Log 03 - Third Entry: The Compass

Two flowers drifting in opposite directions. One spiral to catch them both.

Left Page 

The margins crawl with questions. “Quem?” — Who? “Eu?” — Me?

A single spiral sits on the page like a compass that never points anywhere but in. Two flowers, half blown apart, lean in opposite directions — one reaching up, the other bending down — seeds that might never land.

“Vês,… mas onde… e quando?”
You see,… but where… and when?

“Será que estou a repetir passos de alguém?” 
Am I repeating someone else’s steps?

And then, borrowed but almost hers now:
“Yo no sé cuál de los dos escribe esta página.”
I do not know which of the two writes this page.
Jorge Luis Borges wrote that in Borges y Yo, wondering who he really was: the name on the covers, or the man who lives behind his own stories. He didn’t trust which version of himself held the pen. It makes me think about all the selves inside me. The one who wants to remember. The one who hides. And the one who’s always chasing breadcrumbs left behind in notebooks like this, breadcrumbs that were never mine to scatter.

And just below the spiral:
“Tudo vale a pena se a alma não é pequena.”
Everything is worth it if the soul is not small.
Fernando Pessoa wrote it in Mensagem when he was trying to imagine Portugal bigger than its own fear: tiny boats, endless ocean, a horizon no one trusted. But I don’t think this line is just about ships and salt water. I think it’s about the private voyages too. The parts of yourself you’re afraid to cross. The conversations you put off because you think they’ll break you. The dreams you tell no one about because they’re too fragile to explain.
If the soul stays small, maybe you never lose anything, but you never find anything either.
If it opens wide enough, even the hard parts belong to you. The storms, the regret, the places that ache: they all make the map bigger.

Sometimes I wonder which of us holds the pen now. And whether the spiral ever lets us put it down.

Right Page 

"Novo apartamento. Alugado em dezembro. Precisei sair. Não aguentava mais aquela casa. Nem ele. Ainda estranho dormir aqui. As paredes vazias. O eco. Às vezes parece que o silêncio pesa mais à noite. Não trouxe quase nada. Só livros, materiais de desenho, alguma roupa. O resto ficou para trás. Aos poucos, começo voltar a pintar. Não é…"
New apartment. Rented in December. I had to leave. I couldn’t stand that house anymore. Or him. It still feels strange to sleep here. Empty walls. The echo. Sometimes it feels like the silence weighs more at night. I didn’t bring much. Just books, drawing materials, a few clothes. The rest stayed behind. Slowly, I’m starting to paint again. It’s not…

She writes it like a confession she’s not ready to finish. The new place feels hollow - walls bare, echo heavy enough to press down on her chest when the lights go out. She brought so little with her: books, charcoal, scraps of paper that remember more than she does.

This fragment continues in the next log.

These pages are fragments left behind by Isabel S., no more and no less. © I.S.