Ana Cristina Leonardos - Festina Lente

Copyright © 2019 Ana Cristina Leonardos e Martha Estima Scodro

Dados Internacionais de Catalogação na Publicação (CIP)

Sindicato Nacional dos Editores de Livros, RJRJ

L596f

Leonardos, Ana Cristina

Festina lente : apressa-te lentamente / Ana Cristina Leonardos, Martha Estima Scodro. - 1. ed. - Rio de Janeiro : Autografia, 2019.

ISBN: 978-85-518-3190-8 (recurso eletrônico)

1. Mulheres - Psicologia. 2. Feminilidade. 3. Mulheres de meia idade. I. Scodro, Martha Estima. II. Título.

Festina lente: make haste slowly

LEONARDOS, Ana Cristinao

SCODRO, Martha Estima

ISBN: 978-85-518-3190-8

1st edition, November 2020.

ILLUSTRATOR: Lucia Moretzsohn

COVER FLAP PHOTOGRAPHY: Camila Maia

BOOK PRODUCER: Tamiris Coelho

Editora Autografia Edição e Comunicação Ltda.

Rua Mayrink Veiga, 6 – 10° andar, Centro

RIO DE JANEIRO, RJ – CEP: 20090-050

www.autografia.com.br

Todos os direitos reservados.

É proibida a reprodução deste livro com fins comerciais sem

prévia autorização do autor e da Editora Autografia.

To the 66 women who participated

in the aos 50 ( at 50 ) project.

To the women who came before us, to

our contemporaries, and to all those to

come: we are part and we are whole.

www.aos50.com

aos50cinquenta

aos50cinquenta

A book like this is an adventure.

The idea of the authors to make visible the challenges that women in their fifties have already been facing is, by itself, a difficult goal; and when to this one adds that they do this as part of this age group and also facing these turbulent times, then the whole process is converted into a reflexive challenge.

Looking and listening as investigators/writers in their fifties, while listening and witnessing other women talk about their lives, ends up being a game of mirrors, a labyrinth of meanings, echoes, and “hybridizations”.

Amid such complexity, handling this process in a book is a challenge full of risks; however, the audacity and the intellectual honesty of the authors ended up producing a work that transcends “the women”, just as it transcends “the fifties”.

This work glides beyond the testimony and the analysis of the problems of women in their fifties upon pointing toward the most human of human abilities: the ability to reflect upon and feel oneself.

Interrogating oneself and reflecting on the labyrinths that arise in the complexities of passing through significant moments of life is a daring idea, but doing this while living through this stage is like building a boat while sailing. A work of daring artisans!

Is this a book by women for women? Yes and no.

In the book, there is a level in which what you hear are the voices of those who witness similar experiences in passing from one life stage to another, and at another level, what emerges is the human condition of interrogating oneself about life, its challenges, and its surprises.

Thus, is this a book by women for women? Yes and no.

Regarding this matter, this work is also a writing that us men need to read, in order to perceive similarities, differences, and particularities related to the significant transitions of life.

We are referring to certain movements that are not always recorded on the calendar. Sometimes they are so subtle that we only recognize them by the marks left on the skin, in the smile, or in the affection that arises when looking at our own image in the mirror and discovering hidden riches.

Saul Ignacio Fuks

It is our great pleasure to have our book translated into English, a task which was entrusted to the sensitive pen of Kieran Sean Dobson.

With this new version, more women can now relate to the questions about women’s midlife laid out in “Festina Lente”. We hope that this widening of our community of readers will deepen our sense of connection.

Following the launch of the Portuguese version, in Brazil and Portugal, more projects related to the theme of this book have now seen the light.

A digital platform ( www.festinalente50.com) has been active since March 2020. It aims to establish new channels with all those interested in expanding their horizons and learning more about wellbeing, life design, and personal development.

Two of the channels available are: the Festina Lente blog, in which we share information through short articles; and Festina Highlights , a bullet journal for communicating quick discoveries and insights.

If you wish to contact us, you are most welcome to reach us through the following email: festina.lente.aos50@gmail.com.

Ana Cristina Leonardos and Martha Estima Scodro

Festina lente, make haste slowly... Festina lente , make haste slowly... “Make haste slowly” is an oxymoron attributed to the Roman Emperor Augustus, represented by a dolphin entwined with an anchor. Agility and dexterity together with security and stability. This image is useful to us for introducing the theme of the female midlife in the 21 st century. At a stage of life when many cycles have been completed and others are calling, the woman at fifty is both the anchor and the dolphin. And she moves within the complementarity of these two images and their respective stages. In Six Memos for the Next Millennium , writer Italo Calvino tells us a Chinese story to illustrate the subjectivity and relativity of these two stages. Among the multiple virtues of Chuang Tzu was the ability to draw. The King asked him to draw a crab. Chuang Tzu said that in order to draw it he would need 5 years and a house with 12 servants. After 5 years had passed he had not even started the drawing. “I need another five years”, said Chuang Tzu. The King agreed. When the tenth year ended, Chuang Tzu took the brush and, in an instant, with one single stroke, drew a crab, the most perfect crab that anyone had ever seen. Psychoanalyst Maria Rita Kehl returns to the fable in Time and the Dog , and alerts us to the characteristics of contemporary temporality, which is often experienced as pure haste, without respecting the necessary time that characterizes the complete movement of understanding — the movement that is not defined by the abstract and chronological measurement of clocks. Kronos — the ravenous god of time, a mythological titan who governs the cosmos and counts life in minutes and seconds — provides the dimension of “it’s very early” or “it’s very late”, and “right now” or “not yet”. Kairos — the Greek word that designates the right, critical, or opportune moment — marks internal qualities of time: the difference and the substance of things in tempore . When nothing is too early or too late, it ceased to exist or has not yet occurred, because we are immersed in the idea of time as opportunity. Festina lente , Kronos and Kairos: an unusual summary of disparate and complementary concepts that are interwoven with our fifties, and let us think with the necessary haste so that we don’t miss the beat of our time and the timeless and indispensable calm for us to discover ourselves in our infinite individuality. A negotiation between these two ideas of time seems crucial in order for us to seek, if not a utopic completeness, at least a possible comprehension of our fifties. Let’s make haste slowly.