Aperaltar’s purpose presents a challenge with the greatness of what makes it up and defines it: real, joyful, authentic, innovative, harmonious, colorful, cultured, free, independent, creative, preventive, relational, emotional, sustainable, rigorous, social, transparent and with a memory. Yours and others…
Aperaltar enriches the stories it wants to tell!
Once upon a time…
Many years ago, my great-grandfather Luís dos Santos Riscado, married to my great-grandmother Maria da Trindade Riscado, a personable, intelligent, distinguished man and father of a large family, lived in the beautiful city of Castelo Branco. The parents of my dear maternal grandmother, Ilda Velez. My great-grandfather, being a man of republican ideas, decided to name his children after activists in this movement. My dear grandmother was no exception.
He had 9 children, one prolific. His grandfather, Luís, was an employee of the Castelo Branco City Council. He was dedicated, intelligent, personable and knowledgeable in the field of electricity, and alongside his life in the municipality he set up a company, a partnership in the electrical field, and so he grew professionally at a difficult time at the beginning of the Republic. Grandma Lilila used to tell us that her house was full of food, bread, sausages and cheeses. They had an electric iron and my grandfather bought a sidecar, he was an interested person with a desire to build. I’d always heard that Grandpa had two aunts, ladies who were also elegant and well-groomed. They wore exquisite and original hats. The surname aperaltar arose in this way and the verbal tradition led to the name nickname peralta.
Words are seductive and, when combined, they generate beloved titles and have led to many jokes with my children and now in my profession! So cute!
The desire to look good has always made me want to dress up… I think I’ve been “painting” since I was at university, and the glow of make-up is good for me.
I love shoes, bags, flowers, brooches, bracelets, colorful earrings, hats, hats, gloves, watches, books, papers, a thousand pens, a thousand notebooks, etc… I have good taste, mine, refinement and beauty attract me. Peralta, I confess, suits me!
Continuing to tell this symbolic story, which I understand to be magical and joyful, reveals the life of my grandfather, whose life was cut short at the age of 45, leaving behind nine children and an orphaned wife.
The ladies were given over to housework and childcare….
António, my grandfather’s partner, gave my grandmother a letter written by himself and with it, he returned the thirty escudos that belonged to my grandfather from the partnership.
As I’ve already said, your word matters and it must always be respected! His friend, António Antunes, honored his commitment! I admire him for that gesture.
I am accompanied by the box in which grandfather Luís Peralta kept his documents, the envelopes, which I love to say! This box was given to me by my mother when my maternal grandmother’s house was sold. Restored, it’s in my office just a glance away… which makes me smile with pride.
The beauty of this story leads to what matters most to me. Family roots, the starting point for a journey that is each of our own. The intertwined values are well grounded in the humus that is hard to tear away from our being and remains for the future and for as long as we are allowed to live.
Values are therefore an invisible force behind human beings. Everyone’s understanding of this strength in managing its use makes a difference to each person’s profile.
Today I am able to communicate Aperaltar’s diversity because only in this way can I make it truly belong to everyone.
This meeting of sharing, which will be recorded in the experience lived here, written down, but also through technology, whether digital or otherwise, will expand and grow into a real opening to an audience. I want to make it close to everyone on the timeline, where we all meet.
The holistic facet that makes up Aperaltar’s talent is the differentiating factor. Seeing and embracing the human being as a whole with all their biological, physical, emotional and spiritual systems in balance, encompassing the person as a whole, was the motivation for this approach. The harmony of the systems I’ve mentioned strengthens the body’s own defenses and restores this balance.
Since my background is also in Gerontology and this is the science that studies the process of human aging, I have learned about these issues, the importance of prevention and being healthy: we must plan, organize projects that preserve well-being, integrate self-care, live in a pleasurable way.
Marian Rojas Estapé, a psychiatrist in the field of mental health, suggests in her texts that what drives human beings is happiness. He says that life has obstacles, pain, constraints and we know that this path of life is winding, but if we have courage, dedication and attitude in the face of adversity, this behavior changes and we are able to be happy.
To age well is to choose a philosophy of being able to live a long time, appreciating the stage, accepting that time takes away young skin, but that we can surf wrinkles in various ways, we just need to want to and be imbued with Inspiration!
By Margarida Gonçalves
