être soi... be who you want to be

2012-01-29T11:38:00.005+01:00

photo via we heart it

good morning my friends, it is 11:36 in this sunday morning, woke up at 7 when my husband went to open the Café, but stayed in bed until now. Wrote my morning pages in bed, ate my breakfast in bed, made myself some Reiki healing and breathing in bed, watched some tv about a couple of american writers in bed, just stayed there in bed for a while among the warm white coton sheets.

Outside the sky is off-white, temperatures are low and in 2 hours I have to go outside on this sunday afternoon to go to work. There will be no soul walking the streets but me. I'll spend the afternoon trying to share a smile with people that will open the museum door while I'll be reading a book, a magazine or a blog throu' my phone. There will be silences and only a few words... and I'll be hoping that 6pm will come as fast a lightning bolt which will not, it will be long, so damn long !

So for now that I've took my shower I'm going to make my lunch on this ordinary sunday, some broccoli with chicken curry. Wish you a wonderful day.

more from Danemark

2012-01-24T15:42:00.007+01:00

Peter Ilsted

Carl Holsoe

These 2 painters have a lot in common with Hammershoi. They were Danish and they were leading artists at their time. They painted the silence and the muted light of the danish days. Ilsted was Hammershoi's brother-in-law too. I love these too but I still do prefer the nostalgia and the dramatic but peaceful mood that covers Hammershoi's paintings that I can't really find in these.

2012-01-22T11:52:00.004+01:00

I'm selling everything at my shop with a 50% off code : 50SALE, you'll use this code at the checkout.
I need to keep on creating but in order to do that I have to sell all that I have so that I can buy new materials. Life isn't easy for anyone at this moment, I know that so well, the world economic crisis touches us all, so if there's something in my shop that you'd like but that with the 50% off is still expensive for you, please let me know, don't be blocked by a price we can manage something out.
I prefer to see my creations being wear or in homes that appreciate them, then to have them in my drawers.

My husband and I have also been living a very hard financial moment (I told you that I have to find anouther job because I'm a victim of discrimination ) since some months now, he has to work at the Café plus to have anouther job. The Café is now for sale and his dream is also falling apart. I'm sure some of you are going throu' similar events or know people who are, sometimes life just doesn't seems to go right in any of its aspects but I have faith things will change. And with everything going wrong in our lifes I'm still so grateful that we still have love; my husband and I are more closer than ever.

If you can pass the word throu' your blogs that I have everything for sale at my shop with the code: 50SALE that would be wonderful too.

Thank you so much for your support.

2012-01-18T12:15:00.007+01:00

Here's my life in some photos, I've been having this envy to draw (something that I don't actually do a lot). I think it's me that I'm drawing, maybe that's the only thing that I'll draw - myself-

I have been living with Woolf, Plath and Kahlo, I've been writing and recording almost every thought that comes to mind and soon I'll start my morning pages that Julia Cameron's advices us to do so that our creativity comes to us more freely.

Time passes by, days are so long and nights are so short. Nothing vanishes, it just becomes less bright, like the sun that today's somewhere hiding behind the clouds.

the critical eye of the vital needle

2012-01-13T13:18:00.005+01:00

Going back to work today, feeling empty !

Some of my poetry for today:

With the disappearance threaded

throught he critical eye of the vital needle,

the existence weaves its warp and weft.

The dead pile up and intersect

manufacturing the fabric of our lives.

A heavy, long, thick cloth

of a total opacity dragged down

over family’s backs.

Cloth repeatedly patched,

each day heavier

submerge and congeal us

just before we will be added... one day !

colors of my life

2012-01-09T13:40:00.009+01:00

I made flowers all over because they bloomed

after years of tears of rain.

I used blue for the storm in my head,

yellow for the hope in a new future,

red for the bound that we had.

But also red for the river of blood that

came after the end

washing away the remains of a dream

now gone forever.

2012-01-07T01:45:00.003+01:00

I read to see if my life hasn't already been written elsewhere.

2012-01-06T14:16:00.003+01:00

photo via

Everything's finished now. Have to look ahead of me, of us ! I've been writing again, some sort of journal and it's been making me feel a lot better.

Wanted to thank you all so much, you have made me cry of gratitude while I was reading your comments and emails, you will always have a special place in my heart, words are so important and the one's you gave me were more precious than a pile of gold. Thank you my friends !

2011-12-31T12:36:00.010+01:00

2 years ago when I started writing the "Inventory of the inside" my second poetry manuscript, I was working on putting outside what has been living within me for all of my life until that period of time, I wrote hundrends of poems, phrases and kept 50 of them. I made this work trying to exorcise from me all that was glued into my skin in order to make a new one.
Today I translated it into english the best I could for you my friends, so that I can share with you once more because I believe now that, that's what I'm the best at... at sharing.
The first poem was about my inhability to become pregnant, the second one I wrote a week ago when I was full of hope about my future with this "miracle child", I can see now that I was already questioning myself about the experience I was going through.

Bloody eggs, dried,
damaged, dead
and devoid of any breath,
any child.

Life has made its choice
it will not be me.
My belly wasn’t good or fun
Life just did not wanted to,
it has never entered in me.

There will be no inhabitant
or expulsion.
My body will not be
the landlord of another’s soul.

===============================

Beyond the day and the night
there's you.
Waiting,
getting ready for the transition.
To the smile of life
already taking shape in your lips.
Waiting,
in construction
in transmutation.
You who took your time
What do you want to teach me?

Thank you so so much my dear friends for being there and for sending me your messages that warm my heart so deeply, I don't have enough words to express my gratitude. Thank you for reading me because this is just how I am, I need to write and to express my feelings, with no boundaries.
In regards to what I'm living, I'm a still a mother today and will still be one for the next couple of days, normally everything will end this first week of January. January, the month that I connect with death, my mother died in January, my child will be gone in January too and can you believe that I still love X-mas ? :) Yes I do, even if I know the memories will be even harder in 12 months from now.
Mother is now more than never an ephemeral word for me.

lost ... will I ever find myself ?

2011-12-29T22:58:00.025+01:00

Hammershoi and his beautiful void skies

The post that I'm about to write it's not the post I was supposed to write a few hours ago.

The post I was about to write was about the wonderful miracle I've been living in the last 2 months. It's 11 pm this december 29th and I should probably be sleeping but I'm almost sure that I will not be able to do it...at least not tonight !

I'm going to write here what I have inside me and one of the good things about blogging is that you write out loud but nobody's obliged to read it, the difference of talking to a friend that might not want to listen to you. So, I'll write but you can change blog now if you want to.

If you have read this post of mine; you know about that I can not have children. Or, at least I thought I couldn't... until this november 16th. It's been a lifetime of a life without contraception and without even a sign of a child. My head was dictating my life and I let nature choose. But on this morning of november 16th 2011 I found out I was pregnant at 36 years old for the first time in my whole life. I was surprised, in shock, I already had planned my life trying to protect myself by saying that it was best not to have children.

This last 2 months have been the worst and the best of my life, I've been crying and caressing my belly daily, I've been trying to avoid any bad thought, I've been preparing myself for happiness.

My professional life has been a mess lately (I found out that same week that I would never be definitely hired -I've been working there for 6 years with precarious contracts- because I don't have the right nationality. Yes, it's not legal but I have no proof, they have told me not written) and this pregnancy sounded like a miracle that would heal all wounds.

Made a first ultrasound and everything's perfect, I'm living my new life, ready to embrace the world, telling myself that I had been healed and that all issues were nothing more now than a part of my life that belonged to the past. My relationship with my lost mother was finaly clear, I could move forward, finally !

Today I made my second ultrasound and my life just made a new rollercoaster ride again. The baby has a very bad brain deformity and we'll have to stop the pregnancy. The happiness I was about to touch, that I could feel, see it is now gone forever. I don't understand why I was supposed to suffer this as I was already mourning the fact that I could never be a mother, I think that I had accepted it already there was no need to bring back all this again, for nothing ! My nephew, my sister's first child was born disabled. After tons and years of research, doctors have come to the conclusion that it was destiny, it just happened, but how many chances did I had to have myself my first child also disabled ? One in a million ? Maybe and guess what ? It happened.

The worst about this is that I listened twice in my life to the tiny heart and saw his/her little legs and arms move and now this child, this half child of mine is still inside me waiting for his/her last day (that I'll know tomorrow when it will be). I feel weird and lost. What is the purpose of all this ? I'm feeling desperate and miserable and with no meaning. I try, oh my how I try, how I've tried all my life to see the bright side of life but it just doesn't works for me. I'm terrified, I really am.

I don't know what the universe still has in store for me but I just make a call here: Universe if you don't have nothing good in store for me now, forget me, please ! I've been up and down in such a short period of time, an awful year this one has been in all matters ! This was not the post I was supposed to write !

to long for

2011-12-26T11:09:00.001+01:00

photo via

Longing is my favorite word in English. How beautiful it is to long for something, how beautiful it is to have this feeling down deep inside that has desire and nostalgia intertwined in a never ending dance, it’s like if we are waiting for something that may never come, something that we want more than anything but to know that we can still hope for it to come gives us already a goal to wish for.
There are some words like these that are hard to translate in every language, words that are made to be felt, words of experience, words that keep the senses awake, words that give us courage to keep on living. To long for the life we dream of, to long for the sun to warm my skin, to long for somebody to love…
Please, never lose your capacity to long for something to arrive has it can be your fuel in life. Life is what you make it but remember that dreams are the ingredients for a beautiful soul.

2011-12-24T12:36:00.000+01:00

être soi... be who you want to be

2011-12-18T12:42:00.003+01:00

let 2012 finally be the year of your dreams ! Believe in them ! Start by releasing what you no longer need, what you no longer want, the best time to do it it's this winter solistice, on november 22th !
Watch this beautiful video by Pixie Campbell and give it a try, you'll see that your heart will be filled with hope and joy :)

Mother of All Releasings Ceremony: Winter Solstice, 2012 from Pixie Campbell on Vimeo.

Love ya !

just some photos

2011-12-13T12:30:00.007+01:00

on this cold but sunny day. It's my day off from work so I'm just around the appartment, wanted to share with you some parts of my morning while the sun is still here :)
I'm listening to a beautiful jazz cd that you can find here but I'm planning on listening right after some X-mas carols by Ella Fitzgerald that you can find here. Have a wonderful week. Love you.

Started reading A new Earth by Echhart Tolle and look at all the awesome goodies I've received this weekend from my friend Vibeke.

Received my copy of this poetry magazine, I had one of my poems printed in this number and I'm so grateful for it. It's pure joy.

Here's the poem, it's in french and you can click on the photo to read it.

Oh and yes, today I'm not going out so I'm just chillin' inside with this beautiful, super warm stockings that my friend Vibeke made for me, she's such a beautiful person and I'm so grateful to have come across her blog and to have grown a friendship with her. Love you Vibeke :)

shine a light

2011-12-04T11:41:00.002+01:00

photo via

I have so much to tell you my dear friends but I can't, yet :) Hope to share with you soon my plans, my projects, my healing spiritual path that I have been taking....life is so wonderful, so full of joy and challenges to help us grow.

I'm planning on coming back to blog a lot more as soon as 2012 arrives. The winter solstice is coming fast and rebirth is on the way too....the lights are shinning on each and everyone of us, there is one for each and everyone of us, even if we are feeling blinded, light will shine through the veil somehow and always, please believe it !

Wish you a wonderful holiday season to you all my friends whatever celebration you'll be celebrating with your loved ones and hope to have you again by my side when the days will start to grow longer (or shorter if you are on the other side of the world).

Love and light, xoxo, Sofia

2011-11-11T11:01:00.001+01:00

photo by Tara Thayer Public

It's about the empty spaces.

It's about a man going up and down
the stairs for the woman he loves
with a glass of water and pills
he might have wished at least once
they were magic beans.

It's about life escaping our bodies

inevitably
smoothly
silently

and about us having weak hands
in spite of our strong will.

It's about the empty spaces
when you're gone,
and the unsettling silence left behind.

Kenia Chris

life is a bunch of details

2011-11-09T10:07:00.002+01:00

(one of my paintings)

Life is a bunch of details put together. But how many we have? Of lives, I mean? It seems that cats have 7, no less. But we, how many? Many more I guess.Each life doesn’t know of how much time it is allotted with and each one of them is populated by different characters. They are so different from each other, that they could have been experienced by anyone else. They are not bound together but exist because of them. They can be independent.
My first life was the one I lived until I was13 years, I was living in a country other than where I live today. Had an alcoholic father, a dead mother and a sister that became my pillar.
Now all this seems so far away in a corner of my memory, so far that sometimes I even doubt of its veracity. It is true that I did not have the family I dreamed of, that of the Christmas dinners I do not even remember anymore. I am almost sure that there must be have been signs at the time of what was about to happen. I guess I didn’t want to see them, today I feel that everything happened so fast but at that time it looked like forever.

My father was usually drunk. Battered by life, hard work, responsibility of a family, misunderstanding, rejection and the end there was alcohol as a solution for all problems. He wanted to be a bohemian artist, my father. For a few hours alcohol molded him into another man, he would leave his shyness and everything he dreamed of doing was to sing for hours, all night. The rest of the time he kept a low profile.

My mother was a woman of grip, but also very anxious, she would get so angry at my father because of his daily drinking problem that to exorcise evil she would break all she could in the house. She was gasping for breath, gasping for life. Her daily routine was limited to a stroll to the market, to take care of the house and by having to do small jobs such as knitting, cooking for sale or selling small artificial flowers she had made herself. But she was sick. I have always known her sick.

I made rounds to the herbalists with her or to the healer, and then sometimes in the late afternoon she drew the living room shutters and stayed there, lying on the sofa, in the dark, to cry until sleep comes her way. Crying for what? Or why? I will never know. Maybe she was crying for the lives she already knew where lost, the lives that she would never live.

2011-10-14T14:13:00.009+02:00

First of all thank you so much for your emails and comments, you are all so sweet :) I love you .

I am now at that time of the year when I have a 2 month vacation from my day job, which fits particularly right this days. I'll be back to work by the middle of November so I still have a lot of time left to study and to make some introspection.

This is exactly what I've been doing, trying to ask myself the right questions and waiting for the right answers to arrive. And they are arriving ...

All this self-exploration has engaged me in a path that I had started 10 years ago and that I'm only now acknowledging why it was so. I'm putting the puzzle pieces together and it is incredible all that we have to go throu' (outside and inside ourselves) to be able to start to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

I have always been very spiritual, lacking of faith but very spiritual and I now know why my faith couldn't appear until I had started to realize which journey I wanted to follow. I did find it and there were signs all over the place, since .... always !

I'm a creative, spiritual and empathic woman who has gone throu' radical changes in her life but has always stand up no matter what !

At the moment I'm going to follow a Reiki course and a life coaching course. I'm finally understanding my life path. I have to intertwine the arts and the spiritual sides of me. This autumn I understood that it was time to let go of things that no longer were working for me, one of these, as you can see I no longer have my art website, the way that it was no longer suits me, I have to let go of the old things to make some space for the new ones and it was hard, it still is hard !

I want to help others throu' what I know about my way of doing/seeing creatvity, my spirituality, my life experiences and my magick, all those who will be somehow touched by what I put out there in the world. I believe that by doing this I'll be giving a sense to my life as well. A lot has been done but there's still a lot to do.

2011-09-26T10:05:00.001+02:00

Kathryn Abbernathy

Autumn's here again, the wheel of the year has turned again. Spent some time with the family in this first week, it was wonderful, the weather's been more than wonderful around here, every year is now the same, when I'm on vacation the weather greets me with unbelievable blue skies and warm breeze, I'm so grateful for this.
Hope this new turn of the wheel now starting will be filled with new, I'm sure it will !
I've been studying a lot lately, about a new spirituality, a new way to see life and I'm so much enjoying it and I think that I'm especially loving even more because I've found my path, guess I'm starting to understand why certain things have happened in my life, I'm no more living completely in nostalgia world, I'm living here and now. I'm starting to let go and this is so important for me.
Wish you all a wonderful autumn season. Talk to you soon !

lost

2011-08-30T15:08:00.008+02:00

photo via

We live in a lost world. We lost our souls very long ago, we lost our beliefs too. I say this because I'm so tired of hearing on the news what is being said about the hurricane Irene in the US. I say this because today's people only problem is money: why are things being said like "it costed too much to evacuate people for nothing". Well, first people died, people are now suffering from all they no longer have. We all know that man cannot fight nature and that whatever happens when there is a catastrophe millions are going to be lost but isn't better to lose money by putting people safe than by burying them ? Why are we constantly crying for lost money ?

Clearly, we are about to lose our minds very soon.

for tea lovers

2011-08-25T09:28:00.005+02:00

Melita is hosting again this year her wonderful tea trade. Every year I've been joining and it's been a pleasure each time. As I'll not be hosting the autumn swap anymore (too many people last year who didn't received their package) this is going to be my annual trade which announces that fall (or spring for some of you) is just around the corner. If you want to participate, read it all here.

simple wonders

2011-08-23T18:50:00.007+02:00

a box of found treasures

a beautiful necklace

fresh flowers and magic wands

found treasures

This year I didn't do a "spring cleaning" so I thought a late summer cleaning would be just what I needed to clear the house and my mind. I hate doing this but there's always so many good things after all the efforts, like :

changing the furniture disposal (now my appartment looks like anouther place :) )

good vibrations around the appartment

energy flows freely

clearing out clutter

finding beautiful things that I thought was lost forever (the necklace above is a gift I receive some years ago from wonderful artist Erika Tysse, I'm so so happy to have found it )

making room for nature's free treasures

I think I'm now ready for the last summer days and for the new season ahead !

2011-08-19T23:26:00.004+02:00

photo credit

FRAIL DAWN

Frail dawn : the boundary
of your darkened lamp: air
without word: a rose-round, folding
corolla of ash. From the smallest
of your suns, you clench
the scald: husk
of relented light : the true seed
in your fallow palm, deepening
into dumbness. Beyond this hour, the eye
will teach you. The eye will learn
to long.

Paul Auster

Indian summer

2011-08-16T19:53:00.009+02:00

My favorite blog of beautiful deco with an indian/gipsy/bohemian touch....absolutely gorgeous ! Let's dream ! I'm feeling inspired, don't you ?

maybe not that much

2011-08-11T08:11:00.004+02:00

photo credit keksofant

Below you can read one of the many texts I write in my journal dedicated to my parents mourning and to the memories I don't want to forget. I like and I need to write about it. I've translated a bit for you.

"I have in mind some Bossa Nova tunes; the words of Vinicius de Moraes, Tom Jombin melodies and captivating voice of Gal Costa. There were also materialized desires of simple weekends: Sunday dinner at my aunt’s house, tablecloths in white cotton. Yet, it never failed the orange cake that accompanied the old Hollywood music hall every Sunday afternoon. Weekend cake was an unbreakable and necessary bond; the essential sweetness to a new work week ahead.

Times have really changed, no doubt. No more healthy cake on Sundays, now the cake is when you want. Sometimes I feel like sixty years old and to live in the shoes of another. Very often - too much, perhaps - I find myself common things with French women who are now sixty. We experienced some similarities, and have the same cinematographic references. A kind of timeless shift, which corroborates that Portugal was indeed cut off from global developments for almost half a century. I opened my eyes with it. I float as much as him. Here in France the women of my age who I met, share very little in common with me.
The other day I was talking with a lady of 65 years old, very elegant and beautiful. She wears a long gray braid that touches her lower back, always impeccably made-up eyes with black kohl. For some reason, throughout our conversations, we came to talk about airplanes and airports. She tells me that one of the main activities of a Sunday afternoon over the 50’s/60’s was to go watch planes take off. This story makes me take a leap back in time, taking me directly to the 80’s in Lisbon, at the Portela airport in which an input led us to the terrace where we could see planes take off, one by one, and almost distinguish those who sat behind each window; there weren't so many planes like today and they were so close and isolated on the track.

This is the same exact way we said goodbye to my sister one day of 1986 when she boarded Lufthansa destination Hamburg in Germany. Heading to another country, another language, another job, another life. That day, my mother's eyes were dark, we waved hands, we said goodbye to the plane in tears; at that time farewells were even more heartbreaking, heavy of meaning. The lack of money made our movements become almost like definitive.

From that day on and for the year ahead, my mother lived for Saturdays; day awarded with a call from my sister. She was permanently opening the door, having a look at the stairs of the building because we had no telephone and was at the neighbor's apartment that the call came. Her days began with a ritual; a request to God. If her daughter was healthy, she had to receive three signs in the minutes that followed from God, she could name anything, but most of the time she would say out loud: a crying child, a dog barking, a door slam. A few minutes of silence to hear the allowded requests and the day could finally begin in the certainty of her heart at peace. Times have changed, maybe not that much! "

what about energy ?

2011-08-08T12:07:00.006+02:00

incomplete paiting of mine

First of all, your comments and emails have been filling my heart with joy, wisdom and beauty. Thank you so much for being there, I will never thank you enough. Love you. Merci.

When I first started this blog the main theme was because I wanted something different from the one I had before since 2005. I wanted to talk more about spirituality, to discover more because I felt that it was what I needed and was looking for, that's why my blog's called "être-soi" - be yourself -
Questions engaging spirituality have always been very important to me, very important to keep me centered. I was always seeking, searching, studying since my teenage days but never finding. Than I thought that maybe I wasn't in need of spirituality, I forgot a bit about my quest and keep on living but when questions start coming again; questions about everyday life, questions about who we are and our loved ones, questions about professional matters, I always end up questioning my own spirituality. Maybe because it doesn't provides me the answers I need to hear.

These past couple of weeks have been a bit hard on me but so necessary. As I told you before I believe I'm on a new path to something, still figuring out what it is but in the middle of all this, that big question of spirituality has emerged again in my spirit.
I've always been someone who believes in our energy, in the energy of the things around us, on the universe's energy. Wether this energy is magical or not I don't know, but what I know is that this is a spiritual path I love to be in.

Last week I found that painting above that I had done more than 5 years ago, I always felt it uncomplete and I still feel it that way, even if the other day I made some changes on it. Maybe that painting is just me going through a path made of cycles and phases, a never ending story !

I told you some months ago that I wanted to go back to university (portuguese to become a teacher and literature because I love it), I received the documents to go start this but I will not. It just doesn't feel right, I never wanted to be a portuguese teacher, it was by default because I'm portuguese and well, I tought that maybe it was the right thing to do, the thing that I was waiting for to arrive. Literature and especially poetry are my forever loves but I can always go back do these studies, they will only be for my own personal culture so I can always go back to them one day, the most important is that I keep on writing and this is just something I can't stop doing :)

Feeling the void I have been feeling these couple of weeks just got me even more aware that art/craft is part of me and that I could never stop practising them anymore wether I'll be living from my art or not. I know now that cycles are part of my life and that I live by them and that I have to keep on learning to live by them.

Although I'm looking for anouther job I also know NOW that art/craft/writing make me who I am. I'm adding spirituality, some bit of energy and magic here and there and maybe my world will be better as days pass by.

And how about you ? How is your relationship with energy/magic and spirituality, if you'd like I would love to read what you think.

2011-08-04T10:51:00.004+02:00

photo C. Beaton

To be nobody but yourself
in a world
that is doing its best
to make you just like everybody else,
means to fight the greatest battle
there is to fight and never stop fighting.

E.E. Cummings

2011-07-29T10:54:00.008+02:00

Thanks so much for your wonderful comments on last post, it was wonderful to know that we all go through similar things, thank you !

So, this is what I've doing lately (not much):

drinking wine from bottles with beautiful labels :)

buying gorgeous flowers named "poets"

trying a whole new bunch of colored nail varnish (here the color was waikiki beach from Mavala)

small trips to Paris, gazing beautiful store windows

hoping for sun to comeback (it's been an horrible summer with no sun and no hot weather)

thinking about friends in far away places who have been dealing with pain (Norway and Japan) hoping that their hearts will be healed soon.

I will literally be the old woman who lived in her constant need for change

2011-07-19T09:10:00.008+02:00

photo credit

I'm on the edge of something. Of what, I really don't know, but I feel it coming. A new era, a renewal or maybe just an ongoing circle or phase that comes back around every 5/10 years. How can I long for things that I no longer wanted some years ago? How can I feel more complete by going back to them again? How can I feel empty of everything when I look at all that I've done these last years? Who do I want to be?
It's becoming more and more clearer that I have to let go of things that I have hold on to but which are no longer suiting me, maybe they will comeback one day, or maybe they will never be gone but one thing I have to do, is to let go the idea I have of my life and how I wanted it to be and how I worked hard for it during the last 10 years. I have to let go of the idea that I will NOT be living from my art as a gallery artist. That's it, I said it! Once, I read that accomplishment arrives when we let go of things, maybe it will happen or maybe not!

What I know is that I can no longer stay here in my cute town, having a hard financial life with a job that no longer gives me any thrill so that I can have time to let emerge the artist in me. What now? I guess 10 years was enough time to see more in me and to finally find out that I live through phases and that I have phases that I hate what I do and phases that I love what I do, so now what do I do with this ? Maybe I'll have to learn how to live along with those phases and try my best to keep on living.
That's the final point, right? What are we doing in this planet? What is our purpose? Maybe there’s none. So, I'll just continue on living my LIFE, that's the best I can do.

I guess that now my life wants me to get new things to do, elsewhere or in another way. You know, before I was in the art field, I worked at a fashion brand in the business department, at a NGO in the HR department and I liked it until one day I started hating life in a company, competitivity and all of that stuff that I hate ! Today I'd like to go back to a big company again, isn't it weird? At times I long for this so much.... I would love to work on an international environment again ....I miss it a lot (but NOT the competition part at all !!!). Time goes by so quickly and I feel at 35 that I'm missing things. Can you believe that I'm already struggling with time, oh boy, this is not a promise of good days ahead!!!! You don't know but I love astrology, and I would say that this is all Jupiter messing around in my sign :)

Well, you get to see the picture and what I'm longing for now: to let go and for new beginnings even if they are not really new and that they will not last long (I know that this is something that I would like to do for a few months only)! Yes I know this will not last long, maybe next week I'll even see things differently....
How about you? I would love to read your goals and dreams in your professional lives, so please comment, that would give us all some courage to achieve them!

Ps: Can you tell from whom I got the inspiration for the title ? Some clues: she's an international fashion icon, she's blond, she has 3 very fashionable girlfriends, she lives in NY.

update: right, it was Carry from SATC ;-)

void

2011-07-15T07:08:00.001+02:00

photo credit

At the moment I'm feeling incapable of doing whatever it is that I should be doing. I look at things and I feel a huge void, like a black hole from where nothing's gonna arise. And I hate summer for doing this to me, as I always feel this type of nothingness mostly and more frequently during summer time or maybe during summer time in France as everything stops. July and August in France are like ghost months. Wherever I turn feels like everyone's sleeping their life, like we just let it happen. Hoping for the summer to end quickly !!! And to take all this void along with it !

somewhere in Europe - Lisbon, Portugal

2011-07-12T16:01:00.007+02:00

some photos from here and the rest from Palacio Belmonte

If you are thinking of going to spend some time in Lisbon, Portugal I think this is the ideal hotel to stay. Don't you agree ?

Palacio Belmonte

I'll be a lot slower about posting during summer, as I don't take any vacation during this period of time I'll be making my own vacation whenever I can. For those who are leaving, have a great vacation :)

a little bit of everything

2011-07-06T23:11:00.004+02:00

A lot of questioning this week, about life, about work. But also, family e-gatherings. Internet is amazing. I found some family through Facebook, that I hadn't seen in at least 15 years. We are now in touch and very happy that bounds have been mend up.

You know I write a little, a lot :). There is this short story contest through internet and I wrote 2 short stories for it, it's in french but if you would like to help me a bit maybe you could vote for me, here are my 2 stories: la première neige (first snow) and le parfum du bonheur ( the perfume of bliss). Of course I will not won I know but maybe who knows at least to be in the first 10. Stories aren't my favorite style to write but I like to try it sometimes. Thank you so much. You just have to vote by clicking on the feathers at the bottom of the page.

Can you see Hammershoi's work on my wall ? I received this beautiful poster from a far away friend and I was so so happy. Isn't it beautiful ? Merci my friend :)

Ps: e'clair and Shelley please don't forget to send me your mailing adress for me to send you a little gift (remember my craft it forward giveaway ? ).

Essentiel

2011-07-05T11:57:00.007+02:00

Look how beautiful this outfits from Essentiel are, a belgium brand that I didn't knew of....like to discover these kind of cuties :)

madame Grès

2011-07-03T13:18:00.020+02:00

After Madame Grès, a lot of shopping and a stroll around The Louvre and the Tuilleries.

It was sucha a hot day, no macarons for us, we ate ice-creams instead :)

looking at the sky

2011-06-30T11:45:00.002+02:00

photo credit boligplus

Wouldn't it be lovely to dream with your head turned towards the sky ?

Ps: I'll post some photos soon from the dresses I saw at the museum, they are real textile sculptures...breathtaking !!!

Paris

2011-06-28T07:59:00.001+02:00

Today's hot day is going to be all about Paris. I'm going to spend the day there with a friend to go see this exhibition and to spend some good time between girls with some macarons maybe :)

Have a wonderful tuesday !

heat wave

2011-06-26T17:58:00.011+02:00

The heat wave arrived today. I have 3 days free from the museum so today I didn't do much :)
There was a flea market at a nearby town but with all the hot weather I didn't had the courage to go. In the morning I went to the farmers market and bakery and that was all.
Started my day with fresh bread and "viennoise au chocolat", than in the afternoon started a new project, watched beautiful "Orpheus and Eurydice" by Pina Bausch, made some blueberries cupcakes, on saturday I've received a very sweet letter with beauty inside, bought some "vinho verde" - "portuguese green wine" for tonight and relaxed a lot in my couch...it was a good weekend after all. How was yours ?

summer's here

2011-06-24T08:46:00.001+02:00

so come on, come out ! Have a great weekend, everyone :)

après la nuit

2011-06-22T12:09:00.006+02:00

photo by Lauren Withrow and words by me

Patchwork de mémoires, voilà
de quoi mon corps est constitué.

Elles sont cousues ou déchirées,
plus que tout elles se placent, ordonnées.

Tout comme le silence après le bruit, après la nuit.

captured words

2011-06-21T10:21:00.005+02:00

photo by manyfires

Last night I watched Malick's "The Thin Red Line", I wanted to watch this film before watching "The Tree of Life" that I've been waiting and waiting and still don't know if I'll be able to watch it on a cinema before it comes out on DVD as cinemas here aren't really helping the distribution of this film. Apparentely, people find it too long and too philosophical, I even heard of people coming out of the cinema before the movie's over.
This makes me think that nowadays, when it comes to stop and think people no longer are available for that. They prefer to watch all those violent crap films that are being distributed like candies. Which really is pitiful.

"The Thin Red Line" is a truly immense movie that must be watched at least once.

I captured some words that remained in my mind. Pure poetry:

You're death that captures all. You too are the source of all that's going to be born.
....................................
How did we loose all the good that was given us?. Let it slip away. Scattered careless.
...................................
We. We together. One being.
Flow together like water.
Till I can't tell you from me.
I drink you.
Now.
Now.

Ps: wanted to thank you all for the great comments you have been given me on my posts, it is so wonderful to read all your experiences. Thank you so much for being there. Those who were the first 5 to comment on my craft it forward post are going to receive something from me before the end of the year but for that I need this 3 people to send me their adress: e'clair, Shelley and Trina :) my email is on the right side of the blog ! Thank you.

my mirror ?

2011-06-19T10:42:00.006+02:00

photo by Lauren Withrow

My relationship with books started at the age of 8/9 years old. With writing at the age of 4. School in Portugal when I was a child started at the age of 5, but at the age of 4 I wanted to write my whole name, this was something I needed to know before going to school I even remember asking my mother and sister all the time to help me to write all middle names, surnames that compose my 4 word name. At home, music was THE important art; my father was a singer every weekend and he made his own instruments. My mother used to write "quadras populares" (a sort of strophe of 4 verses that rhyme usually about everyday and religious life) all the time: mentally (she would improvise) and by hand. At the age of 5 my parents enroled me on a choir and from then on I would dream of a jazz singer carreer through all my teenager years. Books and drawing and textile creations were the other side of my life. At home there were almost any books for me ( besides my father's Karl Marx books ) to read but I had a neighbour to whom I owe all my love for books. He had tons and tons of books and he was so happy to see me coming several times in the week just to hear him and to look with him to the last acquisition. I owe him my love for archeology when I was kid; he showed me all the beauty of old civilizations, different cultures, different places. He had such beautiful and big books that made me so impressed. All the encyclopedias and all the world maps (I was pretty good in geography after this). Well, I was completely smitten but my parents couldn't really afford to buy me books and there was no public library where I lived, my neighbour was my public library. He was old but had such a patience to explain me all (he had a son that didn't like to read), he also had great books of english and I remember that there was a word that I loved above all : "umbrella" I loved to say it as it was so different from the portuguese word and so cute too, I could say several times in a row !!!

Then when I was 11 my mother started buying every week a number of the world encyclopedia that I would put on a file until there was enough numbers to make a volume (a whole book). I loved to read this, all the mythology, all the history, all the images. When I think of this now I'm so grateful that she made the effort of buying them. When I was 13 my mom died and a lot of things changed, I moved house and lost almost all contact with my old neighbours but I moved to a town that had a public library in construction and as soon as it opened I was there. I had my library card and my first book was Nietzche (I was 14 and had no idea who he was and what it was about), "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", needless to say I didn't understand much but I kept on reading and from that day on whenever someone asked me if I had a child one day how would I named it I'd say Zarathustra (well I was a little bit weird) but I kept saying this until I was 20 or so.

After that I kept on reading Dostoyevsky and several portuguese writers too and one day I read a whole different thing, it was, Jonathan Livingston and I loved it so much, I felt I was that seagull. From then on I kept on searching for books that spoked to me instead of making me live different lives I will never live, I kept on searching for my life, for the one that I was and the one that I could have been if my life had been somehow different (like if my mother was still with me). I hanged on to this books, to music, to the things that my mother had taught me (crochet, some knitting, little embroideries) and to the power of all these together, the power to be free through all of these creations.

This is why nowadays I read most of all (80% of what I read) women writers, why I most read about themes that speak to me (death, motherhood, exile, language, etc), why I read not many novels (mostly essays, poetry and memoirs). I need literature to be my mirror.

I would love to know what do you seek in literature ?

feeling a little bit faded today

2011-06-17T11:55:00.006+02:00

photo by COSI (via the inspiration studio)

like this white on white.
Hope to feel better this weekend and wishing you a beautiful weekend to you all. xoxo.

craft it forward

2011-06-15T07:21:00.003+02:00

This wonderful gift arrived yesterday from Louisiana. A couple of months ago I posted on this post by Amanda from The habit of being, the idea was just amazing: craft something for the first 5 people who comment on your post and then send send it to them during 2011. I was one of those lucky 5 (she even sent to 7 more) and yesterday all this beauties were waiting on my mailbox.

So, I'm doing the same here. The first 5 of you who will comment here will receive something from me this year. It can be anything, just a little something to put a smile on your face. If you would like to play you can do the same through your blog too.

Somewhere in France - Ile de Ré

2011-06-14T07:40:00.001+02:00

photo credit Hotel Le Sénéchal

This is one of those places that I keep on my favorites. Ile de Ré is such a dream place and this hotel looks soooo perfect, don't you think ? Hotel Le Sénéchal. How I wish I could spend a week there soon...sigh !!

Pierre Mornet

2011-06-13T07:33:00.001+02:00

I've been following Pierre Mornet's work for some years now (maybe from the beginning) . His creations are really amazing. I collect any book or poster I can find with his illustrations. A feeling of nostalgia, a strange glow in the eyes, a perfect muted color palette. I especially love the women he designs, they are recognisable among all. Beautiful, don't you think ?

Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão

2011-06-09T07:09:00.000+02:00

Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão is a portuguese poet, dramatist and essayist she was born in 1938 and died in 2007.

For more than 30years Fiama gave Portugal a new breath to poetry, starting in 1961 she became part of a poetry movement called "Poetry 61". She was one of the poets that give poetry a new face, her work strives to talk about the real world while searching for the poetry that lives within. Everything lives inside the word, the word is the bond between worlds.
She published 14 poetry books and I have the feeling that she said all about the pain, tears and suffering.

While I could only find a few translated into english, none of them are translated into french, maybe one day I'll try my best at it.

The Voice of Things

Only the wind’s gusts
give lyrical sound
to the windmill’s sails.

Only things touched
by the love of other things
have a voice.

Daytime Song

[...] This daytime Love is in the body
and in one another, like bread broken
at the banquet of the silent guests
who break it singly and with the others.
No absent thing partakes of it
when time’s seasons, after Spring,
pass by us and stop
at the long table set for Summer.
Here all is presence, and time is the day.

© Translation: Richard Zenith

treasure box

2011-06-08T07:28:00.002+02:00

photo credit our long nights

"Each and everyone of us has inside a treasure box called memory"

peaceful

2011-06-07T18:13:00.003+02:00

Today when I arrived at the museum to open it there was this beautiful blue tit lying at the door, dead.

It looked like he was sleeping, he was so peacefully beautiful. He must have crashed while flying because the museum doors are all made of glass and unfortunately this happens very often. I've already seen some birds recover and just keep on flying but the smaller ones, they die. I feel guilty that we have these glass doors that misleads them...they are so cute and don't deserve this awful death !

pretty, pretty

2011-06-06T07:55:00.006+02:00

This is the pretty home of Jo Kornstein photographed by Hugh Sterwart. Via Sanctuary .

die moldau

2011-06-04T09:07:00.001+02:00

wish you beautiful sunny and cosy weekend with your loved ones !

crumble...crumble...

2011-06-01T07:46:00.000+02:00

This is the best crumble I've made in years :) It's an apple crumble (but I added some banana too).
Photo and recipe by Otchipotchi. Enjoy it !

visual poetry - words from the body

2011-05-31T07:45:00.001+02:00

The last form of contemporary art that took several years to really enter my heart was contemporary dance. Don't know why but I really didn't understood it. Don't know if I do now but what I know now is that there are some very good choreographers that can move me to tears. Don't know if time has something to do with the process; my heart was hermetic to it for so long but it's good to know that it's never too late for nothing.

Bodies take place in space guided by sounds, guided by poetry and become poetry themselves. Transformed bodies, revealing uncomparable feelings, desires and needs. Life through life and poetry through poetry as poetry is life. In a perpetual movement dance writes a poem.

Lately contemporary dance has been a constant guide on my path through poetry just like any other art form. How happy I am to have finally found it, I think I can understand its message more and I'm learning every day.

Found this beautiful piece of art by Carolyn Carlson , Paris-2004

beautifully said

2011-05-30T07:23:00.000+02:00

via una bella vita

inventory of poetic days : shadow

2011-05-26T09:48:00.007+02:00

Christina - Sofia

"The other in ourselves that follow us, that bind us to things, that other, that makes the whole being that we are. That shadow is the constant image of our souls. "

Friends, hello !
Our thursday's rendez-vous is here again, weeks fly.
This week shadow was our word, I hope you'll like what me and Christina have "seen" and what we have to say about it this week.
Don't forget to go over at wonderful Christina's blog and say hi :)
All the other Inventory of poetic days are gathered here.
Have a wonderful day,
xoxo

aren't we all messengers ?

2011-05-25T07:38:00.000+02:00

"Afterwards" is a film about life even if the main theme is death. Two of my favorite actors together (John Malkovich and Romain Duris). Have you watched it ?

nostalgia

2011-05-24T07:44:00.002+02:00

Internet is really amazing, it's incredible the things we can find that I thought would be lost forever but in a few seconds it got me back home when I was still a child on a very calm and very hot summer afternoon, when I used to stop all that I was doing and rush to the window completely mesmerised by the sound coming from the street. It was such an hypnotic sound, I remember putting my chin over my hands and watch a man walk down the street until there was no sound left. I remember a feeling of sadness whenever I heard him, I thought that he would feel the same because no one came to listen to him on the street.

This is an old craft called "amolador" I guess in english could be something like knife sharpener, he fixes knifes and umbrellas. My mother used to say when she heard him that it was going to rain that day (and most of the time it did). Never knew why we used to say this, maybe because he fixed umbrellas but I secretely thought that the sky was also just as sad as me of seeing him going up and down the streets alone playing that sad melody.

He represented something mystical almost magical; the loneliness in the eyes was a constant to all of them, and the promise of rain ahead almost like a weather hunter would do if he could catch the sun and put in a box and pull imaginative clouds behind his bicycle.

life again

2011-05-19T18:39:00.015+02:00

Ate the first cherries of the year and they were so sweet :) The weather's been so sunny around here for about a month now, sun is shining and I can hear birds songs every morning.

In the last weeks I've received gifts from new friends that have warmed my heart. Wonderful bits and pieces of their everyday life have now reached my own everyday life. Books, sweets and words what do we need most, right ? Thank you dear friends (Christina and Vibeke).

Things have been a little bit hard around here; health problems in the family, financial problems and everyday questioning about it all and about what path to follow. Everything's been so still and all of a sudden things start moving but not in the way I expected or wanted. It's always like this. The month of May is here again and it's almost over. The last couple of years I started thinking about getting back to the university (or making the university come to me) and make that degree that I've always wanted to do: Portuguese literature and Compared literature. Last year I almost did it but I really wasn't ready, today I'm going to send my pre-registration form and see what it happens. I'm hoping that they will validate part of the year and that I'll only have the half of the year to do. I'll be adding this to my work, I'll do it alone, at home, so this is a big challenge. University for this degree it's not in Paris but on the other side of France, Nancy, so this means that I'll have to go there twice a year to pass the exams but I think I'm ready. This last week I've been doing copies, gathering a part of my life in papers to send them and I have to say that the envelope is going to be heavy !

So, I'm now going to the post office to post it, cross your fingers for me and please send me and my husband positive thoughts. Thank you so much for reading me and for your precious comments that always warm my heart.

And things aren't always bad either, wonderful news can arrive in a second and light up your world. Yesterday I received the news that a poem I had submited for publication on a poetry french magazine was accepted and that it will be published this fall. I'm happy !
I've also sent the first 5 poetry manuscripts yesterday, maybe some good news will arive in a few months ! Hoping that your weekend will be sunny wherever you are. xoxo.

inventory of poetic days : sweet

2011-05-19T09:38:00.004+02:00

Christina - Sofia

"take time to change things, make them as close to your desires as possible and life itself will become sweeter: crunch life"

hello friends,

thursday's here again and with it a new word. Sweet it is.

Don't forget to go have a look at Christina's place. Hope you'll like the "sweets" we made for you.

friis & company

2011-05-18T09:55:00.005+02:00

Friis & Company is softness from Sweden.

the region where i live

2011-05-17T08:11:00.000+02:00

photo:flaneuse

I was very happy and surprised to see this video yesterday about the region where I live in one of the most important television news. It's like a cute postcard and who would have thought that it's all just so close to the crazyness of a city like Paris.

Saul Leiter

2011-05-15T10:10:00.004+02:00

Saul Leiter's amazing photos

to be lost to be found

to be here and there

to be absent to be omnipresent

bits of us nowhere falling down

everywhere

inventory of poetic days : light

2011-05-13T18:43:00.007+02:00

Christina - Sofia

This post disapeared this morning from blogger. As I was keeping this as a "notebook" my words for this week's inventory of poetic days are now lost forever (thanks blogger !) somewhere in the web world.

For the moment I can only ask you to go check on my friends Christina's blog for her daily posts but not for this weeks inventory of poetic days post because I've just checked and blogger made her post disappear too !!!

Well, wish you all a wonderful weekend and maybe our posts will be found along the way !!!

**********************************************************************************

edit 9:20pm: I'm happy I could find the original post on google reader and got back my words but your comments got lost, I'm so sorry !

post as it was:

"and she sees the morning sun (that daily promise that made her pursue until now) liquefying in a bath of light splashing her here and there, bringing her back to life."

This week I've been taking it slow and I'll be doing this for the next few days again, but on thursdays I'm here, we are here (me and Christina).
This week is all about light, isn't that photo of Christina just amazing, that honey and all that light coming through it catched in a glimpse... pure beauty !
Don't forget to check on Christina's blog too and I hope you'll like our photos and words once again.
For all the other Inventory of poetic days just follow this link.

Florbela's heedless life

2011-05-09T08:19:00.001+02:00

Florbela Espanca (1894-1930) is a portuguese poetess. She was born in the south of Portugal, in the Alentejo region.
I was born and lived in Portugal until I was 18 years old and in high-school we had to study Florbela’s poetry in the Portuguese class and that wasn’t really a problem to me.
She was a Neo-romantic poetess and the precursor of feminism in Portugal .
She lived a very painful life without knowing who her real father was, unfortunate loves, two miscarriages, her brother’s death and mental illness which lead her to commit suicide.

Her poetry is mostly composed by sonnets and her favorite subjects were love, death, passion or loneliness. Florbela was a very passionate woman. To make her poetry sound more painful, she “painted” her poetry with colors, spreading here and there purple flowers, bleeding trees and pale souls.
The sonnets titles are also aching like Torture, Lost Soul, My tragedy, My Evil or Madness.

I can almost believe that she "liked" the feeling of suffering. She developed and exagerated it in her poetry taking advantage of this growing feeling to write and endend up keeping this vicious cercle alive for eternal inspiration.
Her poems are sad, maybe even chocking to that time but beautiful.

She also wrote about the region where she was born. This poems of her touch me deeply in my soul and much more since I left my country to live in France, as my family is also from the Alentejo area in the south of Portugal, a region I love and know too well.
Maybe (or surely) inspired by her writing I wrote some time ago poems about (and for) this peaceful and enchanting region of Portugal.
Some years after I had to leave my country, my family and that same region that Florbela wrote about, I had to put it down to paper and exorcize the feeling of emptiness that I had been carrying with me since that moment.
Florbela helped me when I went through a very difficult period of time away from my beloved ones. I immersed myself in her words and I discovered then that I could find relief in creation.

I had to present you this poetess although I know that it is hard to find her work in the USA or around the world.

Finally just wanted to leave you with a little bit of her poetry and mine (inspired by hers).

I want to love, to love heedlessly!
To love for the sake of loving: Here...there...
This one, that other and everyone...
To love! To love! And love no one

He who loves someone and says that love’s fire
Can last a lifetime is nothing but a liar!

From “Amar” poetry by Florbela Espanca.

“... on a beautiful day I left you,

on a beautiful day I came back.
The fields, the heat, the olive trees and

the waves of a raging ocean of seeing me leave,

obliged to do so,

because it was impossible to live

in this paradise so close to hell.”

From “Ma terre" poetry by Sofia Barão that has been published in 2008.

Florbela was my first contact with a poetry that in my earlier days fed my soul, she was the first one in my heart and she still is...

my paintings

2011-05-06T08:01:00.001+02:00

" Voir arriver le jour "

"Aurora II"

"un jour fait de pluie"

Have I told you about Three Graces Gallery in Portsmouth, NH, USA where you can find my paintings ? Kim Ferreira is the wonderful curator of this beautiful gallery and soon you will also find some of my crochet jewelry collection there too.

Do you want to have a look at my available paintings that you can find there ? Here it is. Wish you a wonderful weekend everyone :)

inventory of poetic days : word

2011-05-05T09:12:00.003+02:00

Christina - Sofia

"words fade from memory, they live a story where the forgotten are now part of the silence that words have thrown into the mill of dreams. "

Thursday's today, which means inventory of poetic days here and at my friend's Christina. So don't forget to go have a look at her post too.
Hope you like our photos and the words I've put together, too. Have a beautiful thursday !

the blues

2011-05-04T08:15:00.001+02:00

Beautiful blues by Andrew of CubaGallery
On anouther note, my friend Hila at the wonderful blog Projet d'amour needs your help to win a competition, if you can vote for her blog please make it here it only takes a minute. Thank you very much . Have a great wednesday !

Antonio Marras

2011-05-03T08:58:00.001+02:00

Ivan Terestchenko photo from his blog

Ivan Terestchenko photos for Figaro Magazine of Antonio Marras atelier in Sardinia

Antonio Marras A/H 2011 - photos: style.com

Antonio Marras is one of favorite designers if not my first favorite of all. Every one of his collections is a runway of pure poetry. Every one of them is inspired by an artist, a movie, a painter, a poet... well everything that I love. And if that wasn't already enough he comes from Sardinia in Italy, a place I love and that at several points reminds me of my own country, in my own south. He stayed faithful to his roots as he still lives and works there with his family and team. Sardinia's melancholy, history and sun rays are also sewed in each dress, each coat. He can remarkably tell us stories where women always will have the first roll. He is what he is today because one day he fell in love with the fabric that his father sold at his own store somewhere on the island. He never took a fashion degree and his passion was enough to give us emotions through his art. Well, I love Antonio Marras work so much and I think you can understand why.

do you know why my name is Sofia Laura ?

2011-05-02T08:48:00.001+02:00

Well, my father was "in love" with Sofia Loren and when I was born when he went to register me they didn't accept Sofia Loren as I was supposed to be named, so my sister came up with Laura. We always laughed at this when we were all together :)

Inspired by poetry

2011-04-29T08:34:00.000+02:00

Do you remember the necklaces I told you about here ? The ones that you can find at Selfridges at the Supermarketsarah wall ? Well, "Inspired by Poetry" necklaces are now also available on my Etsy shop. They are available in beige, bright pink and a beautiful green verbena color. Hope you'll like them.

Wish you all a wonderful weekend.

inventory of poetic days : dream

2011-04-28T09:12:00.005+02:00

Christina - Sofia

"awaken the dream that slumber in the noise inside bodies made of light"

It's thursday and here we are for our weekly rendez-vous. The word today is dream and the photos we made inspired me the words above. I'm loving how word-images-words are leading me on a circle of inspiration as we start with one word, to go on to an image and then we go back again at words (our own or others quotes) it's like a spinning wheel !

To read what my beautiful partner in beauty has to say this week go here and to see and read all the other words please go here .

Thank you for being there, wish you all a happy thursday !

covers

2011-04-27T08:07:00.002+02:00

A book besides being a way to learn, to travel, to best know yourself it is also (and beyond of what it can hold inside) a piece of art. I've bought books because of their cover and I never regret them even if they aren't the best one's I've read. Here in France it isn't really easy to find beautiful book covers as if the beauty of the cover could somehow be opponent to what's inside. Fortunately things are changing and there are some beautiful covers (especially from small publishers) now dressing more and more literature.

While browsing through amazon (uk and usa) and this great blog I've come upon these beautiful covers. Hope you'll like them.

to be pretty

2011-04-26T08:13:00.000+02:00

To be adored makes clothes in which we adored to be in just to feel pretty ! Lovely !!!

just got back from the

2011-04-25T12:03:00.005+02:00

Easter flea market on this beautiful and very hot spring morning. Took some photos for you, these were some of the things you could find there... sometimes I wish I could have more money and more space to bring all these goodies home !

Wish you a wonderful start of week !

a walk to the park under the flower blossoms

2011-04-22T08:09:00.001+02:00

and look what I found !!! An old postcard dated from october 1925 isn't amazing, to find it like that on the street ? Of course, I took it home with me and while reviewing my second poetry manuscript ( I have 50 poems there !!!) under the blossom trees I was thinking how that postcard got there that day...

Have a wonderful Easter weekend, here weather is more than wonderful and on monday there will be a brocante in my town, I'll take some photos for you ;-)

inventory of poetic days : heart

2011-04-21T08:19:00.001+02:00

Christina - Sofia

"The language of the heart is the only one that is immediate. When the heart speaks, the mind becomes quiet. Ssshhuuuu"

A new week of inventory, this thursday heart is the word. Hope you'll like it. For Christina's words go here and for more poetic days please go here.

Have a wonderful thursday!

(click on images for a larger view)

eco-fashion | positive-fashion

2011-04-20T07:48:00.001+02:00

Ekyog is one of those fashion brands that can conciliate beauty and responsability. Love Ekyog.

Somewhere in France - Honfleur, Normandy

2011-04-19T08:08:00.001+02:00

Wouldn't you just love to be there in this Bed and Breakfast in the beautiful town of Honfleur by the sea, for spring ? Le Clos Bourdet looks like a dream place to stay for a day or a week...sigh !!!

Mna Na Heireann - woman of Ireland

2011-04-18T07:10:00.003+02:00

One of the most beautiful voices of France of the moment, Nolwenn Leroy really pays a beautiful tribute to her celtic roots by singing songs from Brittany and other celtic countries (here Ireland). This one is my favorite. Wish you a beautiful week.

my flight - who I was, who I am

2011-04-15T08:17:00.006+02:00

photo credit

What have you been doing for the past 10, 15 or 20 years? What do you do now that you didn't do before, what do you have now that you hadn't before ? What was like then and how is it now ?

At 15:

I was in love with Jordan from the NKOTB - I lived on the other side of the river in front of Lisbon -My mother had died 2 years before -I wanted to live abroad -I wanted to be a jazz singer or a translator -I used to buy tons of magazines each month -I took tons of black and white photos with my best friend Tina -I was living with my sister and brother in law -I was in love with Nat King Cole's voice -I could read Florbela Espanca poems for hours -I had no money to buy a Levi's jeans -I had a black journal since forever -I liked to dress myself in black and with lace - I had no fear

At 25:

I had met my husband 4 years before - I was living and working in Paris - I was living in a small studio and alone - I had already worked and lived in 2 different countries - I had touched snow for the first time 6 years before - I lost contact with my best friend Tina - I didn't have a drivers license - I had already gone through 2 failed relations - I had no time to read or to breathe - I started wearing nails varnish and lipstick more often - I was starting to become anxious - I listened to Eros Ramazzotti all the time - I secretly dreamed of becoming a jazz singer

At 35:

I live with the one I love -I live in a beautiful and quite town outside Paris - I have no children - I dream of being an artist/designer full time - I'm a chronically anxious person - I give a lot of attention to what I eat - I found my friend Tina, who is now a mother - I don't have a drivers license - I've been writing again since 5 years - I lost my dad 6 years ago -I don't have the house of my dreams - I dress myself with color and still love lace - I'm afraid of a lot of things - I love to read books written by women - I read tons of magazines each month - I know now that my black journal was sent to trash - I went back to Portugal only once since I left 16 years ago - I ask myself too many questions

And how about you ? Have you asked yourself who you was and who you are now ? Do you still recognise the person you once was ?

*************************************************************************************

I don't know if you have the same problems with blogger as I do, but it's more and more difficult every day to make a good set up post, photos and text never appear as I like, I'm not liking it here !!!!

Wish you a great weekend, it's sunny here :)

inventory of poetic days : simplicity

2011-04-14T08:31:00.004+02:00

Christina Sofia

"Clarity lives inside the simple things, inside of what is left unsaid."

This week, Christina and I searched the poetic side of simplicity, hope you'll like it. Don't forget to go see what Christina has to say about simplicity.

Want to look at past poetic days ? My inventory is here.

(click on photos for a larger view)

Lisbon Story

2011-04-13T08:52:00.002+02:00

Madredeus - Alfama par paleopale

In 1994 was my last year of high-school and I was in Portugal, that year Wim Wenders made a film called Lisbon Story that was a huge success. The plot is very simple : a sound engineer goes to Lisbon to record the sounds of the city. A poetic film unfolds rocked by the crystal clear voice of Teresa Salgueiro of the portuguese folk group Madredeus.

If you want to listen to the Lisbon story soundtrack by Madredeus .

If you want to know what "saudade" sounds like listen to them and if you have the possibility watch the movie too, you'll have then a glimpse of my joyful-melancholic hometown and you'll perhaps learn the Lisbon story !

memory lane

2011-04-12T08:33:00.005+02:00

Christian Chaize is a french photographer who fell in love with Portugal and especially the beaches. For many years he has travelled to Portugal, to this tiny beach on the south of Portugal - the beach is literally called small beach-praia pequena - and he has photographed it hundreds of times at every hour of the day always from the same angle. He has become obsessed by it. This beach is actually one of the beaches that I used to go to in summer time when I was there for the summer holidays (I lived in Lisbon at that time). Seeing this pictures just brought back sweet memories ...

Sophia de Mello Breyner

2011-04-11T08:07:00.004+02:00

photos by Eduardo Gageiro

Almost all of my posts this week will be dedicated to my country, Portugal. What better way to start than with some poetry, the poetry I've grown up with. First there was Florbela Espanca, discovered at school and that will stay forever with me wherever I go. Than there was Fernando Pessoa and Sophia de Mello Breyner in high-school.

Today, I'm only going to present you Sophia.

Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen was a portuguese writer and poet who lived from 1919 to 2004. She is one of the most important portuguese contemporary poets, her poems were said to be "european" as she was inspired by Homero and Rainer Maria Rilke but also by portuguese poets such as Pessoa and Camoes. Her main themes are the sea, freedom and ancient Greece.

I like so much to read what she used to say about what poetry meant to her: “Poetry is my understanding with the universe, my way of relating to things, my participation in reality, my encounter with voices and images. That is why the poem speaks not of an ideal life but of a concrete one: the angle of a window, the resonance of streets, cities and rooms, the shade cast by a wall, a sudden face, the stars’ silence, distance and brightness, the night’s breathing, the scent of the linden and of oregano.”

You can find more of her poems in english here

Midday

Midday. A corner of the deserted beach.

The huge, deep, open sun on high

Has chased all the gods from the sky.

The harsh light falls like a punishment.

There are no ghosts and no souls,

And the vast, ancient, solitary sea

Loudly claps its hands.

Sofia Barao at Selfridges - Supermarket Sarah wall

2011-04-08T08:21:00.001+02:00

Earlier in March I made this batch of necklaces, do you know where they went ? Well, yes they are going to be very soon for sale at Selfridges (Oxford street, London) at the Supermarket Sarah Wall. Needless to say I'm so so happy to have this opportunity. Thank you so much to Sarah.

I've made this type of crochet necklaces that will be up for sale at 25£ (40usd). They will be available in 2 colors (beige and bright pink) made of 100% organic cotton.

The good news is that they are also going to be available soon through my shop (in 3 colors) if you don't live in the london area.

Wish you all a perfect sunny weekend, for me saturday will be my first day at work after a long vacation, the best part is that I always start work with an opening party !

inventory of poetic days : habit

2011-04-07T10:14:00.003+02:00

Christina - Sofia

With the daily habit life slowly goes by, just like the day follows the night.

This is the projet I told you about on monday. Wonderful Christina from the beautiful and inspiring blog Soul Aperture and I are going to post every week our 2 visions of everyday words.

For this first week, the word is habit and after the diptych is created each one of us write a phrase of our own or someone else's quote to capture in words what we have put together. So, now you can go to Christina's blog today to read what she's saying about habit this week.

Our project is called - Inventory of poetic days - lovely, right ? I'm so happy to do this project with Christina, she's a wonderful person and artist, her photos are peaceful and full of everyday poetry.

Hope you'll like this thursday's rendez-vous with us.

(click on photos for a larger view)

the reward of silence

2011-04-06T08:43:00.000+02:00

by Clare Elsaesser

Spring|Summer 2011

2011-04-05T08:03:00.005+02:00

private poetry

everyday poetry

Lilia - leather and lace

sparkle necklace - available in 3 colors

delicate poetry - available in 6 colors

My SpringSummer collection for 2011 is now at the shop. When I look at all the pieces that I create I can see that what I like the most is to create from almost nothing. No assemblage of already made pieces. What I like most is to create from scratch: with a thread, a paste (for the cold porcelain), a paint or a fabric. To transform it, to manufacture it, to search for new ways with the means that I possess. It's like making a painting, to start from a white canvas.

I'm sure you already heard about slow fashion or slow wear, this is what I do, handmade is a slow way of doing things, time, is for me a silent companion and not an hostile clock that I must work with. To make things it takes time, we have completely forgot that, even the most important designers in the fashion industry have forgotten that. I've read an article the other day about the lack of time in every field of life and even the haute couture fashion designers now have no time to wait for an handmade embroidery or an handmade lace, because there is no longer 2 collections a year but 4 or 6, they have to make time (and money) choices, isn't this terrible ?

Of course and fortunately there are still wonderful things being made around the world but I'm sure that there are plenty of crafts that have disapeared or are almost lost forever and that's really a loss for nowadays lack of employement and for our future generations memory.

Anyway, hope you'll like what I've slowly made for this 2 seasons ahead !

And on this subject I made this treasury called Slow wearSlow fashion, hope you'll like it too !

last week of vacations

2011-04-04T08:15:00.008+02:00

This will be my last week of vacations, next saturday I'll start working for the next 5 months in a row at the museum, which means that I won't have vacations in a looooonnnnggg time :)

This vacations, I loved to go on a daily walk around town and discover new buildings and spring flowers. I also loved the slow moments around the house, where silence was king. I like that I still have that green plant alive, don't know for how long but it still is.

And I also loved to read the wonderful book of Hila and Amy "The elements in-between", so well written, so delightfully illustrated. I liked to read about films that I've watched and how both of them feel them but also loved to discover new ones that I'm adding to my list.

And, this week there will be a surprise, a new project I'm starting with a very talented friend...can't wait to show you. Also, the new spring/summer collection is now available on my Etsy shop since saturday, but I'll make a proper post about it.

This morning I'm off to the museum because the exhibition is going to be presented (to the people who work there) and afterwards I'll have lunch with my colleagues. Wish you all a wonderful week !

when the head wants ... the head gets

2011-04-01T08:10:00.009+02:00

beautiful Peggy Wolf's artwork

Last week, my sister and my 10 year old niece came to spend some days with us. It is so wonderful to have them around. My sister, niece and nephew are the only family I have in France and we don't get to see ourselves often even if we speak almost daily on the phone or on the internet.

I do believe that I will not have children and that my niece and nephew are the only kids that were/are/will be around me, close to me. Sometimes I find myself thinking about what am I going to let to my niece; a good bag, a good coat, my paintings, my words... hoping that she will like them one day ! I also understand if she doesn't wants to keep them.

I never wrote here about the absence of children in my life, but I suppose today's the day. Apparently there's a psychological block in me that prevents me from getting pregnant, here, I said it !

The strangest thing in all this, is that life passes us by so fast and my head dictates what I should live or not; I feel so helpless. Half of the time I say myself I'm lucky; I don't want children and I can't have them, but I also think this is the way I found to accept it. Because, the other half of the time I also say myself I would love to be a mother....but is it possible to be a mother when I lost mine along my path of live, still when I was a child.

This is a subject that really interests me, I read a lot of books about this and I believe that for some women the act of giving birth when themselves haven't really "lived" their own lifes of a daughter/mother relationship can be very destabilizing and become a matter of blockade.

I almost don't remember what it was like to be a daughter or to have a mother, I have no possibility to ask my mom so many things and the act of becoming mother myself really feels like the most difficult thing in the world to me.

Our mind can be so powerful. My head has been fooling me around for more than 23 years now.

Leave you with the beautiful voice, melody and strong poetry of Rumer, that I discovered lately (thank you a butterfly in my hair ). Even before I knew this song had been written in memory of her late mother, I felt it was my story but in fact this song's everyone's song. Life is made this way; we all lose someone we love along the way. Have a peaceful weekend.

********************************************************************************************* (would have liked to leave you with it but it looks like the playlist doesn't want to work, so I invite you to go here and listen to "On my way home")

on a spring sunny day

2011-03-31T08:16:00.002+02:00

to pick some flowers and to walk along the river was a must do.

spring - spring - spring

2011-03-30T08:11:00.001+02:00

The new spring lookbook at Ruche is online. That's one beautiful world, right ?

what more could

2011-03-29T08:20:00.000+02:00

a girl ask for ?

cute dress and shoes and sun

chocolate cupcakes

bright yellow mimosa tree branches

and a new crochet and chain long necklace.

I don't know, do you ???? :)

ma vie dort tranquille | my life sleeps peacefully

2011-03-28T08:14:00.003+02:00

Photo credit

Thought of starting the week with some of my poetry, in french. Hope you'll like it.

********************************************************************************* "Ma vie dort tranquille, il ne faut surtout pas la réveiller. Les pensées veillent sur elle l'empêchant de naufrager. Dans le blanc ou le noir ma vie dort quelque part, elle vague dans la fatigue des souvenirs, elle attend l'instant pour enfin toucher le tout petit coeur et plonger dans l'éveil que procurent les respirations emmêlées." **************************************************************************

live at peace with itself

2011-03-25T08:00:00.002+01:00

beautiful aurora

accept the unacceptable. accept the unbelievable. accept what must happen. accept the inevitable. accept what must be.

accept what you see.

accept what it is. accept the decision. accept the beginning. accept the renewal. accept that nothing is unalterable.

Poetry

2011-03-24T08:22:00.000+01:00

Poetry is just life, I will never cease to say it. There are people who refuse to see it, some have forgotten it, others are too ocupied to feel it but poetry, is just life.

Have you watched the korean film Poetry by Lee Chang-Dong ? In this film, poetry arrives in Mija's life at a moment where life itself starts to fall apart. Poetry allows her to finally look inside her life, to act even if everything and everyone around her tells her what to do because it's the best solution for social and human misery. Mija finally writes her poem while doing what it had to be done.

Beautiful film.

paintings: women with books 3

2011-03-23T08:38:00.001+01:00

William Paxton

Will Barnet

Toraji

Odilon Redon

Jillian Tamaki

Felice Casorati

August Macke
source

to be a girl !!!!!!!

2011-03-21T08:38:00.001+01:00

why does this happens everytime ? Before I wanted this and now I have it. But since I have it I haven't stoped thinking about these haircuts above.... it's hard to be a girl sometimes !!!!

==============================

If you're in the London, UK area, there will be an auction for Japan this saturday 26th, bloggers4japan.

Please don't miss it if you can and take your friends with you. More info here.

pink tea on a grey day

2011-03-19T10:18:00.003+01:00

The last couple of days have been a little grey around here, thankfully trees are blooming and color wakes us a little from our winter long sleep !

A very good friend of mine, offered me this herbal tea the other day "Rose Shocking" (rose, hibiscus) by Quai Sud along with anouther Theodor tea called "Carpe Diem" and they are sooo good ! Especially the Carpe Diem one (red berries, rooibos and almonds, delicious, right ? ).

So, it looks like my weekend is going to be a slow one, I'll have tea and start a new book "Voyages" by Herbjorg Wassmo. Voyages is a book of 4 short stories told by 4 women where they will take us through a journey in search of their personality and childhood, I think I'll like it, it will be my first time reading this norwegian writer, do you know her work ?

Wish you a wonderful weekend and let's hope that this one will be a more appeased one for a lot of people around the world !

4 japan with ♥

2011-03-17T00:08:00.004+01:00

Words are not enough in times like the one that japanese people are facing right now. I'm having a hard time to continue living my everyday life knowing what's going on, on the other side of the world. Every morning since friday I'm afraid of reading the news when I open my laptop.

Tomorrow, friday, I'm joining the "Bloggers- day of silence for Japan" I will not post tomorrow. This afternoon I shipped 2 necklaces I made for the bloggers4japan auction that Katie will held on saturday 25th (more info on this next week).

If you can please make something, give something.

Here is all the information you'll need if you would like to help with "For Japan with love". Thank you.

être soi... be who you want to be

more from Danemark

the critical eye of the vital needle

colors of my life

lost ... will I ever find myself ?

to long for

être soi... be who you want to be

just some photos

shine a light

life is a bunch of details

lost

for tea lovers

simple wonders

Indian summer

maybe not that much

what about energy ?

I will literally be the old woman who lived in her constant need for change

void

somewhere in Europe - Lisbon, Portugal

a little bit of everything

Essentiel

madame Grès

looking at the sky

Paris

heat wave

summer's here

après la nuit

captured words

my mirror ?

feeling a little bit faded today

craft it forward

Somewhere in France - Ile de Ré

Pierre Mornet

Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão

treasure box

peaceful

pretty, pretty

die moldau

crumble...crumble...

visual poetry - words from the body

beautifully said

inventory of poetic days : shadow

aren't we all messengers ?

nostalgia

links

life again

inventory of poetic days : sweet

friis & company

the region where i live

Saul Leiter

inventory of poetic days : light

Florbela's heedless life

my paintings

inventory of poetic days : word

the blues

Antonio Marras

do you know why my name is Sofia Laura ?

Inspired by poetry

inventory of poetic days : dream

covers

to be pretty

just got back from the

a walk to the park under the flower blossoms

inventory of poetic days : heart

eco-fashion | positive-fashion

Somewhere in France - Honfleur, Normandy

Mna Na Heireann - woman of Ireland

my flight - who I was, who I am

inventory of poetic days : simplicity

Lisbon Story

memory lane

Sophia de Mello Breyner

Sofia Barao at Selfridges - Supermarket Sarah wall

inventory of poetic days : habit

the reward of silence

Spring|Summer 2011

last week of vacations

when the head wants ... the head gets

on a spring sunny day

spring - spring - spring