Category: The past is a foreign country

What I’ve failed to write

131 days ago life took a weird, sharp turn after a few months of my driving it erratically in and out of course. Because I am prone to think of my life as a movie or perhaps as a series of pilot episodes in shows that never get aired, I failed to realize that maybe real life was happening. And I have a problem with this. My mind anticipates all kinds of scenarios, dramatic dialogues and plot twists, failing to see what’s right in front of me, failing to hear Caetano‘s warning that life is after all real and skewed. I insist on other melodies, I insist on not getting tired of hoping that one day I will get to be everything.

My homeless heart
Wants to keep the world
In me

131 days ago we coincided in space and time; he told me I was making him travel, I didn’t realize he was making me come home. For once, life was not about being the rebel in a made up cause, it was not about coming up with the perfect character for the occasion, it was not about trying to be perfect, it was not about packing and going somewhere trying to find whatever is needed at the moment to feel more alive. It was about staying. I didn’t know that to stay took a special kind of courage. I have spent well over seven thousand days of my adult life being adventurously brave, going everywhere, doing everything, preferably on my own. Along the way I collected all the clichés of falling madly, deeply and foolishly in love, of getting married and divorced, of hurting and getting hurt and feeling that I have committed the worse sin my twelve years of Catholic, yet somewhat liberal, education helped me identify, I have wasted my time and have, of course, ended up being wasted by it. Staying, in the same way as getting older, is not for the faint of heart. Staying means you have to face life as it is not as you think it was meant to be.

131 days ago I begun to understand what years of fictional manipulation have done to me, how they have created the most unrealistic expectations and contributed to an almost complete emotional disarrangement. In the midst of my inability to deal with what was happening, I have read these wise words:

Your deepest beliefs about seduction were carefully crafted by high-capitalist strategists. Lust and fantasy are opiates of the masses, easily manipulated into shapes that human animals fall for, over and over again.

I have never really taken advice columns very seriously, probably because I tend to be a bit of a snob, but every single word Heather Havrilesky poured into her column of February 28, struck a chord and I understood that yes, it was really about surrendering to reality with no futile embellishments. And still, 131 days were not enough to learn that the assumptions one makes about one self and others are also created by all the nonsense around you and that they are not real. For 131 days I have promised myself, almost everyday, that I was not going to fall in that trap, I was going to let life get real because it might not be the most glamorous or exciting place to be but you have at least a chance of not seeing life disappear without getting to live it. But, self-sabotage is a powerful force, “a way of avoiding that moment of showing up, of facing potential loss, of being strong enough and courageous enough to surrender to the unknown — but also, to surrender to the goodness of ordinary human beings.” 131 days ago,  getting hurt living my fictional life was easy enough to deal with because fictional feelings tend to be overtly dramatic but shallow.

Getting hurt in real life gets you broken.

References

Caetano Veloso, O quereres, Coração Vagabundo

William Shakespeare, Richard II 

Bette Davis

Ask Polly 

Lingering

Come to me in the silence of the night;
    Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
    As sunlight on a stream;
       Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
    Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimful of love abide and meet;
    Where thirsting longing eyes
       Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
    My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
    Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
       Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago!

Echo, Christina Rossetti

Photo: Leça da Palmeira, after the storm (March 2018)

Revisiting

Não há nada que resista ao tempo. Como uma grande duna que se vai formando grão a grão, o esquecimento cobre tudo.

Ainda há dias pensava nisto a propósito de não sei que afecto.

Nisto de duas pessoas julgarem que se amam tresloucadamente, de não terem mutuamente no corpo e no pensamento senão a imagem do outro, e daí a meia dúzia de anos não se lembrarem sequer de que tal amor existiu, cruzarem-se numa rua sem qualquer estremecimento, como dois desconhecidos.

Essa certeza, hoje então, radicou-se ainda mais em mim.

Fui ver a casa onde passei um dos anos cruciais da minha vida de menino. E nem as portas, nem as janelas, nem o panorama em frente me disseram nada. Tinha cá dentro, é certo, uma nebulosa sentimental de tudo aquilo. Mas o concreto, o real, o número de degraus da escada, a cara da senhoria, a significação terrena de tudo aquilo, desaparecera.

Miguel Torga, “Diário (1940)”

Nothing can stand the test of time. Like a great dune, growing with each grain of sand, oblivion covers everything. I’ve been thinking about this for days, I do not know prompted by what type of feeling or affection.

Take the case of two people loving each other so madly that they did not have in their bodies and thoughts anything but the image of the other, and in a half-dozen years they will not even remember that such a love existed, when they walk past each other without any shudder, like two strangers.

This certainty, today, has become even more rooted in me.

I went to see the house where I spent one of the crucial years of my boyhood life. And neither the doors, nor the windows, nor the landscape in front spoke to me. I had in me, of course, a sentimental nebula of it all. But the concrete, the real, the number of steps on the stairs, the face of the landlady, the earthly meaning of all that had disappeared.

The translation is mine and it doesn’t do the original any justice. I saw part of this text written on a wall in Leiria two weeks ago, yesterday I felt what it meant. I walked through the streets of Viana do Castelo as a tourist. It didn’t feel like the city that was almost my second home at a time when I too seemed to be “madly in love”. No emotion, and the “sentimental nebula” was just the sad realization of that void. I walked to the theater to buy the ticket for the opera recital. The lady in front of me was asking a lot of questions, she was afraid she didn’t know her way around the building anymore. She had danced on that stage when she was young. Her memories felt comforting.

Photo: Teatro Sá de Miranda, Viana do Castelo

Let deeds match words

Between April 4 and 9 1994, we decided to make a Spanish road movie traveling from Porto to Cordoba via Cáceres, Trujillo and Mérida and getting lost in Alentejo on the way back. This was a dream road trip, just for the sake of driving and getting away. I still keep the photo diary of this trip and still remember P’s army green bomber jacket, everyone’s Timberland boots and my outrageous yellow pants printed with purple grapes that I had bought in Guiné Bissau two years before, and the silly photo shoots wearing a blue African hat my mother got in Senegal. I still have the pants I don’t know what happened to the hat.

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Armed with a yellow Let’s Go Budget Guide to Spain, we had nothing pre-booked and just chose where to stay by opening the book to whichever city we were in. This lack of strategy didn’t work in Mérida. All the recommended places were fully booked. Someone told us we should look for Pepita who rented rooms to tourists before this was an organized activity. We found her place after J walked all over shouting her name. I remember Pepita as a black haired larger than life fortune teller. She kept us awake for hours after dinner, the four of us sitting around a skirted table trying to be polite while at least one of us was feeling uncomfortably scared. Nothing happened, of course. Maybe some people rent rooms in their homes because they need some company.

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At the time I didn’t like the city. I still thought I would come back for the classical theater festival because you can not enter that Roman theater lightheartedly. Unless, like J, you start resenting your friends for forcing you to visit a “bunch of rocks”. This year I came back. After seeing a Facebook’s friend selfie waiting for Seneca. I returned to Mérida with someone who’s “against Romans”, whatever this might mean. I did not bother asking.

I went to the theater on my own. I’m a firm believer that everything grand or small you really wish to do, should be done in solitude. This might seem stupid but it has worked for me so far.

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I did not, as planned, manage to see a Tragedy. The importance of this was also explained during the Prologue to La comedia de las mentiras when Calidorus ( in this adaptation, the Slave) makes it clear that we are in fact going to see a Comedy and even though he would have very much preferred to have been a “tragic actress” this was not his role for the evening. Pepe Anton Gómez and Sergi Pompermeyer decided to do some kind of “mash-up” of Plautus‘ plays because even though Pseudolus was the first one on their minds, also Miles Gloriosus or Mercator, seemed suitable and the obvious solution was to take the way of the original author and base their own work on a series of previous works. Much in the same way Plautus inspired Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors .

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I arrived early so I could focus on being there. Observing people come in and find their seats, and greet their friends, and obliging couples who’d ask me to take their photo against the amazing backdrop of the theater. Situations like these always take me back to my English finals. The text was about photography reducing whatever was important in the world to your own existence. Now, these amazing places seem to be reduced to photo sets. The family of four seating next to me has their photo taken as well. It takes the mother a few minutes to analyze her own expression with care before sending the photo to a WhatsApp group named “Forever Young”. Yes, I know, I’m a horrible snoop. The actions of others, and their conversations have always been a source of never-ending fascination. The theater is filling up and there’s a beautiful massive choreography of abanicos trying to keep flawless made-up faces looking fresh.

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I spent the next two hours in absolute concentration for fear that my knowledge of Spanish might not be enough to follow a comedy. I somehow have the idea that tragic emotions would not be as language bound. I think I manage to pick up most of it. The Exode sings the virtues of lying so that life actually keeps moving in a quasi-Broadway musical act. I walk alone back to the hotel. I had not managed to keep the plan of seeing a Greek Tragedy in Mérida but in some way I still kept a promise made to myself. I’m almost certain I don’t do this as often as I should.

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The first time I went to Mérida I was still sort of madly in love with the owner of the green army bomber jacket and ironic smirk. These days, the love of theater tends to move me more than anything else. Also Extremadura has a way of connecting all the dots. It reminds me of childhood cartoons and of the freedom of life on the road and the possibility of accidentally getting lost. This time around, I truly enjoyed being in Mérida, I might not have traveled alone but still felt that this trip was only mine.

In case you’re interested

The Mérida International Classical Theatre Festival is the oldest of its kind in Spain and takes place every year between July and August

This time I used booking.com and stayed at Deluxe Hostel & Suites. The building was originally used as accommodation for railway workers in the 50s and is now equipped with a delightful salt water pool with massage beds. The best thing about it it’s the incredibly nice, helpful and truly amazing staff.

I was only in Mérida for three days and did not get to visit the Museo Nacional de Arte Romano or the El Costurero. I did visit the Conjunto Monumental, tickets are €15 and you can use them at your own pace to visit the Teatro y Anfiteatro romanos, the Alcazaba árabe, the Casa romana del Mitreo, the Cripta de la basílica de Santa Eulalia , the Área Arqueológica de Morería, the Circo romano and Área funeraria de Los Columbarios.

I only have two meals a day, breakfast and either lunch or dinner (plenty of snacks and coffee in between) so I have only been to three restaurants:

  • Pepe Ossorio (Plaza Constitución, 10) Nice upscale restaurant, Mediterranean/ fusion cuisine. Not my favourite kind of place but the food and the service was nice.

  • La Tapilla Sixtina (Calle Hernán Cortés, 39) Friendly tapas bar, huge portions, the food was quite good and the staff was great.

  • Sapori d’Italia (Calle del Museo, 21) Italian restaurant owned by an expat from Naples. Nice enough.

One day I’ll be able to travel and do no shopping. This wasn’t that kind of trip.

Martín. La Libreria de Papel (Calle Sta. Eulalia, 46) Very helpful staff and although I’m not a big fan, the selection of graphic novels seemed pretty impressive. I bought Mario Vargas Llosa’s Elogio de la educación and Marcus Aurelius’ Meditaciones. 

Arena 77 (Calle Sagasta, 23) I walked past when it was closed an there they were, the grafia sandals that looked just like the Stephan Kélian ones I used to have, probably around the end of the 90s), and which did not survive through the 00s. I came back to get them and was lucky to meet Carmen, an artist who works in restoration, has lived in La Habana and Sevilla where she owned a restaurant, in Lisbon where she was working in the México pavilion for Expo’98 and who now owns this store selling handmade pieces of beauty from Marrakesh and Colombia and Africa via Cádiz. Everything is made my women and everything is brought to Spain with no intermediaries. I bought a beaded bracelet made in Colombia, a bag lined in a beautiful wax print african fabric as a gift for my mother, and the Marrakesh raffia sandals just because they are like recovering a piece of the past.

Martina Boutiq (Calle José Ramon Mélida, 4) Stocks Antica Sartoria and was having a sale which served as the perfect excuse to buy an embelished white lace bomber jacket which is, obviously,  a “foundation” garment. The ladies working here are are just lovely.

Along Calle José Ramon Mélida there are several archeological reproductions and souvenir shops and I could not resist the most typical of the abanicos. What can I say, I’m truly kitsch at heart.

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When he left

Mr. Alexandre used to work here, from 1962 until he died in 2016.

From the street, looking through the window, it doesn’t look like this place is abandoned. He might come back. Someone might come back for their bespoke suit.

If you read Portuguese, please head to Blog dos Alfaiates, Mr. Alexandre’s story is there along with other stories about other masters of elegance.

Photo: Alexandre Alfaiate, Praça Coronel Pacheco, Porto

The shape of life

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A bridge of silver wings stretches from the dead ashes of an unforgiving nightmare
to the jeweled vision of a life started anew.

Aberjhani, The Bridge of Silver Wings (2007)

 

 

I could have chosen any of the ones in Porto, but Stari Most was the topic of conversation over coffee today. Some bridges keep you together. No matter what.

Mostar, April 2017

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