Penny's flight adventure nr. 73531497,3

The flight was, surprise!, super punctual. However, I didn't know about the tube strike... So this time, I was the one 'delayed'. It took me 2.30 hours to get to Victoria Station. Uber, minivans and the like would be even worse. Only a flying unicorn could save me now. I knew my only hope was to try and buy a new flight ticket whilst standing in the overcrowded bus stuck in this morning/Monday/strike traffic chaos. Tried once with PayPal, got an error instead. The money is there still pending though. Tried a second time with debit card. Success! Then, rush to the mobile check-in. On the bus. Clumsily take out passport from rucksack, whilst holding debit card, iPhone and suitcase which keeps on wanting to roll away. Sorry, oopsy, thanks. Finally arrived at Victoria Station with the Gatwick Express e-ticket ready to show when... iPhone battery dies on me. Fly to the info desk, ask for power, get into the train 2 minutes before departure. Use Mac with the iPhone internet to try to cancel PayPal payment. No can do. Arrive at Gatwick. Ask hopefully for the first flight to be delayed. No luck. Fine. Get the shuttle to the other side for the second flight. Ask BA what might happen with my first attempt at buying the ticket via PayPal. Nothing in the system. Hope it won't go away. Double Fine. Now what? Suddenly time has stopped. I have three hours to kill. Where's VHS? There! Books. Bowie and Lemmy. Triple Fine. Eat something yummy. Eggs of course. Mexican of course. Ask for powered table. Super Fine. Great '60s playlist on the speakers. Ultra Fine. And the remaining time? Corona to the rescue! Uff...

Goodness

I choose Goodness. I don't believe in organised religions. I don't believe in politics. I despise the power these two have over people. I believe in Goodness. Truth. The real values of the heart.

Is weirdo the new normal?

I miss being the weirdo. At least, back then, you were protected. In this little weirdo bubble that only a few, just like you, had the keys to. 

It seems that nowadays everyone is a weirdo. Is normal the new weirdo? Blimey me, I don't know what normal is. All I know is that I want my bubble back. Bring out the new weirdo, for there is where I belong. Protected. Safe.

How to survive life

Can you feel it crawling in? Is she coming back? My muse, my invisible inspiration that only good stress can bring me? Yeah, you there, there is such a thing as good stress. That's how I survive. I need speed, constant moving, learning at all times, creating, experiencing, creating, living, creating, always Burning Through. It's on my flesh for a reason, a simple reason: my life. 

Inner Child

Just a few days until I can see my nephews. I need to be surrounded by the little ones who haven't yet been corrupted by this capitalist society that swallows us every single minute of our remaining days.
I have to keep my dreams up high, higher than me, higher than reality. I won't let my inner child die. Ever.

I am a creative, therefore I breathe.

The Ocean, my older brother.

The Sound of the Waves - thy mercy sweetener to these restless souls, o mighty Sea! ⚓️

Mission Recharge

Sunday, 8 May 2016

Such a magical half day today.

I saw the Brighton's glowing sea, my very first from the British Islands. I felt it too, its colourful pebbles, its docile little waves, its dense sand kissed by the low tide waters. Its golden light, its silver reflexes, its liberating breeze.
Mission Recharge had the best beginning I could possible hope for.

The sun was setting and I, what the heck, went to ride the Brighton Wheel to catch those precious crepuscular last rays.

The ride was, to my delight, much longer than usual. My name was cited, or better said, the one from Lady Penelope from Thunderbirds. She fictionally went to a girls' school here. Yep.
I had my very own cabin. Glorious. The views: breathtaking of course. Staying still in my spot: impossible. Too much to admire.
Yet, after getting off, I learned that this evening was the very last for the Brighton Wheel. It'll be gone. Gone. The Brighton's landmark for the past five years. Gone. Turned redundant.
And because of a sudden impulse I got to be there. For its very last time. For my very first time. And ride, ride, and ride some more.
Goodbye Brighton Wheel and thank you.

At night I left the hotel and just followed the music. It brought me to a blues bar where, delighted, I got to experience a cosy live gig performed by Mr. Dave Peabody whom I made friends with and who will help me with further music discoveries back in London.
In that quirky little bar I died and went to Blues Heaven. Surreal atmosphere with all sorts of peeps, some old couples, a loony drunk, three happy drag queens, a few punks and rock and rollers, and even some dapper dandies, all joined together through the wonders of good blues and good booze.

Such a magical half day today.

My bluebird

I need a cage for my bluebird.
I need an armour, anything to keep him inside. He flies too high, he never rests.
I need a cage for my bluebird.
He got no business going out like this. He doesn't care what I say. He doesn't listen.
I need a cage for my bluebird.
He sneaks up on me with a devilish smile and an extra wing every time.
I need a cage for my bluebird.
But he knows I will never find a single hide.

Charles Bukowski's "Bluebird"

http://youtu.be/mmWZOsVtqR0

Hauptsache Musik

When she’s sad she listens to music, 

If she’s happy she listens to music. 

When she’s numb she listens to music, 

If she’s thrilled she listens to music. 

When she’s angry she listens to music, 

If she’s pleased she listens to music. 

When she’s bored she listens to music, 

If she’s bustling she listens to music. 

When she’s blocked she listens to music, 

If she’s inspired she listens to music. 

When she’s like this... 

She listens to music.

Big Smoke II

Thank you, lovely London and all your daughters and sons I've met in the last months, for welcoming me so heartily. I've chosen my Home well.

It's been a long unconventional road but I have finally arrived. I won't disappoint you, Big Smoking Hot.

Longing to Belong

Belonging Everywhere and Nowhere makes you longing for them both.

Losing it

What a year without proper holidays can do to you:
I have finally reached my boiling point. I'm a frenzy wreck, high on exhaustion, mad beyond control. Too many exclamation points on a daily basis. Restless insomniac lunatic.
You should never stop for too long but if you never stop at all... I'm Schrödinger's cat!
Clear and simple, I'm losing it.

Love

Forget feelings. 

Towards someone I mean, towards just one. 

But by all means, love. 

Love it all, love them all, and at the same time. 

Love the sunset, love the sunrise, love the rain and the fog. 

Love the children, love the animals. All the animals. 

Love your Uber driver, love your grocery seller. 

Love your bartender, always love your bartender. 

Love your mailman, and the cranky lady at the counter. 

Love. The. Tube. In. The. Dreadful. Morning. 

But love. Love it all, love them all. 

All but just one.

Signed: the once called 'the hippiest of all punks'. 

When two evils meet

Ignorance gives me itches. Hypocrisy gives me rashes. Imagine when these two meet.

Blur

My room. 

My music. 

My self. 

Louder than reality. 

The world is but a blur.

The infested morning commute

Rats, I tell ya. We're a bunch of rats.
Yesterday, I waited for 5 trains before considering entering the tube. Today, I've lost count. 

Rats everywhere. Here I am waiting for the next tube. And the next. And a next. Until it's minimally bearable. Until I can feel I won't just pass out the second I enter the carriage. 

There, here comes another one. Not mine yet. The platform just got a new bunch of rats. Don't think I'll be entering the next one either.

Big Smoke

Having hibernated for more than a year, I've become insanely thirsty, an insatiable unbearable state of mind. Now, finally and long due, I have found a new fountain. New worlds, new ways, new passions. For without enough fuel, there's not enough drive. I am, slowly but surely, coming back. Thank you, Big Smoking Hot.

"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

Live lives

Too many lives have been lived already. It's time to stick to one, says the brain. But knowing your restless heart, would one life suffice? And why should it? Why should you stick to just one? You're not a tree. You don't even know roots. Don't listen to your brain, says the heart. Live all lives you can possibly live. Live them all.

Thames

Love is blind. I, daughter of the sea, the grandiose wonderful sea, am falling in love with a river. Of a pale brown, its waters are muddy and opaque. There's no curly white waves hitting the sand, reaching for the sky. And the horizon is of short reach. But it too has tides, it too has life, it too flows and never stops. Every stream lives, be it right here in the Thames or far out in the ocean. ⚓

Music

Who's hugging whom, me or the music?

Here comes another me

Is a new me being born? Liberating something different?
This new feeling, what is it? Is it a new me, is it?

Will any of the others disappear? Make room for the new?
New me... come at ease. But don't let the others cease.

Bzz bee

My mind has a mind of its own. It's tired yet can't stop working, busier than a bzz bee. The more I try to shut it down the more it awakes. Such a little devil my mind is.

What is with this memory? II

How do people with good memory look into the past? Is it as clear as your last meal? As your last feeling? Can you still touch it?

How can I write about all that I've lived if my memory is my biggest obstacle? Will I get old enough to remember?
My memories are ethereal, I can't touch them. All I do is collect feelings. Where are the factual visions? All I see are flashes. Some beautifully warm, others cruelly cold. But all of them blurry.
All I do is collect feelings, impressions, thoughts, dreams. Some good, some nightmarish.
My worst nightmares are made of feelings, not monsters. Monsters, you can fight against. But ethereal stuff... if you can't grab it, you can't fight it. You can't win.
Can I still use it for my benefit as before? Can I channel my nightmarish thoughts into creative outputs? I used to. It should be like riding a bicycle.
Suddenly I'm back in my last flat in Coimbra, next to the States club. I'm writing furiously. Teenager thoughts... Pages and pages, and pages after pages. The paper suffers.
I know the exact number of the repetitive pattern on the wall - multiply vertical with horizontal, boring actually. I could see a lot on those walls. They had a common form of a somewhat butterfly but it was easy to see new different forms in it. Two to three paintings lay around. At that time my favourite painting technique was oil colour; so the fumes of turpentine, oil and the paint itself played probably a good part on my sensorial visions. Lest forget, those were crazy times and certain 'flashbacks' were easy to reproduce.
There, a memory. Even if short, it becomes quite vivid after writing about it.

Maybe it is possible. Maybe if I start writing it down, the details may come and make my past sharp.
Someday I will remember. I'll remember everything.

Keep your senses sharp

My observation skills are sharpening again. Tenacious, hungry.
Yet the wider the doors of perception the more often one has to play dumb as in not to startle too much the world around us. And one needs the world to observe. To truly see.
Life is good from this side. Deliciously, exhilaratingly strange. Infinitely more interesting. It's good to be back.

Be amazed at all times.

Mood swings of a creative mind

One day:

Bad day today. Felt impotent, frustrated, excruciatingly dumb. What was wrong with me? I have to stay calm, don't undermine myself, don't recriminate, don't be too harsh on myself. That maybe the whole new move has taken more out of me than all the other moves combined. Maybe because I finally see a future and consequently, a future that's bound to bring risks with it. For the future has never felt this real. The foreseen of a settled life is much scarier than the unknown that carries on in any nomad life. But I'm ready. I am. I have never been this ready.
Calm down, girl. The first and most important step has been made. The rest will follow when time is right. Just you wait. Breathe. Life is smiling.

The day after:

Wonderful day today. What a difference from yesterday. I was on a roll today. So much so that after my in-the-zone time I was pretty exhausted but what an intoxicating feeling it is. So good when your creative juices feel this high. 

"To be perfectly honest"

Don't say "To be perfectly honest". Just be it. And what's with the "perfectly"? Either you are honest or you're not, there's no middle ground here.

Yeah, we all know it's just an expression. It is very interesting to dissect it though.

To curse or not to curse

"People Who Curse All The Time Are Hotter, Confident And Less Stressed." - in some populist tabloid

The first time I said a curse word was on my 9th grade and only whispered as to see how it would sound. Such articles are bollocks. I'm cursing now more than ever and definitely not because I'm more confident, hotter, stress free or whatever. It just means life got into you and you let it. To be confident, to be 'hot' is not to have the need of cursing words to prove anything. I miss those days and I will fucking do any fucking thing to get that fucking back.

Destiny

Those who believe in destiny could you please explain me why? I mean, a real understandable explanation. For if everything is destined, to be, to happen - how do you explain cause and effect? How do you explain a change of course, a forgetting the wallet at home, a taking a shortcut, changing the mind at the last second. How can you possible believe in destiny? Is it all predicted? No matter what you do?

Probity

Probity. Stupid word, more stupid its definition. What does it bring you but pain and sorrow? Values are for fools. How I wish I could be a selfish ruthless bastard. Stupid heart.

Karma is for losers

There's no such thing as karma.
Just look at the world, one glimpse is enough to see the obvious.
It's our conscience we should care about. It's the only thing that distinguishes us as beings. And to know that none of us is perfect. Don't be too proud to apologize when you error, say when you're sorry and know that there are never too many thank yous.
Be your better self, one day at a time. For your conscience. Because at the end, it is all you got. No pseudo karma points in the world will ever save you from yourself.

Brain usage myth

Everyone knows that the use of mere 10% of our brain is nothing but a myth. Our brain is, in fact, active all the time. 24/7. Some areas may be more active at one time than others, but there is no part of the brain that is absolutely not functioning. This, of course, in the case of a healthy brain.

So, why the myth? Is it to push as further? To think we can do more, achieve higher levels? The whole freaking knowledge pyramid? Well, it surely doesn’t hurt.

But what I do truly believe is that there’s no ending to all we can learn. Not in a lifetime. Heck, not even two or three. Our brain is immense. Huge.

Our biggest problem though, lies on how to label every single new data. How to choose the proper shelves for each and every information we are drowning in nowadays. How to categorize what’s important and what’s not. What can help me in the future, what should stay as a warning, what should be solemnly absorbed and be used right here in the present.

For that, my friends, I have no answer. But I will keep on searching. Till the end of the lifetime.
And if there’s anything I know, I know I shall end with a whole new set of questions.

Real letters II

Even if it's in a digital form, one should write true letters again. It's the content that matters at the end. Wouldn't it be wonderful that one could put his entire soul into it, one day ecstatic, the other one mournful, the other just mad. No judging from any part, just a share of mood swings and so, in a distant future, maybe be able to understand the convulsions of the human mind.

Lost for books

When I was very little I used to merge myself entirely into my worlds of fantasy. I was many times by myself and my fantasies were all I had. I was a very early reader and I could devour books in mere days and even hours. My parents would try to stop me at more inconvenient times like supper, road trips, parties, sleeping hours. But I couldn't, I would just dissolve into that written world and would come out of it like a zombie, craving for the next one.
I miss that. Have I expired all possible books that can make me so oblivious and fully involved? Away from the real world? Does growing up had anything to do with it? Has life came in between? Is there a way back?

Jack Kerouac

I will travel back and forth, never resting, never resigning, always burning through.

Pet Peeve I

People that write big fancy words for the sole purpose of trying to look intelligent toward others. What if they knew that they are failing miserably? Their words are empty. It's just a babbling pile of nothingness.

"One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple."

Raw

Give me the honesty of a raw city. 

The variety and the anonymity. 

The multitude and the singularity. 

The life, the vibe, the energy.

What is Fiction? Part I

I'm approaching it from one single point of view, knowing that it has innumerable different angles. 

Fiction and reality have coexisted since the dawn of mankind. Since we can Think, Dream, and Wish. The line between fiction and reality is a very thin one, always has been. We cross from one world into the other in such a commonly manner that many times we can't discern which is which. It fascinates us, it frightens us. It can make us artists, it can make us thieves. It isn't in us to dwell on what is real and what not for we must continue our fiction to create a better reality. And our fiction comes from reality. Reality makes fiction, fiction makes reality. There's no beginning, no end. They go hand in hand.

A pen, mine

I miss me pen. I've been using me pen since I was 14 years old. Not the same one per se but I've only exchanged it twice since. And the first time for foolish carelessness.
This time however it has simply dried on me. That has never happened before. It is most probably the reason why I haven't thought of buying a new one yet. As if this one still had so much to give.
But no more, the time has come. We shall part and a new one shall take its place. It's not personal, me pen. It's not me, it's you.

Humans

Can't you see we're all kooks around here? Hell, that's the beauty of it all! Weirdos, freaks, mad, mad, mad - humans!, what else?

Real letters

I write for me alone. Though I wish I had someone I could write to. I wish I could write letters again. The real letters. The ones where you can pour your entire soul out. But this new world has no time for letters. Or philosophies that take longer than a quotation.

My reality doesn't differ from anyone else's. I share the same dreams and hopes with millions of others. My fiction, however, finds no peer. And I know they exist. Not necessarily with the same fiction but with the same needs.
One that understands how complex the human soul can be. One who's not afraid to dive deeper into it. A writer and reader to share different opinions, different thoughts and different passions of the mind.
To stay aware. Sharp. To learn.

I wish I could write letters. And get letters in return.

Never say goodbye

I missed this feeling. When it's your last night and you just sit there and watch. And then you feel the warmth. It's such a peaceful place. You watch your surroundings, most of all, you observe your friends and you feel as if everything is at its right place. You simply feel good.

Such an ephemeral feeling it is.

What is with this memory? I

Maybe the meaning of my having such an awful memory is because I keep experiencing new things, new worlds. Whilst eating watermelon beneath a Mediterranean sun and pine trees, near Rome, it brought me back to my infant days at the beach.
I remembered because I was experiencing it 'again'.

Time

Time. Time is a funny thing. A week can seem a month, yet that same week can seem a day. 

It runs so fast in its endless hours.

Nomads freedom II

Truth be told, I just wanna find me roots. Wherever. I don't really care where. I just want the feeling. Wherever. Shall they come now for I am tired of searching. Roots please, wherever.

Restless

Oh this endless search for something meaningful! Such a hard chore! Why, oh why couldn't I settle with a more mundane goal? Why do I want it all? Why do I keep on pursuing the impossible dream? I'm so tired. How dreadful it is to dream so much, so high! Mind of mine, come back to Earth, even if you don't know where it is.

The Middle

My life is made of beginnings, a Lot of beginnings. I don't know anything else.
And although everyone says those are the best times of everything I, myself would love to know how middles feel like. How does it feel to be in the middle of something. Anything. Something that takes longer than a beginning. For how long can I take all my endless beginnings to finally make it a whole? A middle.
This isn't a normal story: beginning, middle, end. I don't even care about the end. But what about the middle? How does it feel?

So far, and without counting long holidays or in-betweens (a few), I've lived in 30 different places. This can't be healthy.

August 2018, going on 37...

Labels

Labels. Why do we need labels. Why do we need to be put on some social shelf. Why do we have to belong somewhere or to something.
Aren't we all complex beings made out of bones and blood and guts that can not only feel but dream, think and react?

Labels. We are more than labels. Yes, I do like this more than that. It doesn't however state what I am. For each one of us is a lot. A lot of feelings, dreams, thoughts and reactions.
One day we feel like we're on the top of the world, the next we're in the gutter. One day we need closeness and attention, the other we need loneliness and distance. One day we wanna dance and stick our tongue to taste it all, the other we just wanna lay still and hide inside an oyster.

Labels. What you hear doesn't define you. What you wear doesn't define you. What you do doesn't define you. Where you were born doesn't define you. Where you live or lived or will live doesn't define you. Nothing from your outer world defines you. What defines you are your feelings, your dreams, your thoughts, your reactions. What defines you is deep inside, between all those bones, blood and guts. And for that there is no label for each one of us is unique.

Moments of insane lucidity

Where better to study Mankind than on Facebook? Where could one find so many different demographics in a single place? The human world explained in a sole website.

We are the gods of our own puppet show and we are the puppets. At the same time that we watch all the plays happening as from above, we are as well the main characters of those plays.

It can be dangerous though, if one tries to delve too deeply into it.
Wasn't it common among the philosophers from other eras to eventually end up insane? However, it is also of our knowledge that such only happened in their late years.
Comparing our modern times with theirs, how long would a philosopher live today? Not much for sure. The amount of information we take every single day is so incredibly humongous that the philosopher would be mentally ill within a couple of years.
That is why the intellect has to know how to distance itself from such thoughts now and then, so it won't be overwhelmed by the absurdities of Mankind. That is why the intellect has to know how to laugh, how to play, how to be foolish and simply go along.
The philosopher from today should never go as deep as the yesterday’s philosopher. They have to keep it light, for our 'Brave New World' is smaller than ever before. And the smaller it gets, the more complex it'll be.

"Madness is tonic and invigorating. It makes the sane more sane. The only ones who are unable to profit by it are the insane."
- Henry Miller

We may be the strangest animal on the planet but we are also the most interesting one.
Our abilities to work both mind and heart. Our sense of an own soul. How many hidden mysteries inside a human being.

All emigrants are 'bipolar'

(August 26th, on an airplane)

All emigrants are 'bipolar'.
A young couple sitting by my side on the airplane. They speak both Portuguese and German perfectly. They change from one language to another with no possible traceable reason. For there is none.

I am too an emigrant. There, I said it. Years ago I would say I'm just studying abroad, then I was a mere freely, then a student again. I Am An Emigrant.
Socially speaking though, for in my mind there aren't frontiers, we're all the same, we're human and we're the strangest animal on this planet. Period.

But back to the couple. I'm puzzled. I try to find some sort of pattern, particular lane changes, subtle paths of thought. Can't find anything. Zip, niente, nada.
Odd feeling when I know I do exactly the same. Wait, even a tad more. I think, dream, write and even curse in three languages. What does that make me? A 'tripolar' emigrant?

Oh well, does it really matter? So what if I speak in all three? Dream, write? Curse? Ain't I a citizen of this planet? The whole freaking world?

So, dear neighbour couple, go ahead and delight me with your back and forth change of language.
Words are there to be used and it is wonderful when one is able to use them in more than one tongue. How narrow, how sad it must be to be constrained to a single one.

Wouldn't it be marvellous to comprehend all of them? Although… the unknown spiced with delightful mystery is much more interesting and actually quite necessary for the mind training. Just imagine, if we’d knew everything, what would be there more to learn?

"You can't put your arms around a memory."

You can run from the Past, 
You can even hide from the Future,
But you will never get rid of the Now. 
The Now is omnipresent,
The Now is everywhere and at the same time.
And as I write these words, they become the Past,
When once they were the Future.
This was Now.