(...) I bonded more with my hosts and actually enjoyed couchsurfing by itself. (...)
I went to the Hawthorne district in the morning. Looked at bizarre ( I love this word today) shops, went into book stores and found myself starting a letter over a baggel. (...) After that I came back and went with my hosts, John and Conny, to a concert where john was playing Sax. It was very veyr enjoyable ( a choir and a jazz band, very great combination!). (...) Then we went to dinner at their neighbour's place. They were all so welcoming and eager to talk baout so many things! I always end up tlaking about Portugal, but i guess that is only natural.
exciting things besides the day's story: - They have wine and beer in supermarkets in Oregon!
- They don't care about ice hockey here
- The neighbourhoods around here are amazinhg because epople really know and care about their gardens
- purple was a popular colour for houses in Victorian times
Portland, john and Conny's spare bedroom Saturday, the 25th April 9:00 PM Day 2
It's been a long long day and I am now lying down in my bed at John and conny's (my couchsurfing hosts). I managed to reach the place by taxi yesterday at night, after rushing out of the train station, which weirdly closes right after the last train arrives. The taxi driver said it was because of the homeless. "The Shame of America!" was what he called homelessness. I start to agree.
(...)
Remarkable things during the day in chronological order:
- on the bus to Portland downtown I saw (and accidentally was on the way of) a man who was so fat he had to move on a wheel chair.
- I went to what they call "park blocks" and bought bread ata farmer's market. On theway I saw many beautiful churches with strange names. "The first Christian Church" or... " The Sixth Church of jesus, the Scientist"...ok...
- I met Marie! It was so good to see her. (...) We went to "saturday Market" and to powell's- the best bookstore ever and a good rival to the Paris ones! (...)
- I met Daire too! I actually walked to Reed College and had dinner there with him (...). It Reed is amazing! such a a beautiful cmapu! And they have all these traditions and community spirit... I really love it. (...) And the poeple looked so groovy! (...) I loved the tour, and the library , and the students... It all looked just awesome.
- Portland: nice, filled with alternative stuff and trees. Activism too. One guy stopped me to inform me about the situation of wolves in Oregon and chatted for a while. There are a lot of homeless people though. Here they are not so much in ghettos. (it seems) Rather there is one in every corner. Quite sad and not friendly-looking (I must say).
Seattle, King Street Amtrak Station Friday, the 24th April 2009 4:00PM
DAY 1
USA. The united States of America? Still does not sound right... The USA are not just a distant myth but the land I step on ..now! Takes getting used to. Reality.
(...)
After moving in from residence with all the stress and effort involved, I went to stay at my aunt's place. It was sort of relaxing, kind of "deep breath before the plunge". i still asked my mother on the phone if everything was goign to be alright. Not to self: make sure to increase level of confidence.
(...)
This morning I took the Skytrain to Main Street to catch the bus which took me to Seattle. A huge man sat beside me and kept starting to fall asleep, waking up startled right after. he explained to me he had 3 jobs and loads of kids (?) at home, that he had only slept only 3 hours in the last 2 nights, etc. yep, life is though... "Do you have kids?", he asked, after asking me if i was going to work too and obtaining an embarassed negative answer. "No". "Oh, you'll have 2!. I beg your pardon?? "You'll have 2 kids, i cna see your future." Great, I thought, how encouraging.
(...)
Things I noticed on the highway aftre the border: -loads of Americna flags -the kid I saw by the road just a couple of minutes aftre the border -loads of lanes and traffic getting into Seattle
(...)
We arrived earlier than predicted over here, so I took a 20 min walk. (...) A lot of not very friendly looking characters... One guy with his girl-friend just went "Watch where you're goign, lady!" and then turned (10 seconds after) and appologised for sounding mean. I handled it with poise and grace. But Seattle looks very pretty, prettier than Vancouver, with brick squares and guardens.
TRAIN 8PM
Less than an hour to Portland. I am still in Washington. I have been seeing the forests and swamps out of the window. I saw a tree with half pink and half white flowers. I also saw my first (very) obese Americans. I saw young guys by the bars in the small towns. And I am imagining what it must be like to live here, in a smal place in Washington, USA. Don't take me worng, the place is beautiful. But these little townss seem to have such a bleak existence by the side of the rails. Maybe they just look bleak.
I look out, at the road. and I see 4 pickup trucks at the same time. HELLO AMERICA!
I have no excuse. I have been home for two weeks, delighfully reading the usual blogs. Rejoicing in the revival of their activity. Taking intellectual advantage of the work of others on their personal online writing, for my comfort and mental stimulation. Ah! The guilt, the guilt. ...
Let us start in the beggining. After my last post I went to my aunt's place, in a suburb near Vancouver. After 2 days I took a bus to Seattle, there I took a train to Portland. I stayed there for three days, couchsurfing with a really nice couple.
Then I took another train and got to San Francisco. Had 4 days of dream-like reality there, couchsurfing with a woman who lived in the Mission area (the historically Latin-American neighbourhood and home of the burrito) in one of the lovely Victorian houses. After that, I took a train back to Vancouver, got stuck in California for 9 hours due to a derailment, ended up getting on a bus and getting in at 5 or 6 AM in the morning.
After two nights in a hostel, meeting bizarre people and wondering around Vancouver city center, I went to stay with some friends who kindly took my homeless (and angry-at-myself-for-not-having-planed-things-at-least-a-little-bit!) self, in. I spent a week there: hiking somewhere near Squamish, and hitchhiking with one of them around Vancouver Island. We wanted to go to Tofino, ended up in Uclulelet (is that how it was spelt?), a little bit south. Then got the best ride ever from a retired English Professor to Victoria.
Next morning I got on a bus. I had bought a bunch of tickets on a hurry and slight alarm at how much it costs to buy bus tickets not-in-advance in Canada. First stop: Penticton. Small warm town by the Okanagan lake. I stayed with a family with three North American teenage girls (you get the cliché picture?). Next: Kelowna, the big Okanagan metropolis (right..). Three days of hell in a small little strange Western-looking town. All great views, mountains, tourist attractions are only acessible by private car. Mental state: close to insanity in a lonely hostel room. Then, Vernon, the last Okanagan stop. Smaller, more Western-looking. No couchsurfing, no hostels. So, I spent my emergency money on an expensive motel. Went to Kalamalka lake.
Then Nelson, on the Kootenays, further east. One word: GREAT. After 3/4 days, I got on the bus again and went to Alberta. Calgary was my 5 hours stop and my 4 hours stroll in the cold. Had to buy a sweatshirt because it was -4ºC and snowing. Do laugh. It is almost absurd.
Final stop: Banff in the Rockie Mountains. One day of hiking won me over, despite the tired feet and buzzing head. I ended up just staring at the valleys and mountains for some 30 min straight. My mind was clear and I was free like a bird. Or just really exhausted.
After that, 12 hours in a bus, in the Trans-Canadian Highway, brought me back to Vancouver. It was a beautiful journey, but I was glad to be back. I spent a weekend at a friend's and a week at my aunt's. Plane and... voilá. Europe, Portugal champagne and cake!
So, this is the backbone of the story. The thing is, I kept a journal. I wrote about everything that happened, with details and all. I recorded the feelings and the impressions. I wrote everywhere: on buses, trains, benches, rooms, cafés, streets and churches. I somehow knew this was going to be memorable.
After all, this was a celebration of my new life by the Pacific. Of having money in the bank and legally renting a house. One month of challenging new sights was in order. Besides, I needed to clear my mind, to be alone all this time. To realise how good and how bad it can get inside my head. I needed to meet strangers. Tell them all my problems (I literally did, many times), hear all their miseries and share moments of pure human empathy. I needed to exchange numbers and see mountains. To dance in the streets of some small town and run down singing, down the hills of San Francisco. I needed to know more about Canada, about the States. I needed to test myself and ... I guess I did. It might have been only a month. But it was more than worth it.
Life at home is not extremely eventful. But it is very pleasant. I spend my days baking bread (I am getting better and better), making jams, eating peaches and tasting different kinds of wine. I have already done a Victorian bright-green shawl and I am almost done with my big blue sweater. Besides knitting, I have also read like crazy (Jane Austen and Henrik Ibsen) and I decided to complete my never ending UWC scrap book. I am going to start my driving lessons (theory) on Monday. That should be... amusing? Well, I need to get me some wheels. Or at least know what to do if I get some.
Meanwhile, I think I should type my little scriblings fromt he last month. a little "series of post" in retrospective. A selected "best-off" of the almost 200 pages of text.
P.S. my latest obsession: The Puppini Sisters. I think it has to do with my ever-lasting passion for red lipstick and silky gloves.
It is 11 pm on Tuesday night. Tomorrow I am leaving this room. As I look around I stare at blank walls, boxes, messy bits and pieces of my life. I try to save some of them, in my endless hunger for the future, for that woman that will, one day, look at all those receipts and pieces of evidence and remember how it felt to be me.
My headache is clearing, thanks to that aspirine. But I find it quite nice to write like this. Feverish, lost, utterly confused. The moment is right. And I have not done it for a long time.
How do I feel about Vancouver? About this year, this life, or version of it? I still do not know. Often I hate this creature that seems to be unable to find some normality and stability. She changes moods, opinions, rooms. She should really get a home, a man, a closet and a dinner table. Then I become very proud. She has so much more. She has herself, her whole self. This year I became a person, a citizen of this world. While I need help, I can do so much by myself. I am a rock, or becoming one. And do not get judgemental...Being an island (with a good port for visiting ships) is admirable.I am impressed, Filipa. That sort of reassures me. I am leaving this city. On my own, on a bus.
I am going down South to San Francisco. I leave with my heart open and my mind hungry. My heart is pherhaps not so completely eager. Many things are daunting. But that is what dreams are like: daunting. I am going to live one. I am going south to fullfil the promisse I made, that day, on the playground of my long gone school. I owe it to myself.
On the informative side. I had very good results for my classes this semester, as far as I know now. I was told that I should keep doing Philosophy. It was very good to hear, I confess. I put my work over potential "relationships" or whatever people call that these days. I faced the choice and I stood firm, as I knew I would. I can't wait to move in to my new suite in September. I am very very happy because my younger sister got into UWC and is moving to India in the Fall. I miss people a lot,but I am very glad goo things are happening to their lives. I wish I will see them soon.
The other day I started thinking of how lucky I am, how great my life has been. The last bad things that happened .... when was it? Things always seem to go right, to got perfect, to get better. I am afraid I cannot handle failure, pain or misery, because I haven't enough. It is quite literally the Spring of my life. And every flower is more and more beautiful. And the beauty is so much that sometimes it feels like I will not be able to see it all, like it is blinding.
I met so many people lately, so many people I am glad to have crossed paths with. Religion is little for me compared to the boundless fullfilment that collecting shining people like this is. That is the meaning of life: to touch and be touched by the wondering elements of the swarm of humanity.
I must write to people. It keeps me alive, and I haven't been doing it enough. I will bring paper and stamps, and books and some clothes. I will enter the US border. Sounds silly, but it does not seem very real. I have this fear they won't let me in, Somehow I will be stuck. Will not happen, just and irrational image created by years of social conditioning and pointless reflection.
Well, I will get back to packing and derived activites. I will probably not write here for a while. I will keep a journal of my trip and I will try to get published here, maybe some excerpts, if anything good comes up.
appologies for such a scattered, tierd text after a long absence.
- Swimming. I did swim 3 km. this week (proud of my little discipline achievement!) and, one day, had quite an anthropologically fascinanting encounter.
We were swimming in the pool, next to another lane where an old lady was also swimming calmly. Suddenly, what seemed like an american football team showed up. Some 5 or 6 guys, tall hyper-broad-shoulder, muscles, biceps, and just general "massiveness". Well, they were very aggreessive and definetly just waiting for us to get so annoyed that we would leave. We didn't, out of principle. But it was like swimming in the Atlantic with this massive waves drowning you when you tried to breath. Their oversized bodies were just too heavy and their swimming skills were far from perfect so it was like dropping a bomb in the water when they tried to swim.
I was very intrigued by their bodies. Some of them had a triangular shape so clear that it looked surreal. I wonder how many pills you have to take for the perfect geometry. It was very disturbing because, somehow, they were ideal bodies, ideal guys. What we are told is ideal. And I found them... plain. They seemed so perfect, only comparable to those houses in the magazines where no one lives, just decorated for the pictures. It seems no one was inhabiting those bodies either. Very disturbing. And highly unattractive. It was not sexy, which I know was supposed to be. It was just so scary, monster-like.
Well, that drove me into thinking that day about that night back at home when I watched the Rolling Stone's Rock'n Roll Circus on ARTE. I remembered Mick Jagger singing "Sympathy for the Devil", taking off his shirt. I did youtube it immediately. This lead to a "Mick Jagger" mania in the last few days. I cannot help but to feel there is something divine, extremely attractive and quite fascinating about his body. An inhabited, expressive, interesting piece of humanity. There it lies, the attractive body, the ideal body because it is so specific. It crawls, it jumps, it rests, it twists and bends and stands straight up. So unique, so determined. It doesn't have a myth, it has a voice.
PERFORMANCE 1968
Of course this Jagger fixation lead me to watch "Performance", his film debut. More than recommend it: preach it. It is a piece of art like only those circunstances could produce. It has some truly fantastic scenes. I feel like it has brought something new to my life, some awakening.
The bed scene, the bullet scene, the intro, the "videoclip", the mirrors and the mushrooms. The photograph is quite ironic, if you have seen the movie. I still think it is very beautiful, even though it does not come from the movie plot, probably just from a photo session on set.
I am awake. Not illuded. Just happy, free, surrounded by my own visions of greatness.
INTO THE WILD
Saw it yesterday. It stayed with me during the night. I holded him tight, never letting him go. Somehow I had not felt like that since Catcher in the Rye. Like I wanted to be there, to put my arms around that boy and tell him it was going to be alright. It is a human impulse stronger than a screen.
And I feel more than ever that the world is full of martyrs, people who died so that we could learn. Who gave their lifes to the experience of knowledge. Those should be our Gods, our gurus. The dead souls of the extreme.
Because nature and freedom can trapp you so easily, the only performance that makes it true, all the way, is the one that goes as far as madness.
I need to go to class now. But there at two or three important things in the Universe right now.
1 - Food is THE supreme pleasure of reality. I had the most supremely delicious dinner yesterday, and, I am gald to say, I made it myself. Of course the expensive Portuguese cod fish, olive oil, organic potatoes and the Portuguese bread also helped. But, seriously, whoever prefers adrenaline, for instance, to a dinner is missing out on the amazing peaks of supreme flavour.
Because life is not only composed by tasks, but by tastes.
2- Epistemology Naturalized. I like Quine, I do. Gods and Science - the difference is one of degree not quality. Nevertheless, it is an important one.
3- I am quite tierd of studying French but hearing a great number of North Americans despise France. No, it is not Paradise. Bill Maher makes much of it, but with good reason. Anyhow, it is still a place I would not mind leaving in.
