I have just been "taken" by a book ... or maybe I should say a collection of interviews by Maria João Seixas using the anniversary of the Portuguese Republic as the scenario setting to gather opinions from 14 Portuguese (female) poets and novelists on a number of issues related to the Republic, as well as their "writing" adventures.
Among the various questions "tell me a word of your choice" is the one she finishes the interviews with and in spite of the fact that I have read more than once many of the women's answers when it came to this particular question, Maria Andresen's answer struck me as reflecting my personal opinion.
"Could it be a verb? The word of my choice, as requested, will then be, to look. I enjoy looking and equally enjoy been looked at, I enjoy the impact of the look. I enjoy looking at people, things, everything around me, the world. I feel one understands, assimilates and organizes as in accordance with what one sees, before doing it in any other way. It is by looking that one "sees" and understands. I enjoy the light shed by things: When I refer to things I may be talking about a mountain, a gesture, a leaning against a shoulder. It is because of the shed light, when one's look captures it, that one perceives what is not immediately discernible or even comprehensible by any other senses or the understanding itself. I have hesitated in selecting to look or to see, but feel that to see is more conceptual and to look more "at the skin surface", thus having a lot more to do with what I am talking about ".
(free translation from the original in Portuguese)
(free translation from the original in Portuguese)
Looking beyond my blurred image (Cappadoccia 2010).Information on the above referred book:
Seixas, Maria João, Republica das mulheres, Bertrand Editora 2010
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