Last November, I quit my job. It was an act born of desperation, rather than whim or anything resembling a well-laid plan, so it follows that I had no other job in sight. And so, I decided to spend two months in Portugal. This, was more or less on a whim. It was also the continuation of a love affair that had started eleven years prior when, while studying in Spain, I’d visited Lisbon for a weekend.
My memories from that first visit are fragmented at best, but I do have one I’ve managed to keep intact. It was late in the summer, early in the evening, and I was sitting outside at a café. The sun had just dropped below the horizon and an ashen shade rested on the nearby buildings, some of which had long been abandoned. I had an affinity for these deserted structures, which I’d seen throughout the city. With their broken tiles and rotting wood, they were like proud but aging sentinels, forgotten, but not gone. As night advanced on the plaza, the shadows inside their walls deepened. Soon, the rooms within would be inky black and infinite. I sat there, sipping a beer and gazing at them. A few punks walked by, touting spikes and chains and lit cigarettes, and took up residence in the plaza. Gradually the group began to swell. Watching them, I felt both energized by and connected to this place. There was a sadness here, but what really attracted me was a sense of quiet perseverance. This group of punks brought with it the suggestion of rebellion, as if some larger thing were shifting its weight beneath the city's surface. I was spellbound. And so, over a decade later, when I found myself unemployed with a bit of money saved, there was little question where I would go.
I found the city different than I remembered. I attribute this to several things: Lisbon has changed, and so have I. Plus, brief encounters often escape the scrutiny that longer pauses can bring, and, of course, memories prefer romance to reality.
Take, for example, your high school gym. If you were to visit it now, the space would seem very small, but it would be ridiculous to say that the building has shrunk. Instead, it’s the relationship that has changed. The structure no longer corrals insecurities, aspirations, fantasies, and failures (not those belonging to you, at least). It houses only disintegrated memories; porous experiences that have failed to hold salience or relevance. But the version of the building that is itself constructed of memory, it has had to grow, to become a suitable stage for a past life.
At any rate, I had returned to Lisbon.
My first day there was poorly planned. I couldn’t check into the room I’d rented until evening. Arriving at 8am, I faced a whole day of wandering, with my luggage, through the city. For those unfamiliar, Lisbon is not a flat terrain. After a sleepless night on the plane, with a backpack on my back and my suitcase bobbling over the cobblestones like a drunk, I trudged up hills and down stairs, on a day that wasn’t quite warm enough to sit still in. It was like a really pathetic version of that Keanu Reeves movie, with the bus that can’t slow down. There’s only so much coffee a person can drink and I knew I couldn’t afford much else, plus I was facing the initial harsh reality that I didn’t know what would confront me when I walked into a place, and how I would be expected to react. I had quickly realized that the handful of Portuguese phrases I’d learned were unanchored, floating in a sea of words I couldn’t comprehend. In my new environment, I knew events would occur much faster than I could understand them, and I was worried about appearing stupid, or worse, rude.
I was cold and tired and money was tight, so much so that I had declined to pay the extra €10 that would have allowed me to check in early at the apartment where I was staying. Some might say I had no business going to another country without €10 to spare (about $12), but it had been eleven years since I’d last made it off the continent, and I didn’t want to look up and see that another eleven had gone by. So I’d made it my business. That first day, I can’t say business was good.
I figured out how to order a coffee that I didn’t like very much, but at least I could pronounce it. I sat in train stations. I found a Starbucks and didn’t feel guilty resting for a while, because I have a general and unwarranted lack of respect for Starbucks. When I couldn’t move around anymore, I sat by the Tagus River, leaning on my suitcase, hugging my backpack, and shivering in and out of consciousness. I accepted that this was never going to end, that this day would always yawn out before me, bright and sunny and eternal.
And then it was 7pm. In half an hour I would be able to check into my room.
Looking back, it was no way to start a trip that would prove to be rather taxing on my psyche. Or maybe it was perfect in that way. Maybe it was the condensed version of what I would confront in the coming weeks.
My memories from that first visit are fragmented at best, but I do have one I’ve managed to keep intact. It was late in the summer, early in the evening, and I was sitting outside at a café. The sun had just dropped below the horizon and an ashen shade rested on the nearby buildings, some of which had long been abandoned. I had an affinity for these deserted structures, which I’d seen throughout the city. With their broken tiles and rotting wood, they were like proud but aging sentinels, forgotten, but not gone. As night advanced on the plaza, the shadows inside their walls deepened. Soon, the rooms within would be inky black and infinite. I sat there, sipping a beer and gazing at them. A few punks walked by, touting spikes and chains and lit cigarettes, and took up residence in the plaza. Gradually the group began to swell. Watching them, I felt both energized by and connected to this place. There was a sadness here, but what really attracted me was a sense of quiet perseverance. This group of punks brought with it the suggestion of rebellion, as if some larger thing were shifting its weight beneath the city's surface. I was spellbound. And so, over a decade later, when I found myself unemployed with a bit of money saved, there was little question where I would go.
I found the city different than I remembered. I attribute this to several things: Lisbon has changed, and so have I. Plus, brief encounters often escape the scrutiny that longer pauses can bring, and, of course, memories prefer romance to reality.
Take, for example, your high school gym. If you were to visit it now, the space would seem very small, but it would be ridiculous to say that the building has shrunk. Instead, it’s the relationship that has changed. The structure no longer corrals insecurities, aspirations, fantasies, and failures (not those belonging to you, at least). It houses only disintegrated memories; porous experiences that have failed to hold salience or relevance. But the version of the building that is itself constructed of memory, it has had to grow, to become a suitable stage for a past life.
At any rate, I had returned to Lisbon.
My first day there was poorly planned. I couldn’t check into the room I’d rented until evening. Arriving at 8am, I faced a whole day of wandering, with my luggage, through the city. For those unfamiliar, Lisbon is not a flat terrain. After a sleepless night on the plane, with a backpack on my back and my suitcase bobbling over the cobblestones like a drunk, I trudged up hills and down stairs, on a day that wasn’t quite warm enough to sit still in. It was like a really pathetic version of that Keanu Reeves movie, with the bus that can’t slow down. There’s only so much coffee a person can drink and I knew I couldn’t afford much else, plus I was facing the initial harsh reality that I didn’t know what would confront me when I walked into a place, and how I would be expected to react. I had quickly realized that the handful of Portuguese phrases I’d learned were unanchored, floating in a sea of words I couldn’t comprehend. In my new environment, I knew events would occur much faster than I could understand them, and I was worried about appearing stupid, or worse, rude.
I was cold and tired and money was tight, so much so that I had declined to pay the extra €10 that would have allowed me to check in early at the apartment where I was staying. Some might say I had no business going to another country without €10 to spare (about $12), but it had been eleven years since I’d last made it off the continent, and I didn’t want to look up and see that another eleven had gone by. So I’d made it my business. That first day, I can’t say business was good.
I figured out how to order a coffee that I didn’t like very much, but at least I could pronounce it. I sat in train stations. I found a Starbucks and didn’t feel guilty resting for a while, because I have a general and unwarranted lack of respect for Starbucks. When I couldn’t move around anymore, I sat by the Tagus River, leaning on my suitcase, hugging my backpack, and shivering in and out of consciousness. I accepted that this was never going to end, that this day would always yawn out before me, bright and sunny and eternal.
And then it was 7pm. In half an hour I would be able to check into my room.
Looking back, it was no way to start a trip that would prove to be rather taxing on my psyche. Or maybe it was perfect in that way. Maybe it was the condensed version of what I would confront in the coming weeks.
I can say this. I made things. If you’ve ever wondered if maybe you could be a better, more prolific artist, if only you had more time, you could. Art needs time. It needs time for exploration, experimentation, discovery, and development. I had the time in Lisbon and I used it. I came out of it with stuff I’d made.
Every day I walked the streets with my little novelty camera and recorded things. I peered into the abandoned buildings I loved so much. I recorded sheets drying in the sun and the way the river moved. I followed dogs. I spent one day recording just my feet walking. I’d never shot anything and I hadn’t the slightest idea how to do it well, but I had time to try things. Some worked, some didn’t. I’m not entirely sure I can tell the difference.
I sat in cafes and wrote songs. This song was made in one called Cruzes Credo. I spent many days there, and felt very much at home. One of the servers was a sound engineer, the cook a producer. The owner would slip me pieces of paper carrying the names of songs I should listen to, because by that time they all knew I was a DJ.
There were darker elements to my stay in Lisbon, but I won’t get into those here. Maybe I haven’t quite unpacked them yet. Or maybe I just haven’t packed them into neat enough boxes. I can say that going to an unfamiliar place, broke and alone will make you confront things that you had otherwise been doing a perfectly fine job of ignoring. It’s as if the universe is holding your face in the puddle you left on the carpet. Look at what you’ve done, it says. Look at it.
I had my ups, my downs, I learned some things, and continue to learn them now, because epiphanies are powerful, but fleeting, and change is a process that takes time. If I had it to do over, I wouldn’t do it differently (if I ever do it again, now that’s a different story). Like on that first day, just as I felt I was slipping too far away, it was over. It was time to go home and start making things again.