At eighteen she arrived in the big city with butterflies in her belly – leaving her island to come and study at university was no small adventure! She had many friends there, though, and through one of them she had found the place where she was going to stay. For years, friends of friends coming from her island had stayed there and recommended it. She knew Lisbon of course, she had been there several times with her family; …
Tag: love
This morning a friend called saying she was sorry for something she had said last night, as we were coming out of another friend’s birthday celebration. More than hurt me with her sharp words, she surprised me; saying you’re sorry is part of any relationship, and so is understanding, and forgiving, so in the end all was well between us. She left me thinking about how hard it is to say “I’m sorry”; for some, the proud ones, …
Things have changed so much, no wonder we are all saying this is a very different summer from all the others we have lived through. Even though we can go to the beach, and to restaurants (preferably with terraces), and sit outside watching the sunset while sipping a mojito orcaipirinha, something that we’ve been doing for years, there’s always that feeling that something is not quite right, especially when you have to put on your mask to get …
Once I said, half-joking, that you reminded me of Heathcliff, the dark but loving, passionate but sombre, vulnerable yet aggressive, lover of Wuthering Heights. I don’t think you’ve read the book, for the only word you retained was “gipsy”; you laughed and said I was not the first person who called you that, because of your raven black hair, that sometimes had a wild look about it; your dark eyes, aquiline nose, tall figure and reserved, sometimes even unpleasant, manner. …
Love in the time of Coronavirus He’s leaving the city and heading for the highway to the North. He brings some of the files he’s working on with him, just in case the police make him stop and ask why he is travelling. He will say it’s for his work but it’s not. He’s travelling for love; he’ knows it’s crazy, with the quarantine and all, but he can’t help it. He has to see her, to have her …
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, …
She turns it again and again inside her head and for the thousandth time she is unable to reach a conclusion. Rather, she feels unable to decide. Her life hangs in the balance and she has no clue about what she will do next. She knows what she wants to do, what she would like to do, but then she thinks of the unsurmountable obstacles and she falters. She cannot do it. But how can she not do it, and …
I have written many times about love, but I really believe passion is what makes the world go round. Be it passion in the positive way, that is often related to love, or the opposite, passion fuelled by anger, turning into hatred. As the year ends, I think of stories of passion unravelling before my eyes. With passion, sooner or later, there comes a companion, and that is pain, heartbreak. For when passion hits is it is so strong …
During the Christmas season I enjoy watching the somewhat corny and oh-so-predictable Christmas movies that show up on TV, and they are inevitably about a girl who’s had her heart broken and a boy with good intentions who will heal her heart, after some obstacles are won, of course. I do enjoy watching them over a cup of tea on those dark grey Sunday afternoons, and for some moments believe in romance and fairy tales. After, all, these movies are …
In moments like this I ask myself why we go on believing in fairy tales, even in our mature years. I suppose the problem resides in all those damningly romantic books we read in our youth, and sometimes throughout our lives – as is my case – that insidiously convince us there is, somewhere in our life, a true love waiting for us, and it will one day arrive, no matter how late it may be. No to mention …