Matar as Saudades*

Home. After some time living abroad that concept takes a different meaning. Where is home? The city you live in? The country where most of your friends live? The place you were born? The streets you know since you were kid? What is home?

After some time living in Lisboa I also had the same questions, I’m sure some of you also had the same questions when you changed residence because of studies.

When I went in December to Portugal, more concretely to Lisboa and then Madeira, I had the same questions. “I’m going home” I said to some people and I actually did go home.

The first days in Lisboa I used mostly to be with my friends. In the first day I had dinner with people from my LC who were returning from their National Conference in that day, I also had a great dinner organized by Marta and this time it was real surprise because there were many other people there and I had no idea, I had great lunches, I had the chance to go to Bairro Alto and meet many friends who are also living abroad.

Then, Margarida and I arrived in Madeira on 23rd after many hours of waiting in Lisboa airport because our flight was overbooked, which is normal in this period because of students and tourists that spend Christmas and New Year Eve in Madeira.

On that night we meet with friends from high school, as always, to enjoy the very famous and best night in Funchal, “A noite do Mercado”. Streets around the old part of the city, where the market is, are full of people and improvised bars. It’s a very old tradition to go to market on the night of 23rd, you can taste the best sandwiches, typical drinks and find everyone there. During Christmas I spend most time at home with family, besides I was sick, can you imagine? When I left Zagreb it was snowing and in Madeira this was the average temperature outside: During the next days I meet some old friends, I went to travel by car around the island, had some dinners where I had the chance to taste the typical food from Madeira, nice… Then New Years Eve arrived. In Madeira the tradition is to watch the fireworks with the family in some friend or family house in Funchal. Then, after that amazing 10 minutes, we meet in the city center with friends to go to some bar, club or disco. Normally people dress up a lot for this occasion but I really don’t like that, so normally I meet with Margarida and drink in some cheap bars and enjoy low quality music heheh. But this year some friends at 6am convinced us to try to enter this really fashion club, and even in jeans, we manage to enter :) Part of our tradition also includes watching the first sunrise of the year… in one word: Perfect! After Madeira I returned to Lisboa and I’ve spend the weekend with a friend in the north cost of Lisbon. We have visited Alfeizeirão, São Martinho do Porto, Foz do Arelho and Óbidos. The ocean was wild and beautiful, it was a dream trip but unfortunately I don’t have any pictures…

Besides that it was again the same routine: coffees, lunches and dinners with friends. This picture is from the last night with Margarida, Rita and Marco, where we had a cool and improvised dinner. So, to conclude, I think home is not a place or a time, is a feeling, a feeling of belonging, of being known, of understanding, a feeling of safety and peace, that feeling that makes you lose conscience of time and place, a deep and comfortable feeling.

And I definitely felt I was home :)

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*Saudade (singular) or Saudades (plural) is a Portuguese word for a feeling of longing for something that one is fond of, which is gone, but might return in a distant future. Although it relates to feelings of melancholy and fond memories of things/people/days gone by, it can be a rush of sadness coupled with a paradoxical joy derived from acceptance of fate and the hope of recovering or substituting what is lost by something that will either fill in the void or provide consolation. Saudade has no direct English translation; its translation is dependent on context. No other languages in the world have a word with such meaning, making saudade a distinct mark of Portuguese culture. It has been said that this, more than anything else, represents what it is to be Portuguese. Some specialists say the word may have originated during the Great Portuguese Discoveries, giving meaning to the sadness felt about those who departed on journeys to unknown seas and disappeared in shipwrecks, died in battle, or simply never returned. Those who stayed behind—mostly women and children—suffered deeply in their absence; the state of mind has subsequently become a "Portuguese way of life": a constant feeling of absence, the sadness of something that's missing, wishful longing for completeness or wholeness and the yearning for the return of that now gone, a desire for presence as opposed to absence—as it is said in Portuguese, a strong desire to "matar as saudades" (lit. to kill the saudades).

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.