It's just another way to tell the time
My darling, Sara
I was holding your hand when you died
And even though the failing use of my right hand
Prevented me from feeling you leave
I tried”
Poem by Shane Koyczan
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Toda a gente neste mundo, diziam-nos eles, carrega consigo uma história invisível, e isso basta para merecer alguma tolerância.
Becoming - A Minha História, Michelle Obama
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Unused creativity is not benign...it metastasizes, it turns into grief, rage, judgement, sorrow, shame.
Brené Brown: Living with a whole heart @ Oprah’s Super Soul Conversations Podcast
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Sara Shakeel
AwardWinning Artist
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A eulogy is never about a cv.
Ariana Huffington on @Oprah’s Super Sunday Conversations Podcast
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Lido em 2016
Ler este Com a Cabeça nas Nuvens a seguir ao Vai Aonde Te Leva o Coração é uma volta de 360 graus que vos vai deixar com a cabeça à roda. A autora dá largas à imaginação e invoca um universo quase “Murakamiano” onde a figura central é um jovem de 15 anos alérgico à intranquilidade e agitação.
Ruben decidiu que ia levar uma vida tranquila logo após o seu nascimento, aquele primeiro choro de bebé foi indigno e humilhante, por isso nada de semelhante voltaria a repetir-se. Um pormenor que achei absolutamente delicioso.
A sua vida é passada numa espécie de buraco na terra do jardim, em ociosa contemplação da natureza, até que um infeliz acaso o leva numa viagem louca com uma cega viciada em enredos cinematográficos, um ladrão/pseudo-duplo de cinema, um nobre pervertido e a sua rainha da noite, uma senhora que cheira a bolinhos e planta as flores mais bonitas, um arqueoaviador que procura no céu as conversas relevantes da humanidade e um almirante num cruzeiro louco.
É uma viagem conturbada, louca, difícil e incrivelmente imaginativa, que não sabemos de facto se aconteceu. Mas será que isso importa? :)
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My standards were sliding swiftly. At first I insisted I would only work at a company with a mission I believed in. Then I thought maybe it would be fine as long as I was learning something new. After that I decided it just couldn't be evil. Now I was carefully delineating my personal definition of evil.
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
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Everybody is a main character to someone.
Amy Harmon (via quotemadness)
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Estes miúdos <3
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Lido em 2016
“Sabes qual é o erro que cometemos sempre? Acreditar que a vida é imutável, que, mal escolhemos um carril, temos de o seguir até ao fim. Contudo, o destino tem muito mais imaginação do que nós. Precisamente quando se pensa que se está num beco sem saída, quando se atinge o cúmulo do desespero, com a velocidade de uma rajada de vento tudo muda, tudo se transforma, e de um momento para o outro damos por nós a viver uma nova vida.”
Li parte deste livro em miúda e desisti. Não me dizia nada. Acho curioso que o livro seja precisamente sobre isso. Sobre como quando somos mais velhos temos sensibilidade e maturidade para ver e sentir as coisas de maneira diferente.
Uma avó escreve à neta sobre si e a relação entre elas, sobre a sua vida, sobre a perda trágica da filha, sobre o seu grande amor, sobre esta viagem interna e externa que nos modifica ao longo do tempo.
Uma escrita despojada de artifícios, mas plena de intensidade, que me comoveu de forma profunda.
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Lido em 2016
“Happy" was a word for sorority girls and clowns, and those were two distinctly fucked-up groups of people.”
Eu já tinha gostado do The Vacationers mas este Modern Lovers convenceu-me. A Emma Straub é absolutamente especialista em: 1. Criar personagens complexas e muito interessantes; 2. Fazer-nos pensar sobre a complexidade das relações humanas e a ausência de zonas totalmente pretas ou totalmente brancas.
Nesta história, o grupo de personagens principais cresce e amadurece, enfrentando os dilemas da idade adulta e o que significa realmente crescer e ter uma relação.
Make us wonder. E isso é sempre uma coisa boa. Ainda que às vezes não pareça.
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Lido em 2016
“There was nothing in life harder or more important than agreeing every morning to stay the course, to go back to your forgotten self of so many years ago, and to make the same decision. Marriages, like ships, needed steering, and steady hands at the wheel.”
The Vacationers conta-nos as férias de uma família nova-iorquina em ponto de ruptura. Duas semanas em Maiorca que vão mudar o curso da vida de todos.
Este é um livro sobre casamento, sobre amizade, sobre a adolescência e a perca da inocência, sobre paternidade, sobre crescer e tornarmo-nos adultos. No fundo é sobre as relações entre pessoas e tudo o que de bom e de mau se sofre, desfruta e aprende com elas. Porque é preciso seguir em frente, de uma maneira ou de outra. At end, vai ficar sempre tudo bem.
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Lido em 2016
Depois d’A Princesa do Gelo, veio este Gritos do Passado ou The preacher em inglês e garanto-vos que esteve à altura das expectativas.
Neste “episódio” voltamos a Fjällbacka, cuja paz é novamente perturbada por um assassinato, aliás, dois. Com mais de 50 anos de diferença entre si.
Desta feita, o protagonista é Patrick e os membros de uma das famílias mais ricas da região. Numa complexa teia de relações humanas e religião, a autora volta a fazer-nos questionar os nossos instintos mais básicos, reservando a surpresa para o final, como qualquer bom policial.
Se é isto que vos acelera as batidas cardíacas, não percam o segundo volume.
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Visto em 2016
“It wasn't a logical reality, it was another dimension. I'd lost the ability to retain information so I wanted to record this new and terrifying place I'd found myself in."
Outro documentário incrível, a história de Lotje Sodderland, por quem vão ficar apaixonados, uma rapariga de 34 anos que sofre um AVC.
Parece deprimente? Podia ser, mas não é. Porque a Lotje é especial e decide explorar este nova realidade e os seus novos olhos de ver o mundo, de uma forma incrivelmente corajosa e criativa.
Deixo-vos com uma frase do David Lynch que me marcou tanto quanto a ela:
"Within your own self there is a treasury...an ocean of pure bliss, consciousness, intelligence, creativity, love, happiness, energy and peace. Within every human being. Experience that and you will begin to know yourself, which is unbounded, eternal totality."
Lindo.
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