I opened the window and looked out. My son Afonso was getting in the car and his friend was putting the helmet and they both took the road. Pedro had already left. I was worried about their motorcycles being in the parking downstairs. Although it’s inside the building, there have been some thefts and with the State of Emergency about to be declared who knows what might happen. They decided to come and get them but left straight away. No …
Blog Posts
Yesterday I concluded I had a flat tire. My car had been issuing warnings about low pressure on tires and it was always the same one so I had promised myself the next time I would have to fix it. It was yesterday! Not really a good time to have a problem in your car so I had to fix it straight away. Fortunately, I was told to go to a place where they repaired it in half an hour, …
Today it’s cloudy, with a few timid rays of sun appearing from time to time, and it’s windy – unpleasantly windy, as if to tell everyone “stay at home”. A strange silence I could not. In the late morning I had to pass by the office to get some documents that I could not print at home. As I drove there, I found there were more people on the streets than I had anticipated. Don’t mistake me: the city …
It seems that each day brings with it a new source of anxiety, as much as you want to keep a cool head. A pleasant dinner and a cancelled picnic Yesterday a friend called inviting me to dinner with him and his girlfriend, something we had agreed to do when they next came to Lisbon. They have been living in a small city up North with no virus detected cases yet and travelled by car. I bluntly told him …
What do you do, when you are stuck at home, in a half-self-imposed sort of quarantine, and you are going through something you never thought you would experience, not in your wildest – and more pessimistic – dreams? Well, since you are privileged to be a writer, or at least to think you are one, you do one of the things you love the most – you write. You write about this experience, what you are going through, what is …
It’s a few minutes before eleven pm. I’m tired. And worried. I think of my son Afonso who’s in hospital, recovering from his second operation – actually by now mostly waiting for the results of the microbiology tests he has underwent to determine what caused the infection in his operation scar. It’s been more than two months since his accident during a rugby match and two since his first operation. It’s been tough on him and we, his parents, are …
There’s nothing compared to the exhilaration you feel in the beginning of a love story. Whatever the season, it always feels like Spring – the sky is blue, the sun is shining and warm, and there is a bright light in your life; it’s called being in love. Falling in love Falling in love usually happens suddenly, as if you were hit by something. One day you look at a person you have known for a time, and you …
If only I could bear the weight of your pain upon my shoulders, If only it could be me wearing those crutches whose metallic sound on the floor has become so hard to bear. If only I could rip the heartache out of your chest and bring it into mine, Knowing your heart would henceforth be beating peacefully and joyfully. If only I could wipe away the infinite sorrow from your beautiful blue eyes, Whose bewildered look breaks my own …
Many times you live next door to someone for years and you know nothing about them; when you meet in the lift you say good morning or good evening; most rarely you exchange a few trivialities about the weather, as the lift goes up or down; and little else. Everyone goes on with their lives and that’s how it should be. However, from time to time, something happens that makes you discover your neighbours’ dark secrets. The other day as …
My friend Nora shares with me a song from a Mexican band, Maná, who have suddenly become quite famous in Spain. The song is called Bendita tu luz (something like “your blessed light”). I listen and immediately take to it. The music is joyful, and the lyrics romantic – the singer says about his new love, a girl with such a special light in her eyes that he calls it “blessed”; and about the blessed moment when they first met, …