Nem todas as árvores morrem de pé by Luisa Sobral

 The world looks big and vague, we know we have barriers between one another, the barriers can be language, distance and even an ocean. Barriers can be visual or not. To grow up isolated from what the actual meaning of freedom is, when it’s given, it can be so confusing that even a simple decision of interests can be conflicted. This book by Luisa Sobral made me think on how the perspective of one, can change so many times due to the new information that little by little construct a pyramid of knowledge, now the big question is which steps are true and which steps are disguised as truth.

Innocence of a child is a beautiful thing. The world seems brighter and the ones that care for us seem like the most wonderful people we have ever met. We as children joke and wish for time to be faster so we can be seated at the same level as our supposed heroes but when we reach that line, it’s not quite what we were expecting. We wanted to have the tough conversations with our parents, to reveal all those secrets they kept hidden on their own corners. Innocence is so fragile that when the brick of truth hits, reality drowns our dreams, and we are left fighting a wave of emotions. In the beginning, our main character M is the sweetest child because of her joyful view of nature but the reality hits when she grows up and meets the behind the scenes of her father’s private affairs. It hurts her, it hurts the reader and perhaps it wasn’t the intention to hurt but the intention to make the reader think about the reality behind the innocence.

We are told many things, by either or parents/guardians, by our teachers and by people we consider our friends and loved ones. What can we say it is the absolute truth? Can we trust everything said just because the person is someone older and wiser, or perhaps because they do different things then us so their opinions should be perceived as more knowledgeable than ours. To see and discover something for us is the one teachable lesson on how to distinguish the truth from a glorified lie. It can be the truth to the person sharing it, they may believe it with more strength than anyone, but it does not make everything truth. To question and to debate it’s an act of freedom of thinking. And this book has taught me much about how to not only listen to gut instincts to pursue more and to investigate more but to be aware of what is said and what is the truth.

One of the many themes in Luisa Sobral’s book, is the ability to be reborn in the sense of identity and self. What do we want and like to do? What we wish we could have done more of. M is reborn in the sense of self by not only her change of local but by her departing of what was the only thing she knew of. She is left with no pillars to construct what she now believes is the truth of the world. She must build her own pillars, a new language, new friends, the teaching of kindness and beauty on the smallest of things. Her old passion is reborn in a new light even, not something that stays on the pages of her notebook but can be cultivated in gardens and studied up close.

This road of starting fresh is not a simple one and most know of this. There is ups and downs but none are permanent. Not if we let them. M has lows, lows that break her deepest dreams of growing the same way her beloved plants do. She is a tree that like most that are grown in captivity can only grow so high, but it is what it’s made of them that shows their value. She hits a low on her personal life but that doesn0t stop her. She rebuilds again from a new place and doesn’t stop there. She grows independence, she grows courage to visit the old place which held dark memories, she grows to understand emotions of herself, and she grows the ability to decide on what she wants to do with herself. 

 

Her travels made me feel connected to my own land. The way this book spoke to me about belonging not to a piece of history but to a place that we can call home is what helped me understand how an interest doesn’t have to be a simple hobby, but it can be developed into a passion. It helped me understand that my own body can be an indicator of what I truly need and what I truly feel.