More than a year has passed since my last post. And what a year—spring break, the rest of senior spring, graduation, summer travels, the move back home, the real world, a new job, new friends, new countries, old habits, and a whole lot more.
Why the long break? I could answer in part by copy-pasting what I listed senior fall as reasons for my lack of posts then.
There's not any single overwhelmingly compelling reason for restarting at this particular moment, but for starters, it's been bothering my (borderline-) OCD personality for months now that my last post was written with no idea that it would be the starting point of a yearlong hiatus. In addition, considering that my current life/work/writing is almost entirely in Portuguese, it will be comforting to share some thoughts in cyberspace in English. (In a Skype conversation with an old friend last week, I couldn't remember the word 'luggage'. Pretty embarrassing...)
Finally, I think that after the most change-filled year of my life (at least since puberty?), I have a few things I would like to say, as trivial and indirectly expressed as they might be.
In order to fill in the gaps as well as to indulge my unproductive fondness for nostalgia, I am going to pick up where I left off, halfway through spring break last year (with approximate dates), while simultaneously trying to provide updates on my current goings-on. Not going to pretend that I will be able to capture the exact details and emotions of every significant life event since then, but hopefully I'll be able to pause occasionally and reflect on some of the forces that shaped me during a year that has often felt like a constant sprint.
On a thematically related note, here's a Portuguese sonnet by Luís de Camões:
Mudam-se os tempos, mudam-se as vontades,Muda-se o ser, muda-se a confiança;Todo o Mundo é composto de mudança,Tomando sempre novas qualidades.
Continuamente vemos novidades,Diferentes em tudo da esperança;Do mal ficam as mágoas na lembrança,E do bem, se algum houve, as saudades.
O tempo cobre o chão de verde manto,Que já coberto foi de neve fria,E em mim converte em choro o doce canto.
E, afora este mudar-se cada dia,Outra mudança faz de mor espanto:Que não se muda já como soía.
