Log 04 – Fourth Entry: The Polaroid

Her Polaroid. My Polaroid. A new way of seeing, imperfect and heavy.

This fragment picks up right where the last one left off. She kept writing: same ink, same room, just a deeper breath.

Left Page

“...fácil concentrar. Mas talvez seja isso que me faz falta, trabalhar com as mãos, com as formas.
Estou a preparar um novo módulo para os alunos.
Escultura e luz.
Ontem encontrei essa câmara numa gaveta. Escondida, atrás de velhas toalhas. Não sei de quem era. Perguntei ao senhorio, disse que não sabia. Talvez tenha ficado de algum inquilino antigo.”
…easy to concentrate. But maybe that’s what I’m missing, working with my hands, with forms.
I’m preparing a new module for the students.
Sculpture and light.
Yesterday I found that camera in a drawer. Hidden, behind old towels. I don’t know who it belonged to. I asked the landlord; he said he didn’t know. Maybe it was left by some old tenant.

She writes about the students so lightly, just a line, like they were a fact of her life she didn’t need to explain. It’s strange to think of her as a teacher: standing in front of a class, talking about light and sculpture, holding all her pieces together long enough to show someone else how to make something out of nothing.

And then the camera. Tucked away behind old towels like it was waiting to be found. I like that she asked the landlord, as if the right answer would settle it. Or maybe prove she wasn’t the only ghost living in that apartment.
Sometimes I wonder if the spiral let her find it, or if the camera found her.
And now it’s mine. I bought it in that second-hand shop, tucked in a box with her Moleskine, her book, her photos. Her Polaroid is my Polaroid. No scratches, barely any sign of time — just the weight in my hands now.

Right Page

“Disse-me para ficar com ela. Polaroid. Bonita. Usada. E parece que funciona.
Talvez faça um projecto com isto. Imagens instantâneas, imperfeitas. Um novo olhar.
Algo em mim diz que vale a pena tentar."
*‘Não era suposto estar aqui sozinha. Mas agora é assim.’*
He told me to keep it. Polaroid. Beautiful. Heavy. And it seems to work.
Maybe I’ll do a project with it. Instant images, imperfect. A new way of seeing.
Something in me says it’s worth trying.
*‘I wasn’t supposed to be here alone. But now I am.’*

She was already imagining a project. Instant pictures, all their flaws frozen on film.
When I first held it, I thought the same thing — that maybe imperfection could teach me to see what I’d always miss in digital. That if I caught a moment just once, it would mean more than any polished version ever could.

She called it heavy. I feel that too. Not just the camera in her hands, but the weight of seeing what you can’t fix once it’s out in the light.

I wasn’t supposed to be here alone. But she is. And now I am too.
Maybe that’s the whole point: the photos, the spirals, the questions that keep splitting us in two.

These pages are fragments left behind by Isabel S., no more and no less. © I.S.

Log 03 - Third Entry: The Compass

Two flowers drifting in opposite directions. One spiral to catch them both.

Left Page 

The margins crawl with questions. “Quem?” — Who? “Eu?” — Me?

A single spiral sits on the page like a compass that never points anywhere but in. Two flowers, half blown apart, lean in opposite directions — one reaching up, the other bending down — seeds that might never land.

“Vês,… mas onde… e quando?”
You see,… but where… and when?

“Será que estou a repetir passos de alguém?” 
Am I repeating someone else’s steps?

And then, borrowed but almost hers now:
“Yo no sé cuál de los dos escribe esta página.”
I do not know which of the two writes this page.
Jorge Luis Borges wrote that in Borges y Yo, wondering who he really was: the name on the covers, or the man who lives behind his own stories. He didn’t trust which version of himself held the pen. It makes me think about all the selves inside me. The one who wants to remember. The one who hides. And the one who’s always chasing breadcrumbs left behind in notebooks like this, breadcrumbs that were never mine to scatter.

And just below the spiral:
“Tudo vale a pena se a alma não é pequena.”
Everything is worth it if the soul is not small.
Fernando Pessoa wrote it in Mensagem when he was trying to imagine Portugal bigger than its own fear: tiny boats, endless ocean, a horizon no one trusted. But I don’t think this line is just about ships and salt water. I think it’s about the private voyages too. The parts of yourself you’re afraid to cross. The conversations you put off because you think they’ll break you. The dreams you tell no one about because they’re too fragile to explain.
If the soul stays small, maybe you never lose anything, but you never find anything either.
If it opens wide enough, even the hard parts belong to you. The storms, the regret, the places that ache: they all make the map bigger.

Sometimes I wonder which of us holds the pen now. And whether the spiral ever lets us put it down.

Right Page 

"Novo apartamento. Alugado em dezembro. Precisei sair. Não aguentava mais aquela casa. Nem ele. Ainda estranho dormir aqui. As paredes vazias. O eco. Às vezes parece que o silêncio pesa mais à noite. Não trouxe quase nada. Só livros, materiais de desenho, alguma roupa. O resto ficou para trás. Aos poucos, começo voltar a pintar. Não é…"
New apartment. Rented in December. I had to leave. I couldn’t stand that house anymore. Or him. It still feels strange to sleep here. Empty walls. The echo. Sometimes it feels like the silence weighs more at night. I didn’t bring much. Just books, drawing materials, a few clothes. The rest stayed behind. Slowly, I’m starting to paint again. It’s not…

She writes it like a confession she’s not ready to finish. The new place feels hollow - walls bare, echo heavy enough to press down on her chest when the lights go out. She brought so little with her: books, charcoal, scraps of paper that remember more than she does.

This fragment continues in the next log.

These pages are fragments left behind by Isabel S., no more and no less. © I.S.

Log 02 - Second Entry: The Loop

 

A spiral inside a triangle. A dandelion that won’t bloom. A night that refuses to end.

I turn the page. She’s left her mark again, the neat printed words from the notebook vanish under her ink. A triangle holds a spiral at its heart, a vortex caught on paper, looping back into itself. She writes around it: 

“Não sei o que é pior, o silêncio ou o som quando ele vem.”
I don’t know what’s worse, the silence, or the sound when it comes.

Beside it, a sketch that could be a flower, or maybe a dandelion, fragile, one breath away from disappearing.

The other side feels heavier: black ink bursts like static, and just above it, a single circle with a dot inside — like an eye reduced to its core, or a seed waiting to split open. Below, the red words bleed:  

“Tudo quanto vivi não me serve senão para desejar aquilo que nunca vivi.”
 Everything I’ve lived means nothing except to make me long for what I’ve never lived.

At the bottom, she tries to bury the thought that won’t let her go:  

“A noite aqui não acaba nunca.” 
The night here never ends. Crossed out, but not erased.

A tiny spiral spins in the corner like a silent promise to never stop. Sometimes I think these pages breathe when I read them. Sometimes I think they’re still spinning for her.

These pages are fragments left behind by Isabel S., no more and no less. © I.S.

Log 01 - First Entry: The Eye

I started with an eye. Because the eye sees what I can’t say.

I opened the book, and this was the first thing waiting for me: graphite lines pressed into the inside cover, an eye that sees more than it should. She wrote her name here, as if she might lose herself. A spiral. A triangle. A row of red spirals where the reward should be. "Por que?" Why? scribbled like a question that never really wants an answer. And a tiny Polaroid frame with question marks inside it, like a clue waiting for film.

Small shapes in the margins like they’re holding secrets.

Scribbles that feel half-invitation, half-warning.

Sometimes I think the eye is watching me back.

These pages are fragments left behind by Isabel S., no more and no less. © I.S.