|Part 3| A Love Letter to the 9 Year Old Girl I Love: The Ties that Bind

                                                        | November 28th, 1969 |

(A Tribute to All Medical Personnel and Staff)

PART THREE

     I am sitting in my grandmother’s backyard, thinking: about you, my inexistent mother, my grandfather, about myself. I hold within me the entire knowledge of my past and so much future, that I sit here trying to find a way to help this 9 year old understand that there is plenty of life ahead. I head inside and look at my grandmother, she is boiling milk; I feel the love inside overtaking me, I tiptoe out of there and I take off to school to see you...

     On the way to the front door I see my grandfather, sitting there listening to his radio. Radio theater, about a woman who is killed and comes back from the grave to take someone's soul; it is scary. I watch my grandfather sitting here, quiet, and wonder what he’s thinking about. He is like you, Karla, always distant, alway thinking and eating chocolate, not my grandfather, you, my grandfather eats malagueta pepper. Hey, what do you know, a second memory. 

     I am standing now, marveled, to the left side of his table, my grandfather sits on the head of the table, the right side of it, and he has a plate in front of him now. He reaches inside…; I can't see where he’s taking them from but I can see them crystal clear; huge, red and scary. “Never put this in your mouth” my grandmother says. He takes his fork and squishes all the malagueta pepper on his plate while my grandmother gives him beans, black beans, which he mixes onto the pepper. He is eating and sweating. I am standing a foot away from him watching, “ Whatcha you doing there, Grandpa?” 

     Now I am standing in the sitting room. I think I know what my grandfather thinks about all the time, "Why in the world do I do that to myself? Now, if I can only figure it out what you, Karla, think, sitting there eating the “round chocolate” you brought from Niterói.

     When death is around my mind scatters.

     I walk around Rio de Janeiro with a girl I met at a party. I am about 19 years old. We have been talking from the moment we met, and I feel amazing. She likes Chico Buarque, she loves Dante, actually read Divine Comedy twice, and we have just spent the entire night talking about it. She plays the oboe. I sing her a song I wrote. It is dawn and we walk around the Rio de Janeiro's shoreline. 

     As a bit of cold air blows from the ocean, we talk about Quixote now and laugh at his insanities. Earlier in the evening I told her about my mother, how she gave birth to me, and how all the adults in her life put her in a mental institution and went on living their lives. Like the people in the pandemic, she died in that hospital many many many many years later. As if to torture me, once a year they would bring me to the mental hospital to visit her, and each year there was less and less of my mother and less and less of me inside. On the drive back, I listened quietly, as they patted themselves on the back for having taken the time to visit her. 

     Once, when I was around  20 years old, I had a nervous breakdown on the drive back, my father’s neighbors had taken me to see my mother. I was sweating, freezing, in the middle of summer, and all the windows were closed. Air conditioner blowing cold air. I couldn’t breathe. After they met with my father, it was decided that I was having an issue accepting the fact that I was going bald. My father sat me down for a lecture and I sat listening, aware of the futility of trying to explain anything to a man I didn’t know. Albert Camus was right. I tried to kill myself a couple months later; and when I survived, I walked away from God and his promises once an for all and I decided to live; and leave Brazil. I arrived in New York City when I was 21 years old. I could not have gotten out of Brazil soon enough.

     I carry one memory of my mother, two actually, and I have tried shooting one of them with three actresses now, unsuccessfully. The director of photography couldn’t get the light right, I couldn't find a beat, and the AD kept nagging me trying to determine how important that scene was to my narrative. 

     When my mother was admitted, my dad went around looking for a place to put his twin sons. After we lived with a couple of people, before the age of six months, my grandmother put her foot down and we lived with her until I was 11 years old. My father lived an hour away and we saw him once a year, on Christmas. A few Christmases, he never came, but he sent a nice letter; he had beautiful penmanship. He was proud of it.

     I look at the girl now. She has black hair, the most beautiful green eyes and she does not look away when I look at her. I kissed her hours ago so now there is only talking on my mind. I am listening to her explaining Camus to me. She can’t believe I haven’t read Camus and she is laughing hard now because I mistook Albert Camus for my favorite Portuguese poet Luís Vaz de Camões. “Not Camões, you dope. Camus" and she laughs some more. 

     The moment the words come out of her mouth I remember my grandmother who beat me without ever putting her love aside. She said that in a warm tone of complicity, empathy and familiarity. This girl is pulling on all the right strings. The sun is about to rise and we sit to watch; this is going to be spectacular. We kiss again and watch the sunrise. We sit for the longest time, watching the sun rise in one of the most beautiful views anywhere in the world, Rio de Janeiro, a cidade maravilhosa. She asks me if I can take her home and I, “well, what do you think I said?”

     We walk to the boat she must take to make it home. We sit in a place I don't quite remember, waiting for the boat. She lives on an island. I like her, it is obvious she likes me and we make the cross together to her town. We barely speak. We arrive on the other side and wait for everyone else to exit; and as we walk towards the ramp I pull her aside, and tell her goodbye. 

     I am as surprised about that as she is. She sells me on the walk to her house, a little coffee place where we can sit and talk some more; the conversation turns into an interrogation on whether or not she did something wrong. She is concerned she might have said something that offended me and I tell her that I really enjoyed meeting her but I must go. 

     I don’t have rhyme or reason but every single part of my being wants to turn around and go back to Rio de Janeiro. I see her standing there on dry land, in the city of Niterói, and I float towards Rio de Janeiro feeling empty inside. Many years later, during the Pandemic of 2020, I came to realize that, apparently, unbeknownst to me, I had made myself a promise never to step foot in Niterói and I was not about to break that promise for someone I just met. This time, I float around unable to understand what just happened. I like her, we spent the night talking. I feel disconnected from myself, as if a link inside of me is missing, a link that would explain why I walked away from a beautiful, nice, well-read girl that I obviously like. I come out empty. I feel empty. I never saw that girl again.

     I am standing next to my grandfather, he’s listening to his radio. He doesn’t see me, I am a bystander in his time zone. I think about hugging him for the first time ever, but I don’t.  Can't say why. 

The links that don’t bind. 

the Grand Canyons in our mind, that 

swallow traumas whole; deep inside.

     I arrive in school, except that I am not in school, I'm behind Marcelo’s house being led to a table where you sit, Karla, with Christiane and some out of focus people. We look at each other. You are playing a word game where you have to name different things with a particular letter, I listen to you… 

Cor: preto. Animal: pato. 

The links that bind

to erroneous sights

to places where we are

empty inside, but refuse to die.

     Albert is right, “There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that…”

     I sit in our classroom, Tia Zelia is here as always, but this time I can’t stay. I can’t have you see me. There is something horrifying coming and you must pay attention in class. “I’ll be back.”

                                                    

    -----------------End of PART THREE ---------------

|Part 2| A Love Letter to the 9 Year Old Girl I Love: Afonso Arinos

Reality is indeed stranger than fiction, the 9 year old girl I love grew up to save the world.

| I’m easy to spot; I am the writer-director who didn't care about the frame, the camera, or anything else when she was around. Karla is the one glowing. |

(A Tribute to All Medical Personnel and Staff)

PART TWO

     I couldn’t help myself from loving you, I looked up one day and there you were. I can’t quite explain the beginning of love, it’s unlike anything else; it is not a creation, it’s a force that already exists somewhere, unencumbered by any other forces, except for the very existence of the person you love; and how it enhances all your senses: the river, the birds, the music your mother played for the entire city through the catholic church speakers, the April floods, the jabuticabeiras, the quick rain that broke through the clouds on a bright sunny day, and made me look up to your house wondering if you were outside playing in it.

     The narrative of your life would be precise, direct, starting and arriving to the right place and time where you would meet Fernando. I wonder if he knew the moment he met you that his life would never be the same. I only knew that I loved you with all my heart until I left Afonso Arinos when I was 11 years old and never looked back. I kept one scene of our narrative and watched it over and over throughout the years. You, Karla, my mother, my grandfather are saved in my heart in one powerful scene.

     There was always something distant about you, even when you gave me your full attention; but love is such a powerful force that it didn’t matter much. Every school vacation you went to the city of Niterói, near Rio de Janeiro, and I stayed alone in Afonso Arinos waiting for you to return: writing poems, stories and getting into trouble.The very next morning after you left for school vacation felt like the day after a movie shoot ends, or the end of play rehearsal. I felt a tremendous void gaping inside me, and I kept it at bay by avoiding the front of my house, with the perfect view of your empty house atop the hill.

     I would wake up and sit at my grandmother’s backyard for hours, thinking; about you, my inexistent mother, one and the same, a void that my 9 year old heart couldn’t take, a pain that my soul filed away unexplained.

Eventually, thinking became waiting; waiting for grandma to get busy, so that I could walk to the riverbank, climb into my neighbor’s canoe and row it up stream. I was 9 years old and unable to swim, but poets risk their lives to feel alive and deny death; there is no courage in it, it’s a selfish act.  

     I used a long bamboo to row up stream, passing under the railroad bridge and carrying my grandfather’s transistor radio; turned off. I would listen to the calming sound of the water hitting the canoe on the way up, and as I stopped rowing, the canoe would slow down almost immediately, and gently begin to turn, and turn, and turn, until it faced downstream. Only then I would turn the radio on to Radio Mundial and lay my head against the second seat, enjoying the gentle flow downstream. 

( The Black river viewed from the railroad bridge, with the cemetery in the distance; my grandparents resting place )

     From the canoe that far upstream, I could only see the cemetery, then the church, the elementary school; your house would come as a cinematic reveal, but knowing that you were not there, only revealed how empty I felt when you were not around. I tried not thinking of you, there were plenty of trouble I could get into before you returned. I closed my eyes and listened to the music while flowing downstream; the current was gentle and it would be a while until I floated passed my grandmother’s house. There are no words to describe how much I love that woman, but seeing her standing at the riverbank was always a bummer. 

     Most of the time she couldn’t do a thing, she was old, diabetic and if she knew how to swim she never showed. I knew I was in for a beating the moment I got home and I remember clearly thinking, “If you are going to get a beating anyway you might as well enjoy this,” so I lay back down, close my eyes and listened to Jeff Barry’s “Sugar, Sugar” or whatever else was playing. I would float down as far as the soccer field, a good 10 houses away from my grandmother’s house, until the influence of Hollywood movies would intervene and end my adventure.

     The comedic genius Jerry Lewis wrote a book that every single person interested in filmmaking should read, The Total Filmmaker; in it he describes the “Dingaling,” a person on the set who has a constant need to show off his ability , speed and skill. “There is one in every crew,” he said. What Mr. Lewis couldn’t have known is that Afonso Arinos had its own Dingaling, and it was fascinating watching him. 

     By the time I got to the soccer field, the news of my adventures had hit half the population of Afonso Arinos, after all, we only had around 50 houses. Dingaling never missed an opportunity to impress his elders; I watched as he climbed the tree near the soccer field, took his shirt off and hang it on a branch; then took a dive that would have made Tarzan’s Johnny Weissmuller green with envy. He would swim to me very quickly and climb aboard and lecture me all the way upstream to my grandmother’s house. I couldn’t hear a single word Dingaling was saying, all that I could think of was, “ what’s your problem?” and why did you leave your shirt behind, it will be a long walk back to that tree.

     I remember once, on a whim, having the idea of asking him to let me row , and he did. He stood on that canoe as if I was a damn prey he just caught; I could see some of the neighbors standing on the riverbank yelling at me, “You are going to kill your grandmother,” they would say. Dingaling would complain about how slow we were going and I’d suggest to him changing the station; and to my surprise, it always worked. I would be rowing and rowing and rowing upstream, the neighbors would be yelling and he would be there, standing in the middle of that canoe, trying to find a good song. Thank God we didn’t have an iPod then, that transistor radio got Dingaling very entertained. Thanks to Dingaling, I never missed a beating.

     Using the word beating to describe my grandmother's punishment is a bit of a stretch, I don’t even know why she bothered, quite honestly. For starters, she would ask me to go to the bamboo trees and get her a thin bamboo that grew on the edge of the river. I stood watching as she took a knife and began sharpening it, “ Whatcha you’re doing there, grandma?”  After she was done sharpening the already thin bamboo, she would hold my arm and explain to me what I did wrong, and why I should never do that again, and she would hit me with her device on my leg a few times. You can experience the same feeling by giving yourself a long paper cut on your thigh and rubbing salt on it.

     I learned that valuable lesson the first time around, and the very next time she asked me to get the bamboo, I went to get it and never returned. I enjoyed my day climbing trees, eating mangos harvested from one of the six trees we had in our orchid and by the time I came back home, mid afternoon, she had completely forgotten that I needed a beating. Strangely enough, I never felt unloved by that woman. It would be years after her death, Karla, that I would come to realize that she felt about me the same way I felt about you.

     My grandfather is like you, a single memory that I play over and over in my mind. He sat with his elbows rested on a pillow, which he placed on the table, next to his transistor radio. I don’t have a single memory of him otherwise; not walking, not standing, not even speaking, but I remember pride in his eyes and his smile when I sat next to him. I would be playing outside and hear a song I liked, and I would run inside no matter what I was doing. I would sit on the chair to the right of the table, or maybe I stood, can’t quite place that memory, but I never forgot his gentle smile at me and I never forgot his eyes. Fellini was right: face and eyes, it betrays the most private of souls. In his eyes I saw love, pride, as if he had written the songs himself and was glad that I was enjoying it. 

     My grandfather sat on that chair day in and day out until the day he was no longer there. I don’t remember his funeral, I don’t remember him dying, I don’t remember the house filled with crying people, and yet I know that it had to have taken place. My grandparents had 9 children and when you add the grandchildren, there had to be a day when everyone came to mourn his loss.  He is my eternal connection to Italy, to Dante, to you, Karla. 

     I have plenty of memories of my grandmother, but losing my grandfather was obviously a major event, one that I completely erased from my mind. Perhaps, learning to block the painful memories of his death helped me in dealing with walking away from you at 11 years old. The same overall feeling permeates both moments; one day you were there and the next you were one single scene I could recall for comfort. My grandfather’s death and my mother’s absence taught me that there are things in this world that are absolute, things that remain unchanged no matter how much you wish it to be otherwise. Death changes everything permanently but pain lingers in your heart and soul like Madame Curie’s little sparkly rocks; its half-life a slow lifetime decay. 

     As I again look at the coronavirus death toll rising, I feel useless, yes, there are things I am doing to help, but it is not enough. It doesn’t feel enough. I am, and have always been a human being that suffers his condition, acknowledges his place in the world, however irrelevant, unable to take things in stride, but one hundred percent committed in being truthful to who I am, and changing what I don't like. Perhaps it is one of the reasons that I have never taken a selfie, taking pictures of myself and things to show others is silly any day of the week, but now, with the bodies piling up around the world is unthinkable. I look at my library, almost 3,000 books and I lack any practical skills that can be useful at this time, and yet I know that the only way this will end, it is if people stay home. Period. Every person that sits at home is one less person your community has to treat.  

     During this crisis, all I have around me are more questions; death has the power to concentrate the mind. I took a trip around the worldwide web and came to realize two things: either I am the only person in the world afraid of dying or people are already living in a virtual reality. Pictures of people enjoying their day, playing volleyball, enjoying themselves is everywhere. People out with friends buying beer and partying, footage of the president of Brazil cleaning his nose with his hand and then shaking people's hand in the crowd. I think of the many people suffering, disappearing into a hospital to never returned, dying alone and being buried in unmarked graves because there is no space nor time for a proper burial. I think of the people who leave their homes and whose job is to bury other human beings. One thousand a day.

     We are not on a worldwide vacation. This matters. The lives lost matters. More than staying home to curtail the spread of the disease, is our responsibility to mourn the dead and we do this by being humble and introspective. It might be why I despise politicians so much, masters of well rehearsed lines to fit any circumstance, meaningless quotations unattached to their soul. If you are going on with your day unafraid of dying, trying not to feel too bad, whatever you say for public consumption invalidates all your words of appreciation for the medical community. The medical community's courage is directly related to your fear of dying and understanding of the danger you face; there is one truth they are certain of, the more patients they see, the more are the chances they will catch the virus and perhaps die from it. 

     There are times in our existence that feeling horrified, sad, unhopeful is a sign of our humanity; not a weakness as many politicians want us to believe. The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, last week, pulled on Texan's pride string to send them out there, back to work, “Texans are proud people. They like working” said the governor. Your excellency, they need to be alive to be able to work. Carefully study the second wave of contamination in China, that is why Texans voted you in. This week was time for his offspring, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, to suggest on national television that, “ lots of grandparents out there are willing to risk their lives to save the economy." This sentiment is echoed by many politicians but yet, I would give all the money I have to see my grandmother and grandfather again. Compassion and empathy make us humans. I was born in Brazil and we don't “swim in sewer water” as the President of Brazil suggested for worldwide consumption, and we are certainly not immune to diseases. Even Jesus Christ, whom these people profess to follow, washed people’s feet to show love, compassion, friendship and empathy. These feelings make us humans. 

I am afraid of dying. I am aware of how dangerous this virus is; just try watching everything you touch for one hour and the danger becomes clear. I have two children that still depend on me and I still have things I want to do;  life is a precious commodity I want to keep. I refuse to keep the appearance of normal. There is nothing normal about thousands of people dying a day, and when we are out there posting insignificant pictures in our social display of hypocrisy, we give the politicians a signal that we would be willing to let our parents die to “save the economy.” When we don't display our sorrow for the loss of lives, we give politicians the idea that we might be okay to the possibility that some in our society can be "sacrificed."

Never once in my lifetime I gave a second thought about the people whose job it is to bury other people, and now they are all that I can think about. A horrific job. The courage these people are displaying is remarkable. I sit home, afraid of dying. Our medical community and staff risk their lives to save others. Many of these people now pleading to the government for more masks and protective gears, and it is hard to believe they are being heard. When politicians are out there suggesting that grandparents are expendable, anything that comes out of their mouth in support of the medical community is just another display of their demagogy and hypocrisy.

I have time on my hands and death in my mind.

I also have the understanding that there are times in our narratives that feeling sorrow, sadness, empathy is how we relate to each other as human beings. It is how we show other people, in far away places that we are sorry for their loss, and that we share their grief. In the end, it is love that will carry us through: love of being alive, for another, for a child, for your parents and grandparents, or the unforgettable memories of a girl you loved when you were 9 years old. 

A bit of humility before the fragility of life and our powerlessness before nature would also help. That is why we pray, for ourselves and others. If there was ever a moment for a prayer. I am an atheist, and I've learned that much.

                                                    

    -----------------End of PART TWO ------------

|Part 1| A Love Letter to the 9 Year Old Girl I Love: Dr. Karla Maria

Reality is indeed stranger than fiction, the 9 year old girl I love grew up to save the world.

| I’m easy to spot; I am the writer- director who didn't care about the frame, the camera, or anything else when she was around. Karla is the one glowing. |

(A Tribute to All Medical Personnel and Staff)

PART ONE

When I left Afonso Arinos, Brazil, I was 11 years old. I kissed my grandmother goodbye; never to return until almost 30 years later.  I’m an orphan, and being an orphan gives you solidarity with all minorities, all condemned to the same fate of having no unit to define yourself by and having to forge yourself with the materials left behind by other people. I don’t know that to be a fact, but I always thought that orphans around the world enjoy traveling to all destinations: to meet new people, to experience new cultures, to speak new languages. To hide the fact that we don’t belong anywhere. 

I left behind my grandmother, a river and its scintillating brown waters, the mango trees, jabuticabeiras, my elementary school and Karla Maria, the only girl I truly loved.

You, Karla Maria, was and still  are a secret I keep in my heart throughout all my life. A pure love that resides in me, always, like pure oxygen, reserved for emergency situations. The memories of the love I felt for you, another human being, in a time that innocence prevailed, is the closest thing an atheist has to divinity. There were times that the memory of you at 9 years old was the only thing that kept me grounded and sane. I know how much of an annoyance I was to you: writing love letters, staring at you during class, jealous of any other boy that talked to you; ( yes Frederico, I have not forgotten you either. I hope you are safe and well. ) 

I couldn’t help myself from loving you, I looked up one day and there you were, and there was nothing else. I can’t quite explain the beginning of love. The beginning of love is not like the beginning of the universe, it is not a creation, it is a force that already exists somewhere, and it is more powerful than anything around. God created the world in a spectacular display of power and mathematics; love was his encore. When Newton, a fervid  believer, was trying to explain gravity, he mentioned an ether, he was describing love, he just didn’t know it. It binds, revolts, in the best sense of the word. One day you are fine, going with the flow, and then you feel it, and it consumes every single moment of your day and night; you become a celestial body traveling around its orbit.

The last memory I have of you, Karla, is inside a bus, when we were 17. I remembered walking to the back of the bus to say hi to you and to your mother, but for some reason now I doubt whether I talked to you that day. I had written my third play and was on my way to watch it being performed and I recall talking to you about it; but I question that memory too because I can’t remember your face. Somehow, my brain deleted all images of you except for when we were 9 years of age. Your face is sculpted in my memory, in my heart, and I visit our classroom every time life gets a bit unbearable. It’s my superpower.

I always respected the memory of you;  so I confess not having heard of you or thought of you as an adult until the dying began, in Italy. The country of my ancestors, my grandfather; of Dante and his Beatriz. I doubt he loved his muse as much as I love you; he was better at expressing it. I smile for the simplicity and innocence of that statement. Dante is my favorite writer and Divine Comedy my favorite book, and also a place I find refuge from time to time; it is equaled only by Don Quixote, another masterwork  about a man torn by love and destined to aimless wanderings. I relate more to Quixote; better company. If you are going through hell, your traveling  companion ought to be kind, funny and an enabler. A bit of insanity is also helpful.

When the bodies began piling up around the world I sat in contemplation of the lives lost, and for the first time ever, since I was 11 years old, after making sure my kids were safe in my home, I thought of you. I craved to know that you were fine and safe. I have to confess to you that it was only then, that I went searching for you, the adult version of you. I don’t enjoy social media one bit, there is nothing social about it, but it was useful in finding you; and I was in for a surprise.

The 9 year old girl I love grew up and was out there on the front lines facing an invisible enemy that kills all in its path; I was happy to find out that you are exactly what I thought you would be at 9 years old.

I rejoiced in learning how you are living your life. You have found what most people in Hollywood and worldwide search for and cant find: true love. You met your husband, you both went to medical school, you married and had three beautiful daughters. The many love letters I wrote to you as a kid pale in comparison to the beautiful love messages Dr. Fernando, your husband, writes to you throughout his social media profile. You both have managed to find what the rest of us hope for, a soulmate; and little did you know that all the sacrifices you made would come to be imperative to your neighbors' lives. You are living a beautiful love story, and your children are lucky to have you as parents; your city is blessed for having you both as resident doctors.

On my end, I sit at home, safe and sound, while the medical community is out there saving people’s lives. In the middle of the most dangerous virus outbreak in our lifetime, both of you risk the lives you built to save others. Watching the world burn is a common theme in cinema, and from the moment this pandemic started I knew that we needed to brace ourselves for a major situation. I read a lot. I’ve amassed a personal library of close to 3,000 books and I have read a few of them; I also read a couple of books on the 1918 Pandemic and know how dangerous this situation is. 

It infuriates me to watch politicians playing their silly games while guaranteeing a proliferation of the virus and multiplying the people your community will have to treat. It is that sacrifice that propelled me to write you this thank you letter disguised as a love letter; or maybe is the other way around. I don't know. It’s late. 3:20am now. I keep artist’s hours.

I am an artist, by temperament and profession, my grandmother knew that: I would be sitting there, thinking of you, and she would walk up to me, call my name, and hit me on the top of my head a couple times; I’d look up at her in time to see her shake her head, kiss me and walk away again. It was her way of saying to me, “ whatever it is you are thinking of doing, don’t.”   I should have listened to her. But I don’t listen well, not even to my own voices who told me not to write this. There was a debate; I won. My inner critic pointed out to me the naysayers, the cynic people and argued that they would take this the wrong way but I responded that you and your fellow doctors are out there in the most dangerous battlefield imaginable, fighting an enemy you don’t even see. Writing you a thank you letter is the least I can do. 

The everlasting inner voices suggested that it would be a bit inappropriate to write a love letter to a person with a family, but I wasn’t having it. This is a love letter to a time that has passed; a love letter from my inner child to your inner child that knew me well and wouldn’t be surprised at all at my shenanigans. I recalled Angelina Jolie winning an Oscar, and being so happy that she told the entire world of the love she carried in her heart for her brother, yes, her brother. The very next day, some very demented, a.k.a. hateful people were out there suggesting that she was having an inappropriate sexual relationship with her sibling. 

As I sit here thinking about the eternity of love, fragility of life, Tom Cruise came into my mind, he too went to the Oprah show and jumped on a couch to announce to the world that he loved another human being; and he was chastised too. I never understood that either. I heard someone say, and I quote Mr. Nothingness, “ he is out of control.” I remember thinking, “well, of course he’s out of control, he’s in love. I don’t think he is jumping high enough.” 

Perhaps, Karla, after watching such a display of courage coming from your community, we will band together around the world and exterminate this other virus, because it is choking our free spirit, the part of us that wants to live fully and make mistakes. Humans should rally against all sorts of death sentences; be that physical or spiritual. For the hateful crowd, this letter will be what it will be, although I hope that sitting at home helpless will teach these people some empathy and humility. Be small, but not hateful. The Terminator himself, Arnold, will teach you that in part two.  Yes, there’s a sequel.

I lack the pragmatism to be a doctor, Karla, but my imagination allows me to go back to our classroom and see you again, time after time; looking back at me, annoyed at my love letters, embarrassed by the gifts I gave to you, all of them, as you know, things I "liberated" from my grandmother. In my defense, I only gave you the things she loved most. In my darkest moments, when there is no love around me, and handicapped by my atheism, I travel back in time in meditation, to see you.  A funny thought just occurred to me for the first time ever; when I go back to see you, I only go to the classroom on the second floor, the last one to the right, next to the bathroom where the ghost of the woman with the cotton inside her nose stayed; God only knows why she hung out in there. Come to think of it, that ghost travels a lot because I read somewhere that she was spooking kids in New Jersey of all places. Poor ghost! New Jersey? 

What I just realized is that I chose to visit the classroom upstairs because there was no Frederico yet, he came later. How ridiculous was I? Perhaps still am. I just made that connection. The largest classroom, as you know, is the one in front of the school, the windows right behind me on the photo, I never step foot in there. It's haunted by Frederico.

Pablo Picasso, a man who knew nothing about love, only frivolous conquests, once said that an artist must allow his inner child to take over, so I do. I sit in the classroom upstairs, watching Tia Zelia writing “Interpretação de Textos” on the blackboard; I look around the room and feel all your love filling my soul. I miss Tia Zelia, she was my enabler. I love how she looked at me and shook her head, smiling every time I handed you a poem, or one of my grandmother's things. I recall that every time Tia Zelia came over to my house, to return your gifts, I would run to my front window and look at the church overlooking the city, the elementary school, the house besides it where you lived, and I imagined you in there: annoyed and giftless. The loving flashback loop I go back to is always the same: I look around the room, stare at you, you get annoyed and look away, or you gesture to me to look back at the blackboard.

The other day, Karla, I saw an interview with the Governor of Florida, a man who refused to instruct people to stay home, and months after 900 people a day were dying in Italy, had the audacity to say that no one knew this virus was so powerful and that asymptomatic people could transmit it. Now, because of his political maneuvers and personal stupidity, medical personnel throughout Florida will have some horrific months ahead. I would like to see footage of the Governor of Florida burying some of the bodies so that he fully understands the death sentence he dispersed against the people who voted for him and the torture he imposed on the medical personnel on the front line. These, Karla, are the thoughts that bring me into meditation. These are the thoughts that bring me to you and the love you provide.

Last night, after 1,700 people die in U.S. in one day, I travelled back in time and sat there watching Tia Zelia and you. This time around, when you looked at me, I almost told you the truth: “Karla, I came from the year 2020, I still love you the same way, but you will meet the love of your life, a boy named Fernando, the two of you will go to medical school together and become doctors. You will care for kids, and your husband will be a surgeon and together you will raise three beautiful, amazing daughters. Your husband is also a politician but I will let that slide; you chose him and In You I Trust. 

But I didn’t say anything, I sat there looking at you and pondering the danger you are facing in the year 2020 and I feared that you would sense my concerns. You looked so small sitting there that I felt sad and cried, thinking, “how will this little thing stand in front of a pandemic killing millions of people worldwide.” I felt pride in loving you. I feel useless sitting here writing this. 

I love writing and directing and I am good at it, but I am at home, absolutely useless against this enemy, and so are the many, many  famous movie stars, action heroes, rock stars, soccer players and celebrities of all sorts. We are irrelevant when it matters. Ricky Gervais wasn’t joking and it is blatantly obvious now; we are entertainers and this is the time for real heroic figures: Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Tom Cruise, Will Smith need not apply. The world is dying one person at a time and they  don’t have the skills needed for the job. So they must hide at home with the rest of us, watching doctors like both of you, hospital cleaning staff, nurses, garbage collectors, gravediggers, face the storm.

     In the near future, when someone is pontificating about how amazing they are, busy telling you how many followers they have on social media, ask them where they were during the pandemic of 2020; when they tell you that, just like me, they were at home, hiding, wish them well and tell them that you are happy they are alive. There is nothing else you need to know.

It is truly inspiring what your community is doing, and how scary it must be getting in and out of your protective gear while being unable to see where the enemy is.

Reality is indeed stranger than fiction; the 9 year old girl I love grew up to save the world, one person at a time; not on the pages of a novel or the big screen, in real life where it matters. And she is doing it quietly, like a good Christian girl.

And her sidekick is named Dr. Fernando, the love of her life.  Isn’t that a beautiful love story?

                                                    

    -----------------End of PART ONE ------------

note: if you read this, please write a note of encouragement in your social media to the people with the most difficult job these days; the people who leave their families behind and work burying the bodies. I can't imagine having to do that day in and day out.