La Grande Dame - Cesaria Evora

She was called Cize by her friends and everyone confirms that she was totally unpretentious.

Always barefoot on stage.

A humble artist with an amazing voice.

Could Cabo Verde have a better ambassador? I doubt.

Her career began when she was 47.

And to think that there are people who want to give up at the age of 40!

50 is when the fun starts!:)

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

To listen to Cesaria singing "Flor di Nha Esperanca" click here

Summer days, summer evenings...

Summer is almost gone...The air is crisp now and the sun doesn't treat us with the same strength as it used to two months ago. 

Here are some pictures I took to keep the warmth and fragrances alive:)

"A perfect summer day is 

when the sun is shining, 

the breeze is blowing, 

the birds are singing, 

and the lawn mower is broken."
- James Dent

Strong woman vs. woman of strength - controversial Oonagh

A strong woman works out every day to keep her body in shape ...
but a woman of strength kneels in prayer to keep her soul in shape...
A strong woman isn't afraid of anything ...
but a woman of strength shows courage in the midst of her fear...
A strong woman won't let anyone get the best of her ...
but a woman of strength gives the best of her to everyone...
A strong woman makes mistakes and avoids the same in the future...
a woman of strength realizes life's mistakes can also be God's blessings and capitalizes on them...
A strong woman walks sure footedly ...
but a woman of strength knows God will catch her when she falls...
A strong woman wears the look of confidence on her face ...
but a woman of strength wears grace...
A strong woman has faith that she is strong enough for the journey ...
but a woman of strength has faith that it is in the journey that she will become strong...

I first read this poem when I borrowed "The Voice of Silence" from a local library. A random but lucky choice what often happens to me when I don't look for a particular book.
Oonagh Shanley-Toffolo - a nun turned nurse, turned missionary in India, turned midwife, turned wife&psychotherapist) made me realise many things:
- how important it is to give time to a new-born baby to get used to the world and light(!) as a baby lived in darkness, and also to a mom to accept her new role,
- that children need time to think - picking up flowers, fishing for crabs or admiring sunsets, painting their own images in the firmament as they watch the clouds rolls by,
- how important it is to take time and get a rest as recreation re-creates us ("recreation, laughter,travel and curiosity can fire the heart"),
- that everyone needs to be "wounded" in order to be able to help others,
- that life is full of blessings in disguise,
- that two people who have a harmony together will include everyone in it,
- that "illness frequently occurs to bring us to an awarness of ourselves and to a higher understanding of our destiny",
- that death = re-birth,
- "if we are caught in seeking the approval of others we are wrestling with a finite, mortal and fickle element. If we get ourselves entangled in what others do and say and think, we lose our own identity. We lose our way." And so on and on and on...

She looked after the Duke of Windsor, Princess Diana through hard times in their lives.

It is believed that Oonagh betrayed Princess Diana (by selling a story to press), she denied but their friendship ended right afterwards.
I don't know if it's true nor do I agree with everything she said but I hope that through her book she will teach and cure a few more people.

"Each day can be a pursuit, a discovery...Your life, my life, our lives are surely for living and loving - and for being happy."

"All we need is Love but love without knowledge falls short."

"All the "shoulds", the "musts" and the "oughts" can so easily obscure our path and help create seemingly deep holes into which we can fall time and again.[...] Yet in these deep holes we can still look up and see the stars (our heavenly latterns)."

photo: karmicrelief.com

"The happiest of people do not necessarily have the best of everything. They just make the most of everything that comes along their way."

Jeanne & maudit Modi

photo: lettertu.it

Isn't she beautiful?

Fate led her into Modigliani's arms and what a story began.

She became his muse, his lover, his soul mate...

He became her life, the air she breathed, her obsession...

But theirs was not a fairy-tale's "The End". They did not live happily ever after.

His death was such a heavy blow that she jumped out of a window being 8-month pregnant with their second child.

Unimaginable pain..How much do you have to love someone to decide to kill yourself and your unborn baby..abandon your little daughter..stand up for the Jewish love of your life against Catholic parents and end it so abruptly, yet courageously.

Their relationship inspired many.

Here's a little bit of Mick Davis' version + a unique and distinct "Ave Maria" by Guy Farley:

"I'm afraid to speak or move for fear that all this wonderful beauty will just vanish... like a broken silence." - L.M. Montgomery

Hella Haasse - forever a stranger

photo: 2.bp.blogspot.com and foliaweb.nl

Helene Serafia Haasse - a popular Dutch author is perhaps not very well known in other countries.
I learnt about her books thanks to my Dutch teacher who was never tired of listening to our mostly incomprehensible phrases and encouraged us not only to speak (or rather keep on trying to speak) Dutch as often as possible but also introduced us to Dutch culture through music, films, books and theatre.


Hella was born in the Dutch East Indies in 1918. What wonderful childhood it must have been, what fond memories since they inspired her to write most of her books.

Twenty years later she went to the Netherlands to study Scandinavian languages and litterature at the University of Amsterdam. However after a year, in 1939, she quit having realised that the Nazis' philosophy was based on Norwegian sagas she so much loved.
In 1940 she passed the entrance exam to the Theatre School in Amsterdam. She graduated 3 years later.

photo: wuz.it and 1.bp.blogspot.com

The pen was calling her though. She started writing texts for cabaret. 
Her proper debut was a collection of poems - "Stroomversnelling" but three years later she turned to writing novels (and collecting awards;)). 


Forever a stranger was she in Batavia being a child of foreigners  but once in the Netherlands she probably had to come to terms with the realisation that it would never be her home either as she grew up elsewhere.


Her story reminds me of a passage from Sarah Turnbull's "Almost French":
"The old Greek on Samos island had warned me. "It's a bitter-sweet thing, knowing two cultures", he'd said. "It's a curse to love two countries". Well, I certainly don't think of living abroad as a curse - I don't think the Greek believed it either. He was just dramatising his dilemma, the feeling of being torn between two places. And this is something I now understand. For an expatriate, the whole matter of "home" is an emotional conundrum riddled with ambiguities and caprice. Paris is my actual home: it's where I live. It can pull at heartstrings with a mere walk down our market street in the morning. But Australia is the home of homesickness and my history - a powerful whirlpool of family and friends, memories and daily trivia that I used to take for granted but now seem somehow remarkable.
Although I understand the French better now, the reality is in France I'm still an outsider." 


Hella was a Dutch Karen Blixen;) She left a country which stole her heart but was never too far away from it.

photo: fantascienza.com

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours” 

Alan Bennett "The History Boys: The Film"

Bazyli Albiczuk - a renaissance man

My latest discovery and I have to share it!


Bazyli Albiczuk was a Polish artist who died in 1995.
His formal education finished after only 4 grades of grammar school (sic!). No art classes, no master, would you believe?


He taught himself how to play violin at the age of 15 and he would take the instrument whenever the mood took him. He would stop working or talking to someone and he would play.
To everybody's suprise, he also wrote poems in Ukrainian which were found when he died.


His paintings represent mostly his garden which he created himself and cherished until the end. He was even called "a painter of gardens".
Needless to say, his last wish was: "Please, save my garden".
However soon after his death, his house was sold, the garden ran wild but the paintings remained..

photo: in-spe.art.pl

photo: stare.verte.art.pl

photo: zgstl.kei.pl

photo: samiosobie.info

photo: polskaniezwykla.pl

photo: muzeumbiala.pl

photo: kkn.pl

photo: interwizja.edu.pl

photo: ethnomuseum.website.pl

photo: samiosobie.info

Art was his life. He decided not to have family, so that he could concentrate on painting.

Despite lack of formal education, his works were acquired by galleries and museums.

There is a little bit of Rousseau and Chagall in his works...

photo: 1artclub.com

photo: engbelarustourism.by

Hopefully Albiczuk will also be recognized internationally one day.

"I love to smell flowers in the dark," she said. "You get hold of their soul then."

L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams

Mariza - la classe, quoi! :)

photo:rac105.cat

Every time I listen to Mariza, I wonder if she is a human being...

Her voice and her interpretations are out of this world.

She is a real mix. Her father is Portuguese but her mother's African heritage must have inspired young Mariza to look for sounds and ideas beyond Cabo da Roca. 

And the influence is significant. On the one hand, her fado is classicly correct (Amalia Rodrigues-like), on the other nobody sings it the way she does.

What's more Mariza chooses well instrumentalists who only add more perfection.  

Fado is sad by default:) but here is a bit more cheerful piece. It is a tribute to Mariza's African grandmother. This clip is part of Carlos Saura's "Fados" - a film which is a must for all fado lovers!

"Como posso dizer que o amor é cego se te amei por um olhar."

How can I say that love is blind since I fell in love with you when I saw you.