The yellow Notebook

“Do you think children remember their mother’s lap years later?”

This book of chronicles, written by hand over the course of a year, came about after a conversation I had with a lady on a park bench in Lisbon. At the time, she lived in Benfica and we were in the most critical phase of the pandemic, when the outlines of a text in chronicle format began to emerge.

From November 2020 to October 2021, I wrote about the events and experiences I had in a Lisbon neighborhood.

All the stories in this book are true and some of them represent sacred confidences made by people who have entrusted me with some of their memories.

This is how my love of chronicles and biographies was born. “O Caderno Amarelo” had its first edition in 2022 (with cover and editing by Ozias Filho) and a reissue in 2023, now in a revised and expanded version.

The book, in both printed and digital format, can be purchased in the website’s store, in Portuguese, English and German.

People approach us when they feel that we are actively listening and that we are attentive listeners to what they say. Most of us just want to be heard and another part of us, which unfortunately is becoming increasingly significant, feels ignored by the world.

There are many stories and life lessons that are locked up inside people who live in solitude with no one around to tell them about their memories. That’s what happened when, in November 2020, a lady in her seventies sat down next to me on a park bench. Without knowing me from anywhere, the first question she asked me was: “Do you think children remember their mother’s lap years later?”

That day, several children were playing with their parents in the garden. I was struck by the question and sensed that I was living a unique moment. I replied: “Of course”. Then she said: “Well, look, I don’t remember being on my mother’s lap”. Thus began a dialog that would be the start of a journey of experiences and writing that would lead me to the publication of my first book of chronicles.

From this unsuspected and unlikely conversation on a park bench, the book “The Yellow Notebook” was born. Written by hand over the course of a year, these chronicles were the motto for the creation of my writing brand: “Pássaro Amarelo”. Like everything in life, events happen naturally and are umbilically linked to each other. This is the case.

I’ll leave you with the text on the back cover, which sums up the content of the book very well.

An unlikely conversation on a park bench in Lisbon in November 2020 gave birth to the book of chronicles The Yellow Notebook.

This book chronicles the life of a neighborhood in the midst of a pandemic, and was born in a totally unpredictable way after its author struck up a conversation with a lady on a park bench. Her remarkable life story and tribulations are contained here in these pages that enclose so many other caricatured and unheard-of episodes that took place in a lisboeta neighborhood during the most critical phase of COVID-19. Curious and unlikely encounters, from pages of diaries found scattered on the street, to honest confidences from people who found a refuge for their thoughts here.

The Yellow Notebook is Maria Inês Rebelo’s first book of chronicles and promises to hold the reader’s attention from start to finish.

If you’re interested in reading the book, you can buy it from the online store.