(...)
But out of the things that most intrigued me and made me wonder were a photo and a painting of my father ... a father I longed to get to know and whom I fantasised a lot about ...
My "outside" world was restricted to the once beautiful house garden with a pond in its central part, which my brother Miguel and I transformed into our adventurous "cowboy" territory ... it stands there now ... with its abandoned forest-like look awaiting to be "explored" ...
... the weekly ballet lesson at Helena de Freitas Branco's dance academy (still looking the way I knew it then, though it no longer is a ballet academy) by the fishing port (now a yacht one) the servant who took me there sometimes permitted me to get close to ...
...The bicycle rides up and down the street towards the last house that marked the limit towards the harbour under the permanent scrutinizing eyes of the servants or gossiping neighbours looking for "out of the ordinary" stories to talk about ...
... the view from the fifth storey-high mansion ... overlooking the river Mondego and the port activities, which I thoroughly looked at with my grandfather's binoculars ..., thus having had (in my adolescent period) the first platonic love fantasies about people I would never have a chance to meet ...
... The weekly casino balls we would attend with our aunt or even the monthly cinema (I first went to at the age of 13) with my brother Miguel ... the one who would describe the "outside" world for me ... the one boys were allowed and sometimes even encouraged to venture into, whilst girls stayed at home learning how to be ideal future wives ...
I don't quite know why I have unveiled all these "secret" memories ... it may be because they have played an important part in our lives ... and shaped us in a rather exquisite way ... a way we know too well and cannot get away from ... an illusively creative ... or a rather sensitive way of feeling and doing things ...
What does a certain word suggest? ... we used to play ... We used to impersonate the word ... an impersonation we (my brother Miguel and I) still play as adults whenever we get together ..., for all it may sound odd ... (Mia being the only one who understands and plays along ...) ...
"Seagull" ... (Jonathan Livingston seagull?..., one may ask) ...
"Waiting for Godot" ...
"A chance meeting" ...
"The Road sign"...
"Nowadays' situation" ...
"Now" ...
Now ... (back home with a bag full of happy moments ... childhood ... and Christmas memories ... )
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