Salaam,
Me apaixonei?
Talvez, pode ser
Enloqueci?
Não sei, nunca vi
Preciso sair
Depois que eu descobri
Que há você
Nunca mais existi
I fell in love?
Maybe, it could be
I went crazy?
I don't know, I've never been there
I need to get out
After I discovered
That there is you
I never existed again.
I told the story of this song before. How I heard this song on my "Haiti" playlist on Pandora in 2008, how I excitedly ordered a CD imported from Brasil with the song on it since I couldn't download it on the internet, how I read the insert in the CD to find a translation of the song, and how I realized that the song put into words what I could not.
I fell in love with a man and then I never existed again.
Alas, the very thing I prayed to God wouldn't happened had happened. I fell in love with a man who would not be mine. Why? Why would God allow it?
Over 11 years later, I still don't know. But this song reminds me of that place.
No song that exists on earth speaks to me more than this one. No artist has more quickly become my favorite than Djavan for the fact that he wrote this song. Talk about killing me softly.
There was a time where I couldn't complete a task without thinking about how this man would be proud of me, as he said he was. Proud of how smart I was, amazed at how smart I was. "I amazed him," he told me once. I had never been admired so brightly and so earnestly by a man. It had to be love.
I was so convinced and he was so emblazoned into my person for years that the best way that I could put it is that I wasn't myself anymore. The me that I was before had stopped existing. I became other. And I never existed again.
I was never the same. I have not existed again. He's since married the woman I knew he would end up with. Years after I was over him, his wife came to me in a dream, and described what he was like at their wedding.
I did not know until days later that I dreamed of her on the day they married. I would later see a Facebook post in which she described him exactly as she described him to me in my dream--serious in the face of his upcoming responsibility as a married man.
It's been 11 years since I first fell for him, and I've moved on. We are at two opposite sides of the country living separate and completely full lives, but I had to dream about him to congratulate him on his son. I hadn't dreamed of him in years, but I guess that was an occasion.
In every manifestation of his life, I can now see that he was meant for her, and she was meant for him. I don't know why I ever came into the picture and interrupted destiny. And I don't mean that to be self-deprecating, because the whole thing sure as hell interrupted my life.
The piece in the anthology only tells part of the story. I was too shy to write about the raw obsession and the pain of disillusionment when I found out he had no idea that I liked him, let alone that I stopped existing because of him.
The best that I can say did come out of the whole experience in the manuscript that I'm gearing up to edit.
I can't believe it's been 11 years. We were two different people then. Now, we're doctors. He has a family, and I'm at the precipice of marrying, at least I hope. When we met, we had no idea where we'd be, what we'd be able to do. We were just two nerdy kids in an organic chemistry class.
He didn't know a black girl could be so smart. I didn't know that the annoying, boisterous kid who I dreaded seeing in class every week would change my life.
The me before I met him never existed again. I wanted that someone who felt so important in my life to remain in my life, but only God knows.
Showing posts with label Brasil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brasil. Show all posts
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Monday, March 3, 2014
The Ideal
Salaam,
The other day, I was sitting with my SO and we were reflecting on our relationship (1.5 years now), and I can't remember how it came up, but I think I mentioned that I'd grown since the time I'd known him, and that I'm still growing, and I realize the things that I used to want in a relationship I don't actually want and things that I didn't think I wanted I really appreciate having.
He asked me who my ideal SO would be.
And I couldn't answer him. I know he's conscious of the differences in our spirituality and probably wonders if one day I'll wake up and decide I'd rather be with a more-practicing man and leave him on his way, especially when I get to talking about religion (even if I'm bemoaning certain elements). I feel like the answer I gave him would have only upset him.
Because, really, I've never thought long enough to formulate an ideal. My ideal man was always someone who would fit well with me. Someone who would make sense in my life, my practice, with my belief, and that was it. It takes actually being in a relationship to realize how selfish that view is and realize that it's never that simple with another, complex, whole human being at your side that you're relating to.
And just because I've waited and was prayerful and feel like I'm a really good person, doesn't mean I'm going to be the perfect SO. In fact, I spent so many years by myself, I still find myself being self-centered and forcing myself to put myself aside for a little bit to really hear my SO's point of view, his hangups, his problems.
Not that I'm usually a selfish person. Of course I know how to be a good friend and I do this for friends all the time. It's just...I guess I always imagined a relationship while being alone and relatively self-sufficient, so spending time with someone in the flesh who is filling that role after imagining it alone for a while makes it hard to get outside of myself and those imaginings and relate to the person on the other side of the dream.
So I feel like whatever I imagined as the ideal man or the ideal relationship before was fairly one-sided, as if there were a human man out there whose sole purpose in life was to be my eventual husband or something. And of course I never expected someone to be like that, but when one creates an imaginary man in their brains, he doesn't tend to have aspirations unique to your own.
What would be a better soul mate then one who also believed in care for the underserved, here and abroad? Maybe...
The fact is, the possible "ideal" combinations with me as a person are endless, but they are, regardless, combinations that I do not find often in nature. And implicit in my SO's question is his wondering if I'm settling or not, if I can do better or not.
And I guess I could imagine a lot of different types of men. Of late, I think it would be cool to travel to Brazil, specifically to Salvador, and meet some guy at the faculdade who was really into Nigeria, specifically Igbo culture, and therefore be fascinated with me, my family's history, my religion, and things go from there...
But I don't think about those things anymore. I don't construct ideals anymore because I have something real that is good, that works, that is better than I could have imagined in the package that it came in. I have before me a real man who has lived 6 years before me, has lived 33 years independent of me, has dreams and goals that do not involve me, and yet is now intimately interwoven in my life and it just seems silly to prefer to be with an imaginary man of my own making.
Whether or not I could "do better" is I guess up for debate, but I don't think I can fabricate an ideal. Not right now, not while things are so real.
The other day, I was sitting with my SO and we were reflecting on our relationship (1.5 years now), and I can't remember how it came up, but I think I mentioned that I'd grown since the time I'd known him, and that I'm still growing, and I realize the things that I used to want in a relationship I don't actually want and things that I didn't think I wanted I really appreciate having.
He asked me who my ideal SO would be.
And I couldn't answer him. I know he's conscious of the differences in our spirituality and probably wonders if one day I'll wake up and decide I'd rather be with a more-practicing man and leave him on his way, especially when I get to talking about religion (even if I'm bemoaning certain elements). I feel like the answer I gave him would have only upset him.
Because, really, I've never thought long enough to formulate an ideal. My ideal man was always someone who would fit well with me. Someone who would make sense in my life, my practice, with my belief, and that was it. It takes actually being in a relationship to realize how selfish that view is and realize that it's never that simple with another, complex, whole human being at your side that you're relating to.
And just because I've waited and was prayerful and feel like I'm a really good person, doesn't mean I'm going to be the perfect SO. In fact, I spent so many years by myself, I still find myself being self-centered and forcing myself to put myself aside for a little bit to really hear my SO's point of view, his hangups, his problems.
Not that I'm usually a selfish person. Of course I know how to be a good friend and I do this for friends all the time. It's just...I guess I always imagined a relationship while being alone and relatively self-sufficient, so spending time with someone in the flesh who is filling that role after imagining it alone for a while makes it hard to get outside of myself and those imaginings and relate to the person on the other side of the dream.
So I feel like whatever I imagined as the ideal man or the ideal relationship before was fairly one-sided, as if there were a human man out there whose sole purpose in life was to be my eventual husband or something. And of course I never expected someone to be like that, but when one creates an imaginary man in their brains, he doesn't tend to have aspirations unique to your own.
What would be a better soul mate then one who also believed in care for the underserved, here and abroad? Maybe...
The fact is, the possible "ideal" combinations with me as a person are endless, but they are, regardless, combinations that I do not find often in nature. And implicit in my SO's question is his wondering if I'm settling or not, if I can do better or not.
And I guess I could imagine a lot of different types of men. Of late, I think it would be cool to travel to Brazil, specifically to Salvador, and meet some guy at the faculdade who was really into Nigeria, specifically Igbo culture, and therefore be fascinated with me, my family's history, my religion, and things go from there...
But I don't think about those things anymore. I don't construct ideals anymore because I have something real that is good, that works, that is better than I could have imagined in the package that it came in. I have before me a real man who has lived 6 years before me, has lived 33 years independent of me, has dreams and goals that do not involve me, and yet is now intimately interwoven in my life and it just seems silly to prefer to be with an imaginary man of my own making.
Whether or not I could "do better" is I guess up for debate, but I don't think I can fabricate an ideal. Not right now, not while things are so real.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
And if God doesn't provide?
Salaam,
This title is an allusion to yet another song, this one in Portuguese. It is the pop version of a type of samba called partido alto by Chico Buarque, so titled.
Partido alto is witty, provocative and involves plays on words, as I understand. The song "Partido Alto" taps into this, and its chorus is an elaborate word play that, upon hearing it, I found brazen but could not help singing it.
The actual lyrics are as follows:
Diz que Deus dará,
Não vou duvidar,ô nega
E se Deus não dá,
Como é que vai ficar, ô nega?
Diz que deu, diz que dá,
E se Deus negar, ô nega
Eu vou me indignar e chega,
Deus dará, Deus dará
Works a lot better than the English translation; I'm not even sure how you would make this as fun in English, actually (a small amount of poetic license taken in the translation here):
They say that God will provide
I'm not going to doubt that, my dear
And if God doesn't give
How are we going to end up, my dear?
They say he gave, they say he gives
And if God denies us, my dear,
I'll become outraged and that's it
God will give, God will give
First of all, I've always found it hilarious that variations on the word "black" are used as a term of endearment in Latin America. Light skin children were called "negrito/a" when I was in the DR, and "nega" in Brazil is a term of endearment for one's wife, girlfriend or close female friend, regardless of race, but very commonly used among white people, and it definitely comes from "negra." So, essentially, it'd be like everyone in America said "nigga" as a term of endearment...or at least in a similar way that black people do.
Talk about how language shapes one's view of the world!
But I share that lyric to share actually something quite serious, at least for me. I open it with a jovial note. Tell me, how would a Muslim interpret this lyric? Would a Muslim even let these lyrics cross their lips?
On my playlist on my iPod, I skip over (but interestingly have not yet deleted) the song that ends with "A vezes tento creer mas não consigo. E todo um total insensatez..." Which translates, "Sometimes I try to believe, but I'm not able to. It's all complete nonsense."
Muslims, am I right? We are, by definition, believers. Not only are we believers, but we are submitters. I cannot let such words of disbelief pass into my psyche, not in the form of song, of verse, of speech, of thought, of image, nothing. I reject those lyrics. This is why some people consider music haram. Where do you draw the line between beautiful instrumentation and harmless lyrics to the very harmful. It will sneak up on you. And see how I've memorized that Portuguese lyric against my will! It is in my mind and undermining my faith and I would have been better off never having heard that lyric, astaghfirullah...
...or would I be?
I admit, I do intend to remove that song from my iPod, but I rarely listen to my iPod anymore and haven't changed songs on it for the last 3 years or so. I am a little tongue-in-cheek up there but I'm serious about taking care about the forms of media I ingest and how it can have an impact on our person. Disbelief is not my modus operandi, so I don't consume it.
However, songs like "Partido Alto" walk that line of inappropriateness. If I were my former self, actually, I would stop listening to this song, too, and try to purge it from my memory. To imply, ever, that God doesn't provide? Haram in the making, right there.
The song's protagonist is a person living in poverty, lamenting their position and poking fun at themselves. Their faith is fickle at best. God will provide...but what if He doesn't? What are we going to do? Well, if he doesn't provide, I'm going to be pissed...
But I still listen to this song. Why?
Because God has provided amply for me, more than I ever ask for and above what I've ever wanted. But there are so many in this world who are struggling, good people who are constant in prayer, better than I, people all around the world, burying children that they aren't able to feed, watched them die...
My upbringing and faith-base taught me that God provides amply for them, too. But having experienced individuals and families in desperation as I have as a physician now, you definitely feel like there are times when God isn't providing.
In a witty way, a silly song captures fleeting desperation, the lack of understanding of the world we all have and are at varying levels of wanting to admit it. We do not know why we were put here, don't and will not understand the master plan.
As long as God continues to provide me with all that he does, I'll continue to realize the purpose of my life...to help others through life. I believe that's why we're all here...to help each other out through this maze. And if God were "no longer to provide?" I hope someone would do the same for me...help me, whatever is left of me.
Because there is enough resource, wealth and plenty that have been provided to some of us, that nobody's baby has to starve.
This title is an allusion to yet another song, this one in Portuguese. It is the pop version of a type of samba called partido alto by Chico Buarque, so titled.
Partido alto is witty, provocative and involves plays on words, as I understand. The song "Partido Alto" taps into this, and its chorus is an elaborate word play that, upon hearing it, I found brazen but could not help singing it.
The actual lyrics are as follows:
Diz que Deus dará,
Não vou duvidar,ô nega
E se Deus não dá,
Como é que vai ficar, ô nega?
Diz que deu, diz que dá,
E se Deus negar, ô nega
Eu vou me indignar e chega,
Deus dará, Deus dará
Works a lot better than the English translation; I'm not even sure how you would make this as fun in English, actually (a small amount of poetic license taken in the translation here):
They say that God will provide
I'm not going to doubt that, my dear
And if God doesn't give
How are we going to end up, my dear?
They say he gave, they say he gives
And if God denies us, my dear,
I'll become outraged and that's it
God will give, God will give
First of all, I've always found it hilarious that variations on the word "black" are used as a term of endearment in Latin America. Light skin children were called "negrito/a" when I was in the DR, and "nega" in Brazil is a term of endearment for one's wife, girlfriend or close female friend, regardless of race, but very commonly used among white people, and it definitely comes from "negra." So, essentially, it'd be like everyone in America said "nigga" as a term of endearment...or at least in a similar way that black people do.
Talk about how language shapes one's view of the world!
But I share that lyric to share actually something quite serious, at least for me. I open it with a jovial note. Tell me, how would a Muslim interpret this lyric? Would a Muslim even let these lyrics cross their lips?
On my playlist on my iPod, I skip over (but interestingly have not yet deleted) the song that ends with "A vezes tento creer mas não consigo. E todo um total insensatez..." Which translates, "Sometimes I try to believe, but I'm not able to. It's all complete nonsense."
Muslims, am I right? We are, by definition, believers. Not only are we believers, but we are submitters. I cannot let such words of disbelief pass into my psyche, not in the form of song, of verse, of speech, of thought, of image, nothing. I reject those lyrics. This is why some people consider music haram. Where do you draw the line between beautiful instrumentation and harmless lyrics to the very harmful. It will sneak up on you. And see how I've memorized that Portuguese lyric against my will! It is in my mind and undermining my faith and I would have been better off never having heard that lyric, astaghfirullah...
...or would I be?
I admit, I do intend to remove that song from my iPod, but I rarely listen to my iPod anymore and haven't changed songs on it for the last 3 years or so. I am a little tongue-in-cheek up there but I'm serious about taking care about the forms of media I ingest and how it can have an impact on our person. Disbelief is not my modus operandi, so I don't consume it.
However, songs like "Partido Alto" walk that line of inappropriateness. If I were my former self, actually, I would stop listening to this song, too, and try to purge it from my memory. To imply, ever, that God doesn't provide? Haram in the making, right there.
The song's protagonist is a person living in poverty, lamenting their position and poking fun at themselves. Their faith is fickle at best. God will provide...but what if He doesn't? What are we going to do? Well, if he doesn't provide, I'm going to be pissed...
But I still listen to this song. Why?
Because God has provided amply for me, more than I ever ask for and above what I've ever wanted. But there are so many in this world who are struggling, good people who are constant in prayer, better than I, people all around the world, burying children that they aren't able to feed, watched them die...
My upbringing and faith-base taught me that God provides amply for them, too. But having experienced individuals and families in desperation as I have as a physician now, you definitely feel like there are times when God isn't providing.
In a witty way, a silly song captures fleeting desperation, the lack of understanding of the world we all have and are at varying levels of wanting to admit it. We do not know why we were put here, don't and will not understand the master plan.
As long as God continues to provide me with all that he does, I'll continue to realize the purpose of my life...to help others through life. I believe that's why we're all here...to help each other out through this maze. And if God were "no longer to provide?" I hope someone would do the same for me...help me, whatever is left of me.
Because there is enough resource, wealth and plenty that have been provided to some of us, that nobody's baby has to starve.
Monday, September 16, 2013
That Day He'll Love Me Back
Salaam,
So, in my last post, I talked about things that make me happy, how sometimes I don't exactly feel the word "love" for places, things, ideas and how I have to approach it from that glowing feel I get whenever such things are mentioned, when I experience them, when I travel to them...
Because happiness for me is a glow in my chest, a warm feeling, kind of like a tingling pressure that expands.
And it lasts for the duration that I experience these things, places, ideas, that I'm in the presence of these people, and lasts until I'm no longer thinking about them.
So one of the ideas that makes me happy is the realization of a love once requited. Not the actual realization, though. That feeling of anticipation of that realization of a currently unrequited love...is probably one of the strongest emotions I've felt so far in life.
I think it will only be surpassed by holding my children for the first time.
The biggest crush I will probably ever have in my life was, for those who have been reading for a long time, MTQ. I was 19 years old. It was the first time in my adult life that I "fell in love." It may be the last time in my adult life that I fall in love. It wasn't "love at first sight." I recently had that (with not my SO, prior to him being my SO, but concurrently with that...long story). He was a kid (a 19 then 20-year-old kid) who I at first didn't like. But later, I did fall...
And what a fall it was.
Right now, as a 28 year old woman, nearing the 10th Anniversary of Falling (if I may), the 10th anniversary of the Unrequited Love Tale of My Life...I have to be reminded of what it felt like to be "in love" with him. I have to go to old journal entries, old stories, and read and smile and remember.
Sentiments like, "I can't believe you exist in a realm in which I also exist," still make me tingle on the inside. I have to be reminded, but once I am, I can feel that again...and I love that feeling.
Implicit in that statement is that anticipation. The anticipation of the realization of a love that is yet unrequited is amazing. It's such a burning, glowing, magical feeling. And until that day happens, and as long as you believe this to be true...you are taken over by that anticipation. You eat, sleep, pray, breathe that anticipation. I've never realized and unrequited love so I don't know how that feels...it may be the grand anticlimax, I don't know.
But that draw of that anticipation is why so many people liked the Helga/Arnold thing on Hey Arnold!
And I'd probably have a list of rom-coms that played a similar role...if I watched them! :D
There are a few songs that capture this adeptly...and thus are some of my favorite songs (you can find a song for any sentiment you want from a talented artist).
In English, of course, Stevie Wonder's "Overjoyed," not only lyrically, but musically, instrumentally, through its arrangement, captures that feeling perfectly. In fact, I can identify the exact moment that feels like my anticipation. See the clip below:
See 1:38-1:46 (not only the lyrics, but what the music is doing in the background...perfect. "And maybe, too, if you would believe you, too, might be..."). Almost what my anticipation feels like. My anticipation feels like some notes that don't exist, that may exist if I were genius enough to make my own arrangement of it.
Other such songs that are my favorites that I really feel when I sing along (or listen along, hehe) include Patti LaBelle's "If Only You Knew," "Natural High," by Bloodstone, and "Sweet Thing" by Chaka Khan (one of my favorite genres thus being apparent). (In linking these, I had to listen to them in their entirity). That moment of anticipation is captured with Patti LaBelle's "if" that she vocally embellishes in the chorus and then belts out repeatedly in the end. It's in Bloodstone's soaring chorus above the rest of the song, especially at the end of song. Chaka Khan's song is a little different...that song is the confession of love.
Chaka's is also the singing voice that I aspire to. Sigh.
Then, there are songs that capture the other side of that feeling...when that unrequited love is never realized, never will be realized, gone. Djavan's "Doidice" similarly masterfully written from the perspective of music, lyrics, emotion, captures the feeling when you recognize that your anticipation was for naught, that you were living in a fantasy existence.
(Incidentally, my only post on my YouTube Channel.)
There's a whole story about this song that I believe I posted before on my old blog that is now, I guess, off the web (but thankfully archived). But I was drawn to this song on my Pandora, got an imported CD from Brasil (because I couldn't find this song to download it), found the translation in the insert in the CD and realized that the lyrics described me for months, years after I realized that I would never be with MTQ. And the music enveloped me, and became that...and still feels like that when I listen to it.
Translation of the Chorus:
I fell in love?
Maybe, it could be
I went crazy?
I don't know, I've never seen it
I need to get out
After I discovered that there is you
I never existed again
I was this chorus, exactly. I don't know what it was I felt...love, insanity, obsession. But whatever it was, after I fell in love with him...I stopped existing for myself. So much was for him. I think I forced myself out of depression because I wanted to be well for him (topic of perhaps next entry). I wanted to be attractive for him, smart like he thought I was, all the awesome he thought I was when he told it to my face but he barely knew me, so how could he know?
For months, I lived in anticipation. It was a constant high and an evocative place to live. I was those few bars of "Overjoyed."
And then I was the chorus of "Doidice."
And the key word here is exist. "I can't believe that you exist in a realm in which I also exist." "I never existed again." Nunca mais existi. Living in anticipation sometimes mean you exist in an alternate reality so you can keep up that anticipation, though it may never come to pass.
Or maybe you need to just tell him, already. And if it didn't happen, it's because you waited until you graduated from college and sent it to him in email form when you knew he was long gone.
But the fact of the matter is...true love is not as sharp and prickly and exciting as that anticipation.
And that's why we never tell. Because we hold out as long as we can living in anticipation of that day he or she will love us back.
So, in my last post, I talked about things that make me happy, how sometimes I don't exactly feel the word "love" for places, things, ideas and how I have to approach it from that glowing feel I get whenever such things are mentioned, when I experience them, when I travel to them...
Because happiness for me is a glow in my chest, a warm feeling, kind of like a tingling pressure that expands.
And it lasts for the duration that I experience these things, places, ideas, that I'm in the presence of these people, and lasts until I'm no longer thinking about them.
So one of the ideas that makes me happy is the realization of a love once requited. Not the actual realization, though. That feeling of anticipation of that realization of a currently unrequited love...is probably one of the strongest emotions I've felt so far in life.
I think it will only be surpassed by holding my children for the first time.
The biggest crush I will probably ever have in my life was, for those who have been reading for a long time, MTQ. I was 19 years old. It was the first time in my adult life that I "fell in love." It may be the last time in my adult life that I fall in love. It wasn't "love at first sight." I recently had that (with not my SO, prior to him being my SO, but concurrently with that...long story). He was a kid (a 19 then 20-year-old kid) who I at first didn't like. But later, I did fall...
And what a fall it was.
Right now, as a 28 year old woman, nearing the 10th Anniversary of Falling (if I may), the 10th anniversary of the Unrequited Love Tale of My Life...I have to be reminded of what it felt like to be "in love" with him. I have to go to old journal entries, old stories, and read and smile and remember.
Sentiments like, "I can't believe you exist in a realm in which I also exist," still make me tingle on the inside. I have to be reminded, but once I am, I can feel that again...and I love that feeling.
Implicit in that statement is that anticipation. The anticipation of the realization of a love that is yet unrequited is amazing. It's such a burning, glowing, magical feeling. And until that day happens, and as long as you believe this to be true...you are taken over by that anticipation. You eat, sleep, pray, breathe that anticipation. I've never realized and unrequited love so I don't know how that feels...it may be the grand anticlimax, I don't know.
But that draw of that anticipation is why so many people liked the Helga/Arnold thing on Hey Arnold!
And girls will all be like, "That way he looked at me, did it mean something?"
And I'd probably have a list of rom-coms that played a similar role...if I watched them! :D
There are a few songs that capture this adeptly...and thus are some of my favorite songs (you can find a song for any sentiment you want from a talented artist).
In English, of course, Stevie Wonder's "Overjoyed," not only lyrically, but musically, instrumentally, through its arrangement, captures that feeling perfectly. In fact, I can identify the exact moment that feels like my anticipation. See the clip below:
See 1:38-1:46 (not only the lyrics, but what the music is doing in the background...perfect. "And maybe, too, if you would believe you, too, might be..."). Almost what my anticipation feels like. My anticipation feels like some notes that don't exist, that may exist if I were genius enough to make my own arrangement of it.
Other such songs that are my favorites that I really feel when I sing along (or listen along, hehe) include Patti LaBelle's "If Only You Knew," "Natural High," by Bloodstone, and "Sweet Thing" by Chaka Khan (one of my favorite genres thus being apparent). (In linking these, I had to listen to them in their entirity). That moment of anticipation is captured with Patti LaBelle's "if" that she vocally embellishes in the chorus and then belts out repeatedly in the end. It's in Bloodstone's soaring chorus above the rest of the song, especially at the end of song. Chaka Khan's song is a little different...that song is the confession of love.
Chaka's is also the singing voice that I aspire to. Sigh.
Then, there are songs that capture the other side of that feeling...when that unrequited love is never realized, never will be realized, gone. Djavan's "Doidice" similarly masterfully written from the perspective of music, lyrics, emotion, captures the feeling when you recognize that your anticipation was for naught, that you were living in a fantasy existence.
(Incidentally, my only post on my YouTube Channel.)
There's a whole story about this song that I believe I posted before on my old blog that is now, I guess, off the web (but thankfully archived). But I was drawn to this song on my Pandora, got an imported CD from Brasil (because I couldn't find this song to download it), found the translation in the insert in the CD and realized that the lyrics described me for months, years after I realized that I would never be with MTQ. And the music enveloped me, and became that...and still feels like that when I listen to it.
Translation of the Chorus:
I fell in love?
Maybe, it could be
I went crazy?
I don't know, I've never seen it
I need to get out
After I discovered that there is you
I never existed again
I was this chorus, exactly. I don't know what it was I felt...love, insanity, obsession. But whatever it was, after I fell in love with him...I stopped existing for myself. So much was for him. I think I forced myself out of depression because I wanted to be well for him (topic of perhaps next entry). I wanted to be attractive for him, smart like he thought I was, all the awesome he thought I was when he told it to my face but he barely knew me, so how could he know?
For months, I lived in anticipation. It was a constant high and an evocative place to live. I was those few bars of "Overjoyed."
And then I was the chorus of "Doidice."
And the key word here is exist. "I can't believe that you exist in a realm in which I also exist." "I never existed again." Nunca mais existi. Living in anticipation sometimes mean you exist in an alternate reality so you can keep up that anticipation, though it may never come to pass.
Or maybe you need to just tell him, already. And if it didn't happen, it's because you waited until you graduated from college and sent it to him in email form when you knew he was long gone.
But the fact of the matter is...true love is not as sharp and prickly and exciting as that anticipation.
And that's why we never tell. Because we hold out as long as we can living in anticipation of that day he or she will love us back.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
A Stick, A Stone / é pau, é pedra
As salaam alaikum,
I just listened to Obama's full speech reflecting on the Trayvon Martin case. As one of my friends said on facebook, "My President is Black." And honestly, this is one of the first times that I have felt that in a positive way in a while.
As in, I recognize my president is black and not because of hateful comparisons to monkeys or reference to as the antichrist or anything overtly racist like that. And not because of the many covertly racist ways that he is regarded.
He explained so eloquently why the case is so painful for us, black people, in a way that was appropriately delicate but detailed.
I'll say it this way. I'm called to mind of my grandfather, who in his youth was instructed to act like he had a developmental disability if a white woman tried to talk to him so he would not face violence from her white relations (i.e. lynching and the like). See the case of Emmett Till. Spoiler alert: those who killed him were acquitted. And I think, will I have to teach my sons to fall to the ground, face down, with their hands raised if confronted by a white man who appears to feel threatened by them? Is that really what's going on here?
It's bad enough that I may have to defend my sons against teachers who, by the age of five, believe my sons to be aggressive, out of control, and want to kick them out of the classroom, expel them, enroll them in special ed. It's bad enough that I'll have to fear for my sons' life at the hands of peers, depending on where they live.
This case sent a dangerous precedent that set race relations in this country back decades. Back to the time of the Emmett Till murder, back to the time when the last black body swung from a tree.
As I thought of this, however, the following words came to my mind: é pau, é pedra, é o fim do caminho...
It's a twig, it's a rock, it's the end of the road...
Or, as the English version goes, "A stick, a stone, it's the end of the road."
My favorite song of all time is "Aguas de Março" by Tom Jobim. My favorite version of it is Elis Regina's, though I like almost every version of the song, ever.
And I thought of the song, and it took on new meaning to me.
I love that I can shift and think in another language. I love that I'm fluent in Spanish and can hold my own in Portuguese. I love that I can slide fluidly into this world and meld with a people whose mindset is different about race (far from perfect, far from racial utopia, just different) and escape from the brand of ugly we have here.
I love that I can shift into a language with it's own music with unique lyrics and sentiments I haven't necessarily heard in English-language songs. And today, "Aguas de Março" expressed a sentiment that it hadn't for me before, that I don't think I could find in another English-language song.
It's a long version of my SO's "oh well" when something falls outside of his hands, though is regretable.
A stick, a stone, it's the end of the road, it's the rest of a stump, it's a little alone.
I learned all of the words in Portuguese, which took me months, but now I know it by heart. Categorically naming all of the objects in his surrounding, from a cut on his toe to the car stuck in the mud...and the mud, and the mud...then carefully translated into English, using no words that had Latin roots, Tom Jobim ingeniously crafted the Waters of March with an arrangement that sounds like a gentle but persistent rain.
Each of these little objects makes up a landscape, the psychological landscape of the Waters of March. The song tonight sounds to me like surrender...peaceful, wet, gradual surrender, piecemeal, to life, to reality, to beauty in pieces. Still existing in spite of the rain, in spite of the end of summer.
They're the waters of March, closing the summer. It's the promise of life in my heart.
I listened to the speech by Obama and it gave me hope. It made me feel less desperate. Seeing so many of my non-black friends applauding it on facebook made me feel less alone. Not that I needed their validation, but I'm glad to see black people weren't the only ones who cared. And seeing Obama, who I have personally felt has compromised many of what he said were his values in the name of maintaining his position, be real in front of the press and explain what it felt like to be black and hear that verdict--the world isn't quite as bleak as I thought it was for a while.
It's part of the human condition that we make life bleak for one another. But it is excellence of the human condition when we are able to do right by each other, bring each other up.
But Trayvon is dead, George Zimmerman is acquitted, several other unarmed black boys and young men died because they were suspicious, even more black boys and young men died because of senseless violence, and so many black boys and young men are in jail, out of jail or on the conveyor belt to jail. What I experienced tonight was beauty, but beauty is always bittersweet in the face of sorrow.
And that's what a lot of Brazilian music is for me. Bittersweet beauty in the face of sorrow. The beauty is always lovely sounding to those who don't understand the lyrics. In the lyrics is the pain.
So "Aguas" breaks it down for me...it makes that beauty elemental. A stick, a stone, it's the end of the road, it's the rest of a stump, it's a little alone. It's a sliver of glass, it is life, it's the sun, it is night, it is death, it's a trap, it's a gun...
On a slightly related note, the video of the children expressing shock about that controversial Cheerios ad renewed my intense desire to have children of my own. So cute! Little people are amazing.
I just listened to Obama's full speech reflecting on the Trayvon Martin case. As one of my friends said on facebook, "My President is Black." And honestly, this is one of the first times that I have felt that in a positive way in a while.
As in, I recognize my president is black and not because of hateful comparisons to monkeys or reference to as the antichrist or anything overtly racist like that. And not because of the many covertly racist ways that he is regarded.
He explained so eloquently why the case is so painful for us, black people, in a way that was appropriately delicate but detailed.
I'll say it this way. I'm called to mind of my grandfather, who in his youth was instructed to act like he had a developmental disability if a white woman tried to talk to him so he would not face violence from her white relations (i.e. lynching and the like). See the case of Emmett Till. Spoiler alert: those who killed him were acquitted. And I think, will I have to teach my sons to fall to the ground, face down, with their hands raised if confronted by a white man who appears to feel threatened by them? Is that really what's going on here?
It's bad enough that I may have to defend my sons against teachers who, by the age of five, believe my sons to be aggressive, out of control, and want to kick them out of the classroom, expel them, enroll them in special ed. It's bad enough that I'll have to fear for my sons' life at the hands of peers, depending on where they live.
This case sent a dangerous precedent that set race relations in this country back decades. Back to the time of the Emmett Till murder, back to the time when the last black body swung from a tree.
As I thought of this, however, the following words came to my mind: é pau, é pedra, é o fim do caminho...
It's a twig, it's a rock, it's the end of the road...
Or, as the English version goes, "A stick, a stone, it's the end of the road."
My favorite song of all time is "Aguas de Março" by Tom Jobim. My favorite version of it is Elis Regina's, though I like almost every version of the song, ever.
And I thought of the song, and it took on new meaning to me.
I love that I can shift and think in another language. I love that I'm fluent in Spanish and can hold my own in Portuguese. I love that I can slide fluidly into this world and meld with a people whose mindset is different about race (far from perfect, far from racial utopia, just different) and escape from the brand of ugly we have here.
I love that I can shift into a language with it's own music with unique lyrics and sentiments I haven't necessarily heard in English-language songs. And today, "Aguas de Março" expressed a sentiment that it hadn't for me before, that I don't think I could find in another English-language song.
It's a long version of my SO's "oh well" when something falls outside of his hands, though is regretable.
A stick, a stone, it's the end of the road, it's the rest of a stump, it's a little alone.
I learned all of the words in Portuguese, which took me months, but now I know it by heart. Categorically naming all of the objects in his surrounding, from a cut on his toe to the car stuck in the mud...and the mud, and the mud...then carefully translated into English, using no words that had Latin roots, Tom Jobim ingeniously crafted the Waters of March with an arrangement that sounds like a gentle but persistent rain.
Each of these little objects makes up a landscape, the psychological landscape of the Waters of March. The song tonight sounds to me like surrender...peaceful, wet, gradual surrender, piecemeal, to life, to reality, to beauty in pieces. Still existing in spite of the rain, in spite of the end of summer.
They're the waters of March, closing the summer. It's the promise of life in my heart.
I listened to the speech by Obama and it gave me hope. It made me feel less desperate. Seeing so many of my non-black friends applauding it on facebook made me feel less alone. Not that I needed their validation, but I'm glad to see black people weren't the only ones who cared. And seeing Obama, who I have personally felt has compromised many of what he said were his values in the name of maintaining his position, be real in front of the press and explain what it felt like to be black and hear that verdict--the world isn't quite as bleak as I thought it was for a while.
It's part of the human condition that we make life bleak for one another. But it is excellence of the human condition when we are able to do right by each other, bring each other up.
But Trayvon is dead, George Zimmerman is acquitted, several other unarmed black boys and young men died because they were suspicious, even more black boys and young men died because of senseless violence, and so many black boys and young men are in jail, out of jail or on the conveyor belt to jail. What I experienced tonight was beauty, but beauty is always bittersweet in the face of sorrow.
And that's what a lot of Brazilian music is for me. Bittersweet beauty in the face of sorrow. The beauty is always lovely sounding to those who don't understand the lyrics. In the lyrics is the pain.
So "Aguas" breaks it down for me...it makes that beauty elemental. A stick, a stone, it's the end of the road, it's the rest of a stump, it's a little alone. It's a sliver of glass, it is life, it's the sun, it is night, it is death, it's a trap, it's a gun...
On a slightly related note, the video of the children expressing shock about that controversial Cheerios ad renewed my intense desire to have children of my own. So cute! Little people are amazing.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Relating
As salaam alaikum,
This is adapted from a letter I wrote to some of my closest cousins.
Relating to another person has made me realize how much I lived within myself, or at the very least in my own discrete, alternate reality. The longer you live there, the harder it is to get out, the harder it is to convince yourself that anyone but someone who fits into that reality will work out.
I lived in a world informed by 60s-90s soul music, musica popular brasileira and post-bop jazz. I lived to the beat of samba and New Jack Swing. I lived in a world where the way that I thought was the essential reality and everything outside was complementary at best, extraneous at worst.
Relating to someone who won't automatically understand why I sometimes utter the lyrics, "A gente quer ter voz ativa, no nosso destino mandar, mas eis que chega a roda viva, e carrega o destino pra la..." is a given. I've lived by myself, in myself for so long, so much of me only makes sense to me. So much of me is garbled and nearly unintelligible. So much of me related to watching the play "Turandot," and hearing Turandot utter that she was a daughter of Heaven and there her soul resided, just to be reminded by her aspiring lover that her soul may be in Heaven but her body was right there with him.
It's not that I bethought myself a daughter of Heaven or thought that my soul transcended this earth. It's that...while my spirit is not as easily accessible, my body is very accessible.
I'd been waiting for a man to relate to my spirit, which I fretted would never happen because it would seem so hard to do. What would a man do with a waxing-and-waning practicing Muslim woman who belts out to Stevie and Elis and cries at the end of Black Orpheus with tears of joy as the children dance after the death of Orpheus and Eurydice?
And I didn't realize, he doesn't have to.
He doesn't have to dig deep or travel far to access my soul. My body's here with him. My soul remains my own.
So I'll still believe that "We want to have an active voice, command in our own destiny, but along comes the wheel of life and carries destiny far away..." and listen to the very 60s style song by Chico Buarque by myself, in my car, blasting it down the highway and be content that no one else understands why I love that song so much.
And he doesn't have to.
And for the first time, that's okay.
This is adapted from a letter I wrote to some of my closest cousins.
Relating to another person has made me realize how much I lived within myself, or at the very least in my own discrete, alternate reality. The longer you live there, the harder it is to get out, the harder it is to convince yourself that anyone but someone who fits into that reality will work out.
I lived in a world informed by 60s-90s soul music, musica popular brasileira and post-bop jazz. I lived to the beat of samba and New Jack Swing. I lived in a world where the way that I thought was the essential reality and everything outside was complementary at best, extraneous at worst.
Relating to someone who won't automatically understand why I sometimes utter the lyrics, "A gente quer ter voz ativa, no nosso destino mandar, mas eis que chega a roda viva, e carrega o destino pra la..." is a given. I've lived by myself, in myself for so long, so much of me only makes sense to me. So much of me is garbled and nearly unintelligible. So much of me related to watching the play "Turandot," and hearing Turandot utter that she was a daughter of Heaven and there her soul resided, just to be reminded by her aspiring lover that her soul may be in Heaven but her body was right there with him.
It's not that I bethought myself a daughter of Heaven or thought that my soul transcended this earth. It's that...while my spirit is not as easily accessible, my body is very accessible.
I'd been waiting for a man to relate to my spirit, which I fretted would never happen because it would seem so hard to do. What would a man do with a waxing-and-waning practicing Muslim woman who belts out to Stevie and Elis and cries at the end of Black Orpheus with tears of joy as the children dance after the death of Orpheus and Eurydice?
And I didn't realize, he doesn't have to.
He doesn't have to dig deep or travel far to access my soul. My body's here with him. My soul remains my own.
So I'll still believe that "We want to have an active voice, command in our own destiny, but along comes the wheel of life and carries destiny far away..." and listen to the very 60s style song by Chico Buarque by myself, in my car, blasting it down the highway and be content that no one else understands why I love that song so much.
And he doesn't have to.
And for the first time, that's okay.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
My Love
As salaam alaikum,
For a brief interlude...this song is awesome. I really thought it was from one of Stevie's 80s albums, like In Square Circle or something, from the way it sounds. It's more than the fact that he's using a synthesizer...it's also the way the music is written to make it sound really 80s, one of my favorite decades for music despite its gaudiness.
Anyway, this song is from 2007, with Julio Iglesias. If you go to the YouTube page, all of the comments are in Portuguese because of the novela. Little things like this make me love life that much more. Globalization is awesome, and so is the internet!
My love is greater than to limit it for a future partner in life. I had a moment of fraqueza. I will move on, and I will be fine, and I will be all the beautiful I've ever been.
For a brief interlude...this song is awesome. I really thought it was from one of Stevie's 80s albums, like In Square Circle or something, from the way it sounds. It's more than the fact that he's using a synthesizer...it's also the way the music is written to make it sound really 80s, one of my favorite decades for music despite its gaudiness.
Anyway, this song is from 2007, with Julio Iglesias. If you go to the YouTube page, all of the comments are in Portuguese because of the novela. Little things like this make me love life that much more. Globalization is awesome, and so is the internet!
My love is greater than to limit it for a future partner in life. I had a moment of fraqueza. I will move on, and I will be fine, and I will be all the beautiful I've ever been.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Young Hotsy Totsy
As salaam alaikum,
Yesterday was my cousins 39th birthday. Yay, Cousin! She was always one of the big kids to me, as I guess she's 12 years older than me...I'm turning dundunDUN 27 this year. I'm not fearing it too much any more...the last time I feared turning an age, the year ended up awesomely...the last time I was okay with turning a year, the year still was awesome, but with an unawesome twist. Womp womp womp.
Anyway, my cousin will be 40 before I'm 30. Wow. Whereas 27 felt ancient to me before (the only reason is because this is the first time I've ever been 27...and my 20s were the first time I allowed myself to get out of child-brain and recognize that, why yes, sir, I am actually an adult...and being almost 30 is old for a child-brain person, hehe...), 39 is even more up there. Alhamdulillah, I have 12 long years before that!
So, I've gotten into making ecards for people from someecards.com. I love them, they tem a minha cara. They have my face, haha. They're sarcastic and biting, dry humor. Anyway, I decided to give her a card to wish her a happy birthday...below...
Yes! I thought this was the best picture, of a young hotsy totsy (haha, if I may borrow an outdated term) making pouty face at the poor, almost-over-the-hill cousin. I no longer feel old turning 27 (I feel 27 before I'm actually turning 27...I'm still the dreaded 26, haha), because she's 39, masha'Allah!
And insha'Allah I'll be as rambunctious and gutsy and beautiful as she is at 39...or even more!
But looking at this picture got me to thinking...hrm. I want to be a young hotsy totsy! I bethought myself that when I was in my early 20s. I felt like my peak was 20 and early 21, right before I wore hijab...ehh, which for me was the antithesis of bethinking myself young and hot, haha. And inspired a 30 pound weight gain, but that's neither here nor there. The reason I decided to take up hijab at the time, actually, was because I got so much male attention! Every time I turned around on Michigan's campus, I was getting waved at by this one, called out by the other one. I mean...truck drivers would honk, police men would call, all ethnicities, but mostly my lovely brown (Latino brown) and black men. I was like, oh my gosh, I must be a fine piece!
I didn't know the half of it, apparently...
And by the time I was 23 and had shed the khimar for the various reasons that I mentioned in a previous entry, I was more serious-minded...and I felt no longer like the young hotsie totsie. At 23! Ridículo!
So now, four years later, I'm almost 27. My weight since medical school has fluctuated 40 pounds. That 30 pound weight gain with the advent of hijab kind of opened the door of weight fluctuation into my early adult life. I've gone from weighing my high school weight to weighing what I did once I was okay with going to a co-ed gym in college to start shedding my hijabi weight (while I was still a hijabi, I lost 15 of those pounds...what a difference the gym makes!).
So blah blah blah weight. This wasn't meant to be a weight loss diary.
There's no reason why I can't be the young hotsy totsy for the rest of my pre-elderly life! I'm going to take the Brazilian perspective, as I've learned from novelas. There's no talk about the youth of the 30-somethings in the novelas...that is a given. They are young and beautiful people. The almost 50-somethings are told by their parents, "Você é jovem ainda!" You're still young!
Elderly characters talk about how they have all this life left to live...
And I love that! We don't have that here. In fact, I was telling one of my friends that I was the happiest in life when I was in Brazil, and it wasn't because of male attention, because I got no cat calls like I did in the DR. It was because I felt beautiful at baseline. I felt lovely, loved, desired and beautiful at baseline, just as I was, without the presence of anyone or the promise of anyone. I felt like everyone around me knew it, and it could have been a romanticization of my experience but I do feel like that was the vibe that I got from everyone.
Not that I'm saying everyone wanted me, haha, no...I just feel like my beauty as an individual human being, whether regarded by the other as an accident or creation, was just assumed.
I don't know...I feel like the climate is very different in the US. You get more the indifferent vibe, or even sometimes the hostile vibe, but not the your-beauty-is-a-given vibe. I don't know. I just felt happier and healthier there...
Oh yeah, and these older women one place told me I had a great body, which was hilarious...they were cute, they giggled. I was like, oh really?
No one in the US would ever tell me that unless it was a dude trying to entice me...
Anyway...this is not about me about to go out and show some leg, no. It's about me embracing my inner hotsy totsy...my inner vibrant, boisterous, happy, dancing, singing personality celebrating my youth and beauty que Deus me deu. I'm not going to say that 27 is old anymore...and I'll try not to do that anymore for any of my subsequent ages. I'm not as bright-eyed innocent as I was at 20, for sure, but I'm maybe even more excited about life, and hopeful, and activist, and all those other things that I aspired to be.
Insha'Allah, I have so much more life to live...to be old at 27 or 39.
Yesterday was my cousins 39th birthday. Yay, Cousin! She was always one of the big kids to me, as I guess she's 12 years older than me...I'm turning dundunDUN 27 this year. I'm not fearing it too much any more...the last time I feared turning an age, the year ended up awesomely...the last time I was okay with turning a year, the year still was awesome, but with an unawesome twist. Womp womp womp.
Anyway, my cousin will be 40 before I'm 30. Wow. Whereas 27 felt ancient to me before (the only reason is because this is the first time I've ever been 27...and my 20s were the first time I allowed myself to get out of child-brain and recognize that, why yes, sir, I am actually an adult...and being almost 30 is old for a child-brain person, hehe...), 39 is even more up there. Alhamdulillah, I have 12 long years before that!
So, I've gotten into making ecards for people from someecards.com. I love them, they tem a minha cara. They have my face, haha. They're sarcastic and biting, dry humor. Anyway, I decided to give her a card to wish her a happy birthday...below...
Yes! I thought this was the best picture, of a young hotsy totsy (haha, if I may borrow an outdated term) making pouty face at the poor, almost-over-the-hill cousin. I no longer feel old turning 27 (I feel 27 before I'm actually turning 27...I'm still the dreaded 26, haha), because she's 39, masha'Allah!
And insha'Allah I'll be as rambunctious and gutsy and beautiful as she is at 39...or even more!
But looking at this picture got me to thinking...hrm. I want to be a young hotsy totsy! I bethought myself that when I was in my early 20s. I felt like my peak was 20 and early 21, right before I wore hijab...ehh, which for me was the antithesis of bethinking myself young and hot, haha. And inspired a 30 pound weight gain, but that's neither here nor there. The reason I decided to take up hijab at the time, actually, was because I got so much male attention! Every time I turned around on Michigan's campus, I was getting waved at by this one, called out by the other one. I mean...truck drivers would honk, police men would call, all ethnicities, but mostly my lovely brown (Latino brown) and black men. I was like, oh my gosh, I must be a fine piece!
I didn't know the half of it, apparently...
And by the time I was 23 and had shed the khimar for the various reasons that I mentioned in a previous entry, I was more serious-minded...and I felt no longer like the young hotsie totsie. At 23! Ridículo!
So now, four years later, I'm almost 27. My weight since medical school has fluctuated 40 pounds. That 30 pound weight gain with the advent of hijab kind of opened the door of weight fluctuation into my early adult life. I've gone from weighing my high school weight to weighing what I did once I was okay with going to a co-ed gym in college to start shedding my hijabi weight (while I was still a hijabi, I lost 15 of those pounds...what a difference the gym makes!).
So blah blah blah weight. This wasn't meant to be a weight loss diary.
There's no reason why I can't be the young hotsy totsy for the rest of my pre-elderly life! I'm going to take the Brazilian perspective, as I've learned from novelas. There's no talk about the youth of the 30-somethings in the novelas...that is a given. They are young and beautiful people. The almost 50-somethings are told by their parents, "Você é jovem ainda!" You're still young!
Elderly characters talk about how they have all this life left to live...
And I love that! We don't have that here. In fact, I was telling one of my friends that I was the happiest in life when I was in Brazil, and it wasn't because of male attention, because I got no cat calls like I did in the DR. It was because I felt beautiful at baseline. I felt lovely, loved, desired and beautiful at baseline, just as I was, without the presence of anyone or the promise of anyone. I felt like everyone around me knew it, and it could have been a romanticization of my experience but I do feel like that was the vibe that I got from everyone.
Not that I'm saying everyone wanted me, haha, no...I just feel like my beauty as an individual human being, whether regarded by the other as an accident or creation, was just assumed.
I don't know...I feel like the climate is very different in the US. You get more the indifferent vibe, or even sometimes the hostile vibe, but not the your-beauty-is-a-given vibe. I don't know. I just felt happier and healthier there...
Oh yeah, and these older women one place told me I had a great body, which was hilarious...they were cute, they giggled. I was like, oh really?
No one in the US would ever tell me that unless it was a dude trying to entice me...
Anyway...this is not about me about to go out and show some leg, no. It's about me embracing my inner hotsy totsy...my inner vibrant, boisterous, happy, dancing, singing personality celebrating my youth and beauty que Deus me deu. I'm not going to say that 27 is old anymore...and I'll try not to do that anymore for any of my subsequent ages. I'm not as bright-eyed innocent as I was at 20, for sure, but I'm maybe even more excited about life, and hopeful, and activist, and all those other things that I aspired to be.
Insha'Allah, I have so much more life to live...to be old at 27 or 39.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
O meu amor conhece cada gesto seu...
As salaam alaikum,
I admit, I am a maior noveleira, and not really ashamed of it. Well...not really, haha, compared to like, actual Brazilians. I occasionally watch the novela das nove on globo through clandestine novela blogs...I don't really have time for anything else. I get wind of a lot of Brazilian music that way. I particularly like this one...has that eternal spring feeling that I love in a lot of genres of Brazilian music and throughout a lot of MPB...
The title translates to, "My love knows every one of your gestures." Fits perfectly with Paulo and Ester...I don't see how they're going to swing them getting back together! And, coitado de Guaracy...
I'm curious about how many other non-Brazilians in the US watch the novela das nove from Globo? I have a feeling more people are football fans...and as I saw one woman say of novelas, they are usually não vê-las (I don't see them)...hehehe.
I love Ana Carolina's voice, by the way! Shout out to the altos of the world, as much as I love to strain to be a mezzo-soprano, like Elis Regina.
I admit, I am a maior noveleira, and not really ashamed of it. Well...not really, haha, compared to like, actual Brazilians. I occasionally watch the novela das nove on globo through clandestine novela blogs...I don't really have time for anything else. I get wind of a lot of Brazilian music that way. I particularly like this one...has that eternal spring feeling that I love in a lot of genres of Brazilian music and throughout a lot of MPB...
The title translates to, "My love knows every one of your gestures." Fits perfectly with Paulo and Ester...I don't see how they're going to swing them getting back together! And, coitado de Guaracy...
I'm curious about how many other non-Brazilians in the US watch the novela das nove from Globo? I have a feeling more people are football fans...and as I saw one woman say of novelas, they are usually não vê-las (I don't see them)...hehehe.
I love Ana Carolina's voice, by the way! Shout out to the altos of the world, as much as I love to strain to be a mezzo-soprano, like Elis Regina.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Segura
As salaam alaikum,
I haven't posted a lot as of late because I don't have a lot to say. As tiring and as expensive as the process has been, the application process into residency has been very rewarding. I can wait to make my final transformation into a physician, and I hope I do so at a place that is as nurturing for me and of my aspirations as possible. I'll make the ensuing decision with a lot of care, consideration and foremost, prayer.
I also will make sure I do all I can to make sure I'm a solid new MD upon entering my program. I may take up most of that effort in January when I return to med school, iA.
Anyway, the other reason that I haven't written a lot is that I really do feel at peace with everything around me. My family welcomed 5 new babies on one side, one new baby on the other. The youngest is 4 days old and the oldest is 11 months. I love the field I'm going into and my experiences on the interview trail have been all very positive. I am at home with my loving family and I have friends back at school awaiting my arrival to hang out. God has blessed me beyond what I'm ever able to comprehend, but making discoveries along the way as I live this life I've been given has been amazing. This has been an awesome year, but a year of ups and downs for sure.
Anyway, so I'm feeling pretty good about this stage in my life. Nothing really to say, nothing really to rock the boat with. I was going to venture into the world of politics and write about how I think the President is doing, but the thought of doing that made me feel very tired. Instead, I will share with you that a guilty pleasure of mine is watching Brazilian novelas, and this song is awesome...fits the character it's played for perfectly, and is overall a hilarious song.
And I function like this time...securing things if I'm able, hehe...
I haven't posted a lot as of late because I don't have a lot to say. As tiring and as expensive as the process has been, the application process into residency has been very rewarding. I can wait to make my final transformation into a physician, and I hope I do so at a place that is as nurturing for me and of my aspirations as possible. I'll make the ensuing decision with a lot of care, consideration and foremost, prayer.
I also will make sure I do all I can to make sure I'm a solid new MD upon entering my program. I may take up most of that effort in January when I return to med school, iA.
Anyway, the other reason that I haven't written a lot is that I really do feel at peace with everything around me. My family welcomed 5 new babies on one side, one new baby on the other. The youngest is 4 days old and the oldest is 11 months. I love the field I'm going into and my experiences on the interview trail have been all very positive. I am at home with my loving family and I have friends back at school awaiting my arrival to hang out. God has blessed me beyond what I'm ever able to comprehend, but making discoveries along the way as I live this life I've been given has been amazing. This has been an awesome year, but a year of ups and downs for sure.
Anyway, so I'm feeling pretty good about this stage in my life. Nothing really to say, nothing really to rock the boat with. I was going to venture into the world of politics and write about how I think the President is doing, but the thought of doing that made me feel very tired. Instead, I will share with you that a guilty pleasure of mine is watching Brazilian novelas, and this song is awesome...fits the character it's played for perfectly, and is overall a hilarious song.
And I function like this time...securing things if I'm able, hehe...
Thursday, July 28, 2011
[uncensored]: Flashback: Vou Ficar Famoso e Casar Com Você
As salaam alaikum,
I just visited my xanga with the hopes of archiving it finally and putting the page to rest, maybe. However, I still get footprints on my page. The same person goes to this one entry, which I do like very much (maybe they're stealing the story idea, I don't know), so I decided to post it here to. The entry is pretty much self-explanatory. I'll give it with the date.
On my "Aguas de Março" (Elis Regina) station on Pandora, there's a live version of "Agua de Beber" by Antonio Carlos (Tom) Jobim. At the end of the song, after applause from the audience, he speaks into the microphone, "Vou ficar famoso com isso (I'm going to get famous off of this)."
The audience laughs, of course, because Tom Jobim the world-renowned father of Bossa Nova, already famous, so the statement was very tongue in cheek. Then he continues into what would be a segue into the next song of the set, probably "Luiza." He says, "Luiza, eu vou ficar famoso e casar com você no Carnaval (Luiza, I'm going to get famous and marry you during Carnaval)."
Luiza is a very pretty song about the subject's love for this woman named Luiza. My host mom in Brazil, Pilar, has a granddaughter named Luiza, I think after the Luiza of that song.
But I just thought that transition was so poetic. It captures the love of an idealistic boy who finds himself having feelings for this girl, Luiza, probably a balance between lust and love, or at least what he believes love to be, and what he believes to be the natural progression of things. And in that sentence is his ideal, his plan, and it shows how young he is. His life would be made, he thinks, if he could get famous, thus impressing Luiza and defining his own personal success. And the perfect place to marry would be Carnaval, a reflection of his perception of love, highly carnal, highly fanciful, a veritable fantasy of costume, color and dance.
He likes a girl, he believes he loves her, and his dreams would come true if he could become famous and then marry her during Carnaval. With that one image, I see an entire story: a skinny boy of 18 or 19 with a violão (Brazilian guitar) composing a few songs in his room after work each day, sitting out on the ledge of his window. He's written his best songs for Luiza, the neighbor, the little girl he's seen blossum into a woman as she walks to school, who for years shot him furtive glances but he's just now noticing, and he's not the only one. But Luiza only has eyes for him, as he accosts her in her path with his violão, singing for her silly samba tunes that he's made up on the spot, that make her laugh, though she tries to hide her amusement, as she tries to hide her admiration of him. She giggles to her friends as he passes. He only sings her the silly songs, and keeps the more serious ones to himself.
A dreamer, he lives away from home to avoid the disapproval of his father, who thinks he should be more serious about his work and give the violão a rest, that music would not feed him well. So he lives in what is barely a flat in Rio with some of his coworkers, former school mates of a similar age. They tease him about his music, but he has a dream. He's one day going to be discovered, his music is going to make it. He's going to make records, he's going to play in concerts, on the radio, maybe even on television. He's going to be famous, and if Luiza is impressed with his little sambas, she would be floored by his fame then. Then she'll for sure say yes to marry him. And it will be perfect. He'll marry Luiza during Carnaval, and what an ecstasy that would be.
And at the end of this story, I don't imagine this boy marrying Luiza. It takes him time, but his goal is to become famous, and he works hard and while he doesn't become famous in the way that he aspired to be, he finds himself in the music industry, he finds himself doing something that is fulfilling to him, and it all starts with a song that he writes for Luiza. Years pass, he moves about, and his goal is to go back to Rio and find Luiza and propose to her marriage, Luiza existing only as an idea at this point and him losing track of time and not realizing that Luiza may no longer be in school, that Luiza herself may no longer be there. And in the course of all of this, he moves forward in his career, finds satisfaction beyond fame. In his path of songwriting he meets a singer who he befriends, but it doesn't go further because she perceives that there is someone else on his mind.
He eventually sees Luiza again. She lived in the same neighborhood she grew up in, and is walking the same path she walked many days to school with her child, who she's named after the boy with the violão. He is amazed that when he first sees her, though he recognized her, he forgot that he was supposed to have loved her. He is happy to see her, and is suprised as she introduces him to her son, his namesake.
She'll tell him that he was the most beautiful person that she's ever known in life, and that she was so in love with him as he danced around her with his violão. She liked their furtive glances, their flirtation, the brief interactions, and always imagined that they'd end up together. He moved away, promised he'd return, but she reflected on how young she was. Things had happened in the meantime, and now she found herself a single mother and had a son. She thought it only appropriate to name him after the love of her life, so that maybe with his name he would grow up to do great things, to dream big, as did the boy with the violão.
The boy, now a man, will see her cry and feel like crying to, for saudades, out of being overwhelmed for the nature of life. "Luiza, eu queria casar com você, sabia?" (Luiza, I wanted to marry you, did you know that?) he would tell her. "Sim, queria casar comigo no Carnaval, como sempre disse." (Yes, you wanted to marry me during Carnaval, like you always said.)
He'll then say, should I marry you now? Be a father to your son, my namesake? And she'll say no, I'm not the same Luiza that you fell in love with. And he'll ask if it matters, and she'll say, yes, it does. She loves that she ran into him, she says, but she wants to keep the image of him that she once had. Their story goes no further, she says. She lives that moment and wants it to stay...[him] as the young boy with the violão dancing circles around her and her friends, singing silly sambas just to make her smile. What we had was innocent, she says, and that's where our love best exists...in innocence. He gazes at her and agrees. Their love is best in innocence, the fascination with the carnal without the realization of it, the cusp of all of those feelings that they have both since realized.
He kisses his namesake on the forehead and the boy smiles. He says goodbye to Luiza and somehow he knows that he'll never see her again. He comes back and the singer, now his bandmate, sips on water and gives him a knowing look. I saw Luiza, he'll tell her. She nods. I'll always love her, you know, in that moment in time. And she sighs, admitting that this was the stuff of life, to love many in time and recall their past essence with affection and amazement of the false reality of time, the experience of life, the [elusive] nature of the Divine.
He perks up, as he thinks of the singers sentence and comes up with an idea for a song. They sit in the studio and begin working on the song, writing the song togther, using her vocal talents as inspiration.
And there the story ends.
There's a reason why I wrote this, thought all of this out. I'll share later.
To be continued...
Wasalaam.
I just visited my xanga with the hopes of archiving it finally and putting the page to rest, maybe. However, I still get footprints on my page. The same person goes to this one entry, which I do like very much (maybe they're stealing the story idea, I don't know), so I decided to post it here to. The entry is pretty much self-explanatory. I'll give it with the date.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sunday, 13 December 2009
On my "Aguas de Março" (Elis Regina) station on Pandora, there's a live version of "Agua de Beber" by Antonio Carlos (Tom) Jobim. At the end of the song, after applause from the audience, he speaks into the microphone, "Vou ficar famoso com isso (I'm going to get famous off of this)."
The audience laughs, of course, because Tom Jobim the world-renowned father of Bossa Nova, already famous, so the statement was very tongue in cheek. Then he continues into what would be a segue into the next song of the set, probably "Luiza." He says, "Luiza, eu vou ficar famoso e casar com você no Carnaval (Luiza, I'm going to get famous and marry you during Carnaval)."
Luiza is a very pretty song about the subject's love for this woman named Luiza. My host mom in Brazil, Pilar, has a granddaughter named Luiza, I think after the Luiza of that song.
But I just thought that transition was so poetic. It captures the love of an idealistic boy who finds himself having feelings for this girl, Luiza, probably a balance between lust and love, or at least what he believes love to be, and what he believes to be the natural progression of things. And in that sentence is his ideal, his plan, and it shows how young he is. His life would be made, he thinks, if he could get famous, thus impressing Luiza and defining his own personal success. And the perfect place to marry would be Carnaval, a reflection of his perception of love, highly carnal, highly fanciful, a veritable fantasy of costume, color and dance.
He likes a girl, he believes he loves her, and his dreams would come true if he could become famous and then marry her during Carnaval. With that one image, I see an entire story: a skinny boy of 18 or 19 with a violão (Brazilian guitar) composing a few songs in his room after work each day, sitting out on the ledge of his window. He's written his best songs for Luiza, the neighbor, the little girl he's seen blossum into a woman as she walks to school, who for years shot him furtive glances but he's just now noticing, and he's not the only one. But Luiza only has eyes for him, as he accosts her in her path with his violão, singing for her silly samba tunes that he's made up on the spot, that make her laugh, though she tries to hide her amusement, as she tries to hide her admiration of him. She giggles to her friends as he passes. He only sings her the silly songs, and keeps the more serious ones to himself.
A dreamer, he lives away from home to avoid the disapproval of his father, who thinks he should be more serious about his work and give the violão a rest, that music would not feed him well. So he lives in what is barely a flat in Rio with some of his coworkers, former school mates of a similar age. They tease him about his music, but he has a dream. He's one day going to be discovered, his music is going to make it. He's going to make records, he's going to play in concerts, on the radio, maybe even on television. He's going to be famous, and if Luiza is impressed with his little sambas, she would be floored by his fame then. Then she'll for sure say yes to marry him. And it will be perfect. He'll marry Luiza during Carnaval, and what an ecstasy that would be.
And at the end of this story, I don't imagine this boy marrying Luiza. It takes him time, but his goal is to become famous, and he works hard and while he doesn't become famous in the way that he aspired to be, he finds himself in the music industry, he finds himself doing something that is fulfilling to him, and it all starts with a song that he writes for Luiza. Years pass, he moves about, and his goal is to go back to Rio and find Luiza and propose to her marriage, Luiza existing only as an idea at this point and him losing track of time and not realizing that Luiza may no longer be in school, that Luiza herself may no longer be there. And in the course of all of this, he moves forward in his career, finds satisfaction beyond fame. In his path of songwriting he meets a singer who he befriends, but it doesn't go further because she perceives that there is someone else on his mind.
He eventually sees Luiza again. She lived in the same neighborhood she grew up in, and is walking the same path she walked many days to school with her child, who she's named after the boy with the violão. He is amazed that when he first sees her, though he recognized her, he forgot that he was supposed to have loved her. He is happy to see her, and is suprised as she introduces him to her son, his namesake.
She'll tell him that he was the most beautiful person that she's ever known in life, and that she was so in love with him as he danced around her with his violão. She liked their furtive glances, their flirtation, the brief interactions, and always imagined that they'd end up together. He moved away, promised he'd return, but she reflected on how young she was. Things had happened in the meantime, and now she found herself a single mother and had a son. She thought it only appropriate to name him after the love of her life, so that maybe with his name he would grow up to do great things, to dream big, as did the boy with the violão.
The boy, now a man, will see her cry and feel like crying to, for saudades, out of being overwhelmed for the nature of life. "Luiza, eu queria casar com você, sabia?" (Luiza, I wanted to marry you, did you know that?) he would tell her. "Sim, queria casar comigo no Carnaval, como sempre disse." (Yes, you wanted to marry me during Carnaval, like you always said.)
He'll then say, should I marry you now? Be a father to your son, my namesake? And she'll say no, I'm not the same Luiza that you fell in love with. And he'll ask if it matters, and she'll say, yes, it does. She loves that she ran into him, she says, but she wants to keep the image of him that she once had. Their story goes no further, she says. She lives that moment and wants it to stay...[him] as the young boy with the violão dancing circles around her and her friends, singing silly sambas just to make her smile. What we had was innocent, she says, and that's where our love best exists...in innocence. He gazes at her and agrees. Their love is best in innocence, the fascination with the carnal without the realization of it, the cusp of all of those feelings that they have both since realized.
He kisses his namesake on the forehead and the boy smiles. He says goodbye to Luiza and somehow he knows that he'll never see her again. He comes back and the singer, now his bandmate, sips on water and gives him a knowing look. I saw Luiza, he'll tell her. She nods. I'll always love her, you know, in that moment in time. And she sighs, admitting that this was the stuff of life, to love many in time and recall their past essence with affection and amazement of the false reality of time, the experience of life, the [elusive] nature of the Divine.
He perks up, as he thinks of the singers sentence and comes up with an idea for a song. They sit in the studio and begin working on the song, writing the song togther, using her vocal talents as inspiration.
And there the story ends.
There's a reason why I wrote this, thought all of this out. I'll share later.
To be continued...
Wasalaam.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
My Favorite 60s Concert Clips
As salaam alaikum,
These 60s concert clips almost make me wish that I was born around the time my mother was (my mother said that if we were age mates, we would have been friends...yeah) so I could have attended these concerts, even as a preteen.
The first is from the incomparable Otis Redding, who was my age when he died. "Try a Little Tenderness."
The second is by Chico Buarque, a song whose first stanza I often quote, a beautiful song that expresses the frustrations of life, losing control in the course of life, with hints of the frustration of living in a dictatorship, "Roda Viva," or The Wheel of Life.
What's your favorite 60s concert moment? Haha, if you have one.
These 60s concert clips almost make me wish that I was born around the time my mother was (my mother said that if we were age mates, we would have been friends...yeah) so I could have attended these concerts, even as a preteen.
The first is from the incomparable Otis Redding, who was my age when he died. "Try a Little Tenderness."
The second is by Chico Buarque, a song whose first stanza I often quote, a beautiful song that expresses the frustrations of life, losing control in the course of life, with hints of the frustration of living in a dictatorship, "Roda Viva," or The Wheel of Life.
What's your favorite 60s concert moment? Haha, if you have one.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Elis Regina
As salaam alaikum,
Her songs are perhaps made more poignant knowing that she died at the age of 36 after battling years of depression and bouts of substance abuse. Even without that knowledge, listening to her voice, the sheer emotion that she injects into a song, and when so lucky, watching her perform on stage, gesticulating, dancing, doing her squinting-wide smile and laughing as she plays with the chorus and the lyrics...there is just nothing like experiencing songs as performed by Elis Regina.
I sing her "Aguas de Março" now as my default. In RMD, I imagine it as 18-year-old Desirée's theme song (as opposed to 15-year-old Desirée's "Sina" by Djavan). I barely knew of her when I heard her version of "Corcovado" with Tom Jobim and loved how the female singer enunciated each word, but I didn't know who she was. Then, while I was in Brazil, the first novela I saw when I returned from work in São Paulo was (what I discovered later was the remake of) "Ciranda de Pedra."
I watched the opening credits of the show and I was entranced, not only because the choreography was interesting for a period novel, but because of the song. See for yourself:
Saudades total! I hear this, and I'm back in my little room in my pousada in Sampa in the winter, turning it on unknowingly to the all-powerful Globo and the novela das seis, wondering what I'm doing here in this country whose language I hardly speak. The feelings come back and I tear up a little...what a beautiful experience life is!
It was through discovering this song, "Redescobrir," (Rediscover), that I rediscovered Elis Regina, A Pimintinha (little pepper), A Furacão (The Hurricane).
I then found that she did a version of my favorite song, "Aguas de Março," and I slowly discovered some of her other songs. Slowly, because I have the tendency to find songs that I like and just listen to them for weeks before branching out and finding new songs.
So this weekend, as I was playing around with GrooveShark, I made a playlist of Elis' songs. So far, I am really loyal to ones I've heard before...but then there was this song that I've heard and liked by Lô Borges and I'd never heard the version that she does.
And as 70s as the music accompaniment is, her voice is timeless. I love that version of the song...it has supplanted all other versions for me. Such passion, such energy, it's some of the best of Elis I've heard.
The song? "O Trem Azul," or "The Blue Train."
Here's the translation of the lyrics:
Things that we forget to say
Phrases that the wind comes sometimes to remind me
Things that remained a long time without being said
The song of the wind doesn't tire of soaring
You take the blue train
The sun on your head
The sun hits the blue train
You in my head
The sun in my head
The chorus is a cooler play on words in Portuguese:
Você pega o trem azul
O sol na cabeça
O sol pega o trem azul
Você na cabeça
O sol na cabeça
Adorei!
I read one of the comments. It translates to the following:
"I remember that the first time that I heard this song with Elis' voice I almost went mad. Even though I had heard the original, when I heard her and with that choir at the end, really, I cried."
Yes. Que emoção!
People say her daughter, Maria Rita, may be, in fact, a better singer than her mother. I do like some of Maria Rita's music, and she may be technically a better singer, but nothing will replace the passionate phrasing of her mother, and it's not fair for either of them to make that comparison.
Elis will always be one of my favorites because she sings songs the way that I want to live my passions in this life...full, fleshy, deliberate, meticulous, purposefully haphazard, casually in love with abandon.
Love is like this. It's like rediscovering the wonderful that life is that we learn as a child and are convinced that we're forced to forget as adults. Eu vou redescobrindo...
Her songs are perhaps made more poignant knowing that she died at the age of 36 after battling years of depression and bouts of substance abuse. Even without that knowledge, listening to her voice, the sheer emotion that she injects into a song, and when so lucky, watching her perform on stage, gesticulating, dancing, doing her squinting-wide smile and laughing as she plays with the chorus and the lyrics...there is just nothing like experiencing songs as performed by Elis Regina.
I sing her "Aguas de Março" now as my default. In RMD, I imagine it as 18-year-old Desirée's theme song (as opposed to 15-year-old Desirée's "Sina" by Djavan). I barely knew of her when I heard her version of "Corcovado" with Tom Jobim and loved how the female singer enunciated each word, but I didn't know who she was. Then, while I was in Brazil, the first novela I saw when I returned from work in São Paulo was (what I discovered later was the remake of) "Ciranda de Pedra."
I watched the opening credits of the show and I was entranced, not only because the choreography was interesting for a period novel, but because of the song. See for yourself:
Saudades total! I hear this, and I'm back in my little room in my pousada in Sampa in the winter, turning it on unknowingly to the all-powerful Globo and the novela das seis, wondering what I'm doing here in this country whose language I hardly speak. The feelings come back and I tear up a little...what a beautiful experience life is!
It was through discovering this song, "Redescobrir," (Rediscover), that I rediscovered Elis Regina, A Pimintinha (little pepper), A Furacão (The Hurricane).
I then found that she did a version of my favorite song, "Aguas de Março," and I slowly discovered some of her other songs. Slowly, because I have the tendency to find songs that I like and just listen to them for weeks before branching out and finding new songs.
So this weekend, as I was playing around with GrooveShark, I made a playlist of Elis' songs. So far, I am really loyal to ones I've heard before...but then there was this song that I've heard and liked by Lô Borges and I'd never heard the version that she does.
And as 70s as the music accompaniment is, her voice is timeless. I love that version of the song...it has supplanted all other versions for me. Such passion, such energy, it's some of the best of Elis I've heard.
The song? "O Trem Azul," or "The Blue Train."
Here's the translation of the lyrics:
Things that we forget to say
Phrases that the wind comes sometimes to remind me
Things that remained a long time without being said
The song of the wind doesn't tire of soaring
You take the blue train
The sun on your head
The sun hits the blue train
You in my head
The sun in my head
The chorus is a cooler play on words in Portuguese:
Você pega o trem azul
O sol na cabeça
O sol pega o trem azul
Você na cabeça
O sol na cabeça
Adorei!
I read one of the comments. It translates to the following:
"I remember that the first time that I heard this song with Elis' voice I almost went mad. Even though I had heard the original, when I heard her and with that choir at the end, really, I cried."
Yes. Que emoção!
People say her daughter, Maria Rita, may be, in fact, a better singer than her mother. I do like some of Maria Rita's music, and she may be technically a better singer, but nothing will replace the passionate phrasing of her mother, and it's not fair for either of them to make that comparison.
Elis will always be one of my favorites because she sings songs the way that I want to live my passions in this life...full, fleshy, deliberate, meticulous, purposefully haphazard, casually in love with abandon.
Love is like this. It's like rediscovering the wonderful that life is that we learn as a child and are convinced that we're forced to forget as adults. Eu vou redescobrindo...
Friday, January 14, 2011
[uncensored]: Love / Haiti
As salaam alaikum,
So...I love him. Who? B. Yep. That's all.
Yesterday, I was so inspired, since I didn't have any reading for my Community Health Centers class, to translate the lyrics to the song, "Haiti" by Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. So I did. It's probably rough in parts because I don't understand nearly any of the references in the third stanza. All with the help of Google translate.
Here's my favorite version of the song--the long version with Caetano Veloso only:
And here are the lyrics:
And it doesn’t matter if the eyes of the whole world
Could, for a moment, rewind to a time
Where slaves were punished
And today, a drumming, a drumming
With the purity of uniformed high school kids
On the day of a parade
And the epic grandeur of a developing people
Attracts us, dazzles us, stimulates us
And on TV if you see a congressman in ill-concealed panic
Presenting any, but really any, any, any
Education plan
111 defenseless prisoners, but prisoners are almost all black
Or almost black, or almost white/almost black that are the same poorAnd the poor are like the rotten and everyone knows how blacks are treated
And when you go, turn towards the Caribbean
And when you fuck without a condom
And submit your intelligent participation in the blockade of Cuba...
Think of Haiti, pray for Haiti
Haiti is here
Haiti is not here
*Jorge Amado was a Brazilian author whose works dealt mainly with the poor black/mulatto populations of Bahia. His estate is preserved in Salvador and its supposed to promote the culture of Bahia.
** Fantastico is a popular Brazilian newsmagazine that shows up on their superchannel, Globo. It's like a week-in-review.
*** Pelo is a neighborhood in Salvador (as it's known to people in Bahia) that is a popular tourist attraction. It's the Historic Center of the Salvador, one where slaves were publicly beaten. The neighborhood is home to the first slave market on the continent.
****Leblon is the richest neighborhood in Rio. That's why the trash bag is glossy. It has the highest property values in all of Latin America.
I love B because I can translate this song, send him these lyrics, and he'll absolutely appreciate this more than anyone else I know. This is from an email I sent him yesterday. And of course, that's not the only thing...but it's little things like this that make us realize how much we make sense...
Keep me in your du'as!
So...I love him. Who? B. Yep. That's all.
Yesterday, I was so inspired, since I didn't have any reading for my Community Health Centers class, to translate the lyrics to the song, "Haiti" by Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. So I did. It's probably rough in parts because I don't understand nearly any of the references in the third stanza. All with the help of Google translate.
Here's my favorite version of the song--the long version with Caetano Veloso only:
And here are the lyrics:
If you’re ever invited to ascend up to the courtyard
Of the House of Jorge Amado Foundation*
Of the House of Jorge Amado Foundation*
To see the front row of soldiers, almost all black
Wringing the necks of black delinquents,
Of mulatto thieves and others, almost white
Wringing the necks of black delinquents,
Of mulatto thieves and others, almost white
Treated like blacks
Just to show the other almost-blacks,
(And they’re almost all black)
And the poor almost whites like blacks
How it is that blacks, the poor and mulattoes,
And the almost white/almost black that the same poor, are treated
Just to show the other almost-blacks,
(And they’re almost all black)
And the poor almost whites like blacks
How it is that blacks, the poor and mulattoes,
And the almost white/almost black that the same poor, are treated
And it doesn’t matter if the eyes of the whole world
Could, for a moment, rewind to a time
Where slaves were punished
And today, a drumming, a drumming
With the purity of uniformed high school kids
On the day of a parade
And the epic grandeur of a developing people
Attracts us, dazzles us, stimulates us
Nothing matters:
Not the trace of excess
Nor the lens of Fantástico**,
Nor a Paul Simon CD
Nobody, nobody is a citizen
If you are going to see the party in Pelô***, and even if you’re not
Not the trace of excess
Nor the lens of Fantástico**,
Nor a Paul Simon CD
Nobody, nobody is a citizen
If you are going to see the party in Pelô***, and even if you’re not
Think of Haiti, pray for Haiti
Haiti is here
Haiti is not here
Haiti is here
Haiti is not here
And on TV if you see a congressman in ill-concealed panic
Presenting any, but really any, any, any
Education plan
That sounds easy
That seems easy and fast
And it will represent a threat to democracy
On primary school level
And if that same congressman defends the adoption of capital punishment
And the venerable Cardinal says he sees so much spirit in the fetus
And none in the criminal
And if, while running the light, the old light, red, habitual
You notice a man pissing on the street corner over a glossy bag of garbage from Leblon****
And when you hear the smiling silence of São Paulo
That seems easy and fast
And it will represent a threat to democracy
On primary school level
And if that same congressman defends the adoption of capital punishment
And the venerable Cardinal says he sees so much spirit in the fetus
And none in the criminal
And if, while running the light, the old light, red, habitual
You notice a man pissing on the street corner over a glossy bag of garbage from Leblon****
And when you hear the smiling silence of São Paulo
Before the massacre:
111 defenseless prisoners, but prisoners are almost all black
Or almost black, or almost white/almost black that are the same poor
And when you go, turn towards the Caribbean
And when you fuck without a condom
And submit your intelligent participation in the blockade of Cuba...
Think of Haiti, pray for Haiti
Haiti is here
Haiti is not here
*Jorge Amado was a Brazilian author whose works dealt mainly with the poor black/mulatto populations of Bahia. His estate is preserved in Salvador and its supposed to promote the culture of Bahia.
** Fantastico is a popular Brazilian newsmagazine that shows up on their superchannel, Globo. It's like a week-in-review.
*** Pelo is a neighborhood in Salvador (as it's known to people in Bahia) that is a popular tourist attraction. It's the Historic Center of the Salvador, one where slaves were publicly beaten. The neighborhood is home to the first slave market on the continent.
****Leblon is the richest neighborhood in Rio. That's why the trash bag is glossy. It has the highest property values in all of Latin America.
I love B because I can translate this song, send him these lyrics, and he'll absolutely appreciate this more than anyone else I know. This is from an email I sent him yesterday. And of course, that's not the only thing...but it's little things like this that make us realize how much we make sense...
Keep me in your du'as!
Friday, December 3, 2010
[uncensored]: For the Longest Time
As salaam alaikum,
{Currently listening: For the Longest Time - Billy Joel}
I've always heard this song, and wondered what it was. I knew it wasn't actually made in the 60s for some reason, but it's a pretty good reproduction of the sound...although I think some key musical elements that were prevalent during that time period are left out, which made it seem not as authentic. Billy Joel's phrasing also isn't the greatest, but hey, neither is mine, and I like my own singing.
So a while ago, because of my knew relationship, I had said that music didn't sound the same. It's interesting--it doesn't, and it's still morphing. I went through a period of apprehension where no music sounded good, a period of doubt and fear where I would not listen to music, and then, last night, I felt compelled to listen to Love's Train by ConFunkShun, one of my old favorites.
And then I remembered. Back sophomore year of college in the heyday of MQ, I heard this song and felt it was how I felt about him. "Warm night, can't sleep / too hurt, too weak / gotta call him up. Dial that number / no one answers 'til 2 o'clock. And if by chance, you'll let me come over / out on the street, I wanna see you, baby..." And there I'd be, wistfully before the dorm where I knew he lived, wishing I hadn't declined his invitation to visit him at his room for my propriety because, what, I was only just now becoming Muslim, anyway, it shouldn't have been that important for me...
...and then I heard it again last night, and I had to struggle for that memory. I now identified the song with how I felt now...well, heh, except for the fact that the song is, on the low, about a booty call and yeah, nobody's booty calling...
And I realize, oh my gosh...I didn't think I could feel this way about anyone else.
I listen to love songs now and it's different. It's not a wistfulness, it's not a distant admiration of the beauty of a form, it's...this is happening, this is how I imagined it would be, but now I feel it, and while brain and gut has foresight, heart has no foresight into sensation.
I hate to sound smarmy right now, but...I feel more human than I ever have.
This is not to say that not having had mutual love makes you less human, no. This is just me. For me, I've always felt left out a little bit in not having felt this what so many others have. I am coming to empathize with an entire realm of human experience that I've never had access to. It was like going to Brazil and loving the culture and being able to speak Portuguese but not being Brazilian. Entering into this is like...getting my Brazilian citizenship. It may not be the greatest place to be or the most morally right place to be, but a lot of people attest to it, love it, salute it, wave a flag to it...swear by it, curse it, write song after song about it...
This morning, I sent B an email with Deve Ser by Jorge Vercillo. I didn't send him the translation (which I actually posted here), because if I did, man, it's pretty much what I feel right now, and I've never been that frank with anyone.
I've never told anyone that I loved them. I think I whispered it to one of my cousins when they were a baby once...but my parents, no. Not because I'm a cold bitch or anything, but because...we just don't do that. Each of my parents have probably told me once each...my mother maybe twice, maybe the second time she wrinkled her nose and made a gagging sound in disgust. Not that we don't love each other. I mean, no. My mother is my best friend. I love my family more than anyone on this earth, anything. But when I go home, I sit at my mother's feet as she eats. I call my father all sorts of alternate father pet names, from Daddy to Dadi, from papá to papai, and I want to be everything he wants me to be, even though I can't be, just to make him happy. My brother is my life when I'm really quiet and I realize myself.
I love them, but I've never said that to anyone, so I'm not sure when to do it...I'm Not in Love, but I realize that someday soon I'll be there, and wow...it'll be crazy to say it.
Muslims, my dear Muslim friends, don't think I'm abandoning the deen, that I'm disbelieving in God, because B isn't Muslim. Because of my background and my love for my father, I have to take an alternative road. I'm not saying that I won't marry Muslim, but I'm also not saying that I won't marry B, because insha'Allah (and yes, I feel okay invoking God's name), yes, that's where I'm going. That's all I'm saying. I'm going forth prayerfully.
But anyway, I'm curious if other music sounds different. Other songs that used to remind me of MQ, other songs that I used to listen to and wonder if I'd ever feel that way. The big one was Overjoyed by Stevie Wonder. It was my theme for unrequited love. Now, now...I don't know. It feels like the reprise. I think the song meant so much to me at the time, it's always going to be colored by that experience. To associate it with B would make it feel...recycled, unauthentic. That song is so 2004 for me.
I think there are a lot of songs in my repertoire that were unrequited love songs...the thing is, songs that aren't are sounding different to me...but very specifically to the stage I am right now.
Songs and poetry are very worldly things, yes, but I guess I always loved it because it helped me share in human experience, helped me love my fellow human being and love for him or her what I love for myself...you know, and actually feel it, and not just because I'm supposed to.
I love that I'm going through a series of feelings that so many others have felt before--culturally specific feelings, yes, mixed up in carnality? Certainly. Therefore haram. Depending on the context, yes, but no less human. We all self-regulate as we will, but there's something about realizing the humanity of what you're feeling, connecting with that common human experience...which gives you the agency to draw your own thresholds.
You feel this, this is beautiful, because you're human, and Allah (swt) created you. But as a human, He commands you, what you should and should not do, because of this, your nature, that He well knows, that He well created.
Like my mother said, lighting a fire outside of the hearth. Like Earth Wind and Fire sang, Reasons.
I'm just blabbing now and suddenly not feeling as sentimental. It might be PMS, actually. I'll leave it with this. A few weeks before B happened, I thought of this song, Nega Música by Itamar Assumpção, and I thought about how I was like, one day, this will be true for me...it's written about a woman, so I'll change the gender. "When you least expect it, [he]'ll arrive doing with your heart what [he] does well. And [he]'ll come loving you without fear... When you least expect it, [he]'ll touch the depths of your heart, just as a [man] can. And [he]'ll come loving you without fear..."
Não, não, não, não, não...
{Currently listening: For the Longest Time - Billy Joel}
I've always heard this song, and wondered what it was. I knew it wasn't actually made in the 60s for some reason, but it's a pretty good reproduction of the sound...although I think some key musical elements that were prevalent during that time period are left out, which made it seem not as authentic. Billy Joel's phrasing also isn't the greatest, but hey, neither is mine, and I like my own singing.
So a while ago, because of my knew relationship, I had said that music didn't sound the same. It's interesting--it doesn't, and it's still morphing. I went through a period of apprehension where no music sounded good, a period of doubt and fear where I would not listen to music, and then, last night, I felt compelled to listen to Love's Train by ConFunkShun, one of my old favorites.
And then I remembered. Back sophomore year of college in the heyday of MQ, I heard this song and felt it was how I felt about him. "Warm night, can't sleep / too hurt, too weak / gotta call him up. Dial that number / no one answers 'til 2 o'clock. And if by chance, you'll let me come over / out on the street, I wanna see you, baby..." And there I'd be, wistfully before the dorm where I knew he lived, wishing I hadn't declined his invitation to visit him at his room for my propriety because, what, I was only just now becoming Muslim, anyway, it shouldn't have been that important for me...
...and then I heard it again last night, and I had to struggle for that memory. I now identified the song with how I felt now...well, heh, except for the fact that the song is, on the low, about a booty call and yeah, nobody's booty calling...
And I realize, oh my gosh...I didn't think I could feel this way about anyone else.
I listen to love songs now and it's different. It's not a wistfulness, it's not a distant admiration of the beauty of a form, it's...this is happening, this is how I imagined it would be, but now I feel it, and while brain and gut has foresight, heart has no foresight into sensation.
I hate to sound smarmy right now, but...I feel more human than I ever have.
This is not to say that not having had mutual love makes you less human, no. This is just me. For me, I've always felt left out a little bit in not having felt this what so many others have. I am coming to empathize with an entire realm of human experience that I've never had access to. It was like going to Brazil and loving the culture and being able to speak Portuguese but not being Brazilian. Entering into this is like...getting my Brazilian citizenship. It may not be the greatest place to be or the most morally right place to be, but a lot of people attest to it, love it, salute it, wave a flag to it...swear by it, curse it, write song after song about it...
This morning, I sent B an email with Deve Ser by Jorge Vercillo. I didn't send him the translation (which I actually posted here), because if I did, man, it's pretty much what I feel right now, and I've never been that frank with anyone.
I've never told anyone that I loved them. I think I whispered it to one of my cousins when they were a baby once...but my parents, no. Not because I'm a cold bitch or anything, but because...we just don't do that. Each of my parents have probably told me once each...my mother maybe twice, maybe the second time she wrinkled her nose and made a gagging sound in disgust. Not that we don't love each other. I mean, no. My mother is my best friend. I love my family more than anyone on this earth, anything. But when I go home, I sit at my mother's feet as she eats. I call my father all sorts of alternate father pet names, from Daddy to Dadi, from papá to papai, and I want to be everything he wants me to be, even though I can't be, just to make him happy. My brother is my life when I'm really quiet and I realize myself.
I love them, but I've never said that to anyone, so I'm not sure when to do it...I'm Not in Love, but I realize that someday soon I'll be there, and wow...it'll be crazy to say it.
Muslims, my dear Muslim friends, don't think I'm abandoning the deen, that I'm disbelieving in God, because B isn't Muslim. Because of my background and my love for my father, I have to take an alternative road. I'm not saying that I won't marry Muslim, but I'm also not saying that I won't marry B, because insha'Allah (and yes, I feel okay invoking God's name), yes, that's where I'm going. That's all I'm saying. I'm going forth prayerfully.
But anyway, I'm curious if other music sounds different. Other songs that used to remind me of MQ, other songs that I used to listen to and wonder if I'd ever feel that way. The big one was Overjoyed by Stevie Wonder. It was my theme for unrequited love. Now, now...I don't know. It feels like the reprise. I think the song meant so much to me at the time, it's always going to be colored by that experience. To associate it with B would make it feel...recycled, unauthentic. That song is so 2004 for me.
I think there are a lot of songs in my repertoire that were unrequited love songs...the thing is, songs that aren't are sounding different to me...but very specifically to the stage I am right now.
Songs and poetry are very worldly things, yes, but I guess I always loved it because it helped me share in human experience, helped me love my fellow human being and love for him or her what I love for myself...you know, and actually feel it, and not just because I'm supposed to.
I love that I'm going through a series of feelings that so many others have felt before--culturally specific feelings, yes, mixed up in carnality? Certainly. Therefore haram. Depending on the context, yes, but no less human. We all self-regulate as we will, but there's something about realizing the humanity of what you're feeling, connecting with that common human experience...which gives you the agency to draw your own thresholds.
You feel this, this is beautiful, because you're human, and Allah (swt) created you. But as a human, He commands you, what you should and should not do, because of this, your nature, that He well knows, that He well created.
Like my mother said, lighting a fire outside of the hearth. Like Earth Wind and Fire sang, Reasons.
I'm just blabbing now and suddenly not feeling as sentimental. It might be PMS, actually. I'll leave it with this. A few weeks before B happened, I thought of this song, Nega Música by Itamar Assumpção, and I thought about how I was like, one day, this will be true for me...it's written about a woman, so I'll change the gender. "When you least expect it, [he]'ll arrive doing with your heart what [he] does well. And [he]'ll come loving you without fear... When you least expect it, [he]'ll touch the depths of your heart, just as a [man] can. And [he]'ll come loving you without fear..."
Não, não, não, não, não...
Saturday, October 30, 2010
A Rose Much Desired is Almost Done!
As salaam alaikum,
After getting stuck on a chapter that turned out to be more important than I thought, to preserve a character that was more critical than I at first expected...I am a chapter and a half away from finishing the first full-length story that I've written as an adult. Yay!
B wants to read it. I've already given him hints, but he doesn't want to be spoiled. That's exciting, but I'm also a little nervous for him to read it, because if he only knew how much of it (especially the Desirée narration) was thinly veiled fiction, then he would instantly know tons of stuff about me.
At the same time, I'm not too concerned. I'm not worried about him knowing tons of stuff about me.
I think I'm going to go back to samba today after a two week hiatus after I twisted my ankle three weeks ago. It was a mild twist that just exacerbated an old injury, but samba for sure would have killed it. I think I'll wrap my ankle just in case, but I need to get moving again. I've also had a two week hiatus from the gym, and although I've been good at maintaining my weight so far, this week I've been a little bit of a lazy eater so it's time to get back to moving, now.
B at this time should be in DC, heading toward the rally. I would have gone, but none of my friends are going, and I figured it'd be too much if we rode the 10 hours roundtrip together, then I'd cramp his style as he was hanging out with one of his old friends. I mean, we're friends-ish, but I'm still a girl he's trying to impress, kind of, and it wouldn't be as comfortable, maybe. I don't know, I make excuses, but also I'm tired and I need to clean up my life. Tons of papers from fall 1 quarter are all around my room and I need to go ahead and put them into the binders I bought two months ago.
Yes, but RMD is almost done! Alhamdulillah! I'm going to proof it once more (because I'm OCD like that) before I give it to a couple of family members to read through. I'm nervous about this...I'm nervous that they'll say certain aspects aren't realistic, are over-the-top, or ask me why I would write about such material. We'll see. I, personally, like it a lot, but then again, I'm me.
And from there, I'm going to figure out how to get it published. A couple of my cousins are self-publishing, but I kind of want to find an agent and go from there.
But preview! I can only preview the first 120 pages or so, because around that time, the twist (!!) happens, so I don't want to give that away. But man, it's been a while since I read the first part...even though I wrote it, I forget exactly what happens. So I'm providing an excerpt. This is when Mo, very upset because he's not yet gotten into medical school, among other things, ventures over to Nisreen's apartment during her spring break, desiring to talk to somebody while all his friends are away during the break:
I have tons of reading to do this weekend, and biostats homework. I plan to do the bulk of those tomorrow, returning home in time to get all spiffed up for the Djavan concert (!!) on Sunday. I'm taking B...literally, because I bought the tickets with my WorldMusic membership. Unlike two years ago, I know a few more of Djavan's songs by heart, so it will be even more of a fun concert-going experience. B is going to be surrounded by Brazilians, artsy Berklee college world music lovers, and me, the Brazil lover.
I'm also going to convince him that we should plan to have Africa Night sometime this month. He's busy a few weekends, then his birthday is coming up, then there's Thanksgiving...so I'm thinking late November we can pull something together. Either that, or next weekend. I'm not sure if my roommate's parents are coming up for her birthday or not, but then next weekend wouldn't be the greatest. Then I figure he may have stuff to catch up on, as he's in DC for the rally this weekend. I also figure he needs to be back in time to do tutoring tomorrow. I feel like he just might fall asleep during the concert. I'll have to poke him.
So, I'm happy! Yay! Not because of B, or Djavan coming this weekend, insha'Allah, or being done with RMD, insha'Allah, or having two engaging new (but reading heavy!) courses this quarter...my program planning and design course and my Sexuality and Public Health course. It's the sum of all of these!
I guess I should do more work today than I thought...I forgot I'm retwisting my hair tomorrow. That will take some time.
After getting stuck on a chapter that turned out to be more important than I thought, to preserve a character that was more critical than I at first expected...I am a chapter and a half away from finishing the first full-length story that I've written as an adult. Yay!
B wants to read it. I've already given him hints, but he doesn't want to be spoiled. That's exciting, but I'm also a little nervous for him to read it, because if he only knew how much of it (especially the Desirée narration) was thinly veiled fiction, then he would instantly know tons of stuff about me.
At the same time, I'm not too concerned. I'm not worried about him knowing tons of stuff about me.
I think I'm going to go back to samba today after a two week hiatus after I twisted my ankle three weeks ago. It was a mild twist that just exacerbated an old injury, but samba for sure would have killed it. I think I'll wrap my ankle just in case, but I need to get moving again. I've also had a two week hiatus from the gym, and although I've been good at maintaining my weight so far, this week I've been a little bit of a lazy eater so it's time to get back to moving, now.
B at this time should be in DC, heading toward the rally. I would have gone, but none of my friends are going, and I figured it'd be too much if we rode the 10 hours roundtrip together, then I'd cramp his style as he was hanging out with one of his old friends. I mean, we're friends-ish, but I'm still a girl he's trying to impress, kind of, and it wouldn't be as comfortable, maybe. I don't know, I make excuses, but also I'm tired and I need to clean up my life. Tons of papers from fall 1 quarter are all around my room and I need to go ahead and put them into the binders I bought two months ago.
Yes, but RMD is almost done! Alhamdulillah! I'm going to proof it once more (because I'm OCD like that) before I give it to a couple of family members to read through. I'm nervous about this...I'm nervous that they'll say certain aspects aren't realistic, are over-the-top, or ask me why I would write about such material. We'll see. I, personally, like it a lot, but then again, I'm me.
And from there, I'm going to figure out how to get it published. A couple of my cousins are self-publishing, but I kind of want to find an agent and go from there.
But preview! I can only preview the first 120 pages or so, because around that time, the twist (!!) happens, so I don't want to give that away. But man, it's been a while since I read the first part...even though I wrote it, I forget exactly what happens. So I'm providing an excerpt. This is when Mo, very upset because he's not yet gotten into medical school, among other things, ventures over to Nisreen's apartment during her spring break, desiring to talk to somebody while all his friends are away during the break:
Nisreen steps forward, pulling the door behind her, as if ready to dismiss him. “I said, what can I do for you, Mahmud?” Mo’s scratching his head and running his fingers through his hair. He remembers he needs more gel; he didn’t have enough this morning. “You kind of caught me at a bad time. I was cleaning and didn’t expect anybody…”Insha'Allah, I'll be done by this weekend!
“Well, you did call me a couple of days ago, telling me I should stop by, right?” He leans against the wall, supporting himself with his left arm. He watches as Nisreen gazes at this arm.
“A couple of days ago?” Nisreen chuckles curtly. “I called you a couple of weeks ago.”
Mo’s confused. Exactly how much time has passed? He did run his last gel in lab a while ago…she’s probably right. “Damn, you’re probably right. Sorry.”
Mo notices Nisreen flinch at the damn. She waves it off, though. “No need to apologize.” She’s opening the door wider and beckoning Mo inside. “What’s time, anyway, but an artificial construct to make us more comfortable in this elusive existence?” Mo doesn’t pay enough attention to Nisreen’s statement to become confused. Instead, he finds himself tracing her curves with his pupils again. Her long-sleeved shirt is clingy enough to outline the flare of her hips. He shakes himself out of it again. This is Nisreen, this is a Muslimah, a hijabi at that…if she caught him looking her up, she’d shuttle him straight out of the house and probably toss out an astaghfirullah for good measure. He’s desperate for company, so he guesses he needs to behave himself.
By the time he returns to face Nisreen, though, she’s eyeing him dubiously. Instead of apologizing, he tries to act like he wasn’t just undressing her with his eyes. He focuses on her face instead. Nisreen’s face, usually rounded because of the way she ties her scarf, is more triangular today. Her large forehead seems to shrink as she raises her eyebrows. She’s probably raising her eyebrows because he’s stood at the door to her apartment for nearly two minutes, and he’s still not coming inside.
“Mo, is there anything wrong?” Nisreen inquires, cocking her head to the side.
She called him Mo. He likes the way her O sounded, the way her lips rounded as she breathed it out. “Naw, I’m cool,” he manages to say. He swallows.
Nisreen shakes her head. “No, this isn’t right. You don’t look good at all. Come in, sit down and rest for a little bit.” Before he has the chance to protest, Nisreen grabs his left arm and drags him into her apartment and guides him to a sofa in the center of the room. Mo watches as she closes and locks the door to her apartment. She then runs into her kitchen, crashes around for a bit, and returns with two glasses of water. “I didn’t know if you prefer room temp or ice water. I’ll take whatever you don’t.”
I have tons of reading to do this weekend, and biostats homework. I plan to do the bulk of those tomorrow, returning home in time to get all spiffed up for the Djavan concert (!!) on Sunday. I'm taking B...literally, because I bought the tickets with my WorldMusic membership. Unlike two years ago, I know a few more of Djavan's songs by heart, so it will be even more of a fun concert-going experience. B is going to be surrounded by Brazilians, artsy Berklee college world music lovers, and me, the Brazil lover.
I'm also going to convince him that we should plan to have Africa Night sometime this month. He's busy a few weekends, then his birthday is coming up, then there's Thanksgiving...so I'm thinking late November we can pull something together. Either that, or next weekend. I'm not sure if my roommate's parents are coming up for her birthday or not, but then next weekend wouldn't be the greatest. Then I figure he may have stuff to catch up on, as he's in DC for the rally this weekend. I also figure he needs to be back in time to do tutoring tomorrow. I feel like he just might fall asleep during the concert. I'll have to poke him.
So, I'm happy! Yay! Not because of B, or Djavan coming this weekend, insha'Allah, or being done with RMD, insha'Allah, or having two engaging new (but reading heavy!) courses this quarter...my program planning and design course and my Sexuality and Public Health course. It's the sum of all of these!
I guess I should do more work today than I thought...I forgot I'm retwisting my hair tomorrow. That will take some time.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Encontros e Despedidas
As salaam alaikum,
So, I love this song. I'ma translate it...
But first, random updates:
(1) I just met a woman who reminded me of myself...physically, I mean. She looked like me. We were the same coloring, similar build, everything. Especially her face...we had, like, the same eyes. It was creepy. I always say I've never met someone who looks like me, whereas most people have a physical type that fits them. She was it for me. She was at our book club (in which we actually never read books, we watch documentaries, but whatever) with her husband, and she's about 26 weeks pregnant. Hahaha, it makes me feel like a weird narcissist to say she was gorgeous, but what can I say? I've never met someone who looked so much like me, and if I think I look gorgeous, of course, by the transitive property, she would be, too! Masha'Allah!
And (2) a few months ago, like, back in April when book club was still new, I met this guy, and it's funny when you know that you're eventually going to be involved with a person. It's like, you have this intuition, and you know, but you don't want to believe it in your mind, but you know. Yeah. He's back in the country now after a trip to...Indonesia, I think, and after book club we departed with a rushed, "We should hang out!" And we should. I'll say more about him after we actually hang out, but wow. I was smiling like the Cheshire Cat on the T and was so happy like I haven't been since I was a teen on the campuses of the University of Michigan (by the way, great job with ball so far, babes!). I find when I'm really happy, I get hit on a lot more. Three men shouted out to me from cars yesterday...I haven't gotten that much attention since I was 21 years old!
More about this book club, which I fondly nicknamed "Africa Night," and this guy later.
Okay, enough with the updates...I'm going to have to get up on some Milton Nascimento, who wrote this song. This song was great for Maria Rita...it took me a while to warm up to her, though, easier once I stopped expecting to hear Elis Regina...
Send news about the world outside
Say those who remain
Give me a hug, come hold me
I'm arriving
A thing that I like is being able to leave
Without having plans
Better yet is being able to return
When I want to
Everyday is a bustle
Life repeats itself at the station
There are people who come to stay
There are people who go, never to return
There are people who come who want to go back
There are people who go who want to remain
There are people who I only come to watch
There are people smiling and crying
And like this, arriving and departing
They are just two sides
Of the same trip
The train that arrives
Is the same train that leaves
The arrival time
Is also the time of departure
The platform of this station
Is the life of my world
Is the life of my world
Is life.
So, I love this song. I'ma translate it...
But first, random updates:
(1) I just met a woman who reminded me of myself...physically, I mean. She looked like me. We were the same coloring, similar build, everything. Especially her face...we had, like, the same eyes. It was creepy. I always say I've never met someone who looks like me, whereas most people have a physical type that fits them. She was it for me. She was at our book club (in which we actually never read books, we watch documentaries, but whatever) with her husband, and she's about 26 weeks pregnant. Hahaha, it makes me feel like a weird narcissist to say she was gorgeous, but what can I say? I've never met someone who looked so much like me, and if I think I look gorgeous, of course, by the transitive property, she would be, too! Masha'Allah!
And (2) a few months ago, like, back in April when book club was still new, I met this guy, and it's funny when you know that you're eventually going to be involved with a person. It's like, you have this intuition, and you know, but you don't want to believe it in your mind, but you know. Yeah. He's back in the country now after a trip to...Indonesia, I think, and after book club we departed with a rushed, "We should hang out!" And we should. I'll say more about him after we actually hang out, but wow. I was smiling like the Cheshire Cat on the T and was so happy like I haven't been since I was a teen on the campuses of the University of Michigan (by the way, great job with ball so far, babes!). I find when I'm really happy, I get hit on a lot more. Three men shouted out to me from cars yesterday...I haven't gotten that much attention since I was 21 years old!
More about this book club, which I fondly nicknamed "Africa Night," and this guy later.
Okay, enough with the updates...I'm going to have to get up on some Milton Nascimento, who wrote this song. This song was great for Maria Rita...it took me a while to warm up to her, though, easier once I stopped expecting to hear Elis Regina...
Send news about the world outside
Say those who remain
Give me a hug, come hold me
I'm arriving
A thing that I like is being able to leave
Without having plans
Better yet is being able to return
When I want to
Everyday is a bustle
Life repeats itself at the station
There are people who come to stay
There are people who go, never to return
There are people who come who want to go back
There are people who go who want to remain
There are people who I only come to watch
There are people smiling and crying
And like this, arriving and departing
They are just two sides
Of the same trip
The train that arrives
Is the same train that leaves
The arrival time
Is also the time of departure
The platform of this station
Is the life of my world
Is the life of my world
Is life.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Suhoor Insomnia
As salaam alaikum,
These days when I'm not lazy and actually eat a full meal (more or less) for suhoor, I tend to have trouble falling back to sleep. Luckily for me, I don't have anything really to go to today in the way of orientation activities for the school of public health since it's mainly geared towards international students...and students that haven't been in the Harvard system before (I don't need to be told about financial aid...that is a depressing state of affairs!). I'm probably not going to go back to campus until iftar, insha'Allah. It should be good. It's going to be an Islamic Relief/Pakistan Flood fundraising iftar.
I hope to see some of my favorite medical school Muslims there...although no such luck seeing the sisters from my class. One is in Guatemala, and the other...I haven't really seen at an HMS iftar since first year.
HIS (Harvard Islamic Society) has daily iftars, but they didn't start until later this year because I guess they're just now starting school. I didn't make many of those anyway, as I didn't know many of the undergrads. I find HIS very South Asian (from a glance!), whereas Umich's MSA was more diverse...at least come time for mass meetings. I think we had most major Muslim countries represented at Michigan...except for sub-Saharan Africa. With 50% Muslim population but much of that population not reflected in our respective numbers in the US, Nigeria should have been repping strong...but we all know how that is.
Maybe not, but it takes too long to explain.
I can't even rep for Nigerian Muslims...I'm just a Nigerian American who happens to be Muslim. My tradition is always more with the black Muslim indigenous to the United States.
Anyway, blah blah blah.
Orientation is going well, alhamdulillah. I've met new people, perhaps made new friends...I'd make even more if my roommate and I would separate from ourselves sometimes. But it's cool. Today will be more of the same...planning out my classes, thinking about my career. Public health makes me more excited about going into medicine, actually. It makes me feel like I can have a greater impact and that if I see a health problem in my community, I can investigate it and fix it, insha'Allah.
Ramadan...is really a blessing. I can always tell where I need to focus judging on the passages of the Qur'an that stick out to me, and based on that...I think third year helped me to reach an all-time spiritual low, but insha'Allah I'm on the upswing once again. I'm feeling more at peace with myself and my way of being (current, not former) now, and I feel so differently about so many things. Clarity is here, and I embrace it.
Anyway, I'm also excited (more wordly matters ensue here) because Djavan is coming to Boston! Who is Djavan, you ask? Pssh! Only my favorite contemporary (or more so...you know I like old stuff) Brazilian artist ever! He came to Boston in June, 2008 before I went to Brazil and I forced a classmate of mine to come with me. This time...I may just have to buy tickets and go by myself, sit up front (worth the price!) and sing all of my favorite songs along with him. YES!
I know more of his songs than I did back when I went to his first concert...like Oceano. ...which I will post later. I always do a relative music fast (it used to be more strict in past years) while fasting Ramadan. I didn't intentionally do it this year, but because I have 5/6 previous Ramadans (I didn't last year because it drove me crazy to not be able to eat or listen to music while studying, so if I had to cave for one, it was music), even if I hear music this month, I don't pay much mind to it...it's not the same.
...but the music fast does not preclude my excitement for this concert. MPB at it's finest...Djavan, and hopefully he brings his son, Max...why, because I love the father/son double threat!
As I've said before, I like this singer purely because of his talent and his beautiful music...he's old enough to be my father...or my relatively young grandfather, haha.
Anyway, it's nearly 6am...I either need to nap a little bit before I actually get up this morning or do something a little bit more productive...
Oh yeah, and I'm considering one of two options for my winter public health project...insha'Allah either return to Brazil (possibly Bahia!), or...I could go to India for the first time! It would only be a three-week trip, but still...
I'll talk it over with people and see what I should do. Alhamdulillah for this life of opportunity!
These days when I'm not lazy and actually eat a full meal (more or less) for suhoor, I tend to have trouble falling back to sleep. Luckily for me, I don't have anything really to go to today in the way of orientation activities for the school of public health since it's mainly geared towards international students...and students that haven't been in the Harvard system before (I don't need to be told about financial aid...that is a depressing state of affairs!). I'm probably not going to go back to campus until iftar, insha'Allah. It should be good. It's going to be an Islamic Relief/Pakistan Flood fundraising iftar.
I hope to see some of my favorite medical school Muslims there...although no such luck seeing the sisters from my class. One is in Guatemala, and the other...I haven't really seen at an HMS iftar since first year.
HIS (Harvard Islamic Society) has daily iftars, but they didn't start until later this year because I guess they're just now starting school. I didn't make many of those anyway, as I didn't know many of the undergrads. I find HIS very South Asian (from a glance!), whereas Umich's MSA was more diverse...at least come time for mass meetings. I think we had most major Muslim countries represented at Michigan...except for sub-Saharan Africa. With 50% Muslim population but much of that population not reflected in our respective numbers in the US, Nigeria should have been repping strong...but we all know how that is.
Maybe not, but it takes too long to explain.
I can't even rep for Nigerian Muslims...I'm just a Nigerian American who happens to be Muslim. My tradition is always more with the black Muslim indigenous to the United States.
Anyway, blah blah blah.
Orientation is going well, alhamdulillah. I've met new people, perhaps made new friends...I'd make even more if my roommate and I would separate from ourselves sometimes. But it's cool. Today will be more of the same...planning out my classes, thinking about my career. Public health makes me more excited about going into medicine, actually. It makes me feel like I can have a greater impact and that if I see a health problem in my community, I can investigate it and fix it, insha'Allah.
Ramadan...is really a blessing. I can always tell where I need to focus judging on the passages of the Qur'an that stick out to me, and based on that...I think third year helped me to reach an all-time spiritual low, but insha'Allah I'm on the upswing once again. I'm feeling more at peace with myself and my way of being (current, not former) now, and I feel so differently about so many things. Clarity is here, and I embrace it.
Anyway, I'm also excited (more wordly matters ensue here) because Djavan is coming to Boston! Who is Djavan, you ask? Pssh! Only my favorite contemporary (or more so...you know I like old stuff) Brazilian artist ever! He came to Boston in June, 2008 before I went to Brazil and I forced a classmate of mine to come with me. This time...I may just have to buy tickets and go by myself, sit up front (worth the price!) and sing all of my favorite songs along with him. YES!
I know more of his songs than I did back when I went to his first concert...like Oceano. ...which I will post later. I always do a relative music fast (it used to be more strict in past years) while fasting Ramadan. I didn't intentionally do it this year, but because I have 5/6 previous Ramadans (I didn't last year because it drove me crazy to not be able to eat or listen to music while studying, so if I had to cave for one, it was music), even if I hear music this month, I don't pay much mind to it...it's not the same.
...but the music fast does not preclude my excitement for this concert. MPB at it's finest...Djavan, and hopefully he brings his son, Max...why, because I love the father/son double threat!
As I've said before, I like this singer purely because of his talent and his beautiful music...he's old enough to be my father...or my relatively young grandfather, haha.
Anyway, it's nearly 6am...I either need to nap a little bit before I actually get up this morning or do something a little bit more productive...
Oh yeah, and I'm considering one of two options for my winter public health project...insha'Allah either return to Brazil (possibly Bahia!), or...I could go to India for the first time! It would only be a three-week trip, but still...
I'll talk it over with people and see what I should do. Alhamdulillah for this life of opportunity!
Friday, July 16, 2010
Desilusão, desilusão!
Dança da Solidão - Marisa Monte feat. Paulinho da Viola
Translation below:
Solitude is lava
That covers everything
Bitterness in my mouth
I smiled it's leaden teeth
Solitude, word
Burrowed in my heart
Resigned and mute
With the beat of disillusion
See!
Disillusion, disillusion
I dance, you dance
The dance of solitude
Camélia became a widow
Joana fell in love
Maria attempted suicide
Because of her lover
My father always told me
My son, be careful
When I think of my future
I don't forget my past
Oh,
Disillusion, disillusion
I dance, you dance
In the dance of solitude
See!
Disillusion, disillusion
I dance, you dance
In the dance of solitude
When the early morning comes
My thoughts meander
I run my fingers over my guitar
Contemplating the full moon
In spite of it all, there exists
A fountain of pure water
Whoever drinks that water
Won't have anymore bitterness
Oh,
Disillusion, disillusion
I dance, you dance
The dance of solitude
See!
Disillusion, disillusion
I dance, you dance
The dance of solitude...
Beautiful song!
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Brasil!
Salaam,
Okay, so it's settled...I have to live in Brazil at some point in my life.
So, I just found out that Dionne Warwick lives currently in Brazil, and I was like, "What?!"
Look at what Wikipedia says:
Entranced maybe isn't a word I'd use, but hey, that's wiki for ya. It's like, just like me, but I fell in love with Brazil and Portuguese in 2004! E AGORA POSSO FALAR DIREITINHO!
...that is all.
Okay, so it's settled...I have to live in Brazil at some point in my life.
So, I just found out that Dionne Warwick lives currently in Brazil, and I was like, "What?!"
Look at what Wikipedia says:
"Dionne Warwick now lives in Brazil. Warwick first visited Brazil in the early 1960s and has become so entranced by the South American country that she has bought a home there and has studied Portuguese."
Entranced maybe isn't a word I'd use, but hey, that's wiki for ya. It's like, just like me, but I fell in love with Brazil and Portuguese in 2004! E AGORA POSSO FALAR DIREITINHO!
...that is all.
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