Creative Writing
English Events - Fulbright Brasil/CAPES

Remembering some events can be like suffering twice. When I remember the frost of 1975 in the State of Paraná, I almost start to cry.  The memory arrives as black and white photos. It was July 18, 1975, and I was 9 years old. The fourth child in a peasant family. My younger brother (Antônio, or “caçula”, meaning the youngest, as we say in Portuguese) and I were the last to wake up. It was a freezing morning in Tupãssi (Westside of the state of Paraná). Because of our inexperience, we didn’t understand why it was so cold (before we had lived in a small town in the Northwest of the state of Paraná, called Santa Cruz de Monte Castelo¹). Looking outside our home, the first view we saw was a puddle of frozen water made up of washer tank discharge. Our curiosity made us touch the ice and try to break it. Then, we headed for the garden. The leaves of vegetables were still green beneath a transparent layer of ice, like bright caramel over a sweet.  It was so hard that we broke it in an attempt to bend it. From there, one can imagine what happened in that rural field … something that is the fate of many families who live off of agriculture. 

The gloomy sadness increased as time passed, like the green of the frostbitten plants that turned dark. This feeling dominated not only our home, but every place touched by this severe winter phenomenon. Later, with time, it was known that this same sadness took over the entire North, Northwest and West of the State of Paraná. The newspaper Londrinando, from the city Londrina, Paraná, claims how Paraná was responsible for 50% of all coffee produced in Brazil in the 1960s. Also, according to the journalist Mariana Paschoal, in an article about the frost in 1975, "Londrina was known as the ‘Coffee Capital of the World’, a title it lost that night between July 17th and 18th, when the thermometers registered -3.5ºC inside buildings and -9ºC in the field" (01 dez 2020). 

The frost of 1975, combined with the beginning of the process of agricultural modernization (agricultural mechanization), and industrialization in the largest urban centers, generated a phenomenon in Brazil called the "rural exodus". The consequence of this exodus was a concentration of land in the hands of a few large landowners. 

So, unable to continue life as before (coffee growing) and without financial resources for a conversion to mechanized agriculture, we returned to our hometown - Santa Cruz de Monte Castelo. Many other families moved to larger cities, including cities in other states, such as the state of São Paulo. These families were looking for jobs, trying to become some kind of "entrepreneur", or to create a small business.

However, being optimistic (or utopianistic, perhaps), this historical tragedy generated some hope. There is a saying about hope that states “no evil is so great that it does not bring some good with it”. Therefore, with confidence in the family, solidarity, and faith in the future, without giving up and with the awareness that we are stronger together, my parents, brothers and I, became a support for one another. 

Thus, unlike the plants that had perished from the severe frost, our family, even with all the difficulties of this new challenge, but like a living stem of hope that feeds its branches on the communal sap, we kept our faith in spring. We were able to keep going, blooming after the dark sadness caused by the frost. Whenever I experience personal or family difficulties, I try to remember that from what has been called "dark frost", one can also find enlightened paths.

¹ The climate is warmer there (Santa Cruz de Monte Castelo), but, as with all of the North and Northwest of Paraná, we learned later that this region was also hit by the severe frost.

References:     

PASCHOAL, Mariana. 8 fotos que mostram o que foi a Geada Negra de 1975 no norte do Paraná. Londrinando. 01 dez 2020.  Retrieved from <https://londrinando.com/post/1521/8-fotos-que-mostem-o-que-foi-a-geada-negra-de-1975-no-norte-do-parana > 

The Blue Eyes 
By: Caroline Pietra Cardoso

I loved her. How could I have told her that I didn’t love her? 

Four years ago, in February, I started a new period of my life: my university undergraduate program in the area of sociology. I remember perfectly how I was feeling, a mix of emotions - anxious, happy and afraid of what was coming. I was 20 years old, now I am 24. I know it is not a big difference in years, but I have changed a lot. I was hopeful, my heart had never been broken before. I was quite a mess and at that time I used to live in my own world, but not so much anymore now. Not just because I have changed naturally, but because I have been trying to change the things that remind me of her. 

I arrived at the university classroom at about 8 a.m. that morning. The class didn’t start until 8:30 a.m., but the classroom was already full. I was quite nervous, so I didn't look around for an empty chair, I just sat in the first one I saw, which was in the back of the room. Before looking around, I put my head down for a few seconds. I felt as if my body was saying that it wanted to go back to high school, where I had already made friends and hadn’t had so many responsibilities. After that moment of fear, I realized where I was… In college, where I had dreamed of being, where I had worked so hard to be, where I would be following my dream. So I took courage and lifted my head up, and it was one of the worst choices that I’ve ever made in my life. 

Having already accepted the idea of being open to the good possibilities that that new world could bring to me, I started to look for a familiar face or someone who seemed to be open to conversation, when suddenly my eyes met with the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen. Blue eyes speaking for themselves, speaking poetry, the purest and truest poetry. Instantly and automatically a smile escaped me; I couldn't hold it back. 

The owner of the spectacular eyes was sitting in the middle of the row that was next to mine, about 4 chairs away from me. She was facing backwards, talking to a girl, trying to make new friends too. She looked in my direction and I looked in her direction at the same time. Two strangers, making two movements simultaneously, that would result in a perfect moment between them. 

I smiled and, to my delight, she smiled back, but when I was getting up to go talk to her, I was interrupted by the professor entering the classroom. I immediately got upset… I wanted to hear her voice and the rhythm of her breathing, touch her skin and feel the heat of it, smell the natural perfume that her pores gave off and taste her taste. I wanted to know her completely and, of course, see up close those eyes that made me fall in love like magic.

When the professor entered the room, the first thing he noticed was that the class was quiet, and that most people hadn't made friends yet. So like fate doing its job of bringing the blue-eyed girl and I together, the professor told us to form pairs, so that we could get to know each other better. I didn't think twice, I got up as fast as I could and went towards the girl who hadn’t left my mind since I had seen her. 

Now that I was sitting next to her, I could hear her, touch her, smell her, imagine more potently her taste and see her better. She was naturally blond, and she had a beautiful style. She was wearing light colored clothes, a little bit hippie style. Her skin was flushed, as if she had spent a whole day at the beach. Everything about her was in perfect harmony. 

Before seeing her up close, I thought that I would be the immensity that would fill her, but now, close to her, I saw in her the infinite that she was. And I just got lost in her infinity. 

Ocean. Ocean, yes, that is the right word to define her. She inspired me to feel that I could do everything I wanted, she increased the rhythm of my breathing and it was as if with every breath in, a fresh air from an unoccupied island on the other side of the world filled my lungs. She renewed me like the sound of waves in the morning and pulled me to her like a stream of water in the night. Just looking at her I saw a lot, but not everything. She was accessible and mysterious, like an ocean. She had an infinite ocean inside her that overflowed through her blue eyes. 

We talked a lot, not just in that first class, but in all the following classes. We became best friends. We used to go watch films together, we traveled a lot together, we did almost everything together. And as I got to know her better, I fell more in love. I was just waiting for the perfect moment to tell her the truth. But that moment never came. And the years passed quickly. 

I remember the day, it was three years after I first met her, one year before our graduation, when I finally got the courage to declare my love to her. I knew that it would be at that moment or never. After finishing graduation, if we weren't dating, we wouldn't be a priority for each other, which would probably make us go our separate ways and maybe I would never see her again. 

We had never talked about feelings that we had about the two of us. So I didn’t know if she liked me in the same way that I liked her. But it had been three years, three years of me hiding my love for her, so I decided to finally be honest with her. 

I had written a letter that said: “I have loved you since the first time that I saw you”. I knew if I had to talk, I wouldn’t be able to say it. 

That night, at about 9 p.m., I went to her house and we sat on the bed in her room. 

“I have something to tell you”. We had both said it at the same time. 

We laughed. 

“Me first”, I said, sure about what I was going to do. 

I gave her the letter. Just as she was opening it, a man entered. He was handsome, and was probably about her age, 22 years old. I was confused, because I had never seen him before. 

I was distracted by my thoughts about the man, so I didn't notice that she had already read my letter, and had said nothing. A few seconds after she had already read the letter, she asked the man to leave her room.

As soon as he left the room, she started asking me questions. 

“Do you love me? I mean romantically. Do you love me romantically?” She spoke in a vague tone of voice and I couldn't decipher what she was feelin.

“Who was that man?” I asked her, afraid of the answer. 

“Do you love me romantically?” She insisted on the question again, waiting for an answer. 

Just as I was about to say yes to her, behind the door the man who had been waiting asked my ocean eyed girl: 

“Amor, is everything ok?” 

His words were like spears hitting my heart. I was devastated. 

The blue-eyed girl, pretending she hadn't heard the question from the man behind the door, asked me again: 

”Do you love me romantically?” 

I loved her. How could I have told her that I didn't love her? Every time I saw her, it was like the first time that I met her. I felt butterflies in my stomach. She made me feel comfortable, safe, free and loved. Her blue eyes shined all the time. When she watched a movie, she immersed herself in it. If the character was in love, she felt it and she kept smiling silly along with the character. If the character cried, she cried with them, putting her whole self into it and into everything she did. She gave herself completely to everything, even if it sometimes hurt her. She was absent-minded, she was really a mess, she was frequently in her own world, and I loved it. I saw these things, I saw her and all her details, and I loved them all. So how could I have said that I didn't love her? 

I don’t know how I could have said that I didn’t love her, but even dying of love for her, I did. 

“I don’t love you”. I said it like it was true. “That letter is about someone that I met, and I want to know what you think about it ”. I said, complimenting my lie. 

“Yes, it is good.” She said in an unrecognizable tone. I couldn’t tell what she was feeling or thinking. 

But, to be honest, I wasn’t even trying to understand what she wanted anymore… I just wanted to get out of there. And that was what I did. I got out of there. 

On the last day of class I didn't go; my heart was broken. Since that night I never saw her again. I moved to another state, following my dreams. I didn't forget her; the girl with the ocean eyes. But, she isn’t the only person with ocean eyes anymore. Now I have them too, only mine are ocean eyes built with the tears of my feelings for that girl, slowly coming out of me.

It's never too late to give it a second chance,

Just like the ocean that tries to break the distance 

over and over again,

Even after being sent away so many times,

Since that is just the circle of life.

We all face trials and tribulations,

But it's necessary to embrace the wildness 

that comes with the real self,

Drop out the feelings of fear and learn how to fight

And with that understand the beauty

That comes even on a stormy night.

Pt. II
 

The ocean will always be the ocean

Devotion will always play a part

The emotion that we find

When the blue sky meets our eyes

And all of a sudden everything makes sense

Since the ocean is still the ocean

Mysterious, true, intense.

The Sound of Rain
By: Isabelle Caroline de Queiroz Pavani

That day,

He looked through the wet window, and, looking

East of the
 

Shore, he remembered all the good moments

On that day

Under the heavy rain, he decided to walk

No one there knew him, but that

Didn’t matter, because 
 

Only his presence was enough 

Far from the beginning, far from the sound he was hearing, he 
 

Remembered

Again

Images from the past, that

Treasure

By: Thaís Navarrete Resende
 

Mother.

According to the dictionary, "a woman in relation to her child or children." For me, a warm flame in the coldest winter. A hug in the darkest days. A river in the middle of the desert. The most precious treasure in the whole world. It isn’t surprising, therefore, that my happiest memory involves her: my beautiful mother, my best friend. 

If you ask me what day it was or how the sky looked, I couldn’t tell you. But I remember my emotions, the toys I was playing with, and how pretty my mother’s smile was. You know when you’re a poor kid, and your parents have to work all day without a break, there will be some times where you will feel somewhat… alone. Even if you know there’s a reason behind their absence, this emotion takes control. And that’s exactly what I was feeling back then at the age of five or six. Mom used to work every day, so I had always played by myself, using my imaginary world as an instrument for happiness. On this specific day – maybe a weekend or holiday – I found an opportunity to play with her. And I felt so delighted, grateful and heartfelt because she agreed. Like a part of me had finally returned. I felt complete. 

“I’m just going to play with you for an hour, okay sweetie? Mama is very busy, but I’m doing this for you”.

That simple speech was the reason for my happiness and the real reason why this memory is precious to me. The proof of how much she loved me and cared about me. That simple speech was able to make a child happy. Through other’s eyes, it may be a tiny action, but for me it was so significant that I consider it the happiest moment of my life. And every moment with her now is as important to me as that day. She’s still very busy with work, and sometimes I feel lonely, but it’s alright. She’s with me. That is all I need. 

My treasure.

The Worlds Around Us
By: Laura Gonçales Sant’Ana
 

Talking about oneself can be hard. For me, it is easy. I enjoy telling stories and talking about happy or even challenging times. The hard part is choosing one story or one specific aspect of my personality to explore in a couple of lines. So, I decided to talk about a topic that has permeated my entire life journey, my whole 18 years of life, and that is the desire to experience the world.

It all started when I was born, although it wasn’t my decision, and honestly, it was a bit scary. But once I got here, I tried to figure everything out. I started by looking, then by tasting. I wanted to be part of this world and to absorb my surroundings so desperately that I would put everything in my mouth. When it was safe, my grownups allowed me to do it, and that only increased my desire to know more.

As I got older, I started exploring bigger chunks of the world by traveling. I even explored other worlds, through reading; including my own little world, the one inside of my head, and which inspired me to write or tell jokes and stories. Around the age of 6, as I was already familiar with all those worlds I had created, my desire to experience the world got bigger each day. I started learning that some worlds use different languages to tell their stories, so I began studying English and diving deep into other cultures. That continued to expand as I had a growing contact with the worlds around me and the ones inside of my head and learned more about other cultures, languages, religions and people. 

This desire to know the world spread through every area of my tiny little insignificant existence. I wanted to know about past worlds, so I dug into history and art. I wanted to feel beyond the world I was in, so I read, danced, and listened to songs; all things that supported me to experience or create an imaginative world. I wanted to physically try new worlds, so I traveled to see new places, tasted new foods, met new people, heard stories about their cultures and shared my own.

I wanted to know more, so I studied, questioned, experienced inequalities, injustices, hypocrisy and began to fight against the only ugly part I ever found in all the worlds I knew: the lack of respect, empathy, and even of knowledge, that proliferates poverty, and all said parts of the ugly world. I wanted to change the world into a better, safer place, where every and anyone could experience all of the beauty there is in the world, so I began to study and learn how to use my voice to stand up for others.

Many imagine that you are born without any knowledge of the world, and as you get older, you become an expert on the theme. However, allow me to disagree completely.

My experience of almost 19 years in a lot of different worlds, inside and outside of my head, has shown me that I will only decrease in knowledge and understanding as I discover many other worlds and my will to learn and explore will only become greater.

When I was born, I truly understood what the world was: being close to people I love, having fun and access to nurture. As for now, I am still trying to figure out how to keep doing that amidst  the problems we, confused humans, have created and force upon ourselves. How, and when, do we forget about the important things in life and how to appreciate the world we are so lucky to be gifted with?

This story is not over, as luckily I still have some years to explore various worlds. The next chapters will hopefully be full of what matters the most, and that sometimes we forget… A whole world of love, care and adventure.

May I, and you, if you choose to join me in this quest, create and fight for a better world where the important things are the primary goal and where everyone can have access to and enjoy them freely.

Theme: Behind the Mask
Phantom
By: Mariana Silva
 

Breathe in cold
Exhale out warm
Face must be masked
If not I wouldn't be able to perform 
Now it's easier to be a wraith of me
Don't have to worry about unveiling anything 
To fade in the shadows is effortless 
Yet I can't vanish forever
Everyday the mask feels heavier 
Moving away from existence
As in a dream, I stare at my own image
Soon realize I'm looking at an empty space
Knowing I'll never fill that absence 

A Ringing Bell
By: Matheus Maestrelli Villarreal
 

Haiku 1:

A loud bell ringing

It was the last thing I heard

Before the train left
 

Haiku 2:

Sitting on my couch

The bell rings! Pizza is here

Good, I was starving

Haiku 3:

A grey sun rises

The town has lost a good man

The bells ring in grief

An Unidentified Rumble

By: Mateus Martins 
 

At the beginning there was no light on Earth. But then an unidentified rumble was heard. With that came the creation of fire which brought light as well. This was a game changer for the whole human species. It was the first time that it was possible to improve tools, meals, and security.

Time after time, technologies would be invented, created, discovered, and distributed, but none of them would be as important as fire. There are many different mythologies that illustrate the first encounter between humans and fire; for the Greeks it was the story of Zeus and Prometheus. In this myth, Prometheus steals the fire from the Olympian Mountain, with the intention to give it to humans. This left him in big trouble. 

In reality scientists know that probably the discovery of fire was made by lightning hitting a tree which caused an unidentified rumble, thunder, and  “created” fire as well. Considering that we were not there at the time when fire was discovered by our ancestors, we can not know for sure what really happened… Maybe, just maybe, it was Prometheus’ lightning after all, who knows?

Once Upon a Time... There Was a Girl Who Was Afraid of Everything
By: Gustavo Giozeppe Bulgarelli
 

There once was a girl who was afraid of everything. She had a normal life like everyone else and even though it scared her, she had to go through everything everyone else does, even if it was difficult.

She woke up, already feeling anxious with what was to come, and started her day. She had a job at a local convenience store, since she was afraid of leaving the area, and with every customer that came there was a different fear. One was always coughing so she thought he might get her sick, another one had horrible breath because he drank a lot of coffee, and a third had shady eyes, and even though he was a loyal customer, she always thought he might secretly be a robber. But she had to work no matter what, since she was scared of missing a day and even more scared of being fired. When it was time to go home, she always rushed back home, scared of what could be in the way, but when she arrived at the door, she would stay still for a moment, scared of opening the door, who knows what could be in there or what could happen. When she got home that day, her blood ran cold; she took a deep breath and went inside. While at her house, she didn’t watch TV, nor use her phone, because she was afraid of what would appear there. She just sat there and closed her eyes, just her and the emptiness of her mind.

But, if someone was really scared of everything, wouldn’t they also be scared of nothing? And if they are scared of nothing, then they don’t have any fears… Or are they just scared of the nothingness? Well, she never thought of that, because she was too scared to do so, while in the emptiness of her mind, she avoided any thought or imagination, but didn’t let it be fully empty, since she was scared of the dark.

Until one day, while in the emptiness of her mind, she heard a noise coming from the outside, making her nearly jump from fear. She had no idea what it was and was too scared to move, but when she heard it again, more loudly; she had to see what was happening. It was a screech coming from the door, so she quickly grabbed her wooden spoon, which she hadn’t touched in a long time (out of fear of getting a splinter so deep she couldn’t get it out), as a weapon and very slowly she walked to the door. She heard something scratching the door, making her even more nervous. “It must be a monster, or a predator, or a tax collector”, she thought. After taking a really deep breath, she finally had enough courage to open the door, and with a quick move she pointed the spoon towards the open door frame with her eyes closed . She was shaking in fear, thinking she was practically already dead, but when she opened her eyes, she saw a little kitten at the door, curled up and shaking, even more afraid than her. It was meowing loudly. She kept looking at it when suddenly it came close to her and curled up on her feet. She noticed, for the first time, that she wasn’t feeling uneasy, so she decided to bring the kitten inside to take care of it.

She took care of it and when the kitty fell asleep, she started to think about what had  happened… Something so small and young was able to face its fears and to trust her. She started to compare the kitten’s reaction to her own life… A life of being afraid of everything. She decided that maybe she could try facing her fears after all, even if it would take a while. Maybe it was time for her to live her life. And of course, she went to see a psychiatrist, someone who she wouldn’t even get close to out of fear, to finally be able to fight all the fear she had… Of everything.