Little girl’s dream

Wall of the Mosque of Cordoba

One of the beautiful doors of he Mosque

Detail of the wall

When I was 6 or 7 years old, my dad gave me a sticker album. It was a very special album, because it was about art and architecture.
I was fascinated with it and I could spend hours and hours there, just looking at the world of arts.
I was born in a small town and I don’t remember going to exhibitions there. It had, better, has a small and not so active public library and that’s it.

Well, I did not know why a specific picture from my album was so important to me and until now, 34 years later, I still don’t know but I'm getting tons of clues and I'll go somewhere soon.
In fact, I loved all the pictures, or the stickers, even though they were not stickers. Anyway… I loved all of them, but one day I went to the store to buy a brandy new envelope of pictures. I got 2 of them. I opened and they were the same. The same pictures!! I got so frustrated and went home.

When I got home, I went to my bedroom, I got the album and I re-opened the envelope. When I paid attention on the picture, my heart just bit faster then ever before. I suppose that, because I don’t remember having an experience like that before, and until now, it was the most powerful memory in my mind from that time.

Well, this special image was about 10x7 cm, 4x3 inches. It was folded in half. I opened it again, and I looked at it. It got my attention so badly that I could not take my eyes out of it for long time. It was colorful, vibrant, and had something special, very special. Unfortunately or fortunately the album had no information about the pictures, and we just knew where to glue them because of the number on the back of the pictures.

Anyway… I continued buying the envelopes every week, but every day, I looked at that "strange" picture. I remember asking some relatives if they knew something about that place. OH! I didn’t tell… it was inside some building and not a canvas os sculpture.

Orange's garden of the Mosque

Almost there. Preparing to enter inside de Mosque

One day my father entered in my room, and asked me why I was so fascinated with that specific picture and I replied saying that I had no idea, but one day I would find out about it.
So, as I didn’t get any information about it, I decided that I never would know something related to that building. Never!
The time has passed, I grew up and I went to college and I never said to somebody how important that picture was to me. That picture was just in my mind and in my album. I could not look at it anymore, because all my childhood stuff was destroyed by years and years of raining days. All the pictures I drew in kindgarden… everything…

Before I started my studies in arts and art history, I went to law school. In Brazil we have a education system more likely the European systems. So, I quitted law school just one year before my graduation. Brave or crazy? Definitely, brave! I quitted and I started, finally, to study what I love, which is art history.
One day, in my art history class, I was kind of distracted when I looked at the slides the professor was working on and I saw the picture of my life, that enigmatic building. I screamed like the craziest person on earth. Stoppppp!!! My professor and my colleagues got very up set. They turned the light on; I asked the professor if she could talk to me out side. Thank God we were friends. I told her everything about it and she respected my decision to not know anything about it. That was great, my secret was preserved.

Qibla, or wall facing Mecca

I have no idea how my heart is still working

Time went by, I moved to the United State and I transferred my courses to there. Do you believe that the same thing happened there? I almost found out something about the building! I was so ashamed to scream stop again, but i did anyway! I did, and my professor was wonderful with me also. I was safe one more time!

But, secrets are not forever and I don’t know if it is good or not.
I went to Spain for the holidays and I spent 1 week in Andalusia. I was in Malaga, thinking about going or not to the house where Picasso was born, since I'm not a huge fan, and I saw a post card, exactly exactly as my picture back there. Exactly!!!

I was in front of Picasso’s Museum. I walked directly to the picture and I heard: It is beautiful, hum?! It is the Mosque of Cordoba and we are going there tomorrow.
Whattttttttttt???? I’m going there tomorrowwww!! I screammed loud to myself! I did not say a word, I just cried. I didn’t cry like a crazy emotional, sensitive woman as I really am. My cry was a mix of happiness and sadness all together. I always wanted to go to this place, always. But now I realized that I was so poor that I blocked all my traveling dreams just to not be more frustrated and I cried for everything I blocked in my heart, in my soul.

So, I looked for a coffee shop, I went to the restroom, I looked at the mirror and I cried hard. I knew what was waiting for me. I knew it!!
A revolution has begun into my heart, into my soul, into my mind and into my body since I went to France, specifically to Besançon to study French, last year. It is a painful and silent revolution, but a knowing one. I forgot when I got lost from myself and I got tired of that boring and cold Leandra that assumed my real place. So, it is just old friend returning home for good.

And what Besançon has to do with all of that? There, I realized my dream to live in a university's dorm and I was by myself again and I loved it, with tons of conscience guilty, but I loved it. And also and more important, there I met some people who became very, very
significantive to me. They are so important that I could not imagine my life away from them anymore. All my life I have been fascinated for everything from Arab world. Please, don’t ask me why, because I have no idea. I love the music, the food, the landscape, the people, the culture, the tongue, the problems, etc…those people I met there are from one of the most mysterious Arab World.

Well, after cry my eyes out in a very impersonal coffee shop restroom, I recomposed myself and I enjoyed Malaga. I did!! I did not thinka bout the "tomorrow"!

I cannot believe I'm there

Another day, I went to Cordoba. My heart was completely out of control. When I saw the walls of that building, I stopped talking and I’m talkative person. Do you know what happened? It was closed that day. One more day, I forced myself to think that I did not know what was waiting for me...

Next morning I went there. I went in there!! Oh my God... I'm crying right now…I cannot described what I felt when I looked at those beiges and reds arches of the Mosque of Cordoba. I was into my dream and I felt that I was into my true me. I cried, I cried and I cried. I sat on the floor and I cried… I could not do anything else.

Finally I was there!! I was there… a very strong feeling that I cannot and I don't know how to describe it started in a heart of that little girl who is a grew up women now, who still is that little girl.

This is exactly the picture I felt in love when I was a little girl