Guess what, I went back to Portugal for Christmas + Birthday Bash, this time bringing my fabulous friends from Dublin, so they could join me in a neverending feast before becoming brandymel-drinking pirates. Medronho, empty beaches, golden rocks, moscatel and my mother's coffee were already in my dreams the night before our arrival.
Revisiting Lagos always makes me feel nervous - I call it the hometown jitters. The prospect of facing fragments of my past in a town where there's nothing left of or for me, apart from all the memories and the dusty bittersweetness of what was once my life. My core belongs to Lagos in a way that makes me feel like I'm coming back home even though my home is now somewhere else. Seeing my parents and my best friends who I know for nearly 20 years is comforting and brings warmth to my longing heart. I learn to appreciate their company with special intensity and gratitude because distance does indeed make the heart grow fonder, seriously. When you've been away for so long, you recognise what you left behind and what you kept from there when you went away. Oh, and suddenly you behave like a tourist, photographing places you used to pass by and ignore. Distance makes me actually enjoy this sort of paradise where nothing happens but also where one can escape real life for a while.
Ah, fuck, these few days spent back home (or ex-home, whatever) were just the well deserved break I needed. Swimming in the wavy Atlantic under a blinding sunshine, petting all those stray dogs wandering around in packs (one of them looked exactly like Vladimir Putin), broken shells cutting my feet covered in wet sand and seaweed, flamingo pink sunset reflecting its dying sunlight on the ocean and on the dunes, dancing kalinka after a few bottles of cheap delicious red wine, catcalling men after they did the same to us in the most cro-magnon fashion, shots of amarguinha with lemon and long afternoons of low tide and sea glitter. All of it, I wished some of those moments could've last forever but such moments must stay where they belong, between turquoise sea and sky, in a horizon we can reach every now and then if we don't succumb to some claustrophobic attack during the demonic Ryanair flight.
Post-holiday blues are kicking in and George Michael's death was really the serotonine killer of the month, hence the melancholy. Keep your friends and family close to you, never take anything for granted and good fucking riddance to 2016. Now, back to reality.
Revisiting Lagos always makes me feel nervous - I call it the hometown jitters. The prospect of facing fragments of my past in a town where there's nothing left of or for me, apart from all the memories and the dusty bittersweetness of what was once my life. My core belongs to Lagos in a way that makes me feel like I'm coming back home even though my home is now somewhere else. Seeing my parents and my best friends who I know for nearly 20 years is comforting and brings warmth to my longing heart. I learn to appreciate their company with special intensity and gratitude because distance does indeed make the heart grow fonder, seriously. When you've been away for so long, you recognise what you left behind and what you kept from there when you went away. Oh, and suddenly you behave like a tourist, photographing places you used to pass by and ignore. Distance makes me actually enjoy this sort of paradise where nothing happens but also where one can escape real life for a while.
Ah, fuck, these few days spent back home (or ex-home, whatever) were just the well deserved break I needed. Swimming in the wavy Atlantic under a blinding sunshine, petting all those stray dogs wandering around in packs (one of them looked exactly like Vladimir Putin), broken shells cutting my feet covered in wet sand and seaweed, flamingo pink sunset reflecting its dying sunlight on the ocean and on the dunes, dancing kalinka after a few bottles of cheap delicious red wine, catcalling men after they did the same to us in the most cro-magnon fashion, shots of amarguinha with lemon and long afternoons of low tide and sea glitter. All of it, I wished some of those moments could've last forever but such moments must stay where they belong, between turquoise sea and sky, in a horizon we can reach every now and then if we don't succumb to some claustrophobic attack during the demonic Ryanair flight.
Post-holiday blues are kicking in and George Michael's death was really the serotonine killer of the month, hence the melancholy. Keep your friends and family close to you, never take anything for granted and good fucking riddance to 2016. Now, back to reality.
damn, your pictures are so beautiful. everything i love in photography, the details <3
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It must have been wonderful living there, the scenery is beautiful, even though you don't have anything there anymore.
ReplyDelete-Kati
http://almoststylish.blogspot.de/
2016 was the best year in my life in the past six years, honest to looord. Funny that of how the heart grows fonder with distance, and how you love those friends and family more when you leave them behind. It should have told me something, the fact I didn't miss them at all once I ran away to Manchester, but still I came back and I hung out with those same people I hadn't missed while I wasn't near them... how strange. Lovely images.
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Aaah o Trudi!!
ReplyDeleteO que importa é que foram uns belos dias rodeada de amigas, daqui, e daí, e o tempo ajudou aos passeios.
xx