Status Updates From Perto do Coração Selvagem

It isn't nostalgia for I now enjoy my childhood more fully than I did as a child...
Yes, there were many happy things mingled in her blood.

— I wouldn't like to go back to being a child, not even for a second, Otávio had continued, distracted, no doubt thinking back to the days of his cousin Isabel and sweet Lídia. Not even for a second.
— Nor me, Joana had hastened to reply, not even for a second. I feel no nostalgia, do you understand? — And at that moment she declared in a loud, deliberate tone of amazement —

In her confusion, she was unwittingly truth itself, which probably gave her a greater capacity for life than knowledge of life.

...the tranquillity that came from that sprawling expanse of sea, from the sea's deep womb, from the cat lying rigid on the pavement. All is one, all is one... she had chanted. The confusion stemmed from the entwinement of the sea, the cat and the ox with Joana herself.

Also a mast without a flag, erect and mute, fixed into position on a summer's day — both the face and body blind. In order to have a vision, the thing did not have to be sad or happy or to manifest itself. It was enough to exist, preferably still and silent, in order to feel its mark.

And knowing, above all, that the earth beneath her feet was so deep and secret that there was no need to fear the invasion of understanding dissolving its mystery. This sensation had the hallmark of glory.

There were lots of pleasant sensations. To climb a mountain, to linger on the summit and, without looking round, to feel the presence of that conquered territory she had left behind, her uncle's farm way off in the distance. The wind catching her clothes, her hair. Her arms free, her heart closing and opening savagely, but her face bright and serene beneath the sun.

Even with her eyes shut, she could sense that on the beach the waves were being sucked in rapidly, so rapidly, by the sea, the waves, too, with lowered eyelids. Then they gently returned, to the palms of her open hands, her body completely relaxed.

She carried that exhaustion with her as she walked along that endless beach. She looked at her dark, slender feet like twigs gathered from the quiescent whiteness where they sank and lifted rhythmically, as if breathing. She walked and walked and there was nothing to be done: her father had died.

Her father had died just as the sea was deep. Suddenly she understood. She felt that her father had died just as one cannot see the bottom of the sea. She had not been defeated by her grief. She understood that her father had died. Nothing more. And her sadness was exhausting, heavy, without hatred.

Now, beside the sea where the sparkling light was a shower of fishes made out of water.

Without fear, no longer grey and tearful, but naked and silent beneath the sun like the white sand. Daddy is dead. Daddy is dead. She breathed slowly. Now she really knew that Daddy had died.

The salt and the sun were like tiny, shining arrows which appeared here and there, stinging, stretching the skin of her wet face. Her happiness increased, gathered in her throat like a sack of air. But it was now a solemn happiness, with no desire for laughter. It was a happiness close to tears,

The water trickled over her feet which were now bare, gurgling between her toes, escaping as clear, as clear, as some transparent animal. Transparent and alive... She felt an urge to drink it, to bite it slowly. She caught it with cupped hands. The tiny quiescent lake glistened calmly in the sun, became warm, trickled away, escaped.

It came dense and rebellious, rising in spirals. Then it extended itself ... spreading itself over the peaceful sands like a living body. The sea — she said in a whisper,

The wind was now licking her with force. Pale and fragile, breathing gently, she could feel it salty and playful, pervading and penetrating her entire body, reviving her. She half opened her eyes. Down there below, the sea shone in waves of copper, stretched out, deep, opaque, serene.