GUSTAVO SANTOS'S COMMENTARY

Friday, July 11, 2008

While reading your idea, I reflected a little and this popped up to my head. I hope it is useful for you in any way... if anything else comes to mind, I’ll post it here. Well, here it goes (sorry for my Portuguese but this was written online):
It is also the universe of the high and low, advances and setbacks, deception and optimism side by side... resistance and persistence in a search for a better future, but above all the state of uncertainty that leads to the suspension of life. There is nothing more frustrating than to have a creative and spontaneous mind, anxious for express for itself and for the world, but is not able to communicate with the body, or the body can’t correspond to the expectations of the mind.
The lack of communication between the subject and itself, his confusion and the confusion of others that recognize that his is a solitary conflict, because it is mainly an inner conflict. A even more hard loneliness, since even the body puts itself aside from its duties.
Only the mind and its inner voice is left alone, the thought, the doubt… the fear… constant and recurrent. The questioning of a new reality (and of the reality itself… the feeling that soon it will awake from everything and return to the safe and normal reality that it was known before – because everything that passed is so sudden, absurd, incomprehensible to be really true, no?), that puts at stake the Time which passed by and that will still come. An recurrent exhaustion of all this hanged situation and the feeling of impotency that questions the personal values and capacities. The torment of not being able of escaping from a prison so soon as desired, as someone underwater who tries to swim to the surface to freely breathe, but always finds seaweeds that get stuck to the feet, delaying the reach for the surface. A claustrophobic suspension of the mind, of the inner voice that is anxious to materialize with its reality as well as with the others.

Drawing made by Gustavo Santos

TO REAL TO BELIEVE

Day 1

10-07-08

I don’t know if you do know, or not, but this blog has a purpose for its existence – do you remember of me, talking about the Spectator’s Oportunity (oriented by Rogério Nuno Costa, following the rules of Dogma’05)? – it’s a project. I don’t like to repeat things over and over since they are already written, click in the names to get to know better this project.
I arrived at Lisbon in July 9 and was presented to two coleagues that were already here – Katinka and Katia, from Berlin. The other participants, Hugo and Alexandre (which I also personally don’t know) arrive this week. Only in Sunday we will be all together.
We are constantly being filmed, because what we do is already the result of the project (see Dogma’05). You can access to the house throught the website: http://www.rogerionunocosta.com/house.html (note: Macintosh aren’t able to see the footage, even with Firefox).
Yesterday morning, Rogério was talking to be about what Dogma’05 was and what it was all about. I had already read about those rules, but this time I had the opportunity to clarify some points and doubts. The day was dedicated to brainstormings and project presentations. I didn’t know what to do. I felt lost and confused, swimming in a sea of experiences and feelings, not being able of even thinking. I took notes just to not forget things and not to reflect on them. So much was discussed that I had the impression of not retaining anything.
And then and idea appears, this morning while waking up, and I took note of this in the cell-phone:

“ The universe of waiting, of time and pacience – suspension of life, pause – the dimension of time. The feeling of impotency, frustration and conformity.”

Can you understand it? Now I really need your help organizing my head.
Sugestions are accepted, ideas, whatever. Now it is you entering on stage. I need you!

MY VOICE BEFORE THE CEREBRAL HEMORRHAGE II

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

I have to explain something; this video is not a creation of César Monteiro (although it resembles it). I found this video while looking through some of my photos, and it is a footage that I recorded so I could listen to my voice in the preparation for the Voice evaluation from my first year (2005).
I confess that I am a little ashamed. But now my voice is something more like Tom Waits, so what do I have to loose? But don’t be to cruel… I never sang for real in front of anyone beside my Voice teacher, and even so it was very difficult.



Oh, and besides all that, I had to sing in French, something I didn’t do since the 9th grade, a lousy music full of sentimentalisms, taken from the musical (and how I like musicals…) Notre Dame. And that’s it… I’m traumatized.

HOME MADE OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY

Friday, June 27, 2008


No, this is not an artistic photo from some artistic movement. This is my magic box; my SOS O.T box – for example, my occupational therapist went on vacation and I have to continue doing exercises or else I’ll feel atrophied. Only for the hand, besides the massage ball (a ball with 8cm diameter with spikes all around, that stimulates the sensibility) I spend about 30 minutes with this box.
This box has pegs and dried peak grain. I start with the peak grain, trying to catch them finger by finger and then put it in the box. Then I go to the pegs - I try to catch them between my fingers to the box. If I’m not to tired I put the pegs in the box (like if I was putting clothes to dry) and take them away.
Before I train the hand, I do some exercises with the arm, to gain muscle and for something else.
Total time of a single session: 45 minutes (this is because I already made “heat” in the physiotherapy). It’s enough for me to not feeling bad, with a pendent strange body that people call “arm”.

And now my articulations hurt. My therapist Alice (O.T) says that it’s good, it’s a sign that I’m recovering sensibility. But it could hurt less…

EXPECTATION MAKES ME ILL

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Expectation makes me ill.
Life is fucking funny. I was anxious to begin my vacations, and always said “when the job is finish, it will be beach everyday!”. Yeah Right. Since the beginning of this week I didn’t go to the beach once. “why?” you might wonder. Well, I’m going to explain.
When I thought about going to the beach, never thought about HOW. It happens that I’m tired of rides, feeling dependent, needing people to do whatever it is. I can drive, the problem is my arm – I need to look many times to the right hand (gear handle) to assure that I have correctly shifted the gear or not, because I don’t have sufficient sensibility to realize that without looking.
If I had an automatic car, the problem was solved, but riding my “little bean” (a Renault Clio from ’95, working on gas) is old school, and even loving to ride difficult cars, lets face it – I don’t know if someday I’ll be able to ride it again. I believe I will, since two months ago not even my foot I could feel in the car (didn’t know where it was, as if I had a blind foot, and missed the pedals or got stuck beneath them) and now they behave almost as normal feet.
But the arm is weak and the deep sensibility it’s not on its best condition. The hand is the most complicated parts to recover, always been told about it.
The problem is that I don’t feel comfortable in always asking my parents to take me wherever it is. They already take me to the hospital everyday and I don’t feel like asking them to take me to this or that place. I live in Marinha, and everything that happens, exist outside Marinha Grande. And even existing here, I live in one far corner of the city, away from everything. Marinha always chocked me and now I am realizing why: someone who is not able of getting out of here is literally fucked.
There isn’t even an escape, people who live here, live for their work and when they desire culture they go to Leiria, even if it is dubious culture. Yes I am frustrated, because I am 22 years old, have driving license for 3 years, lived alone on my own for 3 years also, and now I feel like I have 16 again, anxious for the 18th anniversary to get out of here. This lack of satisfaction came in this city and it is thanks to it that I became an (pseudo) artist. Thank you, Marinha Grande!



(I took this photo in 2005, in my first year of faculty. My house is near the train station, only needed to cross a small empty terrain with a small factory. Wherever I looked I could only see factories. And barbwire… it was like I felt before I went to Caldas, and how I feel now. Stuck).
Expectation leaves me sick.

19TH JUNE - SECOND PART

Since one year ago I was almost dying... beer without alchool is not that bad (sorry for the video... again!!!)

Happiness is made of small things
(like imagining drinking a delicious Sagres... with alchool of course)

LOOK WHAT I'VE FOUND!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

I love this photo. I feel so much like this...

NEW 19TH DAY

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

I’m being followed in the physiotherapy by a trainee. It’s different, he has a completely new energy, motivates me, even not knowing what to do with me very well. But that’s not what I want to talk about; today he and another trainee took measurements of myself, for the amplitude of my right side as well as comparing the muscular mass from the right side with the left side. I confess I always had the curiosity to know the physical differences between the two sides, and I asked him to give me the results (and consequently for you to).
I rested on the mattress, peaceful, with two trainees around me, talking with each other, and asking me to do thinks (like bend my leg). One of them talked to me with a dialect “therapist-patient” (they talk louder as if we were mentally retarded, as if we didn’t understand nothing if not spoken in that particular dialect. A patronizing dialect, which I don’t like at all.
My therapist doesn’t talk to me like that (phew…). He has 21 years old. Fuck… I’m getting old, and without noticing it. Of course I’m not old, but I’m realizing that the time that is, that was, not only since the Cerebral hemorrhage but since I feel like myself. Since I assumed my place in life. I have 22 years old. I got friends, who are married, friends with children, friends who live outside the country. I don’t have anything besides an urge to see the world, but that doesn’t go beyond that. “Time belongs to each of us”, said Carina, and I’ll never forget that. This Time thing makes my head spin.
So, I’m going to talk to all of you in general:

In the night of 19th to 20th of this month I want you to come and take a coffee with me, to celebrate!

FIRST PLANS

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

I never been so long without writing. But everyday I would remember you, and that I had to write to you… But “because time doesn’t run in my favor and doesn’t stop, doesn’t stop, doesn’t stop running…” (as the poet António Cova from Assassínicos, said), I stagger behind time to see if I can recover the rhythm I had. I’m like a tramp dog trying to catch the cars, just to reach them and think “I’m really fast!”. I don’t realize that I do things slower… but I see the car so close to me! I always thing “This is it!”, and when there is only one centimeter left to reach it, my left side refuses to continue. And then I remember. Remember everything that happened. Not miffed; sometimes annoyed for not being free as I desire (I never was patient), but now that I took a decision, things seem lighter, more easy to endure. I shall throw myself to the beasts. I shall return to Caldas.
This decision was really well thought of. Part of me is afraid of restarting, doing everything for myself, having responsibilities again. But by the other side that’s really what I want. I’m frightened but full of desire to hug the world, my world, not a world that was mine but doesn’t belong to me anymore. I must have the courage to move to another house, but mainly to move to another Hospital. But I have the support of every therapist that worked with me; I must get out of home. I’m feeling distressed for being in Marinha Grande, even with work to do. I must walk this step towards my independence, learning to dodge the difficulties, having my own space – I feel oppressed in this shell of glass that my family putted me in. I understand their fears, but it is time for the bird to depart, even if it flies in a different way.

PLANS
So for the first time I have planes. I realized I like to live with a little stress around me… maybe that’s what makes me feel alive, I don’t know. This blog should be called “RE-BORN”, not “Re-Cover”, because I feel like I’ve been reborn, not only physically but mainly mentally and spiritually.
But back to the plans. I stop working on 19th July. On 4th July I’m going to Lisbon to make part of the project Spectator’s Opportunity (I’ll do a note explaining what it is). From the time that is left until August I’ll search for a home near the hospital center of Caldas da Rainha. There I don’t know how it will be. I don’t know if there will be any Masters on ESAD (my old school), but if they do not exist, I shall go work. I will live there until I am fully recovered, but life is unpredictable so I don’t trust 100% on plans. Lots of things may happen, but I’ll wait about 2 years to recover completely. If I don’t recover completely I will have deficits.

HOPE
I was sad for a time, blue with the weather. I think that, for instants, I didn’t believe that I would recover more than how I am. Unconsciously I prepared everyone for that possibility (see “Freak Show”), but suddenly I felt something was changing, didn’t know what. From a moment to another I was walking almost perfectly; from a moment to another my hand became more available, doing stuff more automatically (although not doing them perfectly). My therapists said that it was the profound sensibility that was probably returning. From a moment to another I thought that there could still be hope. I remembered the words from my neurologist “oh, she will recover fully…”
I must believe in that every moment, every second…

NOTE
This blog is a plan inserted in the project “The Spectator’s Opportunity”, from the creator (or destroyer, hehe) Rogério Nuno Costa. For now, I’m only collecting data, memories, etc, that may help to the creation of something (a video, a performance…). I suggest, if you are interested in knowing more, to go to vouatuacasa.blogspot.com. Sorry not to explain it better, but it’s all in there, and it bores me to do copy-paste. I’ve done lots of that in school.

Time to live. As my therapist Alice says, I can’t continue living for the therapy. And, I confess to you… every moment I have is only and exclusively dedicated to one thing that I don’t do decently for some years (and that I thought stupid at the time.. oh well..)

BEACH!!!

FREAK SHOW

Thursday, May 29, 2008


For some time now that I wanted to write about this, but never done it, don’t really know why… I see things in such an anachronic way in the “physio” (and when I say “physio” I mean all the therapies I do) that when I arrive and the patients arrive, I feel like I’m in a cabaret’s freak show. As if I was an old attraction that is not useful for the show anymore.
Don’t be shocked; its something I feel and don’t bother criticizing me about it; only I know; only I live that everyday. Nothing impresses me now. I’m not impressed by men with callous hands by their work on a wheelchair and with a diaper; I’m not impressed to see a 17 year old kid with cerebral palsy with and atrophied body since it doesn’t move anymore; I’m not impressed by a woman who drools on a wheelchair because she can’t control the muscles of her face. It would startle me for sure in another phase of my life, but not now. Wanting it or not, I have handicaps, that is, I have deficiencies, even if temporarily or not. I don’t know. No one is able to know. Spite all that, I want to clarify that I AM LIKE THEM, but then again, I’m like you, because you are like them, so stop saying I’m not handicapped, because I am! In this moment I am! I want this to be clear, and I will explain: I understand what you mean when you say, “you are not handicapped”. Those who know me see the same Daniela as always, but I’m not. For those who know me now, I’m “Daniela, the one who had a cerebral hemorrhage”, and I have to agree with all of them – I’m Daniela of the cerebral hemorrhage, but I’m still the same person. I must learn to use my body now and not just wait for it to get better, so I must use my handicapped body because these handicaps exist and I can’t just ignore them and pretend nothing happened. There is always the hope of getting 99% better, but what if it’s only years from now? What if it will never happen? I reject the idea of getting worried with it, so accept me for what I am now. In the past I felt ashamed for being handicapped. That’s enough. Stop criticizing me for always affirming that I’m handicapped because, in fact, that’s what I am. People look at me, so what? I have a degree in Theater for some purpose, and now my life is an everlasting stage! It makes me tired of course, and I get angry about some things. But there is no major agony in this moment, than to be stuck to a place. Everything else is a show my friend, and for free! So that’s why I talk about the Freak Show. The artists who do this kind of shows don’t have any kind of problem with their traits who make them “freaks”, that is, uncommon people that make extraordinary things. There is strength, optimism, and a hope in my partners from the physiotherapy that I have never seen before. It’s the primary feeling of survival in its most physical aspect. We are the “freaks” of hope and determination. We are “freaks” because we learn that life by itself doesn’t matter. How we live life, that’s what really matters. Life doesn’t need you to exist by itself. It only needs something to make it move, and in this Freak Show I am the gatekeeper, the one who receives the tickets, the one who hosts. I’m not in either of the sides. I’m somewhere between the extraordinary and the normal, and I confess I never desired so much to be normal, as now. Yet, even so, I have moments of pure joy for life, for its simplicity, for example to be able to feel again. Learn to move, but having consciousness of every single movement of every single muscle, tendon, I must move in order to perform a task.
I’m learning the most important lesson of my life and you, you and even you make part of this story. So don’t criticize me; enjoy these moments with me, good or bad, because it’s sadness that makes happiness.

P.S – Of course there are those who gave up. Corpses, waiting for death to come. But that is a theme for another post…

MY HAND IN ACTION

Friday, May 23, 2008

You can notice some lack of control in the shoulder and elbow

MY NEW VOICE

Thursday, May 22, 2008

(I didn’t knew I was being videotaped, for that forgive my language. Me and my friend Fadigas were talking about this new wave of Emos, and I was saying that its better for them to be Emos than to listen to crappy dance and pop music that people from my age listened when we were 13, 14 years old – for those who don’t know I give you some examples: Vengaboys, Spice-Girls… very bad, truly. But what I really wanted you to hear is my new voice).