Date a girl who reads, by Rosemary Urquico

- I read this on Facebook, and it touched me -

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

Incompreensível

A chuva é fria e desajeitada

como um beijo no rosto e um sorriso enrubescido

Ela abafa o som dos passos apressados em direção às dúvidas

dúvidas essas que o coração palpita e grita em busca das respostas

O vento frio se encontra com a pele quente de adrenalina.

Um choque, dos primeiros.

O caminho é longo e a chuva continua desajeitada,

e ela anda e voa e corre

e por tras dos gritos de seu coração ela distingue a dúvida

que se torna medo e algo mais, que não sabe explicar ainda.

A chuva para, e ela percebe que a desajeitada é ela própria, Oh! pobre chuva...

E ela chega, quente da luta com o vento

a dúvida ainda a segurar sua mão, mostrando firmeza, mas só isso

A conversa, pobre, também se desajeita, e o toque, o beijo

todos se atrapalham, se interrogam...

E a adrenalina que esquenta seu corpo agora

leva o choque frio das palavras gélidas

E a dúvida a abraça agora, alimentada do frio

é dúvida... e tristeza? Ou mera decepção...

Mas as palavras gélidas são seguidas de carinhos frios e sorrisos de gelo.

Raiva, ira

Perguntas agora estão em segundo plano, enroscadas em irritação

lutando para não sair, são perguntas engolidas,

afinal... quem são elas para se fazerem existir?

Ela, desajeitada e trêmula, busca esquentar-se com a adrenalina que ainda lhe sobra

tenta esquentar as palavras frias da dúvida maior

Mas essa não parece consciente, ou não se importa

continuará, então, incompreensível...

Kelly Nery

Questioning...

O que você quer? O que você quer? A pergunta veio à minha mente assim, repetida, como se num instante de desespero. O que você quer?... Acho que todos pensam isso às vezes, mas não encontram a resposta...

O que eu quero?

Primeiro, como já me disseram, tenho que descobrir o que não quero. Porém, essa é tarefa tão árdua quanto a outra. Parece que vou levar uma vida inteira para descobrir tais respostas, é demotivating. Nesse exato momento recebi uma mensagem da minha melhor amiga dizendo que eu sou "linda, inteligente, simpática, extrovertida... não falta nada pra ser feliz" ela ainda disse: "temos que parar de achar que precisamos de mais do que isso...". Ela tem razão, não precisamos. Mas querer e precisar são coisas bem distintas. Querer está extremamente ligado ao lado obscuro de todos nós. Obscuro porque, acho eu, não sabemos controlar.

O que eu quero?

Sei que não vou saber a resposta tão cedo, e acho que aqueles que vem com o discurso de que sabem, de que devemos mesmo é nos preocupar com o que precisamos, pois o querer é descartável, bem... acho que esses estão se enganando. É impossível ter tudo o que queremos, mas também é difícil ter tudo o que precisamos. E como separar

o querer de precisar? Nesse mundo de hoje, acho difícil saber... É claro que há seres bem realizados, sem questionamentos infinitos, com problemas mínimos e, às vezes, até descartáveis!

Mas não sou um desses... eu questiono tudo, e daí vem o problema. São perguntas e mais perguntas e nenhuma resposta e sempre outras visões e ideias e momentos...

Eu não sei o que eu quero... mas será isso um problema? Eu experimento, e quebro a cara e me divirto e me deprimo, mas eu ao menos tento. Isso deve valer alguma coisa...

Todos sabem que eu quero ir embora e meter minha cara no mundo, quero ver o mundo e descobrir de que eu preciso e o que eu quero para mim. Eu não me contenho em mim mesma. Estou sempre sentindo como se me faltasse ar, como se ele fosse pouco e não alcançasse meus pulmões, pois me falta alguma coisa. Isso eu sei que quero, me achar, me descobrir...

Estamos todos presos na contradição. É fácil dizer: Eu não preciso disso. Mas o que te faz dizer isso é o fato de não ter conseguido. Quantas vezes você já se viu falando isso e sabendo que realmente não precisa? Dizer isso depois de ter vivenciado e experimentado e realmente visto que é, de fato, descartável? Poucas, no meu caso. E sofridas.

Sou insaciável. Não sei me contentar com o que me é dito, imposto... Preciso ir além e ver mais, e saber se é aquilo realmente.. e continuo sem saber.

Eu não sei o que quero, pois não sei de que preciso. E não vou saber, vou continuar procurando e quebrando a cara e etc.

Agora, quero saber o que eu quero, eu não sei, e me torturo por isso. Talvez eu saiba, mas como saber se é verdade? Impossível. ...Ficou confuso, né?... bem vindo ao meu mundo! Talvez eu só ache que sei o que quero, para facilitar as coisas... é, mais confuso ainda... não estou mais fazendo sentido... é melhor ficar por aqui então.

What you say about me is what you see in who I am...

As verdades nos são impostas desde cedo e pronto. É preciso ter jogo de cintura pra não nos atolarmos nelas. Ainda que doce e calma, de falar manso, a moça em questão não se dobra às verdades já engessadas há tanto, antes busca temperar a verdade de acordo consigo mesma, de acordo com tudo o que já viu.

Falar que ela é meiga?! Ela nos mataria! Até ela sabe que por trás do jeitinho calmo e paciente que ela aparenta, existe uma menina muito determinada e nem um pouco disposta a levar desaforo para casa!

Inteligentíssima quando o assunto é inglês! Quando entrou na faculdade, sabia mais do que nós todos e nunca tinha feito curso. E isso se deve a um bruxo chamado Harry Potter, sua grande paixão literária.

Consagrou-se professora de inglês desde cedo, já deu aula até mesmo no pré-vestibular da faculdade, e é muito exigente naquilo que trabalha. Se ela escuta uma palavrinha errada em inglês, sai de perto!!!

Uma dica: não a convide para uma refeição, a não ser que nessa refeição tenha batata e chocolate. Ela não come praticamente nada e, por favor, não a critique por isso. Mas apesar de não gostar de comer muita coisa, quando vai para a cozinha, faz uma panqueca de dar água na boca! Fã da doçura e do encanto, ela gostaria de poder ser uma fada.

“Porque não vem a chuva dentro de mim, eu quero ser uma estrela.” E no tom de Clarice Lispector, Convidamos nossa master in English, professora KELLY NERY DUARTE SÁ.

Esse foi o texto que meus amigos da UERJ usaram para me chamar para receber o diploma!

New Perspective

You know when you look at life and think: wow, what's happened? It's been happening to me a lot these days. There are some moments I see myself in such a different path I thought I was taking, and it scares me to death. I used to have expectations, and plans, and dreams.

But they've all changed so much, life has changed so much. I've always been in favor

of changes, it is actually something I find necessary, constant movement. I get bored very easily, I get impatient, I feel trapped. I must feel constant renovation, different smiles and tears.

But changes come so fast we normally don't have time to notice them, and they feel like a landslide, and if you're not clever enough it will bring you down and you won't have time to breathe and to look for the surface. The worst part is when the change comes and stops in the middle, and you gotta handle it, and suffer through it till you get to the right path again.

But the path ain't straight, nothing is that easy. You gotta get through with the moods. You gotta accept life like you accept the wind, sometimes it's hot, sometimes it's cold. And it is there, and there's nothing you can do to stop it, it's greater than you.

What's scarier than the changes that surround us, are the changes within our core. You can take years to form an opinion, months to agree with a point o view, but it takes only one second to destroy the concepts you've had your entire life. In this significant second, something moves you towards your new path and you gotta be clever again not to lose your way. I've been dealing with a lot of new concepts I adopted. They are not new, if I put my mind to it, they have always been there, hidden deep inside... I like it, but it scares me. As it is supposed to be.

How can you deal with a whole new self? How can you make people see you are an old-new person? You can't. That's why people enter your life and people leave it without even a goodbye note.

But that's not my point, my point is: changing is good. I fear it so bad that I'm in love with it! The changes are so outrageously awesome that I don't know how to describe what I feel sometimes. Don't be afraid of changing, you gotta change till the emptyness gets filled up. And then you'll change again.

Deep Blue

Maybe it's just a matter of time, or just a matter of patience...

I see blue. Deep, dark, endless blue. There's something burning inside my being, something I can't control because I have no clue of what it is. I just feel blue. It's like a continuous waiting-to-pass second, that second that lasts centuries.

My mind is the labyrinth and I am my own Minotaur. I'm running against myself and I battle my reflexion in every mirroed rain drop.

My blue is peaceful. It revolves me and caress me and comfort me and destroys me. It kills me because the star is too high, because the sparkle won't sparkle for me.

I gotta sparkle myself, but my blue lacks air. And my sparkle needs oxigen... I must look for oxigen, I must find my air and fly high and kiss the star and see I am dreaming... I fall.

It's still too blue, it echoes, and the rain drops of my red, distant apples tremble. They are as clueless as me. Not knowing what to wait for, what step to take, what chances to risk taking. Lost in blue.

Hello Stranger

Hello stranger

Hollow I am left

Weak, lonely, crashed

Where’s my try?

Unknown and expected you are

Irresistible pain, unbearable doubt

A twist

Who are you?

You bring me air

You set my glow

You speed the strings like in a guitar solo

You bring me laughter

You bring me clouds

You set the beat

Who are you?

Barefoot I climb the moon

For infinity I look?

The pound echoes

I hope you hear it

For you I look

Weak, harmed, hopeful

Note: These were kind of scattered words that came to my mind and I wrote them down, it's only supposed to make sense to me, for my head was kinda messy while I wrote the words down. Enjoy this freaking maze! Next week I'll read it again and see if I understand it... ^^

Interpret this countdown yourself

Something just caught my eye as I opened my MSN window. It is amazing how people expose their feelings through simple and harmless words, and it's even more amazing how other people interpret them. It happened to me once, I wrote something there, but my intention got lost in the amount of different reactions. There's always an "I love somebody" or songs, songs are my favorite.. I've already written about it, about how some songs are perfect to describe a moment or a feeling... Sometimes you write things thinking nobody will get the true meaning. Hoping for that, actually...

But what caught my attention was something I've been thinking for a long time. I probably misinterpreted the sentence, but once you write something, those words don't belong to you anymore...

It was something about a Countdown. And it made me think of the shortness of life and of how freaking small we are in comparison to everything that surrounds us. I've always heard the sentence: Think outside the box. And I've just realized that "outside the box" is huge! We keep moving forward and forward and forward, and doing things for a future that may or may not happen, but we keep going on, we keep on trying...

Life is short cause the "outside of the box" is too big to fit in it. We always have to set some goal and we're always on the countdown to get there and when we get there, we set another goal and everything is the same, a new countdown, a new cycle... just to masker reality... and reality is that we are just counting the steps to the end.

But what matters is that we have the choice of making our lives' countdown worth all the trouble. Everything has a start... and an end. That's life and we can't fight it. Things end 'cause they are supposed to end, give up trying to figure that out, it's a lost cause!