What will it take, Flávia?
What will it take?
A dear, dear friend of mine comes to me with this question.
Not in this exact words, but in this very spirit.
She’s lost. Empty of meaning. Full of pain.
Has no idea what to do.
She, of all people…
It eludes her, this lack of direction and control.
What will it take, Flávia?
I think about her being so lost, but I go to bed to dream, surprisingly, about my very own maze…
There are these endless corridors… I’m late for something; a lecture, a class, it appears. I’m just… late. And I don’t know where it is.
Night after night, this dream comes to me. This dream and that song about wishes and stars and fate that I have in a Renato Russo’s album… The one from the Pinocchio movie. Pinocchio, the character whose wish was to become… only…human.
“When you wish upon a star, doesn’t matter who you are”…
I go about my day. I work, I write, I go everywhere.
At night, once again, thinking about my friend’s dilemma, I go to bed. But I dream about myself. Back into that place where I cannot get to a lecture on time. I ask a classmate, she tells me. Makes no difference. I cannot find it, yet again.
I wake up, make my coffee… Renato Russo’s voice fills the room…
“If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme”.
My beloved friend sends me another message.
So sorry, she can’t even talk. Doesn’t know what to say. Will take a trip soon. Maybe that will do the trick.
After all, what can it take?…
Yes, Flávia… What?
For how many nights has this been going on? Four? Five?…
The dreams are not bad. At all. Not frightening or tense. They just… are. And at this point in my life I already know we are always suppose to mind the things that come to existence and show themselves to us, so plainly. Specially when they are so damn persistent. They mean to say something. To guide you through the endless corridors.
“Like a boat out of the blue, fate steps in and pulls you through”…
I come back home. It’s raining. I cannot focus. So I play the song.
And think about my friend.
The corridors.
The dreams.
The realities.
What does it take?
When the corridors are never-ending, and the lessons keep passing you by?…
What does it take?
The piano and voice come in, beautifully…. “When you wish”… Wish what, Renato?… What did you think about when you sang these words?…
Renato Russo, the Brazilian singer with the deepest, most beautiful voice, who recorded this song, died very young. And people say, of such humans, that they live too shortly… But… Do they?…
Time feels different, after all, when you are fully awake, when you know your way around corridors…
I sit back down to work.
He keeps singing to me…
“Fate is kind. She brings to those who love, the sweet fulfilment of their secret longings…Like a boat…”
What? Sorry… I don’t quite get it, just yet…
Is this supposed to be about Pinocchio?
Come to think of it, was this really a good song for that story?…
Does it make sense that someone would wish so much to be… human?
I pause. I breathe. I write.
I cannot know anything unless my fingers go out of my control – so that they can know it for me.
I surrender. I let them do their thing.
They will tell me stuff I don’t really want to know… But what else is there to do?
I once wished to be human…
And now, it’s done.
Renato’s voice comes back around. Once again.
“When your heart is in your dream…
No request is too extreme…
When you wish…
It comes true.”
What will it take, Flávia?
What?…