Status Updates From Frio Suficiente para Nevar

Sometimes, I looked at a painting, and felt completely nothing. Or if I had a feeling, it was only intuitive, a reaction, nothing that could be expressed in words. It was all right, I said, to simply say if that was so. The main thing was to be open, to listen, to know when and when not to speak.

I had never particularly wanted children, but somehow I felt the possibility of it now, as lovely and elusive as a poem. Another part of me wondered if it was okay either way, not to know, not be sure. That I could let life happen to me in a sense, and that perhaps this was the deeper truth all along, that we controlled nothing and no one, though really I didn’t know that either.

People born on your birthday, she said, are idealistic in their youth. In order to be truly free, they need to realize the impossibility of their dreams, and thus be humbled, and only then will they be happy. They like peace, order and beautiful things, but they can live entirely in their own heads.

“Quando criança, contou, nunca pensou em si mesma de forma isolada, mas como ligada aos outros de modo intrínseco. Disse que, hoje em dia, as pessoas estão sedentas para saber tudo, acreditam que podem entender tudo, como se a iluminação estivesse ao virar a esquina. Mas, continuou, na verdade não havia controle, e a compreensão não diminuiria nenhuma dor.”