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Meet my beloved cats
Dante (August 2011)
Mika (2014)
Wayne (June 2017)
Matt (2017)
Nerino (2008 - 2024)
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Re: the urge to purge
I've taken a nap again this afternoon, even though I said it was something I would not do anymore. I was just tired after work, and drifted into sleep without knowing, like I always do.
Now I'm here at my desk, I should be studying but instead I was reading some blog posts. I look around at my room and feel like throwing away everything, making a blank slate out of it. I read Little Joe's Notes' post titled The Urge to Purge, and to answer their question: yes, I do feel like getting rid of everything I own.
My room isn't that cluttered either, but I do live with four cats, so keeping it clean daily is essential. That is why sometimes I think that the less things I own the easier to clean. So, I get the urge to throw away everything, even the useful things I own, even the things I like, even those that hold memories. But, I've already downsized so much that there isn't really anything else to "get out".
But, they are right: is just a consequence of life feeling out of control. In my case, is not my room that is cluttered but it is my life itself. Too many things to do, and still I feel like I don't accomplish anything. I know it is not true, but it feels like it, and that's why I get mad at myself for wasting time with a nap. Manipulating my environment, as written in their post, will not change anything, although it does feel good in the moment: to have control over something.
Sometimes, when things get too overwhelming and just looking at my room's walls puts me in a heavy mood, I just take the car and go away. Near or far it does not matter, I just remove myself from here and that helps a lot. If I did not feel guilty about leaving my dear cats alone, I would spend even less time at home.
Next semester I will be leaving to study abroad. Sometimes I catch myself thinking that, when I come back, I will see my room with different eyes. That, after living without all these objects for six months I will immediately know what is really important and what is not. Who knows? I just hope to change, like I always do.
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A small poem in this rainy night
The rain falls lightly,
the clean air enters the room,
in the dark of night.
A soft melody,
the sound of water,
a deep loneliness.
Why is my heart so heavy?
I look at you,
and I feel nothing.
Why is my heart like so?
I look at you,
and I feel love. -
"First signs of warmth", video project
Another small video I made. I was studying outside because the days were finally getting warmer. I love how the sun makes the fur of Wayne shine, and the way that his eyes are the color of sunshine itself.
I tried applying the "curve" effect on the video to make the colors less washed out. It's the same, and the only, effect that I use to edit the photos I take. I thought it had rendered everything too dark, but then I watched the version without color editing and the one with color editing side by side and they didn't have that much difference, I just tricked myself in thinking so I guess... Apart from two clips, where I didn't like how the change in contrast made some details too visible, so I changed that. Messing with colors makes the rendering time much longer!
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How to make a ruyi knot and its significance
如意结
Last summer I made a gift that required a decorative knot. I had already tied some "good luck knots", but I was searching for something different, a little more subtle but still decorative, and that hanged straight. I remember I found a video explaining various Chinese knots and, amidst them, there was one called ruyi knot that I thought was exactly what I was searching for. It is not a complex knot, but I think it is pretty in its simplicity. Differently from the good luck knot, it continues along the strand of cord, instead of splitting it in two ends.
For some reason, there are not as many tutorials for this particular knot as there are for others; and when you search it by its name, other knots appear. So I am not even sure this is its correct or more known name. Anyway, for these reasons I decided to try and draw a step-by-step guide for myself, which is the image above. I wonder if at the eyes of others the tutorial is easy to follow, because looking at it after some months have passed I do think is simple enough to understand, but I was the one who drew it so it doesn't really count.
Ruyi 如意 means "as desired", "as you wish" and is the name of an important decorative object in Chinese culture; a scepter or a talisman of good fortune. So, images inspired by it appear frequently as motifs in art, including knotting. While researching the knot, I've found all the connections to subjects I've studied in university, and I'm sure it will appear again in the future and I will think "ah, like the knot!". Exactly as it happened when I was buying a good fortune pendent and it read "万事如意" (wànshì rúyì) a common phrase of well-wishes that translates to "may all your wishes be fulfilled".
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Travels: the small coastal city of Muggia
Muggia (TS), Italy
29th of March, 2026
Sean!
Lastly, a coffee on the boat...
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Mimi, a short story about two sure hearts
Once upon a time there were two broken hearts.
One little heart wandered the forest, its red fur shone under the sunlight that made its way through the leaves of the trees up above. The morning dew had already dried from the fresh green grass of spring when the little heart decided to rest in a nearby field of grain, it was content being alone and so it was deemed broken.
Another little heart had a roof upon its head, not the dancing leaves of the trees moved by the spring breeze. This little heart wanted to go out, to get out of that roof; it wanted to disappear for a while. It thought of itself as broken.
One day, the roof-heart had courageously taken steps out of its roof. The water in the rice fields reflected the big white clouds above, the sun surrounded everything with its warmth. After walking awhile, the little roof-heart got tired and decided to rest under a solitary tree on top of a hill.
The forest-heart had been awake from the early morning and was now searching for a place to take a nap. The sun illuminated the forest, but it was not enough to warmth its ground, so it searched for a place just outside it; where the ground was warm but still protected by a gentle shade.
The forest-heart and the roof-heart found themselves under the same tree, quite puzzled from the presence of each other, but neither wanting to go a different way: the roof-heart was too tired from walking around and the forest-heart simply did not want to cede the perfect spot it had found.
So, one sat with its back against the tree and the other napped on its roots. After a while, they parted ways. But not for long, because neither had really minded the presence of the other. Instead, they had quite liked having someone same-minded nearby. And so, they continued meeting and these quiet meetings became their little secret. The secret of a forest-heart that had found some company, the secret of a roof-heart that had found a place to belong to and the certainty that comes when two sure hearts meet each other.
(Mìmì 秘密)
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A vase of origami flowers
What prompted me to start doing origami some years ago was the legend about a wish granted after folding one thousand paper cranes. For that I bought a cube of one thousand small paper squares, and started folding. Soon I had filled a big glass jar with all these tiny origami cranes, but I was nowhere near folding them all.
Then, feeling overwhelmed with all the objects I had, I threw away both the paper and the cranes in my cleaning haze. But, I didn't quite give up on the thought about folding those one thousand paper cranes. Instead, I started using every opportunity where I was given some piece of paper, to fold one. The paper of receipts is especially good for it, but also the wrapping paper of sweets and chocolates. My thought is that, that I know of it or not, I will reach those one thousand origami, and they will not be in my room but everywhere through the places I visited.
Now, origami folding can be counted as one of my hobbies, and I have a small collection of paper with different prints for it. Most of the time I use them to decorate or to make gifts, like the vase of origami flowers in the photo, which was a gift for my sister and that I scented with orange flower perfumed oil. Although, still, the only origami that I can fold from memory is the crane.
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Different languages for different aspects of life
I was thinking the other day about the fact that when I write poems I write them in English, even though this language is not my mother tongue. Then I though of some other "semantic fields" of my life that I have a preferred language for.
At home and with my family I usually talk in Portuguese, which is my mother tongue. This means that I have learned to refer to the objects around the house with their Portuguese name. I notice my ignorance of their names in other languages mostly when I go to someone else's house or at work, when I don't know the name of some kitchen utensil or some cleaning supply. Portuguese, for me, is mostly spoken.
Italian is the language of the country where I live. For me, it's the language of work, of social situations and of personal finances. It's also the language I use to study. I write and I speak the language often, and being similar to Portuguese, is easier to switch between the two, but is also easier to get confused and start adding suffixes of a language to words of another, creating things that don't exist in neither but are somehow still understandable.
Lastly, English is for me the language of feelings. The name of all the different changes in emotions, I know them in English; and sometimes I find it difficult to express what I feel in another language. I think the time I spent on the Internet contributed to it, but it was also the fact that I grew to love the language so much that I wanted to use it everywhere, for everything; which is something I still do to this day, although I learned to be less rigid with it. English, for me, is almost exclusively a written language; used to write poems, thoughts, lists and... this blog!
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Painting the right eye of my whittled Daruma doll
"Take your time and find your values"
In another post, I have explained that I had whittled a new Daruma doll to replace an older one I had. I've finally got around to painting its eye, in other words, I've finally set that 'goal' that it is supposed to remind me to follow.
Lately, or not that lately, I have been rushing in everything that I do. This means that every little inconvenience that got me to waste time caused quite some irritation. I have been feeling irritated for nothing: in the end the one that is putting pressure on me to fulfill some imaginary deadline is no one else but myself.
Thus, the first part of my goal-wish is to take my time.
While taking my time I also want to understand the values that I find important. Although I have some things that I know I put above others, sometimes I find that I get a little lost on what to do in certain situations or when confronted with certain opinions. What I mean is that, by having a good set of values that one considers important, those values can help guide actions and thoughts when needed.
Thus, the second part of my goal-wish is to find my values.
As a final though, apart from reminding me of these goals, every time I look at it, it makes me chuckle, I made it kind of bizarre...