Blue sky here in Vila, washed by a loud, scandalous rain that, as it came, left, absentminded, as if nothing had happened.

In recent weeks, since the start of the new year, one distraction is all it takes for the inhabitants of my mental condominium to start a lively conversation about age, time, the future and, yes, death.

From different points of view, each gives their opinion, their order or presents their plan.

The beauty of hearing these voices, excerpts of my ego, pieces of my accumulated experience, is that I can evaluate both what has passed and what is to come, without neglecting the present. They are simultaneous dimensions that harmonize beautifully.

I apologize for the somewhat unusual word in the previous paragraph, “excerpts” (in Portuguese, excerto, which is rare in everyday speech). My father now and then invades my writing with not very common words. He too is represented in my mental condominium, very well represented, in fact. His voice, added to my own experiments, is the one that asks loud and clear: “Are you using your time wisely, girl? Are you being productive? Are you doing things correctly while you’re productive?” Of course a serene, careful voice, much like my grandmother Nenê’s, creates portals of permission for me to be who I am, do what I do, feel what I feel, without threatening the flow of love.

The other voices swing between pleasure and pain, intense life and silence, encounters and solitude. Interesting conclusions are given to me. The speed with which hours, days and years are absorbed by the past is frightening, and seems even more hallucinatory after 50. It is the slide down life’s chute.

So it is time to value thoughts and enjoy even more each moment that arises. The age I am passing through is the youngest of all those to come.

The present opens doors to countless enriching experiences and even signals a future: not a fanciful or delusional future, but a future with a life lived intensely.

Fear, that friend who can paralyze us, advises prudence and care in enjoying each minute. And it is emotional nurturing when that decision asserts itself.

Regardless of age, circumstances, the confusions of the little planet, I can decide to live with gusto whatever presents itself.

I can choose not to waste time on lies or hatreds. I can choose to keep quiet when my speech would make no difference. I can choose to speak when I can sensitize ears to attentive listening. I can keep my choice to respect my children, grandchildren and friends and love them without conditions or temporal ties. I can keep the choice for loyalty and coherence. I can keep conquering my autonomy of awareness (every day). I can appreciate, petal by petal, the magical encounters life provides, free of the common rituals of social obligation, full of openness to listen and dream together.

A text here, a voice there. A smiling face here, a shed tear there. A respectful, prudent silence here, a babble of loud laughter there. Small dialogues here, long philosophical debates there. Torments interspersed with relief and pure pleasure. Life. Life in its roughest or gentlest state. And so we go on feeding on stars, nourishing our souls to calibrate our steps.