ANZAC Day Rising My Spirits

On April 25, 2018April 30, 2018 By taniacreationsIn roaming the earth, whereLeave a comment

The advantage of having been sleepless lately is that waking up before 5am to get to the Dawn Service for Anzac Day was much easier.

I had this strong desire to be there, and I walked through darkness to get to Georges Heights, in Mosman.

If I was in an unsafe place I would have been afraid when I heard running behind me of multiple pairs of legs; but looking back this mother and small boy informed me ‘the alarm didn’t go off’ and ran ahead.

We got there in time, the service was just starting, permeated by the smell of sausage sizzle and the gentle frying sound that my mind kept sending me as images of waterfalls.

The morning singing birds reminded me of the time when I arrived in beautiful Sydney, fourteen years ago, they bring an unnamed tightness to my chest of love, longing, adventure.

The service was beautiful, and the part that I loved the most was a very simple letter from a soldier who wrote it to the father of his fallen friend. I cried, those words that crossed oceans and time made their way to us, to remind us of the sense of loss and love.

I have strong feelings against war, but warm feelings towards people, families, and soldiers who make the ultimate sacrifice for a greater cause.

When the speaker told us of this land that receives so many peoples from over the seas, I felt welcomed and warm in the Australian embrace.

The sunrise wasn’t as spectacular today, but the moment was of beauty and sadness and happiness to be here. I felt my bond to this land deepening, even more.

On my way home I saw a lot of flashing lights, police cars, one of them making a bus reverse out of the main road, as if it was a cowboy herding a stubborn bull.

I was privileged to wave to the diggers coming through in a long motorcade of mini-buses and taxis, all white haired, dressed to impress and the word that came to my mind was that they were beautiful.

I got home under a light shower, filled with the sense of belonging, adventure and safety.

Writing in a Hippie Paradise

On April 2, 2018April 2, 2018 By taniacreationsIn roaming the earth, whereLeave a comment

In front of me, all I can see is green. Green grass, green trees, green hills and green mountains. I can hear the creek that runs at the back of the property and the birds singing. The fresh smell of wet soil and bush is invigorating.

About one year and a half ago I had this brilliant idea that if I wasn’t able to write full time yet, I could pretend, for a few days here and there, that I did. That is when I did the first of my writing trips. I’m now on my fifth trip. (See here how to organise your own writing trip)

I had mentioned these trips to a friend and she offered me to house sit for her over Easter while she was away. I feel very lucky that she did so.

I’m taking care of her house and two cats. I’m in love with Mojo, I think it is mostly because he doesn’t care who is providing the cuddles, as long as someone is. Once or twice a day he comes to me for a caressing session. Eve, the other cat, well, we tolerate each other. I think she knows I’m not the right person, doesn’t want any cuddles, ‘just food, thank you’, she tells me with her eyes… I’m sure she is thinking ‘who are you, impostor!’ I don’t do what she wants ‘open the door right this minute I want to look outside’ (at 9 pm) and she doesn’t do what I ask ‘come back in right this minute so I can close the door’ (at 7 pm), she turns around giving me her wriggling backside.

Mojo is a vanishing artist, he disappears and I look for him everywhere thinking he must be outside when half an hour later he prowls from somewhere in the house… I swear he has to be able to open and close doors, that is the only possible explanation.

Eve is obsessed with looking outside the front door. I leave it propped open and it is not that she wants to go outside, she just wants to sit there, looking out.

One of the things that make my heart jump in happiness, is the constant presence of the Wallabies. They come to the house everyday. I know I probably should not let them eat my friend’s trees, vegetables and grass but I don’t have the heart to make them go away. Fortunately I wasn’t specifically instructed to do so, and that will be my excuse.

They are absolutely silent when they are around, you can only hear when they hop, producing this endearing thump, thump sound.

Yesterday I saw a baby roo and it saw me. It jumped, fast as lightening to its mum, and dived straight into the pouch, head first. Took him a few minutes to turn around and look at me with uncertain eyes. I think they keep looking straight at you to assess if you are a threat.

On my first morning here I saw a Moses walking down the hill. Or was it a Gandalf? Except it was a female one. She had long white hair, billowing dramatically in the wind and walked holding a wooden staff, followed by a dog.

She has a hen house near the creek and walks down twice a day to let the birds out, feed them and put them inside to sleep in the evening. Yesterday the hens were not collaborating and I heard the woman talking to them what sounded like “come-on birds, it’s time to go in”. They are Helmeted Guineafowls, I believe, and responded loudly “buckwheat, buckwheat” running around.

Iwon’t criticise. At that exact moment I was talking to the cats “are you hungry? Is that what you want? It is a bit early…”. “Meow, meow.”

A couple of times, I went to the town centre, for a better word to call it, a couple of streets with a couple of stores. I understood why I heard the place being called Hippie Country… I felt as if I had walked through a portal and ended up in the seventies, inside one of those pictures of big hippie festivals, you could smell the unnatural sweetness of the air. I was told to be ware of the brownies and cookies… (I’ve never tried one for the fear they might make me turn normal.)

There isn’t a supermarket, but there is an Emporium. It reminds me of the small city stores of old, it had the cramped corridors and everything you can possibly imagine. I had to squeeze around to let people pass all the time. It was wonderful.

The funny part is that they had organic, sustainable and environmental products for everything, they would put any big city supermarket to shame! Recycled toilet paper, sustainably caught tuna, earth safe cleaning products, you name it… I went into a bakery and asked for a carry bag (looking forward to using such bag for garbage) and the sales woman looked at me as if I had said profanities about her mother, I swear she looked positivelly disgusted as she mumbled something about “plastic bags”.

The street had stores of funky t-shirts with flowers on them, organic preserves, herbs and spices shops; organic food cafes and organic juice shops. Everything was very colourful, painted in strong colours of purple, yellow, green and blue and a few rainbows, and a lot of the people really dressed the part.

I didn’t think they were a relaxed bunch though, in two blocks I heard one woman complaining about the drama, not sure what happened, then a man was screaming abuse at everyone and a third said that her friend just lost her license, because of alcohol.

What was absolutely wonderful was the art. I went to an exposition at the town hall and there were many different styles for many different preferences but I thought most were very inspired.

At the house, most of the time there is a deep seeded silence, except for crickets and birds, but some other times I think people come away from civilisation not to enjoy this wonderful tranquility, but to make noise undisturbed. With so much green, often enough a neighbour decides to cut the grass, or a tree, or blow leaves, or bang on wood or listen to opera so loud someone at the top of the mountain can also hear it.

But still, frequently there is a tranquil and wonderful peace.

(Is it too bad of me that I keep wishing that the grass mower breaks, the head of the hammer detaches and flies away never to be found again, or that the opera singer turns mute? Poor neighbours… bad me.)

I’m enjoying the changes in colour and mood of the scenery, the rain and the sun, the fresh breeze that comes in the afternoon, and the hot air in the middle of the day. Including the sounds, even the noises, but more when they go away. So many different bird songs, colours in the sky, smells that remind me of childhood farms and ranches.

This is the perfect writing scenario, especially as the sun sets right in front of my writing desk!

A New Found Love…

On April 1, 2018April 1, 2018 By taniacreationsIn howLeave a comment

Last year I found an old picture of me writing on my parent’s typewriter. I must have been around seven.

I remember this typewriter and that my sister and I often played on it. I think it was our mum who had some books about how to learn to typewrite and we would type endless “qwert asdfg ghjkl poiuy” but would never get to book 2.

It was my sister, when she was about fourteen, who decided to go to a proper typewriting course during the holidays, but as she didn’t drive she asked me to drive her. There was no point in just taking her, I joined in and we both did the course. To this day we can type with all our fingers, super quickly, without looking at the keyboard, thanks to the old technology, and my sister!

I often thank her, like now, when I’m looking at the most astounding surroundings and typing away…

My parents came to Australia for a visit last year and we took them to the Hunter Valley, we were prowling one of the antique shops when a sight made me decided I wanted one, even if I had no idea why or what for… a typewriter.

The one I saw there wasn’t exactly the one I wanted so I waited until an online shopping site manifested one exactly like the one I was imagining… actually, very similar to the orange one from my childhood.

It’s a new love. Not that I intend to use to actually write things on it, even thought I bought it new tapes and it works perfectly. It just makes me happy looking at it. It’s a fun decoration with the potential of being something you can play with.

Lucifer & the amazon

On May 27, 2016 By taniacreationsIn who1 Comment

If Lucifer comes up to me and says “what do you desire?”

“Me? Right now?”

“Yes…’ he is a bit irritated with my lack of immediate response and insists ‘what do you most desire?’

His eyes burrow deep in mine, with that intense vampiric hypnotic look.

‘Well… in fact,’

‘Tell me, tell me your needs…’ he looks sexy.

I’m decisive now. I know what I want. ‘Many, many, many, reviews.’

‘Reviews?’ he is thrown off his game, forgets about the intense look. ‘For your soul, what do you want for your soul?’

‘I told you. Reviews. Amazon Reviews. Great, independent, unhinged, unbiased, uninhibited, five star, reviews.’

‘Fuck.’

‘That I can get, but reviews… seriously, no money can buy. And since I’m giving my soul for it, I want many, in all my books.’

The Brazilian Mess – how to explain it

On April 23, 2016April 23, 2016 By taniacreationsIn whereLeave a comment

Trying to explain what is going on in Brazil to my friends and colleagues here in Australia, has been a challenge and a bit of a long conversation. I am very far from an economic connoisseur, miles away from understanding politics, but I’m good at summarising situations, so here is how I see it…

Let’s start with the military coup of 1964 which lasted until the 80’s leaving Brazil with an eroded educational system (teachers and students were subversives) and an external public debt that would become evident only years later, but was about four times higher than it is now, and it was about half of Brazilian’s GDP.

Since then, Brazilian Politicians are trying to cope and recover from this hole.

Add a lot of corruption in all parties and throughout time with no consequence. With the free press, after the end of the dictatorship, a lot came to light but very few people felt the whip of punishment.

Then you have Collor, the president who resigned in 1992 not to be impeached, and was re-elected to the Senate in 2014. He is now part of the investigation for corruption, “Lava Jato” operation, that I will mention a bit more about. He was almost impeached because his main economical act was invading people’s savings accounts leaving everyone with the equivalent of AU$50 in the bank and taking whatever was extra to fix the economy. My grandfather, on my mother’s side, is counted as one of his victims, like him many didn’t recover of the emotional blow that measure landed them and died of health complications short after. Needless to say, he didn’t fix anything.

After some years Lula arrives at the presidency, in 2003, a worker with no education who had been fighting the noble fight for the poor for three elections unsuccessfully. He was to stay until 2011 in two four-year mandates. During his time he put a series of measures in place that were apparently fantastic but completely unsustainable. He “gave money away” to the people. He created supporting systems, I think they are similar to the Dole, that were given to various people who, no doubt about it, needed it:

Support for students
Support for unemployed people
Support for families with many children
Support for families of incarcerated people
Support for poor people to equip their housing commissioning houses
Support of students to study overseas

All these sound great, and to the receivers, it was great. The problem is that these same receivers were not generating value in the society to to refill the public coffers.

For a while these measures turned the economy and there was a sense of false prosperity. Salaries were raised in general, because people would prefer not to work and receive the Gov Support if the salary didn’t match at least what they would get if they didn’t work.

Brazilians are great in breaking payments in 10 instalments and overcommitting their income. There is a cultural element where my people tend to think they have to appear richer than they are, which makes for a lot of over-spending.

I believe that meanwhile, Lula, who was supposed to be for the people, became corrupt, he probably became tempted by the power, the money and the abundance he had never experienced before. His children became multi-millionaires in the span of ten years and their elevation is parallel with lobbying and political movements and benefits given to large corporations.

Dilma, the current president, is Lula’s protege, she managed her first mandate in the same spirit, in the wake of Lula’s policies. She was re-elected in 2014 but hasn’t been able to do much so far, because of all the corruption issues. I don’t see her as being as corrupt as Lula, I think she isn’t as smart, she seems to have a faint noble streak, but she is naive and frankly, I don’t find her smart at all.

In August 2013, the law that allows for reduction of sentences to convicted criminals for dubbing their fellow lawbreakers, was reviewed and signed by Dilma. That was something very important for what would come next, if she knew what she was doing!

Then came Operation Car Wash “Operação Lava Jato”, in March 2014, the investigation that caused all the mess started. Looking into the money laundering of one car wash, the first domino fell. With the law I just mentioned above, one person caught started telling on the others. About 160 people have been put in jail so far, almost 3 Billion Reais have been recovered while about 22 Billion have been requested to be returned. Collor and Lula have been caught in this operation’s net and are being investigated.

Dilma, in an attempt to help Lula, offered him the Chief of Staff Ministry, to allow him to avoid preventive incarceration, and to allow him to be investigated by a higher level of justice, escaping the grasp of the Car Wash Operation; I believe that he would be able to manipulate the higher level judges and escape justice.

Lula hasn’t been allowed to get into this ministry so far, the justice system is fighting hard to avoid it. There is talk he is trying to run off to Spain.

This ministry and the release of some private conversations recorded between Lula and Dilma were the straw that broke the camel’s back, as I see it. They turned the public opinion, created the protests and made the impeachment process to progress.

This week, one instance of the impeachment process was voted and approved. In the next few weeks, the Senate should vote, if they approve it, Dilma will be removed from office temporarily, for 180 days, as the investigation moves forward.

With all that we also have the crazy mozzies, mysterious viruses, the new flu felling people by the bunch, the ecological disaster, the super polluted Guanabara Bay, falling bike paths, the infra-structure in Rio with its delayed projects AND we are 105 days from the Olympics…

PS.

I have to say that I’m still happy, because for the first time a lot of people are feeling the consequences of being corrupt, are being punished. I feel there is a sense of pride in being honest being recovered and although the short term from now should be dire, the long term has to be better than it has been.

PS2.

To help my writing, please buy and review my new book at Amazon. Find the book in the market you are registered at, search: Tania Crivellenti – “Sideways Reality” [at Amazon AU, US, BR]

Brazil – When the Pot Boils

On March 15, 2016 By taniacreationsIn English Australia, tania, whereLeave a comment

I was born in Brazil, my Brazilian Brazil, as a song sings. I’ve decided to write about it today, this country where everything is happening. I feel a mix of complete unbelievability and a sense of hope, although I’m not sure about the Olympics at all.

Brazil is falling apart and at the same time creating the roots in which the country might get reconstructed. To my work colleagues, the protests of Sunday last, 13^th March, look like big parties, and they probably were.

They were peaceful, there was dancing, I’m sure there was singing of political rants, booing the current president and the former president, both from the workers party; although most of these people on the streets, were the same who voted for them. They lost faith. The defence of the two presidents is to say that this is a scheming technique of the rich people and the opposition to burn them. It isn’t. What the protests are about: against corruption in all parties, about justice for all, rich and poor.

In 2013 there was a large scale protest, at the time I was disappointed because when I enquired what the protests were for, I saw each person was protesting for something they thought was worth it, there was no unified front. It was about the money spent for the construction of the stadiums for the Fifa World Cup, about the state of the health system, about the increase in the price of bus tickets, about the educational systems. These were all valid reasons, but without focus there is no strength.

Sunday, the story was completely different; it was about corruption and that brought record numbers, a protest as my generation has never seen. It filled my heart with happiness to see this movement, a pride I might not have the right to feel, since I’ve left Brazil 12 years ago to embrace the Australian ways. Because I felt like an alien in my Brazilian culture most of my life, more so when I became an adult and had to function inside the work force. I left, I found a place where the rules and cultural subtleties are closer to my heart.

Brazil released a big shout against Corruption! It was amazing to see, although there were different little points, they were about honesty, supporting the police, the federal courts, it was requesting Dilma’s impeachment (the current president) and crying for Lula’s arrest (the previous president).

The hope is that this movement will recover the pride in being honest. With low salaries that the investigators, the police, the lower legal echelons receive, the lack of resources, the poverty of the Brazilian government buildings and institutions, there isn’t much to incentivise them to keep being honest… but now, a million people here, a couple of hundred of thousands there, in love and pride, that might give them a mission bigger then themselves, anchored in something I thought was completely forgotten… patriotism.

All this chaos started with a single thread, a judge was given the investigation into a car wash which became the nick-name of the investigation (operação lava-jato). A new law was approved around that time that enabled prosecutors to offer reduction of sentence to condemned people who dubbed on others, if they had proof. That was the thread that pulled all others, they found a link between that and Petrobras, the petroleum state company, and then it never stopped.

In Brazil there is a high level of barely literate people, which makes very hard for them to understand white collar crimes, such as embezzlements and selling of flavours; but when they found that Lula had taken eleven trucks of goods from the governmental house, the Palacio do Planalto, and among them they found gifts of gold and jewels, presents from other countries to the Brazilian people (not the person, the President), the rugs from the house, priceless works of art from Aleijadinho and Portinari, THAT, they could understand, it was the lowest type of crime: thievery.

Ally to that were the ecological disaster in Mariana, which drowned a city and will have ecological consequences worldwide, and the Zica Virus or whatever is causing a spread of neurological diseases, added to the overspending in the construction for the Olympics and the result is that the pot boils.

And when it boils, it boils. It blew an amazing number of people, although I cannot be precise on how many, something between 3 million and 6 million people country-wide.

To every protest two or three head-counts were divulged, the police would publish a very low number, the organisers, a very large number and the researching institute of São Paulo gave us another even lower number, so we don’t really know anything. As always, and as part of Brazilian idiosyncrasies, finding the truth is often hard.

The numbers aren’t anywhere close; for example, for São Paulo’s protest, the organisers calculated 1 million people, the police said it was 500 thousand and DataFolha, the research institute, said 200 thousand. The only thing I can say for sure is that there were a lot of people.

Thank you all my friends and all Brazilians who made the effort, who left the house, who went to a place in green and yellow and shouted against corruption. To all who now feel pride in being honest, I feel this might be a change in the tide. If people can take this pride to their day-to-day lives, it will change the culture, change the country, change the future.

[Note, the text in Portuguese is completely different from this one, this is for everyone but Brazilians, I explain things here. The one in Portuguese is for Brazilians, another view of the situation.]

[Picture: http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2013/06/protests-brazil%5D

Inspiration Outside of Me

On October 8, 2015 By taniacreationsIn howLeave a comment

I have finished a Masters in Arts, Creative Writing, at UTS, in June 2015. At the time I didn’t feel the accomplishment, the excitement in finishing up, just a bit of relief. I loved the course most of the time, I loved almost all classes and felt inspired throughout. At the end I was feeling it was just a bit too much outside input into my writing and I was loosing myself.

When I completed the final assignment I was left with more questions than answers. I started the course to gain technique to write in English, but more specifically, the project I used throughout the course: my non-fiction, written like fiction, comedic, novel, about my friend who is a Brazilian, migrated Australian, who has been a belly dancer in Sydney, performing mostly in the middle Eastern Communities of the city.

As you can notice, it is a complicated project and I needed help to set it up. The inspiration and the stories are not a problem, how to link them, present them and frame them is my challenge.

I had hoped that by the end of the Masters I would have found this structure, but I found only the questions I need to answer in order to find this structure and a bit of a sense of being lost.

I gained a lot of technique and believe I am much better equipped now then before I started. I have a thicker skin and a knowledge of where to look for information too.

By the time the Graduation Ceremony arrived I was able to release the impressions of not getting as far as I wanted and had the most beautiful day with my sister and my friend (the Muse, the Character).

The following day, it was Elizabeth Gilbert who made me realise why I felt and should feel happy and accomplished. We have TED Tuesdays at work and we watched Elizabeth’s talk that day. She explained that a valid idea is to think of divine inspiration as, well, divine, as is coming from outside you.

I remembered that when I was in classes no teacher would say: you chose the voice, the tone, the verbal tense, define the character and then you pray, or talk to your daemons, or to your genius, and ask for guidance. As it would be expected, we are taught to control, to wrestle with our internal intellectual gifts and bend the words into shape.

I realised that was the one thing I forgot during these studies, the thing I lost connection with, the part that lives outside of me: the sudden, potent, and magical inspiration that makes a text become funny with a few twists of words, or that make people love what you wrote even when it is imperfect.

When I heard Elizabeth talking about this part of the creative process that is not my own I was relieved of the responsibility to do it all alone, by myself, with my second language, happen. I was given the solution to all my problems and the certainty that it will come to me, and the book will be able to carry the immense fun that the stories are.

I have a super-power, an intuition capable of seeing through the veil of what is hidden to the naked eye. Sometimes I know things without an explanation and most times, when these things can be confirmed, they are as I predicted. I have an intuition about this book, I think it will be important.

The second thing the talk gave me was a confirmation of why I was feeling accomplished. Elizabeth explains that artists have one responsibility: keep doing what they love, keep sweating and showing up to their art. That is the only way your genius will find you. I also concluded that honing your technique and getting better and better at it will allow you to transmit the divine inspiration into shape. Imagine what would happen if Van Gogh was able to see the sunflowers in his mind but didn’t know how to paint. His genius would have gone somewhere else.

With these two thoughts — that an artist has to show up to her art and that technique allows you to make real your ethereal inspirations — I saw my new testamur as the proof of how much I am so committed to this art and that I am doing my part, I am showing up to my writing.

Why Australia?

On October 1, 2015October 1, 2015 By taniacreationsIn where1 Comment

The other side of the world, really? My friends and family have difficulty to understand why, but once explained it gets easier to get.

After I came to the conclusion that I needed a good life in order to feel inspired to write (see the post called “when did I start writing?”) I started looking for ways to achieve that.

I know many people find inspiration and energy inside a depression to write. I knew then as I know now that people write no matter what if they feel the drive. Unfortunately I’m not one of those, I am not good with sadness, with being unhappy or tragedies, it is not my forte. Instead I spend my energy working hard and changing things, making life better and then writing about it when I am feeling energised and inspired, harvesting the work I put into earlier.

Of course I have to keep in perspective the fact that I am quite privileged as the worst that ever happened to me makes for the better that might have happened to a lot of people.

I was in Brazil and was able to find another job, better than the first, but it turned out it was a copy of the other. I worked 70k from home and shared my rides with a colleague who lived in the same area, who then became my good friend, my most avid reader, and eternal supporter of my writing. We talked endlessly about my writing ideas and tidbits I would write here and there. He was instrumental in my realisation that writing was my path and we still connect technologically to exchange news about our lives and our artistic inspirations.

The job was horrendous, the boss was atrocious, we worked long hours and the travelling was dangerous and tiring. On top of that the company was in a city with two smelly factories.

If I had to choose I would say that water is my element, it often features in my dreams in its many forms. Many times water influenced my life.

When I was about two years old I fell on a stream and the water carried me for some distance. In my memory I was carried away in a river for long metres but my parents barely remember the episode so I think my little child inside exaggerates it a lot.

I grew up spending most of my vacations at my grandfather’s ranch by a large fresh water dam and my parents constantly took us to the beach, even though we lived about 4 hours in-land.

I’m strongly attracted to the ocean and spent many vacations thinking deeply on what I could do to live near the sea.

I used to list in my mind all the cities in Brazil’s coast and wonder if I could find a job in any of them. Reminding the reader that this is way before 2003 and therefore there was no google or job listing website allowing me to search for work Brazil-wide.

The only economically viable option was Rio de Janeiro but I never felt a desire to live there due to the security issues. I investigated Fortaleza in the North and Florianópolis in the South but found it hard to believe I would find a reasonably paying job.

The day before I got married we suffered our first and smaller flood. It was my parent’s property with a river running at the far end of a sort of farm house. Six years later there was another flood, this time 2 meters of water inside the house and my then-husband had to be rescued from the top of the house, by a drunken strong man, on a boat, secured by a rope from the higher ground at the front of the property.

This time we lost everything and for me it was the best thing that could have happened. I had always desired to live abroad and that felt as if the Universe had just pushed me out.

Right at that time my cousin, who was living in Sydney, went for a visit and her accounts of the city made it figure in my mind’s map for the first time. Through her I discovered this city, by the ocean, beautiful, first world, English speaking, and with a migration program, which could be the solution to my problems.

I persuaded the then-husband to consider the option and he ended up agreeing and I came in first to have a look. On the second day I decided I never wanted to live, it was home, it was where I found a piece of my soul I didn’t know was missing. It took some months to arrange a visa for me and for him to join me. Four years later, with a lot of hard work and a pastry chef diploma with 900 hours in the kitchen later, I got our permanent residency, and we got divorced shortly after.

To finalise, the reason I moved here was to write and have a good life, and that I am daily achieving.

When did I Start Writing?

On October 1, 2015October 1, 2015 By taniacreationsIn when1 Comment

At a certain point in my life I came to the conclusion that I wanted to be a writer. I find it hard to remember how or when exactly I got to that point. Probably, a turning point happened when I was about 25 years old and I wrote a short-story that was selected as a finalist for an anthology book. By then I had decided that being a ballet dancer wasn’t for me after all. At 17 I had dropped out of my dance uni degree and moved to advertisement and marketing. At 25 I had been working at a large multinational corporation that was draining my blood.

One day I was driving alone to work, from the car radio I heard a voice saying:

“Writing is your major gift”. I’m aware the phrase is a bit strange but I cannot change the voice from beyond just to fit the English grammar, so I will leave it as is, the closest translation.

That moment I made a decision (based on a voice I imagined because I was delirious of boredom, most probably, but who cares, right?). I had been trying to write more and more and I realised I had to find a way to have a good quality of life to have energy left for writing. If you check the post “why Australia?” you will see how that brought me to Sydney’s beautiful shores.

Although, the decision was made when I was an adult, the more I search for when I started actually writing, the further back I go.

My best friend pointed out to me that none of her childhood friends wrote a story about the time they caught the maid making out with the security guard. I was telling my friend how terrified I was of this maid because she found my story and was very upset at me. Lost in my anguish cause by the upset maid I didn’t realise that most kids don’t write about stuff like I did all the time.

When I first learnt what poetry was, I also sold some poetry to my grandfather which I never delivered because I was then as I am now: hopeless at poetry. I did try though, ended up writing a few lines without an end. I ate my payment in candy and that was that.

I remember the look in the face of my fourth grade teacher when instead of delivering a writing assignment with one page, as I was supposed to do, I delivered twelve pages. Just because I couldn’t cut the story short, stop it in the middle, I had to take the character walking all the way from school to work… Poor teacher, she was a mean one but I’m not sure she deserved that punishment.

A few years later my beautifully-bummed high-school teacher published a book with short-stories, I had a story there. (Beautifully-bummed because as a Brazilian teenager, like all other Brazilian teenagers, I was obsessed with the roundness of people’s behinds around me and such youngish teacher had very nice buttocks that would shake firmly when he wrote on the blackboard.) [Two more notes: I’m still obsessed with round buttocks and at the time it was an actual back board, where you make all that effort to write with chalk.]

While I was on my dancing career path I only thought I would write a book when I retired, I wasn’t really thinking, probably from lack of food, the brain didn’t work very well. I’m grateful to say that I added things up before starving to death and changed my mind. This is my reasoning:

I am not flexible enough to be a prima ballerina + I live in a third world country quite worried about food and health, not art + I can never eat + I am always fat = bad idea.

Once I stopped dancing professionally — I still dance for pleasure — I started writing more, I’ve always had ideas, many, many ideas for being so, even if I had to give up writing about the maid’s kisses.

I fail on a daily basis to watch the news

On September 15, 2015 By taniacreationsIn whoLeave a comment

I received this message last night from my friend:

“I know you aren’t much into politics, just so you know, Australia’s got a new Prime Minister.”

Not much into politics is a major understatement. I can say I am alienated in an intellectual way. I don’t watch, or read, or listen to the news if I can avoid it. In general, my news are a couple of years old, when the major events appear in published books.

I felt very grateful to have friends that alert me when something major is happening so I can reconnect with reality.

To maintain my stream of interesting issues to talk about, I connect with story tellers, with things like Ted talks, podcasts, audio books, going to events and lectures and even watching high quality drama (no reality tv permitted in any way).

I simply cannot stand the journalistic style of writing, I cannot find the energy or the will to read or view the news. Maybe it comes from the trauma of having lived in a third world country where the news are a string of atrocities or injustices, I’m not sure.

But today I made an exception to see what was going on in my country. I went to ABCs news podcasts and clicked on all the ones from today and yesterday about the change of the Prime Minister. It was hilarious because there are all these interviews from yesterday and they talk to many people who categorically affirmed “they are all rumours, there is no truth in any of that, we will be in power at least for another year” and about six hours later the exact opposite happened.

Watching the news knowing what comes next might be fun.