My sitcom life

On By Guilherme MesquitaIn UpdatesLeave a comment

Some people are part of a well-written novel adaptation, full of the deep, rich colors of humanity, each chapter bringing tribulations and transformation.

Others try their best to untangle the plot lines of their drama, struggling from episode to episode, with the occasional sex scene or the stressful cliffhanger. Soap operas are a common medium, with all of their family problems, sprinkled throughout hundreds of bland, unimaginative episodes. Its protagonists sometimes mature into serious award-winning dramas, others degrade it to reality shows. I, for one, feel like I’m trapped in a sitcom.

I feel it in each and every word I say and hear. I find the tiniest details and coincidences of my life are infused with a sense of humor and an acute sense of irony. Sometimes it’s only funny retrospectively, like the deep, soul-searching questions of my doctor, or even better, when I learned my dad had Covid right on the middle of a date.

It’s kind of a joke, really, how much of my life revolves around comedy, without me being a comedian of any kind. By now, I’m almost certain my days are dreamt up by a team of sadistic writers, putting ink to paper between mountains of discarded take-away boxes and coffee cups, laughing hysterically, writing me into strange situations to see how funnily I can fail at them.

Continue reading “My sitcom life” →

Ants and spiders

On By Guilherme MesquitaIn Updates1 Comment

This won’t be a well-thought out post, I’m warning you. I’m merely using it for an exercise of procrastination and practice, unrelated to current moods and all-around seriousness of these days. My English needs oiling, you see — I haven’t written very very long time.

I felt the urge to make a kind of self-involved blog shit nobody cares about, me included. I’ve mastered the art of rolling my eyes with this kind of stuff, and yet here I am, making a conflicted fool of myself and wasting your time, all in a beautifully packaged mess.

I can’t even begin to explain the confusion inside my head right now. I’ve been hammering away a novel for the first time in years, and it makes me feel incredibly good. It’s a great feeling when you bring new pages to life, even though they may be completely rewritten and disowned by the upcoming revisions. Using a little transparent plastic tube thingy with a metal ball to carve meaningful symbols on the unsuspecting page is a strange predicament.

Continue reading “Ants and spiders” →

A momentary lapse of breathing

On By Guilherme MesquitaIn StoriesLeave a comment

There was a girl in a tiny coffee shop, writing something for herself on a sleepy november morning. It started drizzling outside — a timid touch of rain. The drizzle soon became a pour, and the pouring was loud and angry. Her attention dispersed from the page, as her eyes moved to the roaring waterfall.

‘Can’t outrun rain’, she thought of the people on the chaotic sidewalk. Her breath, caressing the numbing sweetness of the coffee, made a tiny film of foam tremble on its surface, and she took another sip. The falling showers soon became so dense that the coffee shop window could be mistaken for an aquarium.

Continue reading “A momentary lapse of breathing” →

A film about a trip

On By Guilherme MesquitaIn Creatures, Travels5 Comments

It’s not easy for me to express how much I’ve learned on my trips to Santiago.

The first time I’ve walked the Camino the experience was something I was totally unprepared for. Ever since then, all of the times have been different, but as enriching as the first. I’ve walked the Camino once with two close friends, once by myself, and once with my mother.

Now, at last, with in equal parts shame and longing, I can share the short film I’ve made about that one time I started it alone.

Continue reading “A film about a trip” →

The failure artist

On By Guilherme MesquitaIn Travels, UpdatesLeave a comment

There’s Erdinger, doritos and monopoly on the table, as our wolfpack is playing amidst a cloud of happy smoke. While we recover our bodies from a day of snowboarding at a cozy Airbnb, a white landscape gazes at us from the window.

This was my first time snowboarding, and, as you can imagine, I’ve fallen. A lot.

I’ve tumbled like wet clothes on a washing machine. I’ve shaken like an astronaut on reentry. I’ve stirred like a martini, rolled like a Royce, felt my brain pole-dancing on its skull as I fell face first on a white sheet of snowish ice.

I’ve hit the softened ground face first, ass first, God knows what else first, and on those rare instances I flew a bit, as I twisted mid-air before the inevitable impact, I knew — this was one of the greatest days I’ve ever had.

Continue reading “The failure artist” →

This title belongs here

On By Guilherme MesquitaIn TravelsLeave a comment

And you? Do you belong somewhere? How is it that you make a place, a group, a family part of your fiber? Where do you plant your lunar flag? When do you finally set the palm of your hand gently on a lover’s face, letting her close her eyes indefinitely, without second thoughts flying above you?

There was a pub in Glasgow I remember fondly. It had a brazilian theme — go figure — and a mesmerizing scottish redhead from Inverness at the bar. Me and my cousin bristled with enjoyment, as we had been visiting Inverness not many days before. Between laughing at our misadventures, she warned us about scottish winters.

Continue reading “This title belongs here” →

Autoresume

On By Guilherme MesquitaIn StoriesLeave a comment

He never felt like running.

Every other morning, he puppeteered his lifeless mass of numb arms and legs to venture into the cold, brisk north wind that swept the morning beaches. Seagulls kept a promise of life among the dark blue plains of water, crying about their birdly affairs, and the long stretches of atlantic summer chaos, devoid of people, welcomed the elements and almost nothing but.

Every now and then a pilgrim on the way to Santiago crossed his path, and to every single one he wished ‘bom caminho’, dreaming of the times, future and past, he walked to Santiago just like them. Otherwise, he was all alone, for it was much too early in the day, and every wave broke a silence only disturbed by their own echoes on the sleeping buildings.

Continue reading “Autoresume” →

Magic air

On By Guilherme MesquitaIn Stories, Travels1 Comment

A timid sun lurked between rows of distant, sleepy houses. The raincoats shone from the constant pouring, and the mud on our boots clinged for dear life. You’d see clearly, by the way we moved, how sore our feet were. Compared to past days, they were strolling gently through freshly cut grass, drinking camomile tea and being massaged to the soothing sound of generic oriental new age monk music.

We had arrived on the tiniest of grocery stores. The old lady running it didn’t care much for light, as half her universe was as dark as a coal mine, and the rest dimly lit. The small collection of fruit and food was everything you could hope for in the middle of the Camino. I picked up some bananas, apples and grapes, and ordered coffee. Scratch that — saying I ordered coffee will sound like I was in a Starbucks, selfie’ing shamelessly around my badly written name on the paper cup. I wasn’t.

Continue reading “Magic air” →

Serendipity and love

On By Guilherme MesquitaIn Travels1 Comment

The sun was dizzying and the path was unforgiving. I felt very hot, increasingly tired, and my damned water bottle was empty. Forgetting to refill it before those last 7 kilometers was, in retrospect, a rookie mistake. Step by step, with a ghost-like expression on my face, I hurried to my unknown destination. Where was I going? Why was I alone, thirsty, walking painfully towards the smallest of villages in Spain, in a terribly hot afternoon, in May?

I wish I could answer that truthfully. The truth is I can’t.

Last April, I embarked on a one-off journey that would last 35 days. I felt a gloomy, worrying sensation on my spine, when I saw my parents leave me at the Campanhã station in Porto, waiting for a middle-of-the-night train that would take me two countries away. Why?

Continue reading “Serendipity and love” →