The arcana of judgment and the star

 

Sitting on the wide, dark wooden bench, I looked at that figure of authority, as if he had been an old teacher I never had. That my teacher was into politics in the classroom. She would sit the children on her lap, right after April 25th, and ask: what party are you from, my son? It was a rhetorical question, because everyone was instructed to say the same thing. The gifts or rewards came covered in lollipops or holy cards. On the wall, above the blackboard, the figure of Jesus Christ on the cross. On top of her desk, some books were in disarray and a thick ruler, with rounded holes at the ends and in the middle. The aforementioned person was a lamented figure of the "New State" which, after April 25, had become radicalized on the right and she was an extreme person. Her extremes were always tempered, in the absence of the classroom for long periods, placing me as "assistant and repressive teacher" (having to put the names of my colleagues who behaved badly or made mistakes in the dictations,  written on the board), and in the cruelty and humiliation of the students who had more difficulty in learning or who were not "bendable" to her political issues. And the child who was there, if didn't tell her what she wanted to hear, was punished. This is the analogy I make with what I have in front of me.

On that bench, they wanted me to explain the sex of angels and I was willing to do it the way I knew how, knowing, and forgive this redundancy, my explanation would not fit the standard of that authority figure and neither was I willing to go back to the time when the threatening paddle tore the thin skin of the cold hands of my colleagues and me, so that the said lady, with her extremes of inhumanity, would reward or attack us. I was going to explain my version. I no longer accepted colonization from anyone. My idol was that Christ without a cross, which I learned to replace, as time passed by me, with natural landscapes of mountains topped by a horse or the setting sun. By a bird that lightened its flight and circled around itself, before landing on the top of a chestnut tree, on the buds of spring flowers, on the branches still wet and hampered by the winter weather. From the immense photographs I had of my father, so young, he had to leave for heaven, on a mission. And my idols continued to be inspired by truth, by music and other arts, by people I knew to be human and intelligent, without pretensions of being more or less than anyone else. I concentrated on these images to, in monologues, thank God, my Christ, for life and the processes that flowed from it to me, sometimes as rewards and sometimes as lessons. I've never been a glue girl. Not even brown. I had an enormous thirst for knowledge, which i sought to satisfy, most of the time, alone, through my own discoveries. Because when I asked questions, the answers were either evasive or the most well-known: because yes! why not! Or even, because I say so! And that frustrated me and the boys I was responsible for looking after.

On that wide, dark bench, where there would certainly be room for five more people like me, I looked at my interlocutor from a distance of two meters and understood the unlikelihood of him accepting what I was saying, assuming his probable biased expectations, already full of facts that simulated the truth of others, accustomed as they were, through their authority and the abuse that many made of it, as if they came from a layer of the stratosphere, know-it-alls and arrogant and wanted to impose their way of seeing things, and judge, with some frivolity, those who did not go that way. I belonged to that class, the Régio class, to that "Cântico Negro" that always haunted me and gave me goosebumps. But I was just one. And it would be enough, whatever I said, to not disturb the image they had created of some Judas where I myself could fit in. Except I wasn't Judas. I was this woman. On that bench, there were three of me and no one else could see them, except me, two angels, one on each side of my body and I wasn't even that size. I was a girl, a little taller than the angels, older would be to say that children grow old, because you will agree with me, children, while they are children, and due to their free and sagacious spirit, do not know how to grow old. This discredit fell to people with less lofty presumptions about life, who continued to see the same Christ on that cross and my Christ who was alive and joyful, who made butterflies bloom and perfumed the flowers around us, did not allow us to gain the patina of conformity, over the years. Nor do we accommodate ourselves to the unreal and abstract versions of authoritarian adults. And the children, whatever they say, were allowed to do everything. Or should. And there I was, a grown woman, but it was the little girl inside who asked to express herself. And I allowed it, because, also with the passage of time, as my expressions of tolerance softened and furrows were opened in my skin, I felt I had the right to give freedom to the child that no one had ever heard of or wanted to hear about. And I spoke for three. That was always the account that God, in me, made.

-Your Honor, it occurs to me to say, in the interest of the truth that I carry, that I am a woman in appearance, but I maintain my childish spirit. It should say pure. But I couldn't. Why not? I'll explain and it's very simple: Purity is something original and innate, but it can be tarnished through cruelty and other inhumanities to which we are subjected. I remain, however, faithful, despite all these misdeeds created by the most inhuman minds. I am human and I deserve to be treated as such. No offenses or commissioned inquiries. The sun shines for everyone. And it's up to me to defend myself. I am accused of many different things. Among which, being a fool. And this, translated socially, in the environments in which I move, only means available, willing to help everyone, whether acquaintances or strangers, with total and not partial dedication, that's who I am. But I'm not Gabriela. This character that didn't change; "no shoes, Sr. Nacib". I changed. I grew up. My child doesn't, she runs around in the meadows when I wind her up. I don't like repression, and I learned permissiveness from my mother. And as time passes, the dangers it brings. And I went even deeper, to find out why it happens, how it arrives, why it stays or why it causes damage and what causes damage, in the judgments and assessments that we are "forced" to make in the course of immense experiences, because this thing of living is all experimental. I've been an adult since I was six. Because this is the calculation I make, when you have to take care of younger children, when our play and discovery so typical of our childhood, of our green years, of childhood, I, in childhood, had to grow up, with the weight of two children who were not mine. Well, this led me to study better the children's universe, to which I had restrictions, complicit in being a "mother" at the age of seven, of two rebellious and childish brothers, with rosettes on their faces, joy and tiredness in their eyes, at dusk. And that's not all I learned, your honor. I went even further, even without wanting to and I add without believing, because I also had to observe, in this study, all the conditions and samples of adults who circulated around us, supposedly in charge of taking care of us, but who lacked the weight of love and responsibility and had an excess of the adolescent desire to live their own lives. They did the minimum possible, to justify the whole. That's how I learned to recognize the shadows and also the light we carry. Very young, still. Being shocked was the most they could get out of me. I never gave up and never gave up the search for understanding in human social relationships. In my favor, I have to say that I am tired of being a toy in the hands, in the will and in the opinion of those who, having the "moral obligation" to know me, for having lived with me and benefited from my sincere friendship, are completely unaware of me. And if at times, this saddened me, if for seasons it even shook me, it was also strength that added to me. Even so, your honor, neither resentment nor hatred overcame me. Anger or temper always occurred at the right time. When I needed to defend ourselves, I did so. No one ever told me: you're the oldest (you're not old at seven years old), I felt, inside myself, the call to be responsible for these children that my mother couldn't take care of, because she worked a lot, making sure that we lacked nothing.

And we lacked so much, your honor, that everything is made from nothing. We didn't have the most precious and necessary thing. Parents present. Support and security. Love and constant care. And if we have to pay tribute to the mother who fought the way she knew how, who never believed she had left us to take care of ourselves, paying many times and occasions for various internal employees who should have looked after us. Some tried to do it and others not so much. But they gained a life of their own, the romances appropriate for their age, the flashy entertainment of someone, who only found freedom, in the permissiveness of my own mother.

External judgments come, for the most part, from propagated ignorance, based on shadows projected by unhappy and frustrated individuals, also maladjusted, looking for a plausible excuse for the internal cruelty they carry, for the shapeless envy that overflows on their faces, for the non-acceptance of no longer being protagonists in other people's lives. I owe nothing, except to God, I fear nothing, except the great love that, at times, threatens to fall upon me, from the compassion I feel, for the wronged and unloved, first of all, from the progressive empathy of knowledge of the shadows, from the study of minds that are unaware of and deny any credit to the essence and base their experience on the appearances of the visible. Secondly, to my enemies, because today, I understand that their own weaknesses made them feel inferior when I treated them well and they mistreated me, behind my back. And this, my child has already taken care of, forgiven everyone, understood everything that comes between the lines of who I am and what separates me from them. And first, the child in me, who is happier than the woman I am, and much wiser, told me: You are ready! Because you knew how to manage compassion, applying it first to yourself. Forgive you for your mistakes and for your hasty assessments of what surrounded you. You grew up. But for me, let me continue to be pure and have wings to fly.

-Your Honor, I will not allow anyone, to colonize my self, to castrate my own will, nor to surrender my identity, which I came to exercise. I have never committed any crime that offended others, that diminished or impeded their expression of freedom. I demand the same for myself. What I gave to others. What I still give is to understand their mistakes and assumptions, to empathize with their dilemmas and setbacks. However, my child will live forever, no matter who it hurts. And only I know my truth. Angels have no sex, your honor, angels descend and ascend according to vibrations. Sometimes coming to help and other times coming to replenish low energy. Angels live in the heavens of each person's soul and share wisdom with those who know how to listen to their hearts. My heart is a channel for the infinity of love, freedom and forgiveness. No one can rescue my essence.