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 …
Tag: plane
This is a story of a love so powerful and strong that it was destined to last forever. At first sight they were as different as two people could be: he was Portuguese, from a traditional Catholic family, a man who had lived mostly in his country, a successful lawyer turned politician; she came from the cold lands of the North, was widely travelled and all but conventional. Where he had dark hair she was blonde, where he had …
After a night on the plane I feel surprisingly well and energetic. I look at the travel route on the screen map and see we are almost there. In fact the captain has already announced our descent to Maputo. Again the screen shows us the course taken: a straight line from Lisbon to the shores of the Indian Ocean. Almost eleven hours to get us there but then I remember the sixteen hours it took us back in the …
As I wait to board the plane I think some things never change, such as the gestures, rituals, hopes, feelings, that have always been intrinsically linked to most of the months of August of my life. As coming to Madeira. Holiday rituals Yesterday as I was ironing some clothes to bring with me I recalled it used to be a sort of “pre Madeira ritual”. I did it in Granny’s sunlit kitchen and it made me so happy that …
She is going up the subway stairs with her mother. They have been downtown for some Christmas shopping and they are carrying many bags. Outside, the evening is cold, but the smell of roasting nuts – so typical of Lisbon at this time of the year – feels like a warm welcome. In the distance she hears the sounds of the latest Christmas hit “Last Christmas” by Wham. She sings along and her mother cheerfully joins in. They walk home …
