The Power of Love

Trindade

I was watching TV right now, a Brazilian channel, and I saw something that just made me think a little more about the power of love.
The show I watched wasn’t in fact about love, but about people who isolated themselves from a so-called civilization and their reasons for that radical action. One case among all of them explored by this show just got my attention for its radical action justified by the lost of a man’s greatest love.

Many of the people interviewed are not in fact geographically isolated, since they live near huge cities.
One of the places chosen by the show was Trindade, a fisher’s village and hippie community, far only 53 km from the Rio de Janeiro city.
I will give you some information about this place because I was camping there once, and I had a wonderful time. People from there were not officially Brazilians inhabitants because they didn’t have any official IDs. I remember asking the village’s leader why they didn’t have any ID and he replied: “Why? I don’t need it! It’s worthless here!”

Wow, so true!! Why they would need any official ID?! If they are hungry, they go to the sea and fish or collect fruits from the forest. They make their own manioc flour, their own delicious every-day-fresh-bread and they have everything there request by a modest and unpretentious way of living. Usually Trindade’s older population doesn’t know how old they are and they don’t care about unnecessary problems. In such case they have a very long life. It isn’t hard to find almost 100 years old sir or lady there. The reporter asked a 99 years old lady her secret for all that longevity and she said: “banana, fish and the sea, nothing else”! Nothing else… I envy those people a lot, cause they really get what I’m looking for…simple living.

Well, this show showed many places, their people and their life stories. They don’t differ much from one to another, since they share the same life style for generations and generations. Usually they are very shy, for the reason that they habitually just talk with their families and nobody else. However, you can find people living in these isolate areas because they chose to live like that. I mean, they have the opportunity to go to a small town or to an average city, but they decided not to leave the peaceful places where they were born. Some of them don’t allowed pictures, don’t allow even a person outside their nuclear family looking at them by pure shyness… choices in life!!

Mr. Dominguinhos and his friend sometime ago

Coming back for the original reason of why I chose to write about this show… This "case" really illustrate how love can change the path of our lives...

For 41 years, a man isolated himself from all kind of contact with people. He was 30 years old when he decided to become an eremite, after a huge love disillusion.
This craziness of love began when Mr. Dominguinhos worked in a farm, near his actual house and he fell madly in love with the farmer’s daughter. It was a platonic love for years and years. The farmer’s daughter was his childhood ‘s friend since Mrs. Dominguinhos was born in this same farm, situated in a state of Minas Gerais, the state I came from by the way.

One day, at 30 years old, he found out that his unique and precious love would get marry. He could not believe! All his dreams and his meaning in life were over!! He knew or he felt that he couldn’t fight for that love… She loved him as her childhood friend and nothing else. He thought that being a simple employer, in fact, her employer, he had no chances, no hopes of marrying her. This poor heart threw the towel!

So, just after knowing about his life’s fatality, he got all his belongs and left this place and subsequently he has lived alone. He chose a cave to be his house, his home and he lives all by himself until now. The pain in his heart is still very strong according to him. He has as company and as friend a 2 cord’s guitar where, with just 1 musical note, he sings his love’s pain away every single day. He has chose to live isolated because he couldn’t deal with that pain in his heart, the pain of losing his greatest love.

Mr. Dominguinhos at his house

He has suffering for long 41 years. He is 71 years old now as you can see in these photos.

It’s noticed that love is a life-changing power. For better or for worse depending of the point of view…
I think that there is no stronger power than love. I love being in love because I feel strong enough to take audacious steps in life.

For love, we can isolate ourselves in a cave or isolate ourselves abroad, our isolate ourselves from ourselves. For love we can go or we can stay, for love we can get wiser or we can get dummier, for love we remember or we forget, for love we can take risks, take a ride, take a breathing away, take apart, take back, take care, take charge, take off, take out or take a life itself.

What I love the most about being in love, is the silly smile on our face 24/7, is the capacity of flying away without get out of any place, is the butterfly on our stomach when the lover voice is heard, is the anxious driving us crazy, is the comfort feeling of knowing that somebody cares or think about us. Nothing in the world can substitute those feelings. They got power!

And the suffering? Is there any better suffering than suffering for love? The world is over, the life is over, and the hope is over. Everything gets another dimension, everything is so dramatically dramatic! Every single detail reminds us of the lost love. We turn the radio on and the first music we listen to is the couple love’s song, we open a book and the lover’s smell is there.

It is so painful, so damn good painful. We just want to suffer! The medicine for that pain? There isn’t any! The only thing that rests us to do is to wallow it and wait for the passing time.
Time is a good medicine for pain of love. Well, as all medicine it doesn’t work effectively for everybody, don’t you think Mr. Dominguinhos?