People often describe depression as sadness.

I understand why.

Sadness is familiar. Sadness is recognizable. Sadness belongs to a language most people already speak.

I have always loved these lines.

Not because they accuse writers of lying.

But because they reveal something uncomfortable.

Let me be honest with you from the start.

The first thing Brazil gives me when I arrive is pollution.

The smell of São Paulo hits before anything else – before my mother's hug, before the heat, before the noise.

I was 8 years old when I first learned that my body didn't belong to me.

It happened in the building where I grew up — two apartment blocks, shared courtyards, children everywhere.

I have been writing since I was a teenager.

And for a long time, I didn't connect the two things.

The writing. And the weather inside me.

I just wrote. Poems arriving in the dark, almost uninvited.

My psychoanalyst said it quietly, the way the most important things are always said.

"Being a mom is to become unnecessary."

I paused.
Not because I disagreed.

My writing might seem random.

One day I write about love.
The next, about language.
Then motherhood.

I used to think writing was about finding the right words.

Now I know it’s about letting go of the wrong ones.

There’s a moment – quiet, almost invisible –
when a text begins to resist you.

Há histórias que começam com fogos de artifício.
A de vocês começou com um silêncio.

Eu estava deitada numa sala de ultrassom quando percebi duas pequenas formas na tela. Por um instante achei que estava imaginando.

Meu quarto sempre pareceu vivo para mim.

Às vezes, era um espelho.

Às vezes, um sussurro do que eu deveria ser – ou do que ainda não tinha me tornado.

Most of my texts don’t begin with big ideas.
They begin with small interruptions.

A butterfly crossing my field of vision.
My dog digging the same hole again, convinced this time she’ll find something.
A sentence my husband says in passing, not knowing it will stay with me all day.

Nem todo riso é fuga.

Às vezes, é elaboração.

E nem todo riso é alegria.

Às vezes, é fingimento.

There’s a lie we tell ourselves in creative life:
that if the mind is still alive, the body should keep going.

It shouldn’t.

I don’t write at night.
Not anymore.

I write during the day, in small, disciplined windows – like work, like care.
Routine is not a cage for me; it’s a safety rail.

Há dias em que minha casa fica em silêncio.
Sem passos.
Sem vozes.
Sem movimento – exceto a luz mudando de lugar na parede.

There’s a growing discomfort around AI in creative spaces.

Using ChatGPT has started to feel like a confession.

Quando escrevo para crianças, não estou tentando ensinar.
Estou tentando escutar.
Escrevo em conversa com a minha criança interna – e com muitas crianças imaginárias que vivem em algum lugar entre a curiosidade e a coragem.

Some words arrive loudly.
They demand space.
They stand on their own and expect to be heard.

Você já percebeu como é fácil falar sobre as escolhas dos outros?

A palavra sai limpa, segura, quase elegante: “É consequência das escolhas que fez.”

When I write for children, I am not trying to teach.
I am trying to listen.