From Isabel to Domingos

It took 3 weeks for us to set a proper date and carry out with the meeting. I realized that if you consider doing something and as time goes by you don’t do it, it turns out to bother a lot! Even into make a pleasure meeting becoming an annoying obligation. I began to get not interested about him, thought about simply delivering the gift to his house or work and give some excuse why I hadn’t written about it.

We met at the tube station near to my adorable English everyday school, at Holborn. It’s a very common thing in London to meet people at some tube station, even not using it frequently… It was the third time I met someone to give a gift and all of them occurred in some underground station. Maybe if we instantly hated each other we could dash to the stairs and go somewhere else that is not where we were.

We went to this cafe in a charm street nearby, as I get addicted to coffee, I had my first cup, with milk always, at that time. Everyday I wait to drink coffee somewhere with someone. It´s now a ritual for me to invite someone to have a coffee, it’s a really neutral way of meeting people, can be anyone with any implication and the fact that you ask them to have a coffee with. really do not undertake you in any way.

As both Brazilians – funnily we were served by a Brazilian waitress – , we couldn’t avoid speaking about the experience of being a foreigner. I lived in three different cities in Brazil for at least 9 years in each, so for me, was common not to feel completely belonging to where I was living at each moment – like I feel here now. There is always some doubt about being somewhere or choosing where to live, specially if you think about it as a choice for the future, or for settling you down.

To Domingos was a different issue. After living in a couple of continents and having married a North-American girl, they decided to live in a city that did not belong to any of them, neither Brazil nor USA, so they came to England. I’ve always thought about moving with a lover. Perhaps to make all the new things instantly and invariably connected to ourselves, as the average everyday life kills the passion much faster. And it’s also very useful for the future as you will have even more special memories about that person than if you had lived always in the same place in the same way.

I discovered something amazing about his living here, he has this special visa that is not about being an European citizen, marrying someone here, studying or be employed, is a visa given to people with extraordinary work or skills that want to develop their research or their work, fantastic!

As a gentlemen, he offered to pay the coffee and let me speak eloquently about my current impressions on life, big cities, people, money, fashion, freedom. At some moment, I gave the book that his mother had sent to him. About architecture, his most moving subject in life. A book about Brazilians’ houses. He said that his mother is always sending books – there’s nothing more personal and more difficult to get rid off when moving than books. It suddenly occurred to me that parents can be similar to books as we don’t choose them, they definitely build our truths and we can’t deny their importance, even if we just let them standing in some shelf… This one was to help he remember where he came from, where his roots are and who still, stand, missing him.

~ by giftome on August 26, 2009.