Dia 30 de janeiro

When i came into the room, all were there, waiting for me to arrive. A complete chaos it was. And yet, organized and highly finished. I could feel their anticipation. “What will she do now?” hang in the air. Same as every year. Sadness looked excited, expecting much. Melancholy was arguing with longing and desire about something only they could understand and make sense of. Memory, yearning, and fate were still struggling with the past. Foreigners wanted to put in a word as well, so ערגה hugged weltschmerz, and was holding hands with νοσταλγία and weemoed.

Yes people, it was the usual thing all over again. No dia 30 de janeiro é comemorado o dia da saudade. Oh u don’t speak Portuguese? Maybe Dutch? No? Greek or Hebrew perhaps? Also not? Huh? No German either? Caramba, what languages DO u speak? Anyway, in short English: Today is the day of saudade. And the good thing is, saudade can’t be translated. One can only feel it. And if u don’t? Well no saudade for u then. No worries tho, as u know what they say sometimes: chega de saudade. Besides, most people won’t have the stomach for it anyway, and rather stay at the surface of their emotional life, cherishing a “don’t worry, be happy” lifestyle, going for the lowest EQ possible, and suppressing, hidden somewhere deep down in their fragile system, the knowledge that their inevitable depression will arrive sooner or later no matter what.



Mostly i don’t care much about so called “special” days. Mother’s Day? Psaw! Such nonsense. Too many creepy moms in this world to celebrate that day. Christmas, Easter, or birthdays? Nah, not for me. Cliché, cliché, cliché. Valentine’s Day? Brrrrrr! Worst of them all! And Femdom Day (ah u didn’t know that eh, but yeah that’s right, july 24 coming, lol) only makes me laugh. Silly, silly, silly. Still, there r a few i observe. For instance, Yom Kippur. And so it is with the Day of Saudade. I love saudade. Reason why i called my blog “Ayesha’s Saudade”.



It’s the day i really let myself go. It’s the day i want to feel and remember how it once was with Shirah, my time in Colombia with those extraordinary men, the days in solitude and agony in Syria, my intense and lost love affair with the father of my child, the numerous relationships that came after him, as well as all the things that never happened, and never will, like for instance my meeting with Elizabeth in Jerusalem, ergo the future that will never come. It’s a moody day. A day of ups and downs. A day of sinking deep into a diversity of abysses, of climbing peaks that reach above the stars, of dwelling in depressions not known to me b4 and enjoying them to the fullest. It’s a day of music, tears, laughter, of lingering with emotions, of exchanging thoughts of suffering, pain, and unbearable sadness with Anita who went through some terrible episodes in her younger years, and recovering from that in each other’s arms. I love all that. There is nothing better than to go deep, very deep, to challenge my saudade, to embrace it, to let it overwhelm me, and dominate it at the same time. It’s the day of pure catharsis, strength, and vulnerability. It’s the day when i want to amplify any feeling, any mood, any emotion, to its extremes, to know my naked reality without any bias, without any possibility of escape. It’s a day of compressed and intense living in a short period of time. I long for saudade, to drown in it, conquer it, to possess it like a slave, and free it from its chains.


After a day like that, i feel refreshed, energized, and even more connected with my people than i was already the day b4. As a matter of fact i’m not really waiting to do all this on the official day of saudade, but take the day off for it whenever i feel like it. There r no bad moods remember?