fragmentos
Short bits and pieces from the past month (and more)
My therapist asked me the other day whether I’ve been writing daily as I was aiming to do at the beginning of the year. I told her “sometimes,” based on a stretch of the concept of “writing” (because saying outright “no” felt too painful, even for therapy). That is not to say I haven’t been writing anything, nor that my mind doesn’t have any ideas swirling around. It’s not that I have been actively avoiding this exercise but, if I’m being honest, I have pushed it aside as a priority, and not because I have more pressing matters. The hard and ugly truth is that my relationship with writing moved back several steps over the past few months: I am back to being scared of the blank page, scared of which words will come out, scared of how my sentences will come across. Ideas feel too shiny and too daunting to tackle at this point. I’m back to bad habits of feeling I need to read more, research more, know more, know better, before I can dive into any given topic and tease out its layers.
With this type of nervous energy piling up—in my birthday month, no less—it is no surprise I’ve been feeling a bit more nostalgic than usually. The warmth of a rosy past washed clean of its own problems and reconstructed to absorb and dispel all anxieties of the present. Nostalgia comes in many shapes and sizes, smells and colors. My favorite brand of the month has been all about music.
In my head, Taylor Swift’s 22 has been playing on a loop for several weeks now. Never mind that I’m so well past that age that my 22 is having a quinceñera this year. Never mind that I was already past 22 when that song entered my brain for good. It’s all about the memories. Of going through the heavy wooden door, saying hello to the front desk guy, of crossing the garden and going up the creaky wooden stairs, and of sitting in the study room of a house-turned-clinic-turned-school I didn’t even go to but welcomed me with open arms. Of working away both on my MA and my anxieties about the future surrounded by new friends and old art. It’s funny that, as I think back to those months, when I was devoting so much of my intellectual attention to my thesis and the PhD application materials, I have to little memory of the latter. I think hard but cannot remember what my writing sample was about, but I do remember sitting in front of a window, drinking Coke Zero, or going on a frappuccino run, and learning from my American friends the glory of iced coffee when the weather turned mild and then warm.
That spring and early summer of 2014, when things were starting to fall into place and the thesis came to an end, it was time to reclaim the streets of Paris to myself before packing up and moving. And there was music, Fun.’s Some Nights album on repeat for days on end. For some reason, its beats were perfect for stomping around the city, walking aimlessly, in and out of museums, across the Seine, taking in the views, stopping for cups of coffee while people-watching. I don’t want to double-check, but I remember it being mostly sunny or at least not rainy, a bit too warm for my taste but just enough so that the city was coming alive with people in the gardens, on the terrasses, picnicking everywhere whenever possible.
I miss Paris, certainly. But above all, I miss the feeling of unknown opportunities about to unfold, despite all uncertainties.
Memory can be funny in many different ways. The other week, as I gave myself a manicure like every week, I had a very strong feeling of being pulled back into a school classroom in Rio. When I was an undergraduate student, working towards my licenciatura (my History teaching certification), I had to shadow a 6th-grade teacher for a full semester, and the girls from both classes I frequented would always grab my hands when I walked in to check out what color I had picked that week. I remember their disappointment one time when my nails were yellow (never a very popular choice) and quite short (because I had broken a nail). I do not remember much of the students themselves, though I do remember very clearly swearing off anything fourteenth-century related when I finished teaching a class on the Hundred Years War between England and France. Since then, I have dived deep into the fourteenth century, but I don’t think I’ve worn any yellow nail polish.
This past month, I have been working on a crochet top/sweater that I meant to wear on my birthday. The pattern itself is pretty straightforward and accessible to me as a tried but lazy beginner like myself. I made both front and back panels with only some re-starting involved (changed my hook size when I was almost done with the first panel, for instance), and then they just sat there for over a week. The reason? I had to sew the two pieces together so I could then get the sleeves ready. I am not a fan of the sewing process (last time I had to sew two panels together, it took me the better part of a day because I couldn’t get it just right) and the sleeves involved increasing stitches (and I like not having to worry about counting stitches, personally). Once I actually decided to sew the panels together, it took me no time at all. The sleeves have been a little more finicky, but the increased stitches were a breeze to deal with.
And last night I sat with my journal for the first time in forever and just let the writing flow, without worrying about the handwriting, the words, the thoughts. A whole page came out, not without some pain, but out it came anyway.
Thank you for sharing of yourself.
Ah Paris, I miss it all so much! Thank you for sharing your reflections!