Remember.
Sitting in the school bus, eight or nine at most, looking at my hands and wondering what would be of them. Where would they go, who would they touch, what gestures in the future, what craft, what experiences. What would be of me.
These thoughts and images have remained with me: The angle of the sunlight, the dreams, the color of the seats, the expectations, the time of day.
I liked gray pants and white shirts, they spelled sunny days and freedom.
I loved the drizzle. The calm majestic drizzles and the boring needlelike drizzles. I remember people saying the weather was like in London and this somehow sounded like a very important thing.
I remember many faces, the faces of people on the street on the way to the airport. The airport was very far and to go there was a rare treat. It was a privilege to be taken along. I trusted them faces.
In a way I still trust them today.
My mother taught how to paint on china in the afternoons. She had an endless stream of friends and, oh boy, they had a wonderful time together.
My brother always whistled the same tune when entering home for lunch. He was in the army for a time, and in another occasion he was away for a long time. Traveling North. He brought back a rifle made of car parts and floorboards. Up North they made them to shoot birds, he said. Intimations of poverty and improvisation. It still hangs old and rusty on my wall.
My father was always long in coming home in the evenings. Sometimes I waited for him at the gate. He might bring chocolates or else sport his warm and tired smile when he saw me.
And there was Mercês, who had a twin sister who made cloth clowns to sell in the Sunday fair. Sundays... I had difficulty telling them apart when the sister came visiting. I didn’t like those visits. Mercês was my nanny. My blonde and beautiful nanny and in this sense she was unique. But, of course, to have a blonde nanny meant nothing special to me then. It was as it was supposed to be, a birthright. Then, one day, she was gone. I was way too old for a nanny, I was told. She only exists in my memories now, I could never find her again.
I can still see the smiles around the dining table and I can still remember the warmth, the warmth...
The images returned pale and tinged with a sad blue tonight as once again I stared in wonder at my hands. One cannot exist without the past.
And remember...
