It’s more like a dog. A loyal, alert and happy dog. Like those we see in parks trying to guess to which direction the master throws the ball.
That’s how my mother jumped from the chair when my after asked hesitantly, after dinner: “Rosa, do you think there is…?”
And she made coffee. “Just in case there is some already made”, he emended with a sound voice. But the ball was far away and the dog was content in his task
It was neither machismo nor feminism. Neither kindness nor social rule. It was an animal thing.
To me it was a complete mistery. The jump to the kitchen, the best cup, the best smile.
Today I thought. Wasn’t an animal the woman who kicked the elevator door? The teacher who told the dean she was acting irreflectively? The mother who called us vultures and then asked if we loved her. The woman who laid on a man’s bed and then got out thinking I’m still married.
Actions are not logic. They spread in life going in all directions. But modes of being are coherent and compact. Each one has his own. And if as a dog she licked us and bite us, why couldn’t she still as a dog growl with hate and guess my father’s desires?
They could have explained to me before, I am the kind of person who pays attention. But no. Just now this man came, a silent and schrew cat, telling me there’s nothing wrong with serving coffee.
Crônicas da Sala de Aula 