Once upon a time, in another life, there was a little girl who loved books. At four she read the newspapers headlines, as if she were in a hurry to learn how to read, so that she could learn all the stories in all the books in the world. On Sundays, when her father was home, he would sit her on his lap and she would show him her progress, and he would unfailingly kiss the top of …
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I drive and I listen to my Spotify list, and I hear the first sounds of “Airport”, a song by The Motors I heard back in my teens, and I think how appropriate it is for these days of my life. Although it’s not a ballad, “Airport” is a sad song, about parting, about putting distance between two people, about saying goodbye. Yesterday I just left my elder son Afonso at Lisbon’s airport – he was flying …
Many years ago, in my teens, “New Kid in Town” was one of our favourite ballads, and the fact that it immediately followed “Hotel California” on the vinyl record meant we had about ten solid minutes of slow songs to dance without interruption, which might be good, if you had the right partner, or disastrous, if not… Still, it was a song that we warmed to, and I still have it among other precious oldies on my Spotify list. …
Yesterday I was watching a documentary about Karen Blixen, the heroine of “Out of Africa”, a movie based on her autobiography with the same title, and played by an unforgettable Meryl Streep. At a certain point Denys Finch-Hatton (played in the movie by the one and only Robert Redford) is mentioned as “the great love of her life” and I wondered about why is it that all great love stories – or most of them – have such sad …
Prince Uncharming More and more, the memories of his life as a powerful prince of a distant land are vanishing in the mists of time. But he will never forget the day when the wise woman of the forest (or was it a witch?) condemned him to a life of incarceration within the green vase. And, this time, no true love from a woman would save him as in Beauty and the Beast. To be fair, he didn’t deserve …
I look around and I see a group of people nearing sixty. Most of my friends were born in 62, like me, so we’re fast approaching that age. A few others are slightly younger, and a few of the men are older by a few years. So, sixty it is for us. Someone was saying the other day, as a joke: “From my birthday on, if I’m run over by a car, they won’t say ‘a man was run …
I could also call it “the fairy tale list” but then, isn’t Cinderella one of the most popular fairytales ever? I think it will do. When you fall in love, the first weeks, months, years if you’re lucky, are like a fairytale, and you endow the recipient of your love with all the qualities of the knight in shining armour who has lived in your dreams for so long: he’s loving, caring, sexy, loyal, faithful and true, intelligent, …
My dear friend I’m on the plane back home and I realize that only a week ago I was arriving, tears of emotion and excitement blurring my vision of your island, my favorite place in the world. And time went by so fast, so damn fast, slipping through my fingers like grains of sand, that I could no more hold in my hands than all those years ago when my holidays in Madeira were a month long, and even …
Just because I have been meeting you more than I should in my frequent trips to the past it doesn’t mean that you are doing that, or ever did. Just because the thought of bumping into you every time I go to your city crosses my mind, it doesn’t mean you ever thought the same. After all, why should you? It is your city; you are always there, and you could not guess at my comings and goings. …
It seems impossible, but it’s been two years since I stepped on Lisbon airport and boarded a plane. In August 2019 I travelled to Madeira, as I’m doing now, and little did I know what would be hitting us in a few months’ time. Looking back, these two years have brought many changes to my life, and I’m not just talking about lockdowns, social distancing, wearing masks and feeling there’s a threat hanging over our heads all the …
