It is september 2014. Last year I almost died in September. My friends were told by someone I once trusted that I was gone. Cognition had left me. Julieta as you knew does no longer exist.

And that is true. In that year the first thing my neurologist dr. Getulio Daré Rabello saw it was me and I was lost. He looked at me with preoccupied face. They did not fully understand though I could not speak I could hear, I could think and I was trapped inside my brain.

Dr. Getulio was so kind and attempted to treat me normally, while I could not focus my mind nor eyes. He forbade my parents to give me information that was sent to my friends. I would suffer too much. And he told me “julieta, try to write! You have studied so much, you must try to write.”

I will be forever thankful for these words! The sparing of pain when I could not take it, and to trust I could write again.

And so I did. It was so hard. I could not remember words, I could not understand a screen, I had lost categories. I was lost alone inside of my brain.

But I did it. I fought for the wrong reason to live. But still I did it. I had the massive support of my parents, grandmother, my brother. I had friends praying for me in Palestine and Israel. In Europe. I had my dearest professors Mustapha and Marcelo in a battle. I had people from every single continent writing me, praying and hoping. Above all I had some people of my family and friends who simply did not believe I was gone.

To be totally honest when I realised how betrayed and abandoned by someone I mistakingly and non-wisely trusted I lost all hope.

It did not matter if everybody told me how educated I was, how much I could give to the world. I simply had internally quit the world. I did not feel like trusting anything anymore. I prayed every night to die. Not to be sick again, simply to die. And I have no problem in saying this to anyone.

One day someone who had been in a war, and someone else who had been tortured told me.” What you have gone through is worse than what I have lived. I was tortured by my enemy. I had never expected anything good from him. Everybody has the same amount of pain in life.” “You must not let it go inside.” “You must see things for what they are.” “Any harm inflicted on you is your own fault you allowed it.”

I understood and still I could barely want to live. I had been defeated from inside. I had pain in my whole body.

Then I started reading Buddhism. It freed me. It calmed me down. It did not give me any desire to do anything. But I did stop praying to die.

I re-encountered music. Benjamim Taubkin and Penezzi were instrumental in giving me some pure advice.

Then I started to climb and was confronted with my lost flexibility. So, I came to the beach.

I came alone and stayed under the sun and under the rain. Never moved by anything. I started my daily process of healing my body. I did yoga, I swam, I meditated. I regain total movement. I understood my brain way better than I ever did.

Last night I sat with Nil. The daughter of Anisia ( the lady who takes care of our beach house).

How many years had passed since I had done this! No idea.

“Nil, I was meditating today and it came to my mind I was racist towards you when I was a child. I am so sorry.!”

“You? Are you sure? I don’t remember. We played the whole time you, mirela and I.”

“I am sure. I was racist! I said something about you being black!”

“I really dont remember. I remember we made sweets to sell in the beach, we made plans, we sold perfume we made with plants. Oh. There was one day you did not let mirela go inside the pool. And she cried!”

“Why? And she is white than it was not racist, right?

“You were not racist! You did not let her go inside the pool bc she had hurt her leg and it would pollute it :)”

“My god. That is horrible! What did you say?”

“Nothing. You were the owner of the pool.”

“Dear lord. I was classicist!!!!”

“We played the whole time. The three of us. We had fights and went back to playing seconds after. We had lots of fun. I guess we were cruel to your brother!

“True! But he was annoying :)”

I bid goodbye and went to my huge house alone while Anisia and Nil stayed in theirs. I closed the door thinking. “there is something absurd in this situation”.

I woke up the sun was fighting to appear. I meditated and as usual while I practiced yoga here I sang mantras, and I always touch the sea and I ask for liberation for all suffering to all that I know, all that i have touched, to all that is sentient being.

I ask to all beings protection from Buddha, God, YHWH, Allah, Krishna, Tara, Karmapa, Dalai lama, Jesus, Nossa Senhora da Paz, to high spiritual beings that came from Africa, indigenous peoples of Americas that have disappeared without me ever knowing their names. I look at the sea and think of Yemanja. I look at the sun and think of the words of lama Michel when talking about all that causes dopamine released in the brain. Drugs, alcohol, sex, chocolate etc

“such euphoria is suffering in disguise.”

I seat under the sun and feel the heat. The joy. The peace. I smile thinking in my prayer which is essentially Brazilian, the incorporation of all without the need to let anything out.

And deep down I know even this total wellbeing is transitory it is impermanent, and that is ok.

I seat and write this from my phone. Dr. Getulio was right. I must write. And I also know my soul while working in being present will always fly east.

Love, Julieta