Once upon a time there was a little place hidden in the middle of a sea of coffee mountains, located in the enchanted State of Minas Gerais. Along its roads, dazzling waterfalls appear, mostly hidden in the forest, only those who know know where they are. Its falls form pools of almost crystal clear water, full of revitalizing energy, donated by the perfect balance between earth minerals and the alternation of cold and hot days, necessary for the cycle of life.
In the city, where part of the family lives, there is a welcome that warms the heart and brings peace to the soul. It\’s as if people have known you for a long time and are still interested in what you have to tell, the pains that made you grow and the love you have to give.
It doesn\’t seem to matter even if you are very different. Or rather, your difference matters a lot. Maybe because it\’s a small town, people see better the characteristics that make each being unique. Reception would be a word to describe the hospitality of the place. Education and love, others as or more essential than the first.
There, the pace is still slow, despite the accelerated urban growth. It\’s like life happens in slow motion and you can feel everything around you and inside you.
When I went there for the first time I didn\’t notice any of that. I mean, everything was there: the aroma of lush vegetation and freshly brewed special coffees, the hug, the wisdom and sincere laughter of those I had just met and the healing waters of mother Oxum. Except me. I had been lost so many years before that my stay was nothing more than an extremely pleasant vacation experience from work.
Not this time. I wasn\’t on vacation, at least not from work, because in theory I don\’t have one. Work, according to capitalist society, is something you do for money, to pay bills and acquire unnecessary things you\’ve been convinced you need. The truest work that I have been able to do in recent years has been that of living for the simple pleasure of existing, to feel, to grow, to share stories.
Well, it wasn\’t like that last year. It hasn\’t been like this since I decided to return to Brazil. There were many months of pain, anguish, anxieties, fears and losses. I thought the Cecília I found outside was dying again. Until I arrived in this tiny town for the second time.
I\’m going to Espera Feliz next week, do you want to go? said my father. The invitation came shortly after my refusal for the visa to study in Canada and in those days I dragged myself, compulsively brooding over thoughts. I wanted to write again, but I couldn\’t. I was waiting, not knowing exactly what. So let him wait in a different atmosphere. I had to go.
I spent twenty days in that quasi-village, compared to the monstrosity and coldness of São Paulo\’s concrete. I\’ve lived more there in such a short time than I managed to live here in nearly a year and a half. I wrote two very good texts. I contemplated the beauty of the surroundings and the mountainous contours. I smelled the woods and empty thoughts. I bathed in the fresh waters of the waterfalls, washing my soul. And best of all, what seems to make my world go round: I met and recognized wonderful people.
Happiness was back. I was present. Suddenly everything I spent so long waiting for didn\’t bother me anymore. It was free again! I was home! Not geographically, but my self had returned home. I thanked those special people and that lovely place and went back to the big city.
It was extremely difficult to return. It was like he was leaving me again. It took me a few days to accept it and get right with my soul. The disturbing questions of recent times have tried to steal my peace. When I least realized it, I was again waiting for something that would come from I don\’t know where, at the time of I don\’t know when.
I talked to myself, with some people and non-people. I arrived once again at a crucial question, which I had already asked and answered, objectively and rationally, several times: why can\’t I be happy here?
I remembered Espera Feliz, with affection, zeal and everything that made me feel like I was, everything that made me feel in Boston. I also remembered that I hadn\’t felt that way the first time I was there. Of course, as unhappy as I feel here, I\’m not the same person I used to be, Boston has changed me. However, there was something else and the answer to that question came just a few days ago.
In addition to the pace of life being fast here, having lived in social isolation for almost all my existence (without the need for a pandemic), the lack of greenery and water, social insecurities, the structural machismo that limits me, the inequalities that make me sad , the charges are greater when I\’m close to the patterns and affective memories that torture me, there\’s a part of me that doesn\’t want to be happy here.
All of these are certainly more than enough reasons to make it difficult to achieve happiness in the largest metropolis in the country, or even in Brazil. But the fact is that human beings tend to always expect something. We are all the time creating expectations and I admit that I am one of those people.
Since I was young I wanted the world, meeting people, cultures and languages! Intensity is my last name, at least it could be. Fun should be routine and routine should be dynamic.
There are people who find it here. Theoretically I could too right? That\’s what some eastern philosophies say. Peace must be within you!. Being happy is a state of mind.
Well, maybe my spirit really wants to live in a more cosmopolitan place, surrounded and connected with nature, in addition to being fairer, safer and where I don\’t have to charge myself to be the professional cock of the galaxies to have what any human being should have : comfort, freedom, peace and yes, the much needed happiness.
Yeah, I never found that here, actually. Maybe it\’s the great distances, maybe it\’s the individualism of those who have to fight twice as hard in an underdeveloped country and follow the principles of meritocracy like cattle. Here the wait for the reward is long and not happy.
But if being happy is a choice, the only person who can make it is me. Thus, I start to assume that, unconsciously, at some point I chose to be happy in other places. So, it is possible that I expected São Paulo and some people to bring the feeling of belonging that only I would be able to give myself.
There is no more time for so many waits. I want to be happy in today and in the now, even if this blue globe hanging by a transparent line and held by the great braggart creator to test our resilience is my home in its entirety.
Oh yes, I want to leave! There\’s a lot of world out there waiting to meet my world in here. Or would it be the opposite? I have a plan and I confess that it is much easier to wait with it. But for now I\’m just waiting, contradicting myself with low expectations, for a happy present.