Travel: Wandering the Al Ain desert ( Part 1 )

The one who sees.

The space we occupy is almost insignificant, if we really think about it. We are like tiny grains of sand, like a single drop of water, in the countless oceans of deserts that compose our cities and our worlds. In that tiny space, we are random leaves, flying or grounded. We cross each other’s paths almost imperceptibly, completely invisible in each other’s eyes. Until that one person that cuts right through it all, and finds our beating hearts with just one look.

New ways of seeing…

When I interviewed Pedro Cabrita Reis, almost two years ago, it was a four hour long conversation about the depths of art and his creative process.. ” everything is inspiration… ” I remember him emphasizing as he puffed his Cuban cigar across the very long and wide oak table where we were sitting, in his studio’s office and library. “We just forget to really see…. ” he adds, after a long contemplative pause. The scope of his work is unquestionable, but it’s his ideas and outlook on life that really fascinated me. I couldn’t agree more: Inspiration is always connected to the ways in which we actually see the world and ourselves in it, without them there would be no art, (and no living at all for that matter). So…. Let’s never forget to really SEE. 
The Artwork above, is one of his new works, featured at the ArcoFair Lisbon 2017. 

Twin souls.

He offered her the whole world. ‘ No thank you… ‘ She said as she walked away. She could get the world herself, in time… what she was looking for was something much deeper than any gift could ever seduce, lure or buy. She was waiting for that one special person in the whole world that echoed a love so true it made her whole soul vibrate and flutter into completion. 

To grow…

We do not know how to endure. We want the depth, without the distance; the love, without the pain. We do not know how to be patient. We want the bliss, without the solitude; the forever without the steadiness of the today. We do not know how to be strong. We want the surrender, without the inevitable vulnerability; the ecstatic heart, without the melancholy of the soul. But can we ever really have the roses without the thorns? Can a butterfly ever fly without growing in a tight cocoon? It takes time, patience, courage and fortitude to become who we are supposed to so that we can live what is meant to be. And there is nothing on the other side of the today that is certain, just the promise that lives inside our beating hearts that makes it all ok… but one thing is certain: if we do not learn to persevere and if we do not keep growing and evolving, bravely and steadily, if we do not follow the whispers and the revolving dreams, we are nothing, because that is the moment when we will have forgotten and neglected the only thing worth living for…… 

More than enough.

Maybe life is always a series of maybes… maybe there are no great timings at all. Maybe we make our own timings and we just have to trust that everything will be ok. That our hearts are stronger, that our souls are wiser, and that our minds will be silenced enough for us to really live. And maybe just maybe, that is more than enough.

Hiding from love?

Why is it that some people hide from love? They shy from it like it’s the plague, they hide from it as if their whole lives depended on it, and they run to the other side of the world (if they could) just to avoid it. It makes me laugh so hard… and then it always makes me wonder: is it because they think they have nothing to give? Or is it because they actually associate love with problems and chaos? It makes me wonder… who made them so broken and so damaged? And how do they fall asleep every single night wrapped up in loneliness and denial? No matter who we were, what has been done and what has occurred we always have the choice to change…. love is the only thing worth believing in, and to shut it away, in whatever form ( romantic or friendship) is the most ridiculous thing in the world. It is like clipping off the wings of a butterfly and then claiming it can’t fly. It is like placing ourselves in a cave and then complaining we cannot see the light. Are those people really so caught up in their own comfort? Selling life so short for a so called stability which is just numbness and self denial? Hummm…. I don’t know. I really don’t have the answers. I will never understand them! All I know is that for me… I live to love. 

Just As it should be.

Sometimes it’s hard to understand that everything in this single moment is exactly as it should be… it’s difficult because we like to think we are in control of everything. We like to arm ourselves with logic and reason, and believe that we can actually understand, judge and grasp the whole of our existence (and everyone else’s)… But that is not so. We do not control things at all. The way things unravel, the reason that sustains events in life, and all other aspects in between are simply beyond our own consciousness. When we actually open our eyes to our own inability to grasp, to our own helplessness in the face of what is to come, we begin to get a glimpse of light that tells us everything is exactly as it should be. 

Those special days..

There are days that just stick on you. No matter what. They never fade… it doesn’t matter how long it’s been or how many other days have come in between the then and now… Somehow the echo of that special day, just crosses time, as if nothing at all. Is it there for a reason? What does it mean? We might wonder, over and over again, without any answers at all . The best thing to do is laugh, smile, and wait (dancing with the shooting stars preferably) for the next special day to occur, as always, completely out of the blue. 

Growing fearless…

We grow fearless by walking into our fears, not running from them. If we hide, if we stand still, if we ignore them… that’s not growth at all. To grow fearless we need to face them, wholeheartedly. We need to do exactly what it is that scares us, and makes us emotionally frozen. We need to just do it! Completely and utterly. It might take long to develop the courage… it might take a day or decade, but when we finally have it, the strength and the determination so that nothing stands in our way…. then and only then do we just do it and we finally jump into the unknown!