Sempre...

Quando olhares uma foto e sorrires com saudade; quando sentires um calor repentino na tua mão; quando sentires ternura no teu coração sem razão aparente; quando te desiludirem e sentires, ainda assim, que não estás sozinha; quando sentires um amor maior que qualquer mágoa e sentires falta de demonstrações de afecto, não das dele, não das delas; nesse momento, ainda que sem palavras, ainda que sem te ver, te entender, mesmo que já não nos conheçamos como no passado; nesse momento, somos nós quem te olha, somos nós quem te toca, somos nós quem te abraça e te ama em segredo, na distância, como sempre, para sempre. Mesmo que não saibamos sequer a tua morada, tens aqui um lar.

Leila e Ziza

Hoje basta fechar os olhos...

Sentir saudades de nada e, ao mesmo tempo, sentir falta de tudo. Faz falta alguém inventado pelas ilusões podres que a solidão permite ter. Fantasias de um tempo, espaço e corpo que não existem, nunca existiram fora dos muros da sede desesperada de ser e ter como nos filmes, romances ou outras mentiras que tais.

Carregar este vazio cheio de nadas é difícil. Mas porquê? O que deve substituir o ar emperfumado para que o peso se desvaneça em concretizações, ainda que supérfulas?

Sempre advoguei que antes infeliz, que pateta alegre. Mas esses andam leves pelo caminho, saltitando como se atrás deles não viessem intempéries. Esses sorriem sinceramente. Não se preocupam com o que virá ou com o que foi. Provavelmente porque carregam um vazio de sentido, porque não sabem sequer o que lhes falta. Eu sei o que me falta. Já o tive, já o senti... Agora apenas tenho a cicatriz para o lembrar, para lhe sentir a falta. Talvez "esses" não tenham guardado cicatriz nenhuma, ferida nenhuma, mágoa nenhuma.

Mas não é preciso pensar para sentir. Basta ser. Mas quem sou eu? Ou melhor, o que sou?

Wear Sunscreen

 

Ladies and gentleman of the class of '??, wear sunscreen!

If I could offer you only one tip for de future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now...

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, nevermind... You'll not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me: in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future, or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind: the kind that blindsides you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts; don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive; forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives; some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40; maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself, either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body: use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or what other people think of it; it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance...even if you have no where to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions (even if you don't follow them). Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings: they're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but what a precious few should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps and geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old; and when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders. Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse, but you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you are 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of wishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen...

(Mary Schmich)

Back on black

Porque não posso ser também uma daquelas pessoas estúpidas, fúteis, completamente vazias de conteúdo, que apenas se preocupam com o que os outros pensam de si e com a forma como parecem e com o que brilha e lhes parece bonito e pouco complicado?

Ou ser também um daqueles intelectuais cujo prazer se revê em números ou letras ou descobertas ou curiosidades do mundo que não interessam a nenhum comum mortal e que apenas conseguem viver e lidar com a pequena bolha que se cria com o seu autismo desagradável?

Ou ser um amorfo ser do mato ou ser terra inerte e que não pensa e não sente e que, por isso, não quer nada?

Ou morrer e ser recordada hipocritamente por quem diz que quer saber, mas se afasta como se aqui houvesse peste. E tristemente por aqueles que sabem o que fui e tentaram que eu não visse hoje aquilo em que me tornei.

Mas afinal que é isto que sou?

Estava tão inspirada e esta merda apagou-me tudo! Não sei como recuperar, por isso, ficam com a raiva que isto me deixou a mim.

Quero...

Eu quero ser uma mulher que gosta de si mesma. Eu quero fazer exercício todos os dias. Quero ajudar os meus amigos, sempre que souber como o fazer. Quero saber pedir desculpa, sempre que sentir que errei. Quero saber quando errar. Quero saber quando me afastar de alguém e largar mão de querer sempre fazer o que acho que vai fazer os outros felizes. Quero saber quando e de quem me aproximar. Quero passar a ler mais. Quero deixar de gastar o meu tempo a pensar em romances que podem nunca acontecer. Quero ser mais pacífica, calma e sensata. Mas sem nunca deixar de ser verdadeira comigo mesma e com os outros. Quero ser mais intelectual, espiritual e menos física e desbocada. Gosto de ser desbocada, mas tenho nível para melhor. Quero deixar de me olha de cima. Quero olhar-me de frente. Quero gostar mais do presente. Quero ser mais Leila e menos o rol de personagens com quem partilho semelhanças. Porque sou mais que um conjunto de recortes doutras personagens. Quero pensar mais em mim e menos em ti. Quero ser mais igual aos meus princípios e menos serva dos meus desejos. E quero prová-lo a mim mesma.

Então é assim:

De repente, o chão fugiu-me dos pés e não sei para onde foi.

Tinha tantas certezas. Era tão inocente. Sabia tanto de nada. E bastou uma partida para que tudo mudasse, não fora, mas dentro de mim. Fugiu-me o chão dos pés e eu caí. Talvez precisasse da queda. Talvez precisasse de arder. Talvez precisasse do escuro e do medo e das trevas e do sofrimento e de ter vivido debaixo do chão. Talvez o chão adquirido que outros me ofereceram já não servisse para me segurar. Este chão que é novo é meu de direito. Sou eu que o vou construindo com incertezas e experiências. Vou construindo e derrumbando paredes e descobrindo saídas do caos da possibilidade para as minhas escolhas. Notam-se as rugas e as brancas, o cansaço e a derrota das frustrações. Mas o brilho que se vê é profundo demais para que superficialidades o ofusquem. E apenas eu me posso parar.

A luta é minha porque é contra mim mesma. Os medos, as paredes que construo para me isolar de tudo o que é novo e pode magoar. A construção da certeza da mágoa, associada a um risco que se não é tomado me consome de desafios abandonados. Ninguém pode imaginar o que sinto por desistir, seja do que for. Seja de quem for...

Na procura de um chão, vou encontrando o meu andar. E apesar de tudo, tenho orgulho em mim. Talvez o pouco amor que nutro pela pessoa no espelho seja o desafio a vencer. "O que não gostas, muda." "É fácil queixares-te. Difícil é fazer alguma coisa." "Mereces ser feliz." A vontade é gritar para que se calem as vozes. Que sabem vocês de mim? Que sabem vocês do que fiz para que não me merecesse? Porque acham que a minha própria pele me dói? Porque é que é a mim própria que rejeito quando fujo de quem quer que "tu" sejas?

Mas porque não?

E chegar a casa cansada, dorida, moída. Chegar e não te ver a ti, não te sentir. Não é que precise de ti para sobreviver e encontrar alegrias. Contigo simplesmente conseguia ser feliz. És aquela peça que falta para que fique tudo perfeito.

No fundo, sei que a sorte que tenho. Tenho tudo quanto preciso e tenho-o com qualidade. Tenho família das boas, com direito a tudo. Tenho amigos quase irmãos, com os quais sei que posso contar. Tenho trabalho e não é pouco. Tenho actividades, que são muito mais que passatempos, e que me fazem sentir realizada. Tenho uma espiritualidade bem definida e orientada. Tenho projectos para o futuro e um passado que me permite ser uma pessoa construída em alicerces fortes, não "apesar" dos erros, mas porque os cometi. E visto que arrependimentos são erros com os quais não se aprende, não trago arrependimentos comigo. Queria sentir-me completamente realizada. Tenho tudo isto, mas não te tenho a ti.

Não quero sequer parecer ingrata. Agradeço e valorizo tudo, mas sem ti parece tudo a vida de outra pessoa, como se não estivesse a construir nada de preenchido. Não gosto de futilidade, nem de vazio, nem de silêncio. Tudo isto sem ti é como viver em vácuo. Queria ao abrir a porta de casa sentir que tudo estivesse no caminho certo. Sentir-me feliz!

Desejo que um dia os andaimes e as pedras que juntei se conjuguem para construir o que eu desejo: um futuro, o meu futuro, o meu futuro contigo.

Desejo abrir a porta da NOSSA casa, sentir o cheiro da NOSSA comida, olhar e ver o NOSSO pequeno mundo decorado à NOSSA maneira, sentar-me ao teu lado para descansar e sentir-me feliz no NÓS que já me fez tão feliz.

"Não se pode ter tudo", diz o povo. Mas porque não?

Lições de Vida

Thank you.

I'm honored to be with you for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told I never graduated from college and this the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the firts six months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? it started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up to adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything should be all set for me to be adopted from birth by a lawyer and wis wife. Except when I popped outthey decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parent, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking "We have as unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said "Of course!" My biological mother found out later that my mother never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relenteda few months later when my parents promised that i would go to college. This was the start in my life. And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no ideia what i wanted to do with my life and no ideia how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that everything would all work out OK. It was really scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made.The minute I drop out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting. It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slep on the floor of in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the5 cents deposites to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town to Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Kirshna temple. I loved it!

And must of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus, every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take the calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beatifull, historical, artistically subtle in a way science can't capture. And I found it fascinating.

None of this had even the hope of any pratical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Machintosh computer, it all came back to me. ANd we designedit all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beatifull typography. If i had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would never had multiple typeface or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personnel computer would have them.

If I had never dropped out, I would never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful tipography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking foward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because beleiveing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart. Even when it leads you off the well worn path, and that will make all the difference.

My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 400 employees. We had just released our finest creaction, the Machintosh, a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired.
How you can get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Boards of Directors sided with him. And so at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. what had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few monts. I felt I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passes to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologyze for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me: I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that on bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and felt in love with an amazing womanwho would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and it's now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, and I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together. I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the paciente needed it.
Sometimes life is gonna hits you in the head with a brick. Don't loose faith.
I'm convinced the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work a it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle!
As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle!

My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as it was your last, someday you'll be certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were you last day of my life, would I want to do what I'm about to do today? And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things all fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best wai I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to loose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas.I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is uncurable, and that I should expect to life no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affair in order, witch is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up, so it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I leved with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a byopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and thankfully I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope is the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainly than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: no one wants to die! Even people who wnat to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invenction of Life. It's Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.
Right now, the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. your time ir limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don´t be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And, most important, have the coureage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand, not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 60's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools, and great notions. Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run it course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970's, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchiking on if you are so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay hungry. Stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you very much.

Steve Jobs

Tu sabes

"Amar é desafiar caminhos incertos..."

you know who you are

Durante anos, esta foi a forma como eu caracterizei o Amor, esse sentimento tortuoso, sinuoso e tão desejado. Tinha esta cara belíssima, mas ao mesmo tempo monstruosa, de quem vai envolver-te num segundo e fazer-te simplesmente feliz.

Não foi eterno, pois não? Não foi bom para todos. Definitivamente. Não foi o que esperavas. Foi e pronto. Nunca pensei deixar de ter um outro lado para esta ponte. Faz-me sentir completamente perdida. Tu sabes.