E se o homem descobrisse que ele pode sentir
Translator: David DeRuwe
I’m Santo - “Saint” in Portuguese,
but I wasn’t born a saint.
The first thing I remember
hearing everywhere
was: “You’re a boy who’s too sensitive.”
My dad left home when I was three;
my stepdad moved in
a year and a half later.
They gave me the best they could,
from what they’d learned,
and what they figured out on top of that -
the best they could do.
Along with what they gave me,
a picture began forming
and making sense to me,
as to what it feels like
to be a father, a friend, a man,
strong, the best, quick, good, ideal -
and to be these things,
you couldn’t have feelings.
I carried this with me.
In the beginning, I delivered everything
in the same way I’d received it.
After this, I started reproducing
and I ended getting really good.
After this phase,
I think I began a solo career,
adding to what I thought
made up a good male human being:
to be strong, ideal, fair,
and, especially, not too sensitive.
I …
already had a family:
two children, Maria and Rodrigo,
and I think I’ll return
to talk about them later.
Married, I was already a leader
in the organizations where I worked.
And …
to search each time more
and improve the space I was in,
I think I had little
time or space for feeling things.
At one point, the account
for my existence came due.
I was hospitalized because I used drugs,
and I spent four months in an institution.
When I got there, all that was value,
all that was power,
all that was wealth,
and all that is was to be a man
couldn’t enter with me.
I remember writing in a notebook
that it was the first worst day of my life
because I think I went in
without an identity.
I thought I was going to die,
but I didn’t die.
In that place there
were totally different standards.
It was full of men
who were broken like me,
and the system of trade and dialogue there
opened up a space for me to feel again.
I remember Brasília;
he was frail, skinny, and bald.
I was already welcoming
recent arrivals in room number one.
I sat while the other guy did the survey.
Brasilia smoked a cigarette,
and kept looking at me sinisterly.
Suddenly, he put out the ashes,
did some kind of ritual,
and I thought,
“I’m going to die for sure.”
Everybody was afraid of him;
they said he’d walked from Brasília;
that’s the story they told.
After two months there,
I’d never seen Brasília say anything,
but one day, I sat down at his side.
The guys were playing football,
and he was alone.
I said, “Brasilia,
if you kill, you’ll kill me,
because I’m going to sit here,
and you won’t be alone.”
He said nothing, and I think
we watched football for two hours.
At least I didn’t die.
That night about 1:30 in the morning,
he knocked on my window and said,
“I want to talk with you.”
When we went outside,
he hugged me, started crying, and said,
“Do you think I don’t know?
Everyone thinks I’m crazy.
Do you think I don’t know
everyone is afraid of me?
But the truth is that I’m the loser.”
And he started to cry:
“I hear voices, I’m scared,
and I think everybody’s after me.
When I was nine, I left Brasília
for a life on the street
because of what life is like
in the traditional Brazilian family,
at least the one I know,
where I came from … ”
He had to play this role to induce fear
and to maintain this feeling.
When I left there,
I had experienced a space
where an overly sensitive boy
could perhaps exist again,
with guys who owed me nothing.
In that space, it was exactly
the quality of that nothingness
that I’d needed to experience.
When I got there,
I thought my life was over,
so whatever happened there
made me exist again, to feel.
When I left there,
I decided that I was going to do
everything possible and necessary
to feel.
For work, relationships,
family, and my children,
I needed to exist in this space
that I’d experienced there.
I remember a dream:
Sara, a female figure,
put her hand on my shoulder,
and after saying
a bunch of beautiful things,
she pushed me away and said:
“Get up, you’re called Saint now.”
In the end, she said what I could offer:
“Now you’re going to see in the world
what your heart
thought impossible to exist.”
I only know that after this dream,
it made me decide to exist in this space.
And there was …
the activist symbol of feeling.
I changed my social networks;
I changed my job.
I started wanting to relate
more with this space.
I’d never let my hair grow.
I was born Black in a poor family, lived
in a tenement, and never saw my hair grow.
And these experiences -
I remember a crazy thing from one day:
I was painting a sail on a boat
that belonged to a captain
from the world’s fourth smallest country.
I took a breath, opened my arms,
and felt the wind in my hair
for the first time.
On the 28th of May, 2018,
I painted my first canvas.
My companion Tata took me, and I bought
three poster paints, two brushes,
and the cardboard that covers
the painting floor.
I remember when I put
the brush on that wall,
I said out loud,
“Why didn’t I do this sooner?”
I believe that, very close,
this experience of doing
something I’ve never done before
can open a dialogue
that allows these two parts
of me to emerge.
And I’m tired of existing in a place
where my figure, my strength,
my existence,
needs to conquer yours,
needs to influence yours.
I think that when I paint,
the overly sensitive boy
can bring out what his heart
already knows is possible to exist.
I’m not from the art school;
I don’t have artist family members.
But when I paint,
I discover that art can also
be essential for someone to exist,
through this feeling, without limits.
Based on that,
I don’t know if I have an answer
nor am I interested in gaining …
understanding.
But I want to propose
an experience that opens this door,
which is beyond feeling.
This awareness of feeling
can exist and reform
the way we speak;
the way we feel, perceive and exchange;
and the way we understand.
I invite you to close your eyes
and breathe.
Breathe deeply.
Release that air.
Lift your chin and point
your nose to the horizon,
Open your eyes,
and never again doubt
what your heart believes exists.
Thank you.
(Applause)