Back to the hostel, I stood in the courtyard looking at the moon and enjoying the tranquility of my first night in Portugal.
Germany, Austria, Italy, Uruguay and Brazil talking about fine arts, music and the influence of synthetic drugs in the creative process of artists. It sounds like an academic name, but it was just a group of travelers drinking cheap wine while a weed cigarette was being passed among them. I joined the wine group and took part in the conversation long enough to realize that my English was better than I expected.
The next morning, I woke up early and meditated on the top floor. I bought eggs and fruits for my breakfast and started planning the next steps of the trip. My time in Europe was about to expire and I made a list of possibilities:
- Morocco and the opportunity to visit Africa before heading to Asia.
- Greece, The Balkans and finally Asia.
- Holland and France, to end the trip in Europe once and for all, then Asia.
- Return to Brazil.
Yes, going back to Brazil was on my list of possibilities. Before that, I started researching the cheapest route to get to Bangkok and going to a totally new and unknown continent started to make me afraid.
Going to Canada seemed challenging, but I had friends waiting for me there, and besides, I’d been to the United States before. I think things would be the same.
I was in Europe in 2015, of course in a completely different kind of trip, but that small experience gave me some confidence. But Asia was something completely unknown. I saw the movie “The Hangover” and thought I’d be lost forever in the chaos of Bangkok. I didn’t think I’d have internet, I wouldn’t be able to communicate with Asians, and I’d never find my way back home.
To get away from the anxiety, I closed the laptop and went for a meeting with Rachel in Chiado. Rachel is the critical reviewer of this book. We met when we worked together at Diário de Pernambuco,[14] in Recife when I was still a journalism student. She was already an experienced culture reporter, and I was still taking my first steps in the politics field. Although we worked in the same newsroom for a year, we never got close.
With the posts of the trip, we got closer talking online, and she offered to show me the city of Lisbon when I traveled through Portugal. And it was a pleasant surprise to know Rachel better.
I remembered the same joy and a contagious positive energy from when we worked in the newsroom. Easy laugh that came from within. I could feel her laughter in my own chest with every good story she told me. Even speaking of the troubles that the change of country brought to the whole family life, Rachel spoke with some motivating optimism.
Before meeting her at A Brasileira Café, one of the writer and poet Fernando Pessoa’s[15] favorite places, I walked through the Chiado neighborhood to get to know the city’s atmosphere. When Raquel arrived with two friends from Pernambuco who were also visiting Portugal, we took a drive and went to São Jorge Castle. We laughed together all afternoon until we said goodbye in the Se Cathedral.
Although Lisbon was the place where I met many friends from Brazil, I walked a lot on my own and began to realize that the continuous tightness in my chest wasn’t a negative feeling, but just a physical feeling. With that, I was able to accept that I’d live with it as long as it took. It wasn’t pain, fear, anxiety or anguish. It was just a chill in the chest that would go away one day.
I was able to connect with the city deeply and I was peaceful. The hostel was cheap and pretty decent and I ended up staying longer, four instead of two nights. I bought vegetables and some protein from the grocery store on the corner and used the free groceries from the travelers’ cupboard for lunch and dinner. I shared the meals I cooked with other guests, and I was also invited to try their food at other times.
I went out alone every day and visited the Jerónimos Monastery, Belém Tower, the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, the Carmo Convent Ruins, Bairro Alto and Alfama. I got to know the history of the 1755 earthquake and tsunami better, followed by many fires, they killed a third of the population. The tragedy changed the life in the country forever.
All that made me think nothing is permanent. I could imagine the despair of those people who fled the landslides and fires toward the Tagus River and found death anyway in the giant waves that swept the coast and rocked the tides of the world. They say that even the Brazilian coast felt the impact.
I started to enjoy making metaphors of the impactful stories of the places I knew with my personal history. As if I were looking for the messages from the universe wherever I visited.
In Lisbon, I thought of the afternoon of January 15, when I felt as if an earthquake and a tidal wave had hit me and destroyed all the certainties I had. A minute earlier, I was happy to hear the optimism of my doctor, one of Brazil’s best human reproduction specialists. The next moment I was crying over the debris of my dreams.
Nothing is by chance, I forced myself to believe it. Portugal has reinvented its engineering and architecture in the way it builds houses. I was rebuilding my story and this was the opportunity to redo everything in a different way. I didn’t know how yet, but I knew it was just up to me.
46 – RECONNECTION AND OLD QUESTIONS
I planned to spend two weeks in Cascais, where my friend Julia and her husband Cristiano, a retired Army colonel, live with their children. We met on my first military adventure with Felipe, in the Amazon, when he was still a lieutenant and we wore the wedding rings on our right hands.
Julia kept her almost hilarious sarcasm already known. A funny way to complain about things that always makes you wonder if she’s really complaining or joking about the situation. Passionate about traveling, she had been following my trajectory over the internet and she already knew that Felipe and I were separated. But when I arrived, she wanted to know the details.
After Rondônia, we met many other times, even though we moved from city to city so many times. Northeast, Rio de Janeiro, Amazon again. Felipe and Cristiano had a good but respectful relationship because of their difference in military ranks. Julia and I always had intimacy, and even though we didn’t talk often, we talked about very personal things when we met.
After so long, telling every detail of what happened to someone who met us as a couple was strange, but also familiar. I didn’t want them to feel sorry for me, but when I thought about the full divorce story, before and after, I ended up moaning and wondering why the marriage ended.
Julia and Cristiano put a bet on us getting back together.
- I don’t believe it, Julia – I said, looking for some certainty in the horizon – I can’t say it’s impossible, but I’m someone else now. Everything I’ve been in those 14 years with him has changed dramatically.
- Precisely for this. While you were traveling the world, he was spending his time reflecting… You never saw each other again. When you both meet again, it may be so much better – Julia tried to convince me.
- I agree. I think you’ll get back together – Cristiano added to it.
That night I went to bed thinking about it. Was it still possible? Would we be willing to do that? Would he want that? Until I asked myself the correct question: Do I want that?
47 – GETTING TO KNOW MORE EMOTIONS
In Cascais, I decided to use my free time to definitely organize my next steps. And the conversation with Julia made me think about putting Brazil on my list of possibilities. I made another list of pros and cons to end the trip at that time and go back home. The list of pros was much longer and this made me suffer.
15
Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language.