This is my project on writing about my memories of childhood and about my sensations of that time. How to find back the emotions of that time? Are they lost forever? This is unfinished but it’s the beginning of it.Alberto Greenberg the author.

The memory
Whenever a memory came to my mind I used to grasp a sense of the moment in the past. It could be a smell, a song, a person or a certain landscape. It all came back to me at no time. Then, in the end, I had an entire picture of the scene. It was incredibly colorful so that I could feel as though I was carried away in time and space instantly.
At that time, my dearest memory was the time when my aunt and my uncle came to visit us from Argentine. They stayed for some weeks, but that memory was so vivid that I enjoyed to remember it just to get a bit of the original feeling again. And it came rather as a bitter memory because it was irremediably gone. It was sweet and bitter. The TV shows were so present that they appeared as a kind of landmark for each period of our life. At that time my father watched the news every evening – and they appeared in a color screen in such a strong blue. The background was deep blue and the anchorman suit was of strong colors too as to highlight the magnificent effects of a new color technology.
But well, that was 1977. I could feel intensely every second of their stay close to us. My brother and me used to run or walk along the beach – so close to our home. We liked to see these relatives walking with us and somehow the whole thing got a new meaning this way. I’m not sure if they would have the same feeling… most probably not, unfortunately. After all, they were in their 60s then and they would be just comparing that time to their many trips before (to different places). Therefore it would not have the same taste of freshness that it had to my brother and me.
The memory that would bring me chills years after was the day when my aunt, my uncle, my brother and I went up a hill very close to our home. It was rather deserted at that time (just a couple houses). We watched the view from up there and then returned from the other slope. There was a dirt street and we followed it. It was so full of holes that my aunt made a remark as if she was surprised. She was always so naïve in her comments and that added to the delight I felt at that occasion.
It’s funny but at that moment I felt as if time had stood still. The miracle is when we break out from our boredom – when we can inhale an unknown gust coming from a different dimension of the being. There I was guiding my relatives along a path that they didn’t know. I knew it from the many times that my brother and me had gone along those paths exploring the beaches, fields, rocky shores and forests. I was fresh enough (and innocent enough) to let the moment soak my mind and to be totally present in there. Not half-here and half-there like it happens when we are fully grown-up. It means that I wasn’t comparing that with another moment. The full awareness comes naturally when you are immerse in the present, without expectations to the future, and you’re not comparing that moment with a past moment either.
When times makes a halt you live the present more intensely.
That’s why I could remember the moment in times to come. This memory could bring me pain too. As when I missed them for the wonderful season we spent together. I hoped many times that they would come back. And they did come back but only one more time.
I had so many dreams then. I think my imagination was so wild. Maybe just like any other guy… But now they come to my mind times and times again. And I’m amazed to see how strong those wishes, desires and expectations were at that former time. There was the need of fulfilling them – a strong wish that could lead me to disappointment too.
That evening, Dad made another nice dinner with seafood, some dressings, sauces, rice and all the rest. We were also buying some special desserts in one of our trips by car. And the color-TV would show the news in front of the table.
I try to recover the memory but I fail to relive those emotions. They “wore out”. My memory cells can’t grasp the emotional background in which they originated. I know: the only thing that matters is the present moment. What can we do with lost emotions? We can’t bring them alive again. They’re dead forever. Dead like the years that passed by. If they come back they would not be the same emotions. They would be of a different nature. That’s exactly the problem with most older people. I’m not so old yet so I can’t grasp the whole dimension of that feeling. But it comes from times to times, when I have the time to think about them. I think I’ve been neglecting that thing lately.
What I mean, I would like to have the time to let those feelings come back to life. It’s impossible to come back to that place and time. Even if I come visiting the place I know it’s not the same place. It changed in the last 25 years, and so much! Now it’s a great destination for tourists from all places. It’s modern, plagued with apart-hotels and guest-houses. It’s crowded in summer. I know, in winter it’s rather deserted and if you knew it from its origins you will have a certain idea of its original flair. The Buzios that I needed to see again is the one that doesn’t come back. It’s a village inhabited by fishermen and a few summer tourists.
Everything was primitive; the electricity was going on and off. And when I was only 16 I had strong needs and wishes. They didn’t come all at one time, nor did I have a clear idea of what they wanted exactly. But they left me in internal turmoil. Like a tornado, they surrounded me, coming closer and getting far at other times. Sometimes I thought that happened because I was just a guy and didn’t have the things I needed so I needed to be an adult to become fully grounded in life and fully aware about the reality too. Then I would have my needs fulfilled – so I thought. But those tools I thought I needed didn’t really show up after I grew up. I got some fulfillment for those needs. But I would like to recover that feeling again. So that even if it hurts, I would recover a sense of urgency of immediacy about life. To live here and now, or never.
Many times I could find myself alone in my bed reading a book or a magazine. I read the same magazine several times and each time it could bring me the same feeling. I was reading about places far away. Or about the history of the Second World War. I was obsessed about the weapons of that period. Planes, tanks and ships. Uniforms, machine-guns and bombs. I could study the cruelty in other people’s heart and feel it like mine. But somehow I felt distant from this cruel reality.
I was in a kind of paradise there, surrounded by palm trees and the ocean. The ocean was so bright sometimes… In the morning (and if there was no wind) you could see the distant clouds mirrored in its surface. And they were so bright… So I started to recreate a different reality for myself, drawing whatever called my attention. My imagination was inhabited by machines. I used to draw planes taken from books. We didn’t have so many resources like the kids nowadays have. We needed to fill the gaps with our imagination. We were poor and so we had to keep the books and magazines for our readings night after night. It was frustrating because we always wanted to know more. My brother was the one who first got interested in the “occult”. From the magician kits for kids, to the books about UFOs, witches, werewolves and the pyramids. It was all related and fantastic. Our favorite writer was Arthur Clarke. Then, Ray Bradbury came and of course, Isaac Asimov too. My mother was also intested in UFOs. She attracted us to the subject because the pictures were so appealing. I think she also put that idea in me, of becoming someone famous in an area such as art (like a painter) or a musician or something of the kind. Of course, that was also bringing a certain load of frustration in me. Insecurity too. One should not think about doing an activity with a purpose in mind. At least not the purpose of becoming “someone” in a certain area. This could even prevent the person from awakening the necessary inspiration. Because I think you should not let it come from you merely to become famous or rich. It should come out from a certain inner need to put it out because you have got a “gift”. If it’s a gift, you should also be willing to give it away to the world without asking for a reward. At least not expecting so much out of it.
Well, my mother played a secondary role in that period, because she was separated from my father and she was in another country far away. The times that she managed to come visiting us, it was more like a visitor in the middle of the night. My father didn’t want to meet her there.
Then there was that day when my brother and me went to the beach like so many other times… We saw a solitaire woman at the beach. We were playing over there for a while and then she departed. We saw that she had left a magazine behind. My brother picked it up.
It was a “Planeta” magazine. A publication about esoteric and spiritual issues. He opened it and saw some pictures of UFOs in the night. Wonderful lights in the prairies of France. The original publication started in France but there Portuguese editions in Brazil. We found it nice and handed it over to my mother. We were glad to see her reading it. There was still sand between the pages. And they were hardened by the intense heat of the sun and by the wind. I mention this because it still brings some disturbing emotions in me. As if my mind struggled to bring back that experience to the “here and now”. When I was there I could feel the Nature and it talked to me in a wordless manner. Maybe it whispered to my ears the sound of the waves and the wind. It feels like when you put a shell against your ear and you wander what is it telling you. It’s constant like a wave but it seems to come from so far away and still you can contact it.
There was this naked sensation of being in contact with something wild. Or rather this wilderness was undressing you deep inside because it knew everything about you. It knew you from inside – your soul had no secrets for it. So it was the same for you and the same for everybody else. There were no boundaries and no obtrusions for it. It could pervade every being just like a gust of wind so easily traveling and always changing its shape.
Some things appear to be so unimportant and yet they can change your life to the future. Or at least this is my impression. It could be that destiny would draw you to that direction by any means. But it could also be true that a simple incident change your whole view about life since then.
Because I have the impression that when my brother picked up that magazine he provoked a shift in my destiny. The subject of those publications was primarily the spiritual stuff. Well, I didn’t get interested in that at that time. But since my brother started to buy that magazine, he kept them in the shelf and accidentally I started to read it too.
Apropos I should also say that we used to make collections of everything that could come to our reach. Comic magazines were the most important at the beginning. But we sort of shifted to more wide things like stamps and coins and cars and airplanes. Then as we were so much into reading we started to ask our father to buy us sci-fi books. We didn’t have many – my father couldn’t afford to buy them. And there was no library over there. We were standing for what seem hours in front of the shops looking through the glasses to the books and toys we dreamed to own. But that was in a bigger town where we had to go to school. There we could find some shops that had the treasures we avidly watched.
Now I feel lonely for being so far from those times. More than 30 years! It seems so far away!
I was saying that my brother started to collect the Planeta and they started to make a pile in the shelf. I barely touched them. Then once I found a picture in black in white of a girl’s naked torso in the inner pages. I watched it for so long time; endless minutes in my bed trying to imagine the whole body (not foggy like in the picture) at my side. I could not do much more than imagining a woman’s nude body at that time. We had no Playboys at our disposal. I don’t know how but somehow I got interested in the reading as well. I read about philosophic questions but at that time it didn’t touch that deep nerve in me. I liked to read about ghosts though.
To remember that day when my brother found that magazine still brings a strange feeling in my heart. It’s something vague as a feeling, and I can remember some details very well even if my memory is very poor now. I can recall that feeling at any time. I don’t know if it’s an advantage or if it’s rather tantalizing to remember what is buried in the past. That’s why I said that some small incidents could bring serious consequences in the long run. Who knows, my brother was already interested in that subject – me too in a way. But it had to come just in that moment of our life, not later. Maybe it was the right moment to be introduced in the spiritual matter.
Maybe at that time we were still open enough to grasp a deep meaning in those messages in the magazines. I know that since that time he started to collect other books – but only the cheap ones and not all at one time of course. And those books were related to the ancient religions in Egypt, about hand-reading and the Tarot…He wanted to read the hands like a fortune-teller. He investigated the whole thing being just a teenager.
I can recall that day and feel the salty taste in my lips. The wind in my face, the heat of the sun and the feel of the soft sand under my feet…We ran along the coast until reaching the rocks and then came back. The beach was a soft curved bay. The boats in the distance were just colored points. And there was the small island to which we as a band of friends swam every day.
That place was a secluded spot far away from the village at the other end of the beach. The sun was falling lazily behind the hills and we didn’t care about the clock. It only had the pace of our instincts and animal needs such as hunger and thirst. We didn’t work at that time because my father was working for us fishing and diving at the sea. We studied and watched TV. And in summer there was that wonderful season – our vacations from school. Wow! Three full months to only plan our explorations – our diving and swimming and running at the beach. We had to work in our vacations too. My father asked us to do it. So we got some money for ourselves. I was shocked at first, but slowly got used to the idea of giving away my precious time of doing nothing and working instead. At the beginning I had to buy myself something like a pair of shoes to go to school the next year. Then gradually I could save some money to buy me something interesting.
Sweet feelings, lazy laying at the beach and dreaming, dreaming away like the clouds slowly crawling above in the East wind. I guess that wind was eternal. That sense of being immortal was what the Nature gave me by simply watching it. It always ran away and still, it was always returning to the fountain. The eternity was passing in front of my eyes and I knew I would die one day. The pain was away and didn’t touch me though. No fear whatsoever. Fear of the unknown? The unknown could be my friend. I could be diving deep into the unknown. I could be the unknown myself.
There was a sense of joy by knowing that the days are full of discovering and sharing. The act of searching itself had its joy. This is similar to a sense of innocence – I know that. It means that this is like being immature? Not at all. My sensation is that this feeling is mature and it can happen to an adult as well. It’s not childish to dream and to have that sense of wonder at the daily life. I think it’s inherent to our experience of being in this world. And such a feeling is something that we should keep all our life. Sadly we loose it very soon in our existence.
If I say that I was a “dreamy boy” I’ll be correct and still, this description doesn’t tell much. It doesn’t say anything about the real reason why someone can be distracted or drifting away from the usual issues of life. It doesn’t mean that he must be crazy. Craziness doesn’t exist. You could conceive neurosis but when you are absent-minded, it doesn’t mean that you are crazy. It might be that you are sensing the world in an appropriate way, just that it’s not the usual way that most people feel in society. It’s just slightly different.
I wasn’t worried at all about surviving in a difficult and competitive world. I had different thoughts. I couldn’t sense the time passing by. When we got together with some friends of our age we could stay hours drawing in our notebooks and talking about our likes and the time was halted. I guess it was the same with any other kid. I was just giving time to myself to sense life the proper way. I could enjoy just being sitting in the living room reading away the same book over and over again. Thinking away and imagining the whole scene that the book evoked in me.
That was the big pleasure at that time. I was glad to have so many interests and I imagined one day I could figure out the big picture inside which everything would make sense. Not exactly the sense that the society outside tried to force inside my being. Instead, I’d figure out a picture in which I could explain the whole existence from a wider point of view. That was mandatory since joy and happiness could only be sensed when I wasn’t worried about the petty business of society.
I imagined that one day the humanity would discover the deep meaning of life. Even so I thought that it would demand a big effort of the mind to figure out such a great meaning. And I was afraid we would never find it. Now I think differently of course.
Now I do think that we can find the meaning of life. It’s difficult but it’s part of our evolution as human beings. It’s something available and inside reach for anybody… otherwise it wouldn’t be fair…. And that meaning isn’t in the words or in the books. It isn’t something intellectual, it’s not in the world of concepts. It’s in the world outside, in Nature and in the Universe itself. We just have to be open to it. And at that time, I guess I wanted to keep myself pure and untouched by the normal beliefs of normal people. I wanted to keep my mind open to any theory of life. To any philosophy and walk of life. I didn’t want to make mine the usual ideas that ran around. I searched for something different. Unknown, strange and new. Of course, sci-fi had a great appeal to me… strange worlds, strange characters and strange worlds to explore. Being scared was a side-effect – something to endure. To follow the main stream wasn’t anything appealing to me. I wanted to know the unknown. Because I sensed that the truth was hidden behind those dimensions. And those dimensions would eventually explain our existence in this world. There was the pleasure in the investigation itself. We could dig some joy in just watching the Nature in its normal course. There was true joy in raising a seagull from chick to adult. To teach it to fly. To let it fly away from our hands and reach the ocean and wait for it to come back in the afternoon. We could feel proud of it.
Why can’t we allow ourselves to relive this joy again as adults? Maybe we are afraid to appear ridiculous to the other adults. But a child would understand it. It’s funny. That which any child would understand, not many adults understand.
I thought I could find the sense of life by just trying to figure it out with the tools of my mind and the help of books too. But I knew how difficult it would be. I started to get acquainted with some philosophies at that time and what appealed to me was the Eastern philosophy. I read about the perennial philosophy and really found it great. Then much later I started to read Jiddu Krishnamurti. That was a ground-breaking experience to me.
It’s like love it or leave it. His message is a bit too harsh to some people. Let’s say to most people – at least at the beginning. Just at the moment when it should call our attention with seductive words – maybe soft promises of living a future life in paradise… I read him but that later in my life. At the beginning I just saw his picture in Planeta.
Planeta was really focusing on his message at that time. Maybe his message was unconsciously influencing us. I guess I read some sentences of an article about his message. And nothing else. Then I went on looking for books about World War 2 and the kind.
I found specially appealing to read about the Kamikaze pilots. Those Japanese pilots were crazy. I bought a book (second-hand) about this and it was filled with pictures. Looking at them it was as if I was reading their minds. I imagined myself in the Pacific theater of war. The ocean was like the one I could see from the beach. It was spotted with sun reflections like silver coins. It was calm and the planes came in a swarm, so fast… And the destiny for them was like a cutting knife so sharp like their planes. The silver aluminum reflecting the sun… The reflection appeared quickly and it disappeared as the planes fell towards the ocean aiming the ships below.
I didn’t want to be like them, of course. But the destiny they endured was so real… Life was like a bubble ready to explode at any time. And they were no longer the owners of their destiny. They could not choose to go or not to go. Without choice you could only wish the best. Pray to the Emperor. No matter what happens you will be dead in the next few hours. Such a fate will come by your own will. You wanted to be there. You give your life to that cause. In a sense you don’t need to worry about being bored all those long lost hours of a common existence. Life would be meaningful in the sense that you don’t feel abashed by the necessities of a common life. There’s something new to call your attention moment by moment. I think the worst thing would be not being able to feel anything. If you don’t feel you don’t live. And to live automatically isn’t the right choice.
To live automatically day by day doing what it’s expected from you? To work and pay your bills? Have a normal family life? No. There must exist something else. There must be an alternative. And that must come from inside – not from the others nor from a certain religion nor a given political authority. It must be our own discovery.
I tried to figure out the whole picture. The planes; the runway; the airfield or the carrier in which they were. I also had to see myself among them like a witness of the scene. I had to live an alternative self. And I loved that exercise of my mind. It was great to live another life. I got lost and it looked so real. In the end I was missing the times that I really never lived.
It was like having lived a past life in – say – 1944. Maybe that originated in the times when I watched TV or cinema movies focusing the World War 2. I watched them since I was very young.
The funny thing is that I was feeling a sense of not knowing anything about Life. To experience it inside and outside was a bit disturbing I confess. This not-knowing was something essential to every experience. Even to observe the Nature outside you must make some space inside. That’s what Krishnamurti tries to implant in us. To observe Nature as if we watched it for the first time. And that in an every day experience. We should do that in a daily basis.
Well, that’s the ideal situation. Of course we don’t usually do it. But through the eyes of a child Life can be very challenging. And I’m not talking about the challenges of society. I mean the challenges that usually grown-up people take for granted. Experiences like watching a sunset or watching the stars in a clear night. Or even going out to the sea to fish by boat.
I was putting my mind blank. Not having concepts about things. Just watching the rocks and the ocean beating them without time. I imagined the ages coming and going and still that same ocean beating with a similar wave countless times.
I could get a sense of proportion. My body was so small compared with this planet…
Maybe I got afraid at a certain point of this process. I didn’t want to look anymore. And there is the pressure of society of course. The parents can press you into a groove too. You must adapt yourself or die. Die in the sense of not having what to eat. Or to loose your dignity for example. Society is that way and it can be very persuasive.
Why wasn’t that period of time eternal? In a sense it could have been… Eternal in the sense of not having known the time… the clock that measures your life bit by bit.
Maybe I want to live in a fantasy world now: thinking that I can come back to those times and stay there forever without coming back to my reality here and now. Do I look for a rapprochement with my past? I’m not satisfied with the way I live my life now. I think I left something behind and that was the most precious thing that someone could have in Life. It’s important to have your relationships and your love. You are lucky if you find a true love. But that’s not all. That’s not even a piece of the whole thing. Now I think that the love between a man and a woman isn’t that essential for someone to live happily. You can live alone and still live with joy and meaningfully. You can still feel complete.
I grew up but I lost something in the process. Those words aren’t new. They aren’t mine. So I’m not being so creative in this sentence.
Of course I wasn’t feeling so complete at those early years of my life. There were issues… And I was feeling bored many times too. I was bored mainly when I was pressed into a role to play in society. When I had to be patient and try to learn something important in class. My mind so many times crawled away from the window… I could not grasp certain concepts. I had very less patience for the themes that I didn’t find interesting by nature. So I got bored and suffered silently wishing that I had a good brain like many of my fellow students. I wouldn’t suffer then; I’d just walk away with a 10 or a 9 and wouldn’t have to think about it anymore.
Then it was such a relieve when the vacations came… As if a huge weight was released from my shoulders. I hated school. It was nice to make some friends there… I felt so awkwardly sometimes… As if I really wasn’t there. But it was only related to the others around me… It means that such a feeling came when I was in society. With one or two people that I could trust that feeling would disappear. It was a real joy to make and be together with a friend. I miss this feeling of nice sharing and trusting each other. There’s no holding back. Even when you feel shy to share something it’s not such a big issue. What you share is always more meaningful.
I could feel shy many times and I was feeling like a fool in certain situations. Talking in public for instance. This is something that prevails even today. In a way I had to avoid every “labeling” that the society could attempt to impose in me. I hated this. I was feeling shy at once then. And I didn’t want to assume that this could be the real thing. I knew that the role you play in society is just a role. It’s not the real being that is involved then.
I was growing up and I had to find my way through. But I would not rush and grasp the first role I was given. It was my life that was in stake. So I didn’t need to please the others. I wouldn’t merely accept to play according to other people’s rules just to feel that they like me that way. I could “fake” such a behavior just to defend myself while I go on making my own thing.
Then I didn’t change so much in this aspect. I could still find my own “inner space” in which I could dive at a moment of peace. That’s a very good practice and that’s very similar to going to a secluded place to meditate.
Meditation has much to do with finding your inner space and your inner peace. Unfortunately this has to be done at chosen moments when nobody requests you. Then you can feel that space and you can also feel lucky for being alive. The fact of breathing can be a source of joy if you see it the right way. It would mean that you are alive and that your body is being supported by all means. This can trigger some body mechanisms – endorphins and so on. But of course we look for something more important than that… we don’t simply look for the well-being. We need to be enlightened about the meaning of life. And the answer would come by means of an assuring feeling. It must be an intuitive knowledge. Nothing that you can find in books. It’s beyond our dimension. It’s in a different realm but at the same time it’s right here in the center of every thing. It’s like the Zen Buddhists say – it’s in our daily ordinary existence. The author: Alberto Greenberg, is the author of this blog and who is writing here.