The history of love

Oh, I love Lisbon. Again :-) I love that the weather is warm, it is not windy (just a little bit to let me breathe properly) and it is humid. Yes, I like all of these. Today it is one of those days when I feel that I am stepping on huge, fluffy, light pink clouds or that I am a huge giant walking in a tiny city trying not to step on the small ants. I went in my quest for street art - http://www.museuefemero.com/ - in São Bento I just discovered a few graffiti, then went to buy my very inexpensive tomatoes and oranges and ended up in Jardim da Estrela. It is useless to say that I enjoyed the place more then ever. If yesterday it was crowded and it seemed that all Lisbon was there, because of some jazz event and a lovely craft fair http://crafts-design-no-jardim-da-estrela.blogspot.com/ , today it was quiet. I didn't even walked the whole park-I chose a bench not too far away from the main entrance, looked at the green parrots chasing each other, flying above the trees and making lots of noise and read my dear book-which is now this lovely book by Nicole Krauss http://www.mostlyfiction.com/contemp/krauss.htm - I love it and I cannot stop myself from smiling, laughing and talking to the characters. A lady, very hippy dress, nice hat, she was from a North European country, stopped just in front of me to talk to her little 6 months old child that she had in the stroller. Next to her was her 4-5 years old girl. The girl kissed the little baby, he smiled with all his face and his big blue eyes and looked at her mother. I smiled at him and sent him some "virtual" kisses. His mother felt a little bit embarrassed from stopping just in front of me, but I liked my baby dialogue. I took the book, the characters and myself and went home.

My happiness recipe

A friend of mine told me that his son asked him "if we drill a hole from one Pole to the other so that we get to have a tunnel through the axis of the Earth, what happens? Do we get from one Pole to the other, de we fall?". The answer was "no"-we bounce back and forth until we get to the center and we stay there. We stay at our center.

So I tried myself to find my center and write my recipe for happiness, write it down and from time to time read it and get it well into my head so that I don't forget her.

1. Learn to stay still. As JP once told me, take a rain coat, cover yourself and let it rain. The bad things will go away.

2. Let it go. Don't get attached to things or people too much. Love them but don't get dependent. Be yourself.

3. Be silent. Empty your mind from bad thoughts and let the Sun shine in you. No matter what some say, love exists and it is there to stay. Don't listen to people who don't believe.

4. Be attentive and awake. Notice, observe, but don't get obsessed with seeing "signs".

5. Thank nature for all it offers you, open your soul and be grateful. Nature is perfect. Learn to be like her.

6. Don't complain. That doesn't help you or anybody else. You will not become more special from complaining, nor solve your problems.

7. Allow yourself the luxury to escape from what you don't like and be present and happy. Look at the magic around you.

8. Follow your dreams and be ready to give up on things that don't make you evolve.

9. Always love with all your heart, be amazed, don't take things too seriously, smile at yourself.

Tu volveras

I fell in love with Concha Buika. I discovered her accidently, listening to the radio and thinking...hey, she sings a song that has in its title the name of a person I know-Lola. I talked to Lola, she told me that she is going to see her but in my ignorance I forgot to buy tickets from FNAC. The days passed by, the concert day was approaching and I still had no ticket. Then I met Andreea :-) who wanted to join me and have a nice evening in Cascais. The tickets from FNAC were inexistent-all sold out. I tried my "secret service" which is Ticketline and with no problem whatsoever I got the tickets. So our Buika adventure started yesterday and for me it still hasn't stopped yet. After many glasses of white wine :-)) we went to the concert. Cheapest tickets, best places. Far away from the stage but close to the grass. 

A nice green grass that invited us to lie on it. I looked at the sky, spotted the beautiful Ursa Minor constellation, then closed my eyes and got myself immersed into the music.....what a bliss. And Buika sang passionately as she knows so well, got sad from romantic songs, then started to make fun, admired Mariza and took pictures of her on the stage – crazy girl J I got back at 2 am by train, then took a taxi and guided the cab driver through the winding roads of Lisbon as he was Brazilian and didn’t have a clue where to go. I offered him a tip then got worried that he might not know how to get back-naïve Monica. Since then I keep dreaming, singing at the office, learning words, wonder how is it like to live in a gipsy environment like Lhasa da Sela or her (sometimes this gipsy world is soooo surpringly beautiful and crazy) offer my own interpretation to my lovely newly discovered songs…..love Buika. Enjoy her. 

Mónica

Monica is a happy girl - I look at pictures with her since she was a child and I can't stop laughing - with her funny faces and love for life. She still has this in her, and more, she loves the Sun endlessly, the sea in a passionate way, Estrela in a romantic way, she longs for Lisbon (how crazy) and would love to live her life in the most beautiful possible way - serene, floating and breathing the air with a peaceful spirit. Sometimes she doesn't succeed. This is when she is angry and gets stubborn and obsessed with little things that she doesn't have, and blames herself for that and forgets the beauty around. Luckily this doesn't last so much and she gets back on the right track. She wakes up and drinks her black coffee, squeezes her lovely, delicious, sweet, Algarvian oranges that brings back lovely memories in her head and starts dreaming. She loves movies but didn't manage to watch a good one for a while, apart from the lovely, superb "Jeux d'enfants" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364517/ , but she knows there is a new "Penelope Cruz movie" in the theaters http://samuelgoldwynfilms.com/ that she wants to see, she wants to get immersed in the Parisian life by watching Coco avant Chanel, she knows that she will soon write a beautiful article on the BES prizes and she will start dreaming again of her lovely life, praise the Moon, talk to the Sun, greet the little birds that come into her house, wish to visit Iceland to talk to the fairies and be forgiven by all the people that she got angry because of her childish behavior (sorry, sorry, sorry!) and  look at life through the eyes of a little girl that discovers the magic of life. Choose love.

What is your dream level today

At times I want to find my hidden place with hidden words that I can share only with a chosen few. So I came up with another blog this morning ....my secret blog... just before going to the office. Actually, I should be all dressed up now and ready to leave, but I don't want to do this. I want to write about my questions of the day.

1. What is your level of happiness? I want to remain in my present level of happiness, to live on my fluffy light blue cloud and love.

2. How to bring magic in your life? Sometimes I cannot do this but little things manage to bring back so fast magic into my life. I turned dependent on a blog, I love discovering secret or not so secret places, buildings and gardens. Last night it was just the Vodafone building in Lisbon-yes, as pragmatic as this, but as magic as it can possibly be.

3. What is your dream level? I think I should be fired from any job if anybody would actually know what my dream level is. shhhhhh......LOVE :-)

Secret Garden

"She'll let you in her house

If you come knockin' late at night

She'll let you in her mouth

If the words you say are right

If you pay the price

She'll let you deep inside

But theres a secret garden she hides

She'll let you in her car

To go drivin' round

She'll let you into the parts of herself

That'll bring you down

She'll let you in her heart

If you got a hammer and a vise

But into her secret garden, don't think twice



You've gone a million miles

How far you get

To that place where you can't remember

And you can't forget

She'll lead you down a path

There'll be tenderness in the air

She'll let you come just far enough

So you know she's really there

She'll look at you and smile

And her eyes will say

She's got a secret garden

Where everything you want

Where everything you need

Will always stay

A million miles away"



Bruce Springsteen


and yes, Bruce Springsteen is the man of the day