No Christmas is exactly like the previous one. You may keep most of the rituals, the people you celebrate it with, shop in the same stores and cook the same dishes for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but still, it will feel familiar, because it will be “your” Christmas all over again. Not this year. This Christmas will be different from all the Christmases we have lived before, and, even with those few we’ll get together with, …
Tag: birthday
Beli invites me to a weekend at her old country house, where we used to celebrate her birthday almost forty years ago during long weekends of never-ending fun. As we approach the entrance I’m no longer in her boyfriend’s Mercedes but in a white Mini, one of three or four cars heading towards adventure; back then it was an old farm road, winding and narrow, all ups and downs, and we had to drive carefully so as not to …
A week has passed. Rain or shine, days are very much the same, and it’s a good sign. We are home, we work, we sleep, we eat, we see our friends during WhatsApp video calls… we should feel privileged to be home, healthy, comparatively safe, while other people are fighting this battle for us, in hospitals, risking their lives a million times so that one day this nightmare may pass. I cannot help picturing my cousin, the doctor, who sent …
I had arrived the previous evening from a business meeting in Bergen, Norway, tired after two plane trips, but had woken up feeling refreshed and happy. I had many things to do as the following day would be Afonso’s first communion and we’d have a party at our beach house for our family and close friends. Dad and Ilda (my stepmother) had come to Lisbon for the party and had been over for dinner with Miguel and the boys while I …
