What is a fantasy?

Just do one. That's it.

When I catch myself fretting, I try to bring myself out of that useless loop and bring myself to a task, no matter how small, that will get me closer to the goal I am fretting about. Of course not all the things I worry about in my life are that simple, but with language learning, it largely is. If I get bummed that I'm not at the place I want to be--fluent--then instead of fretting, I get out the SRS or something that I can do to get me closer. A much better use of my time and energy.

Here we are, just touching base. Sit with something, listen to it, let it teach you. That quote I read the other day really resonates with me--N ão fique bravo com a vida. Não é a vida que está frustrando você, é você  que não está escutando a vida.. Escutando a vida é de suma importância. A vida sempre está falando para mim, cada segundinho, mas esqueço isso (fiquei surpreso com a facilidade de escrever agora). O que a vida, minha vida em geral, está me dizendo? Quando estou falando demais e alto demais, ignorando a voz insistente e calada. E estas mensagens tão complexas têm muitas camadas--algumas são mais claras e óbvias do que outras. Mas sempre há mensagens, e algo para aprender. 

Back to my regular schedule, back to my groove. Back to searching for the blog. Just writing is enormously helpful, and I need to remember to not try to put my writing in a box--blog here, dream things here, etc. Let things bleed into each other.

Today I woke up feeling like I hadn't slept as well as I would have liked. I haven't been sleeping well the past few days. I fall asleep fine, but I either wake up several times during the night, or I wake up quite early and cannot get back to sleep (partly because I am so excited by my life right now). Maybe it'll help being back to my regular schedule.That felt really good this morning. Getting up, showering, turning on the music equipment, working until I got hungry, ate, went back to work until I felt like stopping. I left the Brazilian radio on while I was working, so any silence was filled with Portuguese. I liked that. And my apartment is coming together nicely. Keeping on with Café Brasil is awesome.

An image I noticed the other day: a young Latin American man making slow, wide circles in the crowded street on a bicycle.

Just keep going. The other night at Snowballs was ecstatic. Ecstasy, frenetic ecstasy is something I am very interested in expressing musically. Music that brings me, first of all, to that rainbow place, and that can bring others there. Music that acts as a vehicle, a reliable vehicle, to transport listeners to that place. Being brought, á la that quote from Tolstoy. Como transportar? Isso é a questão? I want to extend my listening, and find more musics that transport. The more I listen, and the more widely I listen, the better my taste becomes.

I try to have Portuguese input, either through ears or eyes, as much as possible. So if I feel like listening to music that is not in Portuguese, which is important to me, then I will try to read some Portuguese, do SRS, etc.

A lot has been going on in other spheres. Meditation and blogging have taken a back seat in the last couple of weeks, which is okay, I just won't let them die.

Here we are, just touching base. Exploring the new world, and slowly getting a sense of where I fit in it again, post-Allie. There are things I like about the curiosities blog, treating things that I find interesting. (Interesting, I was just writing in Portuguese, using the verb tratar, so it came out here as treating)