I used to wonder why older people like to get together with their high school or university fellow students after decades, but now I know: it makes us feel younger. A few years ago when we celebrated 25 years of our graduation there was this big event, a dinner that was attended by most of the one hundred students that were part of our year at university. It was so much fun, because in most cases we hadn’t seen each other …
Category: Personal
On the flight to London memories come flooding back from previous visits to this amazing city. I was twelve when I first came to London. We had recently come from Mozambique and, as Mom was living in London, we came to see her. I don’t really remember much of what we did but I do recall Mom taking me to see the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar“. I was absolutely fascinated. I had seen the movie and I knew all the …
When I was a young girl no one in Portugal had heard about St. Valentine. Mom, who was living in England at the time, would send us Valentine postcards and tell us about this funny tradition of the British: on February 14 they would send cards, not only to their lovers but to their friends as well. It was a sort of celebration of friendship, as I remember it, and she, being very popular, would receive dozens of them from friends …
(In)equality at home As a teenager, I was acutely aware that women were treated differently from men in many aspects, and it seemed only natural to rebel against it. At home, even if my grandfather was a staunch supporter of working women and always insisted that I should study so that I might one day have a career and be independent, I found it extremely unfair that I was supposed to help Granny in the kitchen and my brother was …
True friends are one of life’s greatest treasures. On the other hand, friends who are false often come as a great disappointment. Between these two types of friends there are many shades of course. As from black to white we find so many shades of grey. As a child, and then a teenager, I had many acquaintances as I was quite popular at school. From a very early age I could tell who were my “real” friends, steadfast and loyal, …
The concert hall is full; tickets have been sold out for months. As Sir Elton John sings the last words, he opens his arms, points to the audience and says “Your song!” We respond with a huge cheer. … Back in Mozambique – 1973 I think – my brother Chico one day came to me with a new record. It was by a singer called Elton John and the title of the main song was “Daniel“. As soon as I …
Breaking up is definitely the worst moment of any love story. It is like the “the end” sign that immediately makes us long for the movie we have just finished watching. When we are young breaking up is hard but we know life is out there waiting for us and it is normal to have many experiences, in fact we want to have them; what teenager would want to live only one love story? Even if it were a …
Children traditionally have two parents, a mother and a father, so ideally they should be raised by both. In the old days this was not even an issue: marriages would last forever, for better or for worse, and parents would raise their children together. But things have changed dramatically in the last decades, and from a situation where the children of divorced parents were “different” (as was my case back in the seventies), having one’s parents together as a couple …
The story begins on her first day of school in a new city, a new country, a new continent. She is now living in Lisbon, having been forced to leave her native Mozambique after its independence from Portugal in 1975. She is only twelve then, but a very precocious girl. The last year and a half has been painful, even traumatic: after the 1974 revolution in Portugal things changed dramatically in the colonies. Her family’s peaceful existence was substituted by …
Strangely, I had never heard the song, but the other day as I was driving and listening to the car radio, Katie Melua’s “The closest thing to crazy” caught my attention. First of all, because it is a beautiful melody. And this melody, together with the words, becomes an irresistible mix that inevitably reminded me of how most of us, at some point in our lives, feel “close to crazy”. Always having to do with love, of course. When we are …