“Don’t forget, in the meantime, that this is the season for strawberries. Yes.” (Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star)

“Impostor syndrome” they say, empathetically inclining their heads to the right, lips in a downward motion, eyes a well of sorry. I return to myself. My hands on my lap, my gaze diving in, searching in the depths of me for a glimpse of what could be the light at the bottom of the well, the answer to all my doubts – on how to live recklessly, and eat a strawberry without washing it first, with a trust that expands to the entire anonymous chain behind its production, until it reaches my mouth.

So many questions, sometimes they slip out. On the line for coffee, wondering out loud “did I close the door”? At the bus stop, the threshold of departure, one foot going, another trying to get back – to a safety zone, back home, back in time, back.

Last week, I came across – images of irretrievable moments, of colours that look better, when lost in time. Before Christmas, I spent a week, looking at people’s windows, in search of the yellow, red and blue of my childhood. Of those tiny light bulbs that were shaped like little flames, and when unlit, seemed to hold a secret within, refusing transparency. In the airport, I roamed around, spotting once or twice the feeling of return. In timeless, suspended air, the rows and rows of movies is the closest I can get – to closing my eyes and feeling, the fresh smell of yellow mornings – the sun,  a tiny ice cube running smoothly through my skin before the fire, the breeze of laughs around the table putting it out. The cake, the pizza, the birthday parties, the dreams that seemed so real. The Betty Boop key chain from the convenience store across the street that looked like the utmost prize, gleaming timelessly in my hands. 

Playing of skipping the floor tiles’ lines at the mall, each foot having to land perfectly inside the squared format. Crying about fallen french fries and lost parties, about not being able to freeze something as solid and flimsy as time. About not finding, ever again, the same christmas lights, but recall how they lit up the faces I hold so dear. 

So I return. To the unwashed strawberry in my hands, an ephemeral product of persistent care, its fragility holding the world in tiny seeds and sparkling red. I look up and agree, the mind is its own impostor. I place the universe on the tip of my tongue, only to swallow it whole. For the truth is that life is the cyclical search of the perfect fleetingness of the aftertaste. I only had to turn my sight inwards to finally see.

Written by Júlia Neves