Log 07 – Seventh Entry: Old Habits

Circles drawn in pencil. Words left unsaid. The door stays shut, 
but something still listens.

Left Page

“O Monroe tem estado na mesa de cabeceira. Algumas noites leio, outras só olho para a capa. Há frases que ficam na cabeça. Acordo a meio da noite a repeti-las.”
Monroe has been on the bedside table. Some nights I read. Others I just look at the cover. Some phrases stay in my head. I wake up in the middle of the night repeating them.

She doesn't say which phrases.
But I’ve done the same: stared at the cover like it might answer back.
Journeys Out of the Body.
Maybe she was looking for a way to slip out again. Or maybe she already had.

(A chain of pencil-drawn circles, tangled like linked rings or ripples frozen mid-movement.)

The spirals are gone for now, replaced by something else.
Still circular. Still looping.
Less cosmic, more grounded.
Like breath. Like repetition. Like a mantra she’s trying to hold onto.

“Hoje voltei a desenhar com carvão. Mãos sujas, mente mais leve.”
Today I drew with charcoal again. Dirty hands, lighter mind.

She says it so simply, but it’s a quiet victory.
The kind you don’t celebrate out loud.
She let the dust settle on her fingers. Let the ink take over, even if just for a moment.

Right Page

“A Polaroid ficou na prateleira. Acho que funciona. Mas para quê usá-la agora? Não estou pronta.”
The Polaroid stayed on the shelf. I think it works. But why use it now? I’m not ready.

She was still afraid to look through the viewfinder.
Still afraid of what it might show her or what it might remember.
The weight of the camera wasn’t in grams. It was in ghosts.

“Às vezes, ao entardecer, penso que vou ouvir a porta abrir. Velhos hábitos.”
Sometimes, at dusk, I think I’ll hear the door open. Old habits.

This one cuts.
The quietest grief lives in muscle memory.
She doesn’t say his name, she never does — but he’s in that sentence, standing behind the door that never opens.

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

Log 06 – Sixth Entry: The Weight of Things

The smell of turpentine. Clay too heavy to lift. Something waits in the 
sketchbooks, half-forgotten.

Left Page 

"Passei pela loja de fotografia. Ainda aberta. Talvez compre rolos novos. Não sei para quê."
I passed by the photography shop. Still open. Maybe I’ll buy new rolls. I don’t know why.

She doesn't know what she's preparing for, but she's preparing anyway. Something in her still expects the shutter to click, the film to hold something steady.

"Encontrei os cadernos antigos. Desenhos de antes. Não sei se sou ainda a pessoa que os fez."
I found my old sketchbooks. Drawings from before. I don’t know if I’m still the person who made them.

Sometimes it feels like the old self is a stranger who shared your hands. She found the drawings, but doesn’t claim them.
The same lines, but not the same eyes.

"Comecei por arrumar os tintas. As velhas caixas ainda cheiram a trementina. É um começo."
I started by organizing the paints. The old boxes still smell of turpentine. It’s a start.

There’s something sacred in that smell, not just memory, but movement. Like art waiting to be remembered. Like proof she once created things that weren’t just fragments.

Right Page

"Não sei se quero voltar à escultura. A argila pesa. Os blocos pesam. Eu também."
I don’t know if I want to return to sculpture. The clay is heavy. The blocks are heavy. So am I.

There’s a difference between weight and gravity. Isabel feels both. Clay in the hands and in the chest.
Creation asks too much sometimes, and sometimes you don’t know what’s left to give.

"Há dias em que não saio. A cidade lá fora não me chama. Ainda não."
Some days I don’t go outside. The city out there doesn’t call to me. Not yet.

She’s not hiding. Not exactly. But the outside world feels paused, like she’s waiting for something to shift before it lets her back in.
Or maybe she’s the one who needs to shift first.

At the bottom of the page:
Something tangled, maybe a flower, maybe a star.
All points pulled inward, unsure if it wants to rise or collapse.

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