Faith

Sónia Silva is a person of opposites. She cries when she is happy and laughs when she is sad. When she fears something, she charges toward it but when she feels safe, she runs away. She bests dire challenges without a word of complaint but procrastinates tasks that bring her joy. That is why, despite possessing considerable passion and talent, it takes her years to commit to being a singer and even more years to make a living from it. Now, at the height of her career, she can finally take a break to work on her new album – in seclusion, like she always dreamed of, lodged in a small house on a forlorn strip of mountainous countryside. She leaves her husband Evandro behind in Praia. He is an unfortunate addition to her life but one she can manage, as she manages all unfortunate things in her life. The fortunate things are those that give her trouble; they are too elusive, too fragile, and she doesn’t know how to hold them without breaking them. All the better that her marriage is loveless, she wouldn’t know what to make of a loving one anyway.

At first, the sequestered cottage life is pure bliss. Sónia can be herself when she is alone in a way that she can’t when anybody is watching. The mere act of being perceived takes something from her, a theft she is powerless to stop, but through singing she can reclaim it. It’s a chance to be perceived on her terms, not as a woman or a wife but simply as a dulcet, soulful voice on the radio singing about dulcet, soulful things. Yet, the joy of solitude, as all joys, is fleeting and soon lethargy comes to take its place. The days get emptier and the nights darker, her bed colder. Dishes stack in the sink, dirty clothes wait in line to be washed. Her body feels brittle like dry clay, veined with fissures and slowly crumbling apart. She aches for touch but dreads it, afraid of her own longing. The ache is unwelcome but not unfamiliar. There is a void in Sónia’s heart that has accompanied her all her life, a vacancy where other people have something she can’t attain. From experience, she knows fighting the ache is pointless and so she works with it instead.

Sónia, true to her nature, has always been a songwriter of counter-intuition. She doesn’t write about the emotions she has, she writes about those she is lacking. The result is a bittersweet amalgamation of both. Her albums consist of happy songs with an echo of sadness, love songs with an echo of heartbreak, celebrations with an echo of mourning. Now that she is at her loneliest, she writes about people, about family and community, about unconditional acceptance and impossibly possible love, sings of soft words and softer touches, of eyes that don’t take away but give and affirm, hearts overflowing instead of shriveling like a flower without water. The songs born in that solitary cottage are more than pretty melodies, they are an invocation, a prayer. Sónia knows that the things she sings about are not hers and may never be hers but still, she pours all her heart and soul into the music, holding on to the faith that they will one day be someone else’s.