The Hectic Attic

This Poem is about a word that only exists in Portuguese. So, before reading the poem, let´s learn a little bit of Portuguese. (Promise it will be fun   )

To start with, saudade has been translated into English as to miss. But this simple verb cannot cover the inherent meanings of a word with the strength of all language’s forms: verb, noun, and adjective all succumb to the larger feeling of saudade.
To have saudades (the verb, ter saudades), is the act of feeling, it’s to long for something, to remember or be remembered, to be needed or to need, to miss or to be missed. And saudade is a feminine word often used in the plural to designate the state of missing someone or something, a lifetime, a memory. You cannot just have saudades of someone. It covers the feeling of missing that which never was, the All and the Nothing, all that no longer is, that could have been, that passed away, those silences that we have lost or no longer see or experience.
One does not underestimate the word by applying it to every single side of life. Because saudade is inherent in us, the fact of being Brazilian and speak Portuguese forces us to have saudades. And we have them without noticing, and without worrying about the allied feelings: the pain, the sadness, the loneliness, the suffering, the nostalgia.

Aline Martins - Paranapiacaba-Brazil- Winter 2008

People say: if you have memories, you will never die of loneliness
I say: if you see the world through the heart´s eyes,
You will live to feel, doesn´t matter what.

And in this incessant dialogue between reason, feeling and heart …
lives a word, dear by some, for others … not much.

Saudade,
mysterious word, made up of much more than letters and feelings.
Did the person who invented Saudade know how many feelings
existed in a simple word?

Saudade,
Does saudades exist to rhyme with hope, or perhaps happiness?
…If Saudade really existed to walk along happiness, it wouldn´t be Saudade, it would be reality.

Saudade,
Does not reflect the sunset without you.
Does not reflect our laughter, or our endless conversations through the night.
Does not reflect the empty house, nor reflects my dreams.

Saudade,
Ungrateful word, which describes nothing,
Does not speak of tenderness, does not speak of care, does not talk about you …
Does not reflect your smile, not even your face, how you feel or what you see.

Saudade,
Simple word, sometimes in the plural, deserved a meaning for each consonant and vowel,
so we could describe its infinite feelings, and explanations, which sometimes hurt me so bad.

Saudade,
I prefer thinking it rhymes with love, dreaming, or returning
Or
Is it an eternal longing?

Aline Saudades Martins

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I spent a good part of my childhood in my grandpa´s house.

To go in, we had to pass through a huge door. I never could understand the reason for such high doors, I used to think giants used to live there before ! When the door was open we could see a long, gloomy corridor, that ended at the stairs.

The living room, noble place of the house! inside you could see the candlesticks, the marble and crystal vases, statuettes and souvenirs from long trips, the huge mirrors, symbols of nobility displayed to visitors. In the room, the arrangement of the furniture did not give chance to doubts. The visitors were forced to sit in certain places and do certain things. There was no place there for mistakes. Everything had its place.

Then, there was a hallway leading into the private part of the house. And there were huge rooms one after the other. It was necessary to cross the first to go to the second …

The nights were haunted, governed by the carillon clock and its beat, useless information, which only served to make the insomnia even more excruciating.

It was fascinating to walk in those rooms. But what fascinated me was a THE FORBIDDEN ROOM, locked all the time.

In other times, when the house was full of children, all rooms were standard rooms. But…the children got married, the hard times came. Without use, that room was transformed into a deposit of old stuff, where neither people nor broom or duster was allowed in. It was forbidden to get in, and the key was always hidden.

To my uncles it was a place for the ugly things, the dust and spider webs. But for me it was the THE ROOM OF MYSTERY. If there was no mystery, the key would not be hidden nor, we would be forbidden to get in. The forbidden room is always the one we want to get in. We are fascinated by the mystery and the forbidden. The reason for this I do not understand, but I know that the human soul is made of it.

Well, I used to steal the key and, quietly, enter the room of mystery. The room was an enchanted place. Even what was considered horrible helped composing the scene: the accumulated dust on the furniture, the spider webs, the smell, everything was there to tell me the time had stopped there. Magic. The objects emerged from a world of dreams. The zither, with mother of pearl inlay: how long have been in that silence? And the paint palettes? covered with old paint. What was the last time a brush had touched it? A gramophone, old records …

I think my fascination for the room of mystery, was due to the fact that, inside, I AM like the room. My soul is a room where the weirdest objects are placed, without order, without any intention of doing so. In contrast to the living room, where each object is placed in a precise order in relation to others, in the room of mystery there is no order, no arrangement: each object is a COMPLETE UNIVERSE, does not depend on others.

For me every person has a living room clean and organized, open for general visitation, but also has a fascinating room of mystery which we only can get in if we steal the key. Some people think that the forbidden room is full of terrible things, corpses, excrement and horrible smell. And that is what they find, because we only find what we’re looking for. But for me, (that little girl in the forbidden place), the terrible things are just ornaments and enchanted things, frozen, asleep, out of time, such as Sleeping Beauty in the dust, with spider webs and wild plants, there, waiting for someone who will give the kiss that break the spell …

“So, this is the room of my mind. Therein lays everything: magic, poetry, insights being brewed. Just like in the Room of mystery, in my grandpa´s house… not many people will like to get in, and stay here, for it was built for enchanted ones”.

Why did I tell you that?

oh! just to say….

WELCOME TO

THE HECTIC ATTIC

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