I took my plants out of their regular place on the balcony to paint the walls, but I haven’t done it. The paint, the brushes, everything is there, waiting for me to make a move, to start the work, and yet here I am, frozen, not doing anything.

The clothes are there, needing to be washed. The dishes are in the sink, an ecosystem of bacteria, the stove is not too dirty because by some miracle I’ve been cleaning it regularly. I make lists, I know what needs to be done, so why do I stay still, looking to nowhere, while hours pass by?

There is an adorable house near my home. On my way to the market, I always stop at the gate to admire it. It’s a simple house with a big iron gate, the yard fits six cars, although there is just one dusty old car, with flat tires which probably belonged to the owner’s husband – it would not be the first case where a widow keeps her husband's car that I see.

The absence of grass on the floor is compensated by the huge trees that throw shadows onto the roof – certainly this house needs no air conditioning. The house has just one floor, and maybe no more than 2 bedrooms, but it blows my mind. Can you imagine an old lady, sweeping the floor before 8 am, singing a song from the 1960s, watering the plants and dusting the fence? – Yes, this house, right close to the entrance door, has a wooden fence.

Black coffee is the one drink I most can’t stand, but I bet this house’s would be the best one I have ever had, aside from a delicious slice of orange cake with a glacé frosting, served in a brown plate made of thick glass, like the kind sold in Brazil when the owners of this house had my age.

What attracts me to this house, I believe, is the promise of what I can’t have. When it’s just you in the world, and you are a woman, you can’t isolate yourself in a house in the back of a big yard. It’s not safe. What if the cable man is dangerous? No one will help you if the guy you hire to fix the washing machine is actually a pervert. And what if you fall in the bathroom, how are you going to ask for help? How are you going to open the gate for the paramedic?

I see that house every time I pass by that street, and I can’t help but wonder how it would be to live there and wake up everyday to let the chickens out and prep the coffee for the five or seven nuggets I never had. Don’t put your career in front of building a family, love. Of what is worth all the money you earn if you don’t have anyone to share it with?

Maybe what is holding me back in my daily chores, deep-deep down, is the absence of a reason for why I am doing it.

Anne Rios

a Brazilian girl writing about Brazilian things