Who are you?

Finally, I’ve experienced what being a teen is all about: losing yourself. 

For most of my early teenage years, I’ve been balanced and loving and accepting towards my own person. I actually liked who I was, which seems so hard to do now.

The first few months of 2015 shattered every little thing that I thought made me who I was. I lost myself. I knew it was coming, but ignored it and when it hit me it was more powerful that I could have imagined. I felt perverted, even though I didn’t do a thing. I felt emotionally broken and exhausted. My spirituality has never been farther from me.

Summer is here now. And summer is my medicine. Everything is serene. I’m set on redefining myself. I tried meditation a couple of times, but I’m not sure what it’s all about yet. What I know is that this summer will be full of self-development and equilibrium, health and art. In a way, I’m happy I went through disaster. This way, I’m going to appreciate peace more when I find it.

I also made a video trying to answer this short question: Who am I? or

Who are you?

Rainy Night

 

*make up a context*

To him, the lights were too bright. But he loved watching her stare out the window, admiring them. He would trace her jaw with his eyes and stop and look at her lips longingly. He wondered what they tasted like. He wondered if he would feel the blood from her bottom lip. Probably.

He looked at her hands and her bitten nails. He wondered why she did that. He wondered what she was thinking about. But he probably knew.

His socks were wet and his hands, cold. He wouldn’t dare touch her. She wouldn’t dare look at him.

It was that part where neither of them was brave enough to do anything. Because that’s just how they were. Cowards. Stupid. Irresponsible.

“At least the baby is alright” she thought as she put her right hand on her stomach. There was no ring on her left one.

“Did you throw them all?” she asked him, quietly, so the taxi driver wouldn’t hear. He nodded, a bit shocked.

“I’m so sorry” he said because he was so sorry. She puffed in disapproval and turned away from his hand trying to reach her. The streets were wet. It was raining.

His face was white and sweaty and his collar reeked of cheap cologne. A fake leather jacket covered in meth particles. Her hair was a mess and greasy and her forehead was covered in dried blood. A pair of tight jeans pockets holding two old Nokia phones.

One drug addict. One beaten wife. One accident.

Subjective Normality

As humans we tend to go against our initial perfect nature. We tend to self-destroy /change ourselves and we enjoy the sorrow or joy it brings. With every generation, a certain normality disappears and thousands of different ways of handling it arise in an instant. I cannot think of this as a bad thing. If it shows anything at all, it’s that we are creative beings, ones that want diversity and ones that want acceptance for their personal moralities.

We were born rebels. We spent our childhoods learning about society and how to behave, how to be normal, how to fit in. We spend our teenage years trying to break away from the norm, to find our own way, our own self and trying to accept it ourselves. Adulthood is about settling down, even though I’m not ok with these social normative stereotypes; but settling down with yourself, loving who you are without thinking about it too much (like you did in your teenage years). 

I guess there is no literal conclusion here. I guess what I’m trying to say is:

Rebellion is a beautiful. Normality is subjective. Life is short. Do you!

The Film Devourer

It all started in the early years of the teenage metamorphoses. My ever smoldering passion nesting and growing inside of me while burning my little mushy brains. A self-discovery journey in imaginary worlds with imaginary people. A salvation for the confused little human. Films.

I’ve been watching movies since I was 12 and I am proud. That is not a waste of time; it is useful procrastination, creative research or whatever you want to call it, but not a waste of time. I can’t say the exact number of films that I’ve watched in my life, but what I can tell you is the name of the movies that impressed or changed something in me.

For me, the movies/films I watch are not only entertainment, but inspiration and creative and emotional boost. If you're also a film lover, what are your favourites and/or the most impressive movies you're watched? Do you find your choices in the list below? How do motion pictures influence you?

But without further adieu, in no particular order, these are my 20 beauties of cinematography:

(*list to be improved in the future; I’ll never stop devouring films)

 

 

ART & stupid stress

When it comes to my favorite things in the world I would have to say: travelling, change and art. I feel like the ideas of the first two have already been explored, that’s why I want to focus on the latter.

“Art is not a natural secretion” as one of my teachers once said. I liked the way it sounded, so I wrote it down. Whenever it crosses my mind, it brings a smile to my face. This silly sentence has so much meaning. In its underneath layer, it screams loud and clear that no matter what you do in life (even art) takes devotion, determination and inspiration; hard work, for short.

In the 21^st century, art is not only a word that screams freedom out loud, but also pleasure. Some of the sophisticated nature of the word seems to have never completely evaporated, but in the bigger picture, art has transformed in a general word for every little creative work.

There are so many ways to express nowadays that settling on one becomes harder than the creative act itself: drawing, painting, illustrating, graffiti, music, photography, film, acting, videos, writing, comics, blogs and many more others that I might not know about. The world is constantly changing and that is something that cannot be denied. But despite the fact previously stated, some of my art interests remain the same.

One of the first things of which I have been fascinated since I was little was film, acting - to be more specific. When I was twelve I wanted to grow up as fast as the lightning so I could move to USA, LA, to follow my dream of becoming an actress. I had this vision of me winning the Oscar. I had a dream, a dream so powerful that I thought there was nothing that could break it. And I was right except for one little aspect I didn’t take into consideration: the possibility of being my own dream-destroyer.

While I grew up, I had the amazing opportunity to travel - a lot - and this thing has always been inside of me (fact: this is something that I only realized this summer) whether I was talking about going to LA, New York, London or Seoul. While experiencing amazing countries, thing that at the time being I took for granted, I learned a lot about whom and why I am. I learned about the true definition of a dream and I learned about what I want to do in the future, when I grow up (hopefully, never).

Coming back home after one of those trips, my dreams slightly changed into becoming a filmmaker. And I’m not saying that it didn’t last and that it wasn’t a true dream, but my little YouTube channel (that I now plan on making over) died as a result of failed attempts of copying my favourite vloggers. The passion didn’t die out so easily, even though I wasn’t making films; I still wanted to make them. At that time, reality started poking me and my little dream-world that I created for myself stared getting farther and farther away from me. I soon began looking for film schools in London. I was sure that was something I wanted to do. My passion became more rational than spiritually creative.

In the end, something terrible happened and the fire stopped smoldering and I got numb. This was around January 2014. My creative soul was no longer glowing. There was nothing left, but a burning desire for my creative aura back. I was stuck between winter blues and a wanted inspirational mist. I sought hard, very hard for my words, my ideas, those pictures and visions (see the post “THE GAP”, which didn’t last for long) but was unable to contour myself and so I was too weak to have the strength to find those things.  I struggled hard, being more connect to reality than myself, something that never happened before. I can honestly say that was the worst time of my life.

But like most things, it got better. Spring brought back hope and my thirst for art and adventure. Alongside the flowers, my soul started blooming again. Like the storks, my creative spirit was coming home. Reality never took her actions back, so you can still see the scars. I’m still the dreaming type, but with a slightly more practical mindset.

In those bad months I developed something that I call “stupid stress”. I’ve never met anyone to have it too and I’m pretty sure it’s not a real problem, but for me it’s kind of major. However, I made up a definition:

Now, even though I’m more myself than ever, I feel the stupid stress (caused by reality) kicking in and making me worry about everything from how I’m going to pay the bills when I’m going to have my own place to where I’m going to work when I’m going to live in (insert country).

Even though I developed this thing, I feel like art is a part of me, again. I’ve been in this great place for a while now and I’m so grateful for re-finding myself. The travels this summer helped me a lot in finding a plan for my future (college and job).  In spite of being a creative person, I feel like travelling describes me even more. But the beauty about creating is that you can twist it and bend it and play with it and so, being creative while travelling is going to be a piece of cake. Until then, I’m the beachy brunette behind the screen talking to you about the hardships of being a beachy teen caught between the mountains.

I don’t know why I wrote this: maybe to clarify some things with myself or maybe just for the fun of it. Either way, I’m happy that I did.  

Oh, September!

It’s September and besides the fact that I dislike autumn profoundly, I feel unchanged. In the previous years, as time passed, I used to become depressed and sad for no reason at all. At times like that I used to forget who I was and I used to forget my dreams and cover myself in a cocoon of ignorance and by the time winter had stroked our land, I would already be numb and long fallen asleep in my own mist of confusing loneliness.

But now, I still feel like summer never left, even though the cold mornings give me chicken skin and keep reminding me that it is over. Maybe it’s just the beginning and I haven’t yet accepted the present, but it’s nice not to feel that sudden change that didn’t represent who I was/am at all.

Besides fall, school started. I am happy and grumpy at the same time. I’m excited to see my friends again. Between travels, Argentinian friends visiting, a fortnight at my grandparents and living outside of the city, I had no time to spend with them. But, to be honest, I regret nothing I did this summer. And they get it. I guess that’s the beauty of having friends: they get you.

Why am I grumpy? You ask. Well, waking up when it’s still dark outside and spending half an hour on the bus and then having to attend a very boring first class it’s not the most encouraging and exciting way to start your day.  “Maybe your days are not supposed to be exciting” you say; “especially when you are in school”. I guess you’re right. School is for studying and learning new things that will help you later in life. And I totally agree with you if you can explain to me why and when am I going to need to find the ‘x’ in real life? I may need to find my ex for some reconciliation, so to say, but other than that …

Once this new school year began, a crazy smoldering fire started out in me. I’m eager to learn everything I can get my hands on. So I’m having a very productive first week. I started learning Portuguese, as you may know, in the early days of September and new coding languages. It’s nice to feel busy.

I’m going to end the rambling here as I’m too happy to continue writing such autumnal words about fall. I’m grateful for the still-warm afternoons and the sunset’s pinks and oranges. Despite the beauty, it's raining tonight...

Oh, September!

BALEAL on film

As autumn starts dawning her cold sunsets on me, my soul is covered in a bitter-sweet home-sick feeling. I keep thinking of the waves breaking, of the sunset that burnt my film, of the surfers and surfboard, of their smiles and jokes, of me back there, in Baleal, Portugal.

I keep going over the things that happened and I crave a return. This was the third time I went there and I fell in love all over again. This place is never the same…

 Before I left home I made sure to get my disposable camera. The other days I developed the photos and I can say that I am utterly in love with them.

Baleal on film.