Une Recette Pour Une Belle Vie

   

     Sometimes, the memories of my grandmother overwhelms me and I have to go searching for pieces of my history online; the history that formed me as a human being was written in Afonso Arinos, a small village located on the borderline of the states of Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. Minas Gerais, undoubtedly, one of the most beautiful places in the world. 

     Just type the name of a few of its cities in your image search box and you can begin to plan your next vacation: Diamantina, Tiradentes,  Congonhas, Sao Joäo del Rey, Mariana, and the second most beautiful city in the world for me: Ouro Preto. New York City being forever my favorite city, followed by Paris, which lost the second place in my heart when I visited Ouro Preto em 2015.

     Tonight, for whatever reason, I typed Rio das Flores into my search box and discovered the beautiful Fazenda do Paraizo, owned by the beautiful couple, Paulo Roberto Botelho and his wife, Simone Botelho. There's so much I could say about the property but my words will fall short to describe the beauty of this place. You can see it for yourself.

     The second Fazenda was a nice surprise since I know the family who owns it; we all grew up in Afonso Arinos; merely 10 minutes away from where  Fazenda Santa Justa is located. An added layer of nostalgia is the fact that Vanessa Cardäo, the young woman describing the place is related to the girl I loved when I was 9 years old. 

     Then it came to me why I had a hard time talking about the beauty of both places; certain experiences have to be lived, not described. And in living it, day to day, a human being can begin to form a receipt pour une belle vie. 

     Here's how the exquisite Vanessa Cardäo describes Fazenda Santa Justa::

 "Essa fazenda pra mim tem gosto de memória, de lembrança, de felicidade, de valores, de família e de Deus também." Clarissa Cardäo. 

 "For me this farm "tastes" like memory, remembrance, happiness, values, family, and God too." Clarissa Cardäo. 

     Words to live by. What else is there to say? 

                                                    

The Children in Each of Us.

      I recognize myself on the face of lost children; sad children, with eyes that beg an answer to unanswerable questions: why am I here? Where are you, mother? Why did you leave me here so alone? I am two years old, four, five, ten, twelve, fifty-seven. The questions are still there reverberating through the years but now I am certain there isn't an answer; or maybe there is, but it is not what I expected. 

     There is no rhyme or reason for anything that happens to us except for the magical explanations we created to try to make this life bearable. Desperate to feel nothing disturbing, others of my kind invented positive thinking, and they tell me sometimes: " I like to deal with people who are positive." I just smile. "I know" I think, but say nothing in response. 

     It hurts feeling life to its fullest so they need all the help they can get: alcohol, drugs, sugar, bread, coffee, positivity, visualization, God. 

     I hear and see and read in comments throughout the fabric of social medias. The "hurting ones" professing God's power and benevolence as the Los Angeles streets fill with tents and trash and homeless people. We have so much in common with the children of the documentary " A House Made of Splinters trying to make sense of their place in the world while every wall surrounding you reminds one of how immense life is. A child needs to be socialized into the common magical narrative of the community he/she/they lives; but orphan children learn only about reality.  

     I sit in my office in Santa Monica and watch people come and go, so full and certain of themselves, creating their Shangri-las. Some young, some old. 

     I watch them and I ponder if they believe it will hold for a lifetime;  the thin, brittle magic veil of delusion they wear to keep life at bay.