dear son taue…
dear son pedro…
my family had just arrived in recife…
at the house of my grandparents in amelia street...
a house… full of trees…
along with the family… it came also... one of my father’s passions:
the adoration for the swimming-sport…
as soon as he arrived in recife…
the first thing he did…
was to enroll… me and ana emilia… in the swimming-team…
at the portugues-club…
a club which was located about one kilometer away from our house…
thereafter… everything changed in my life…
the focus was not directed towards the trees anymore…
I had to go to school in the morning…
and… in the afternoon… to the portugues-club…
to practice swimming…
in spite of all these activities…
life remained calm…
to swim in the northeast-part-of-the-country…
was much more pleasant than to do it in rio-de-janeiro…
the water in rio… was much colder…
whereas in recife… the water was really nice…
and… on the warm days…
the swimming turned out to be a real pleasure…
my sister ana emilia… was already signalizing that she had a good potential…
to be a champion in swimming…
this passion for swimming which my father involved us… wasn’t something new…
way before we moved to recife… still living in rio…
ana emilia and I used to swim already at botafogo-club…
and… I remember well the first day that my father…
took us there... to introduce us to the swimming coach…
there were two coaches…
one... was the argentinian coach… called “Carranza”…
and… the other... was the coach for the beginner’s team…
( a team which didn’t have too much future… in terms of championship…)
… his name was “Rui”…
so… my father took me and my sister there… to botafogo-club…
he talks with the coach Carranza…
my sister and I… jumped into the water…
we did a little swimming… so that he could evaluate us…
and then… Carranza speaks to my father…
… “ it’s obvious… she… (ana emilia )… it’s going to stay with me” …
and… at this point… a doubt remained… naturally… in the air…
“… and… how about him…? ” … somebody asked…
then… Carranza responds…
he… ( it’s obvious…) goes to Rui…
--- --- ---
a sort of an awkward mood floated in the air…
after all… what was the main difference between me and my sister…?
maybe… because I had a pair of legs too thin…?
I don’t know…
things were handled in a way… as if there was no doubt…
“ ana emilia… obviously… is going to be my athete…
but him… ( this little-mouse…)… it’s obvious… he will go to Rui”…
nothing was said as above… of course…
but… the way he talked…
“ him…?... he goes to Rui…”
the way he talked… did have this kind of meaning…
which is:
I obviously didn’t have the necessary conditions to become a champion…
therefore it would be “foolish”… it would be a waste…
to consider that I could be someday a champion…
but… I didn’t take anything of that… very seriously…
I went to Rui…
my sister went to Carranza…
we used to practice everyday…
still in rio… at the botafogo-club…
one or two years before we moved to recife…
in a super-cold weather…
it was like a torture to deal with such cold conditions…
specially during the time of the “speed-drills”…
when we used to swim the 25-meter-lap… at full-speed…
then we had to get out of the pool… to wait in line…
then… jump in the water again for another lap at full-speed…
get out of the water… wait in line… etc…
and… in this process of getting-out-of-the-water… and get-back-in-line…
that’s when the cold really reached us… because of the wind…
so… re-focusing this story from the “frozen” swimming-pool…
of the botafogo-club in rio-de-janeiro…
to the swimming-pool of the portugues-club in recife…
with that super-nice and pleasant temperature…
which only could be found in a swimming-pool…
located in a region like the northeast-part-of-the-country…
so… in this case… oh boy… that was good…
the swimming-activity in recife was something good… something pleasant…
--- --- ---
my mother decides to buy an used piano…
she accommodates it in the house at amelia street…
she taught me how to play an italian song…
I enjoyed it… very much…
sometimes… on saturday afternoon…
there was a dance-party at the portugues-club…
we used to go there… we used to dance with other people…
from the swimming-team… it was nice…
one day… a girl started to kiss me…
my father saw it… and gave me a rebuke…
( I felt a little-bit embarrassed…)
years later… when my father was already doing psychotherapy…
he asked me to tell stories from the past between me and him…
when I told him the portugues-club episode…
in spite of not remembering it…
he became very surprised at himself…
without understanding why he would had given me such a rebuke…
( feeling as if he had done something of great stupidity )…
my contacts with my father…
didn't occur very often…
this was due to the fact that he used to work a lot…
he was always working very much…
and… when he arrived home..
he was usually… very tired…
but… with respect to my mother… things were different…
during all my life…
we had always a lot of things to talk about…
besides the habit of being constantly telling me many stories…
she knew how to teach… in a way…
that I could rarely forget the subject of the lesson…
she taught me basic mathematics…
how to solve math problems…
portuguese… geography… english…
she used to sit with me in front of a record-player…
while we listened to some beatles songs…
she would translate them to me…
the record was the sargent pepper’s lonely heart club band…
while I was reading the lyrics (in english) printed on the back-cover of the
“long-play”…
she would explain to me... its meaning in portuguese…
in the song… “a day in the life…”
at the point where they sing…
“ I read the news today oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh “…
she explained to me that the expression “made the grade”…
was… in such context… meaning… “he was able to pass”…
in the sense of “he was able to pass to another dimension”…
in other words… “he died”…
and… so… I was always receiving from her… all these teachings…
in a natural and calm way…
learning… not only english…
but several other subjects…
after receiving this initial “jump-start” from her…
from that point on… I used to be able to do the learning… by myself…
in this way… I started to feel pleasure studying…
I felt comfortable studying…
also… because… I realized…
that the studies… are like a key…
which gives us access to new horizons…
for instance…
nowadays… I know fairly well the portuguese-language… and english…
but… if someday… I decide to go… for instance… to europe…
or to an island colonized by france…
if… I plan ahead… and start to study french…
this knowledge… would give me conditions…
to be able to communicate with people…
from the french-speaking countries...
in other words… knowledge allows us to have access to people…
places… etc…
in a fulfilled way… in a profound way…
but this doesn’t mean…
that we have to know all the knowledge of the world…
this is… obviously... impossible…
but… with my mother’s help…
I started to feel comfortable studying…
I started to feel… that I was able to get a book…
read it… understand it…
and enjoy the lessons apprehended from the book…
as time passed by… I realized… also… that not every book is good…
it’s important to be able to select… things which deserves our attention…
from the ones that don’t…
I’m stopping here…
with a huge… a very-huge…
super-tight… super-hug…
in both of you…
see you soon…
warm yourself up…
winter is coming…
a big hug…
your father…
…luis antonio…