Seven hundred posts. I write the number and pause. It feels almost unreal. How many words live inside seven hundred posts? How many mornings, doubts, joys, Korean dramas, and quiet breakthroughs? If I tried to gather them all, they would probably fill several books. Yet here I am, still reaching for the next sentence, still trusting that the words will come.

When I wrote my 500th post, I was deep in a love letter to Brasil. I needed to name where my voice began, its rhythm, its contradictions, its warmth. That piece felt like a homecoming. Now, two hundred posts later, I find myself reflecting on something different: how far I have come as an artist since arriving in this new country, and also discovering talents hidden for so many years, writing deeply in a language that is not my mother tongue, and daring to tell stories in new forms.

Two hundred posts in roughly a year. The number still surprises me when I think back to the five hundred one. But the real growth has not been only in quantity. It has been in courage and expansion.

In Canada, I have learned to carry my Brazilianness while making space for new layers. English, once a careful second language, has slowly become a true artistic companion. At first, I was afraid of losing the music of Portuguese, the jeito, the saudade, the natural swing of my thoughts. Some feelings still resist translation. Yet English has pushed me toward greater precision and clarity. It has forced me to find new ways to say what lives in my heart. In this tension between languages, my voice has become richer, more flexible, more alive.

The biggest leap, however, has happened beyond the written page.

Since my 500th post, I have stepped into filmmaking with both hands open. I participated in two important film festivals, Hot Docs and the Lunenburg Doc Fest. I began earning money from my filmmaking craft. I have facilitated workshops with newcomer youth, helping them find their voices while sharing their stories. I have written scripts that carry the experiences of people building new lives in a new land. And, most recently, I even wrote a theatrical play.

And there is one more thread I haven’t spoken of yet: a book gathering refugee stories from across Atlantic Canada is now nearly ready for publishing. Another way of holding someone’s journey and helping it find its shape in the world.

These experiences have changed how I see my role as an artist. Writing a blog post is often a solitary act. But creating films and theater means listening deeply to others, holding their stories with care, and weaving them into something visible and shared. Working with newcomer youth has reminded me of my own arrival in Canada, the mixture of hope, fear, excitement, and uncertainty. Their courage fuels my own.

I have learned that growth as an artist is not only about becoming more skilled. It is about becoming more open. More willing to collaborate. More comfortable with vulnerability on screen and on stage, not just on the page. It is about trusting that my Brazilian rhythm, that ability to hold joy and melancholy, chaos and beauty, at the same time, can speak across cultures and languages.

Of course, not everything has changed. The core remains. The girl from Zona Norte in São Paulo, who grew up surrounded by noise, warmth, and endless movement, still lives inside every project. When I write a script or direct a scene, I still bring the same love for contradiction, the same respect for resilience, and the same belief that stories can build bridges. Brasil continues to be the root. Canada is becoming the new soil. English is one of the languages in which I now bloom.

Seven hundred posts. Two film festivals. Scripts. A play. A book. And paid art work, uhu, that one still feels like its own milestone. I will need to write about it properly one day, because it is not about the money, but about the doors it opens. When institutions see that you can earn as an artist, they trust your work differently, and that trust is what will let me apply for funding here in Canada.

So, I say thank you.

Thank you to the readers who have followed this journey. Thank you to the newcomers who trusted me with their stories. Thank you to Canada for the space to grow. And thank you, always, to Brasil, for giving me the heartbeat that makes everything else possible.

As I look toward the next hundred posts, and the ones after that, I feel quietly excited. I don’t know exactly where this path will lead, but I know I will keep walking it with the same curiosity, the same gratitude, and the same Brazilian fire that started this whole adventure.

Seven hundred posts.

And still, the best is yet to come. (Yes, that’s a little bit BTS talking through me.)

Image courtesy of Unsplash