In Person
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
I'm in Rio again, after a journey to Brasilia, then up to the mountains where I saw a healer. The visit was odd, and hard to assimilate somehow. A Brazilian friend drove us up to 'the casa' which in a one horse town with one wide dusty road, flanked by garages and bars. It was the kind of place you pass through on the way to somewhere else. We drove down some back streets to a pousada which was clean, very dark inside, friendly and basic. No one spoke English. I have longed to be able to speak Portugese on this trip. Our Brazilian friend sorted out what we were supposed to do. You went to the casa, to see the healer, at 8.00 am, and all would become clear. We were to wear white, and on no account should we wander into the crystal garden without the healer's permission. So, after going to bed at about 9.00 pm ,as there was no night life in this tiny town, we put on our white pyjamas that we had bought at C and A in Brasilia, and found ourselves wandering down the dirt road along with several hundred other white clad people. It was like dreaming, or like we were being summoned by aliens. The casa was a cluster of simple white and blue buildings, rather like a hospital. There was a garden, a cafe, a large hall, and a dispensary. Everyone shuffled into the main hall, waiting for instructions. There were helpers dressed in blue coats who spoke English. Everyone was patient. many people looked very ill, and desperate. there were poor Brazilians, Americans in coach loads, children, people in wheelchairs. I glanced into a room and saw a pile of discarded crutches.
In the large hall there was a film of miracuklous operations being played continuously. This showed the healer cutting tumours, or just reaching into people's bodies as they stood calmly on a platform. It was quite hard to watch. there wasn't much blood, and no one showed any signs of pain. After the operations people were sewn up with large needles. The healer is doing these operations unconsciously...he is occupied by spirits. No one gets infections.
So we waited in queues, divided up according to how many times we had visited the casa. I was holding a red ticket, standing in the first timers queue. We waited for three hours. In the end we shuffled into rooms filled with meditating people. These were called the current rooms. You moved through these, concentrating on positive thoughts, as we had been told to prepare ourselves to meet the healer. In the last of three rooms he sat barefooted, looking quite relaxed and not like a star at all. Apparently he sees each person like a blueprint. He glanced at each of us, then scribbled a note which gave an instruction. This might be to take herbs, to meditate, to lie on a crystal bed, to have an operation, or, like me, to return at 2.00 as he couldn't make his mind up, or the right spirit wasn't available. My friend was told to come back and to sit in the current rooms.
So that afternoon I waited in the 2.00 pm line until 3.30 pm, then was told I would have an operation and to take herbs. This was to be an invisible operation, not a slicy open sort.I will continue this later....internet connection has nearly run out!
Posted by julia @ 03:46 PM GMT
Monday, July 21, 2003
I just wrote this then lost it all, so this entry will be the quick version. I'm in Rio in a long blue internet cafe full of young Brasilians gleefully playing computer games. Outside it's the most perfect balmy day, a sort of golden Autumn, with a slight breeze. Me and my fictional characters are far too happy...it will be hard to make much conflict in this story. We've been cycling along the beaches on rusty bikes hired from a man who just gave us some bikes and told us to leave them outside the hotel. No names, no deposits, no nothings. You can cycle for miles along the beach paths, past people dancing to ghetto blasters, selling coconuts, jogging, showing off their biceps and playing football. You could watch people all the time. It's endlessly fascinating and uplifting. No sign of any gun men, or women, and no one has hassled us at all. The most dangerous thing is a taxi ride...we went the wrong way down a dual carriage way yesterday...but even that becomes oddly normal.
We went up a steep hill, past shrubs filled with flowers like bright scarlet lips, to see Christ The Redeemer who looks over Rio with a kind, bemused expression. You can drink any kind of juice in the world here...cashew juice, seaweed juice...
We've been dancing, trying to move our hips and not our bodies. There's music everywhere. Found out about a church called The Chrurch of Moses Snake That Ate The Other Two. This will, I think, be my working title. More later.Posted by julia @ 03:18 PM GMT
Tuesday, July 15, 2003
Feels like we're all in the throes of Mid summer madness! I've been up late dancing, and carousing, in the wild gardens of Newcastle, and you don't even need a cardigan! Everyone is sweating, which is nice if you get hot flushes, or less lonely anyway.
And I'm getting ready for Brazil, and have been packing my fictional character's suitcases for them. Also, down at Live Theatre, the play Attachments is becoming the tv comedy Cold Calling. It's been shortened down to 23 minutes (from 45 mins). There's a whole HOUSE been built for it, and a new hoover (the play is about a hoover salesman, sudden death, and artificial insemination). It's been filmed infront of a live audience. It's interesting, this journey from stage to screen. The actors are doing brilliantly (Trevor Fox and Charlie Hardwick), and the characters are becoming more intense, more undiluted, less dramatic and more internalised.On Sunday it was the annual Pride Dog Show, and I am glad to say that Heidi, the dog who we share with our neighbours, won three rosettes: for looking like one of her owners (not me). For 'best trick' (rolling over) and she did very well on the obstacle course thingy. I was sitting about eating cake and drinking thermos tea. I was disappointed that she didn't do better in the fancy dress...she was wearing tennis whites and carrying a tennis racket....but Harry Potter won, with a 'hot dog' as a second.
I just read Property, the novel that won the Orange Prize. It's a really good read and the kind of book you can whiz through in a few hours. The central character is interesting,fascinating and I didn't like her much. It's the kind of novel that is very heightened and intense. I also read 'The Lovely Bones' in a couple of days (Alice Sebald). This is a very special novel, I think, and beautifully written. I'm reading Murakami's stories which are strange and compulsive. I want to find more Murakami readers and ask them what they think his work is about. I don't know what to read in Brazil. Life of Pi maybe? Maybe I will be too busy doing the samba on the Cococabana?
Posted by julia @ 12:49 AM GMT
Wednesday, July 2, 2003
I'm doing my tax at the moment. It's a very odd activity; a mixture of nostalgia as one holds up crumpled receipts and remembers having two cokes and a bowl of olives in Athens, and sometimes fury as I realise how much I've been paying for the sodding internet. Then there's a delightful sense of order as the pile of receipts lessens and all the columns of ingoings and outgoings neaten up, and you can start adding up. I still add up using my fingers. I am not very numerically literate at all. Anyway, when all this is done , off it goes to the accountant who will have to check my messy calculations. I like to imagine the tax inspectors perusing my odd expenditures. Does he examine my receipts and tut over my indulgences? I seem to spend rather alot on beautifying my office (rugs, picture frames) and I buy a hell of a lot of stationary (I really do). Can I claim, say, for a bicycle bell as part of my expenses? It's hard to manage a working life without a bicycle bell! And what about reflexology, acupuncture, gym membership? Then there's the vague category of 'research.' Most writers could argue that they are researching all the time. I spend hundreds of pounds on books and I'm hoping they are part of my allowances. It's hard for writers as our incomes are completely unreliable..one year you earn nothing, the next you might get a book deal and seem to be doing rather well. Most books take years to write, so we have to argue that our earnings should be spread out over years. My best tip for self employed people, and the only one I have done consistently, is to write each month on a large envelope and as you buy things stuff the receipts in the right envelopes. It saves days!
Tonight I am going to do an evening at Bishop Auckland Town Hall, talking about writing. I have always been very fond of Bishop, of the people there and the library. There's a thriving writer's group,(Wear Valley Writers) and a constant stream of writers reading and running workshops and book related events. This is all because of the brilliant Gillian Wales who runs the arts programme there. As usual, one person with a passion quietly changes the world around them.
On Saturday I am going to read with Jackie Kay at Hebden Bridge. I'm doing quite a bit of reading and talking at the moment. However Brazil is not far away, and it's nice doing some talking about ones work.
Outside it's raining. I must get back to my April receipts! Is underwear a necessary expense for a writer?Posted by julia @ 11:16 AM GMT
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