The never-ending story

It’s been a tough year, don’t you think? What do you mean it’s only January? My point exactly! It’s only January and this year has already met all my nonexistent expectations. What do you mean that makes no sense? What in this world makes sense anymore anyway?!

War, the cost of living crisis, climate crisis, food crisis, displacement due to war and the climate crisis and the food crisis. They are all connected; the time of peace dividends is over. And what of liberal democracy? Is liberal democracy on the way out? It is if you ask the likes of Putin, Xi, Erdogan, Orbán... But what is the alternative they offer? Authoritarianism. Submitting to the state and the man or party in charge. Freedom equals chaos in their vernacular so they take away your rights and they take away that freedom. The freedom to speak freely, freedom to dissent, freedom to demand something other than what the man or party offers.

Having said that, have you noticed how benevolence hasn’t lost to virulence and violence? Despite every vile thing that is going on; not in all the thousands upon thousands of years humans have inhabited this planet, living, loving, killing and oppressing one another? Ruthlessness or the right of the strongest still haven’t wiped out softer tendencies such as kindness and altruism. Little wonder, since only so-called strongmen value ruthlessness and privileges won through oppression and exploitation. Most of us see those tendencies for what they are: malevolence. Evil. Then again most of us tend to value benevolence over malevolence and kindness over ruthlessness. We long for goodness. We expect goodness. And we practice it.

What else is there? What else can you do? The alternative is hurtful and unhelpful, a ruse to pit us against one another. Hate makes you ruthless and it makes you cruel, so whenever you feel hate raise its ugly head please step back and take a deep breath. Don’t let baser instincts, your reptile brain, get the better of you. That’s emotion, a feeling, one you shouldn’t ride lightly.   

And furthermore, strongman is a misnomer. No one is more thin-skinned and afraid of criticism and opposition than a supposed strongman. Overcompensating oafs who take things personally and attack people instead of problems or who blame other people for problems they themselves have created and/or are responsible for solving, that’s what they are. Infallible to boot, like the Pope. So akin to…gods, then? Now there’s a dangerous and deranged belief. All-powerful they are not, not in a literal sense. Realizing an ambition without doing harm is something no authoritarian or totalitarian leader has ever achieved. Of course, not doing harm is not all that important to them. But it is for the rest of us. That means most of us.

Cooperation and mutual respect, that’s what has kept us afloat and that’s what keeps “strongmen” up at night. What if I can’t beat them into submission, bully them until they break down, back off and shut up? What they don’t understand is that all those soft tendencies do not equal weakness, quite the opposite. They are the hard core of humanity, something cultural evolution hasn’t managed to snuff out. It takes guts to be open and vulnerable. It takes dogged determination to face insurmountable odds. It takes a brave soul to go against someone who doesn’t care if you live or die, a system that wants to crush you. It takes courage to do what you dread.

My point? I’m sure I had one...sorry if I lost you along the way. Oh well, oh hell, it’s been a long and tough year. Shall we go enjoy the weekend, whatever counts as R & R in your books? Happy Saint Sebastian’s (or Dia de São Sebastião, the patron saint of Rio de Janeiro)!

Peace out.

Pax et bonum, I said! No? A girl can dream, right?

Temperature: -10/14 degrees. I’ll (never) get used to it.

Eating: nothing at all before…Easter? I’ve been stuffing my face for two weeks. Nothing some rigorous exercise won't exorcise but you've got to stop sometime like now.

Drinking: what’s left of the glögg later today, just to keep warm.

Listening: to this year’s sambas de enredo; carnaval is a mere six weeks away!

Watching: what the man who put the dick in dictator does next. This Christmas ceasefire is just another round of self-serving shite.

Reading: The brilliant Susan Cain has written a book on saudade!

Writing: a slew of birthday cards. An inordinate number of people seem to have been born in January. Off to investigate this statistical anomaly aka pure coincidence.

Thinking: Do your worst, 2023. Courtesy of how this decade has been so far, the bar marked Expectations is oh so low. Nonexistent, really.

Feeling: energized.

Pax et bonum

Christmas (said Mary Ellen Chase) is not a date; it is a state of mind. We could get into an argument over what sort of mental state we are talking about here, but my blog, my choice, so I submit to you that the golden rule, the drive to do good, to lend a helping hand, to be of service is what it’s all about. In a perfect world that’s what it would always be about, but we’re not quite there yet.

Anxiety and stress is what (too) many are feeling right now, and not just because the holiday season is here and there are a quarter to infinite things to do before you can put your feet up for five seconds only to realize that nope, there's something you almost forgot, and off you go again, and again, and again. I remember my mother reminiscing about her own mother and what an endless list of chores Christmas was for her. My maternal grandmother, now there was a hardworking woman. Too hardworking for her own good. Fingers-to-the-bone type, like so many of her generation.

What my mother learned was that the sheer amount of work that went into the holiday season was a senseless exercise in housekeeping. It was, however, the measure of her mettle as wife, mother, homemaker. Woman. My mother did not grow up to be that woman, and she did not raise me to be that woman. My grandmother did end up teaching me what she knew and had been taught, but I get to choose what to incorporate into my own life and home, motherhood, womanhood. I am immensely grateful to both women. I had a window to consecutive but very different generations.

I’m am neither the workhorse my grandmother was nor the rebel my mother was. I am me with my own traditions, new and old, and my own way of doing things. And that’s how it ought to be and that’s how I hope it is for you now that the holiday season is here. Do what you deem necessary, not what you believe is expected. (And no one expects more from us than we do, I know, but seriously, does everything have to be pristine and perfect? No.)

I’m about to put down my tools and go spend Christmas with family. If, for whatever reason, we never meet here again, you know life, full of surprises that one, some happy and some downright tragic, live with love, sweetie darlings. Love of life, love of others, love of yourself. So many crises weigh upon us, big ones, global ones, and I know it sometimes feels like our personal sorrows and problems pale in comparison. But it is your life we’re talking about here, your unique I-shall-pass-this-way-but-once life, so your wellbeing matters, very much. And you won’t be of much help to the world and everyone in it, if that’s what you’re worried about, if you don’t look after yourself first.

So, all I want for Christmas is for you to work on some new year’s resolutions that turn into the rest of your life resolutions that revolve around you taking good care of yourself. Start with that and everything else will fall into place. Or at the very least not bother and burden you like they used to (and that is a huge help, trust me). And if indeed we never meet here again, may I haunt you? I promise to be a friendly ghost; a reassuring hand on the shoulder, a gentle whisper to calm your frayed nerves.

I think that’s all for now. Be well, dearest denizens. Be good, have fun, be kind. I do love you so don’t go giving me a reason not to, okay? Okay. Happy holidays and shine on.

O Natal tá chegando! 🎄

Temperature: 2/35.5 degrees with more snow on the way.

Eating: Greek chicken gyros. Yes, we do still eat meat on occasion at Casa Dita. I ruined the boys by taking them to a churrascaria. On every trip to Brazil. My infinite bad. Which I’ve been trying to rectify. But what did they ask for just the other night? Poulet au vinaigre aka Lyonnaise garlic vinegar chicken. It’s a process.

Drinking: a wrappucino. What’s a wrappucino? I have no idea, but I bet if I had one, I’d have extraterrestrial wrap-it-all-up energy oozing out of every orifice. Which sounds like sci-fi gone horribly wrong. Maybe just a cafezinho then. (Yes. Afternoon coffee. Again. It's a process.)

Listening: Kissing and a-hugging, dancing and a-loving, wearing next to nothing, burning hot as an oven… That would be the B-52s, folks, proud purveyors of love and unity through music and pop culture since 1977. What Christmas with my sister’s family will look like. On a scale of one to are-we-there-yet, how excited am I? Stoked, sweetie darlings.

Watching: I have never been less excited about the World Cup. As if the tournament in Russia wasn’t bad enough. Much ado about nothing or genuine reasons to boycott? No one does pissed-off-and-for-all-the-right-reasons-ones-I-will-explain-in-an-educated-yet-entertaining-fashion-if-you-can-focus-for-more-than-a-TikTok late night better than John Oliver.

Reading: Everything the Light Touches by Janice Pariat, and Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us by Brian Klaas. Highly recommended by yours truly, madly, deeply.

Writing: up a storm so that everything gets wrapped up before the holidays. Hmm, so that’s why I concocted that stimulant of a wrappucino...

Thinking: ...not that I’m in need of a stimulant, the smiles, giggles and shenanigans of my nieces...ai meu Deus, that's motivation enough.

Feeling: There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart. (From the poem A Grateful Heart by Celia Thaxter.)

P.S. I will stop by before Christmas. 🤝

God rest thee mellow gentleman

Temperature: a sunny 14/57 degrees on Saturday. Which is alarmingly warm for November but nothing out of the new ordinary. A bit colder now, but it has never been this warm this late in the year.

Eating: Veggie cabbage rolls. The stench! The taste!!

Drinking: afternoon coffee. Which I’ve kind of given up. But today calls for afternoon coffee and lots of it.

Listening: to an audiobook, even though I don’t usually do audiobooks. But when you admire someone’s work enough you go the extra mile. Is it any good? Stupendous. You clever, clever thing. Person, I mean.

Watching: If you ever find yourself in the vicinity of either the movie My Sailor, My Love or the World Wide Dance triple bill (Akram Khan, Fei Bo, and Justin Peck; unless that was a one-off, come to think of it) go see them, go!

Reading: Leafing through Nigella Christmas. Oh come on, you know me. Or ought to, sweetie darlings.

Thinking: Imagine if we’d taken the Kyoto Protocol seriously in 1997. Imagine if we’d taken Putin seriously in 2008.

Feeling: for my husband and his late mother’s side of the family; his uncle has died of pancreatic cancer.