Log 08 — Eighth Entry: New Module

New neighborhood. Old fears. A camera she hasn’t touched yet. A spiral
 glued between the eyes, still watching.

Left Page

“Este bairro é novo para mim. Ruas velhas, mas eu ainda não pertenço. Talvez isso seja bom. Uma página em branco.”
This neighborhood is new to me. Old streets, but I don’t belong yet. Maybe that’s good. A blank page.

She calls it a blank page, but it’s already filling with tension. Her body is alert, cautious, almost like it’s waiting for something to go wrong or for something to finally begin.

“Tenho medo de que, se parar de trabalhar com as mãos, perca o fio. O corpo sabe mais do que eu.”
I’m afraid that if I stop working with my hands, I’ll lose the thread. The body knows more than I do.

This line stayed with me. The way she says the body knows more, as if it’s the one leaving breadcrumbs, and she’s just following behind, hoping the trail doesn’t vanish. I know that fear. Of losing momentum. Of letting something fall quiet and never finding your way back in.

In red, two words repeat like a heartbeat at the bottom of the page:
“Meus olhos. Seus olhos.”
My eyes. Your eyes.

Right Page 

“O próximo módulo vai ser difícil. Não tenho vontade de estar ali. Mas os alunos não precisam de saber.”
The next module will be hard. I don’t feel like being there. But the students don’t need to know.

Her voice softens here. She doesn’t want to be in that room, but she’s still going. Still showing up for them.
There’s something human in that, the weight you carry quietly so others won’t feel it.

A single phrase in red ink stands out, almost like it doesn’t belong to the rest of the text:
“eu te vejo”
I see you.
Feels less like a note and more like a breach. A line crossed. A presence felt.

“Amanhã levo a Polaroid comigo. Comprei novos rolos hoje, talvez me inspire.”
Tomorrow I’ll take the Polaroid with me. Bought new film today, maybe it’ll inspire me.

So many of her entries orbit this: the camera, the images she hasn’t taken yet, the eyes that might appear again.
The collage at the bottom of the page is almost a whisper: green, grainy, an iris behind prison bars, or is it trees? It’s hard to tell. The spiral is glued right between the eyes.

She’s still searching for a new way to see.
And still afraid of what she might find when she does.

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