I lived in Berlin. 1984, 25 years. I worked six days a week, 10, 12 hours in the kitchens of Italian and English restaurants. Despite this, there is was another period in my life that has attended so many concerts. Egberto Gismonti
appeared in a church. I went with an Italian girl, Gee, who would become my wife. The church was full. The show was late starting. I asked a young German man sitting next to me at that hour was to begin. "It's always like this, Egbert, you never know when on the go and when he goes away." I have never met so many people who are experts in Brazilian music as in Berlin. When Egbert entered, along with percussionist Nana Vasconcelos, a scent of sweet grass has invaded the environment. The concert lasted a short hour. Then I started bis, tris, who have stretched out for another hour plentiful. The last piece was a melody of joy melancholy, and resigned as the recent release of a long sobbing tears. "NananaNanananaNaana" That melody has remained in my head for a long time, and the echo of that feeling at the end of the concert continued to reverberate within me for many seasons yet.
Ten years later, 1994, 35 years old, living in Natal, Brazil, lived in a wonderful home that Gi and I were building on the seafront of the Atlantic Ocean beach of Ponta Negra. It was a present that he brought with him the awareness of being probably the golden period of my existence. Gigliola gives me a vinyl for my birthday. I put it on the turntable and listen to casually, until ... "NananaNanananaNaana" There it is! I take the cover to find out the title of that wonderful music that had charmed me so deeply. "Palhaço" clown. Strange, disappointing, disturbing, sad, pathetic. I would rather not know the title of that musical jewel. I do not like clowns, I never liked them, even as a child. They make me sad, depressed, unhappy. Do not make me laugh at all the clowns. The comedians that I like, I admire him, I entertain and excite me. Charlie Chaplin consider one of the greatest artists of all time, I love it. But the clowns, no. They are sad, pathetic and send me misery. I wonder why? I saw only sadness in the eyes of those men who were trying desperately to red nose strap laughter to the audience of the poor innocent country circuses that I have attended in memory of my holidays as a child.
Then, there were also the last chapters of the last soap opera in which I worked, "Meu Pedacinho de Chão" My piece of land in 1972. I was 13 years. The character I play, Serelepe, preferred to flee along with a circus company to avoid having to live in an orphanage, leaving behind Pituquinha, his childhood passion, his and mine. "How do you want to be your clown?" I asked the makeup artist. "A clown who cries," he said. And so it was.
night. 2010, 51 years. Another season of my career. I'm at the computer while listening to this now old melody, low volume, non-GI disorders, and my daughter, Marina, you have to get up early tomorrow, seeking information on the web for building the information sheet, "Palhaço" to share with Participants of the workshop that will bring light therapy for the Master in Communication and nonverbal language of the University Ca 'Foscari of Venice. It was composed in 1980.
Where was I in 1980?
God Good, 1980, 21 years! The hardest year of my life, marked by a terrible tragedy in the family. A tragedy, unfortunately, announced ...
Return from England to Brazil, and quickly escape. After greeting my mother, I thought that was so shrunken, so different from how I remembered it, I went to visit my brother who for days had been locked in a room. I found that it dragged on the ground, screaming, crying, banging his head against the walls. I tried to speak earnestly with him, to do it "reasoning", to no avail. It was as if I was not there. Until he stops for a moment, looks at me and said slowly: "O Palhacinho chegou", "You Romper arrived, "and resumed the exercise rather than a legitimate manifestation of his pain. Only then I realized that look like a clown that day. I wore a sweater with white stripes, red and blue and wearing a face by Inglesina mulatto. I suffered like him, but I did not have the courage to give vent to my pain. I took her inside me like a stone, and so remained for a long time.
Last year, two old high school friends have come from Brazil to visit me here in Italy because we celebrate the "half century of adventure. At the end of a dinner here at home, after having emptied all the bottles of wine we had at our disposal, one of them, Gilfredo, recalled the sad events of that 1980. We cried together, and many more. I felt that stone that I carried in my chest was beginning to melt gently.
Today, I do not know why, but I'm not a clown, and clowns, with their ambiguous joy, perhaps, give me less trouble. And to be honest, I must confess to feeling even happier. Do not defy the future, but I fear not, nor the future nor the past. Not anymore.
