THE HEIGHT OF HEAVEN WITHOUT LIMITS ...

In the passage from my childhood to pre - adolescence I wrote a lot and carefully detailed on every written word to mark all my dreams. I did not dream of richness , having castles, worthy jewels, but with the places I would meet one day. So, my thoughts flew over countries I knew only through maps, books, and magazine pictures. I travelled over the Swiss Alps, climbing the snowy peaks that led to the French side, sometimes to the Italian side, and lay down on the green fields of the German prairie. This was also how I visited France and listened to my mother telling me stories about Alexandre Dumas Filho novels’ and sword-wrestling inside the deep under- grounds of Paris. I went to Russia where Napoleon saw his greatest defeat. My father, by his side, contributed to the classical music played on our piano. The theater sung in the classic operas that my father knew so well. The real Europe for what my parents fed in my dreams. The diversity of cultures in countries so close. Then I have been carrying out my trajectories. I spent almost six years in Paris (accompanied some time by my mother who told me in loco what she had read in the books). The indelible mark of this realized dream.

Continuing my journey, I arrived in the United States when I admired the "American Way of Life." I imagined myself in those houses with automatic devices, a quality of life that made the eyes shining to any Brazilian at that time. In Brazil, I went from North to South and had the privilege of knowing about each region by the textbooks that my mother wrote. "A country full of contrasts and varied cultures," as she always spoke. My daydreams were many. They have been accompanying me throughout my life and I have never stopped dreaming, even though I have already accomplished much of it. I was elected Miss Brazil in 1970 and here comes the opportunity to travel through each State and receive from my master with all the knowledges that my mother taught me, once again awarded!

I am here in the United States in 2019. A country that surprises me every day that I drive on the roads looking for more adventures. I talk to many people of the most varied nationalities and I think to myself: the example of true democracy is here where it does not matter who you are. Opportunities will be offered to you according to what you deserve. Everything very organized and takes who wants, broad who wants. My charm for this place still brings me the feeling of the "love at the first sight" after spending nearly a year in Houston in 1974 (taking care of my mother with cancer along with my two brothers who lived here). In the 1990s I lived, with my family already constituted, for four years in Miami. I return to Houston several times in those years after 2016. I always love civility, education and I move to the dreams of youth with the musical successes of the time. More dreams come true.

In a few days accomplishing my 70 years old. It is very common to say: wow! Pass so fast! I do not think so because of the accumulation of things that I have already realize. When I remember each dream that was filling me in small drops, the memory goes back in time and that time is so real. They are like pages written in a thick numbered book whose pages are directed towards infinity. In it I reflect on the choices that were appearing to me. The only reality I can see is that to choose is difficult. One of the most arduous feats of our life. Well thought out choices, impulse choices, induced choices, feelings-driven choices, choices for a so few choices. It does not matter because they were somehow very well taken advantage of. For me there is no "if" of an unwise choice. There are no regrets about what "should have been done" because my choices would have been the same in these circumstances presented to me. Some doubted that I could not fulfill my dreams. I was betting on my positivism, on the way to simplify the complicated and gilding my way with my joy of existing. Experiences with strangers, with friends, having been married, with my family, my daughters, my granddaughter and still performing with the grandchildren that are to come. All so well filled.

I say with certainty: dreams will never end and I know that I still have a lot to do with them.

A new decade is coming! I am not bound to symbolisms, but to the stages that it has being fulfilled. I feel full of vigor for life and my body accompanies me in this vitality that overflows over my will. My child's soul remains on me and so I say Hello LIFE, see you later! And I say : “See you DREAMS” that haunt on me.

In this voracious will is that these dreams arrives and make an address to mark my unforgettable stories!

Eliane Thompson