janela

Last Saturday, I received Rafa's package.

It was filled with tons of goodies...a signed copy of Judy Rebick's new book (that woman rocks!), the book I put together before leaving for Brazil (which was so cool to see for the first time! It looks great! Good job on typesetting, Chris!), an awesome pair of orange shoes my friends drew on with blue pen, a pyjama set with names and handprints of my mom, sister, Rafa and friends Nami and Jes.

Wow, and what caused my jaw to drop was the video Rafa made. It's short video montage of memorable moments we shared (picnics in the park, New Year's, Christmas). And I was in complete awe after watching it. I have to describe this thing. The video's intro is a zoomed crop of the Brazilian flag in muted tones, and the white banner at the top says Love Rafa. Some hand-drawn stars drop from the top of the screen. Then the first image is a shakey, upsidedown one of Rafa's dresser with pics of me. The sound is dialtone and the voice of that telephone attendent who asks you to enter your code to check your messages. While we hear what sounds like numbers being pressed on the phone, the camera turns to film rightside-up and we see Rafa's face. It looks like he's sitting in front of his T.V. and then he clicks the remote.

The video and music and sound begin. The first image is of me toasting at my mom's place on Christmas Eve, 2004. The clips don't have sound. What we hear is two songs by Arnaldo Antunes (so beautiful!) layered on top of messages I left on Rafa's machine when we first started dating. hehehhehe...it was hilarious! Many of them are longer and in most I ask if he wants to go to drum class with me (that's where we met). I had no idea he recorded these! I was surprised, though not so, considering his crazy creativity.

So the images vary from him to me to my sister and I dancing and laughing and eating and shivering in the cold...my gosh, I had tears. Thank you, thank you!