Reading Portugal
First, read. Do people who were not invalids as children hold this rule to their hearts as I do? Don’t know. But I know that since mid-February, four months ago, I have accumulated, read, highlighted, and written marginal comments in fifteen books about Portugal. I have spent days and nights on the internet, reading blogs, emails, websites, photo galleries, and adventure stories. If I were hit by a truck tomorrow (which is always possible on Houston area freeways), my brain would spill out images, pictures, stories, and descriptions of a place I have never been except in imagination. Books. Books have always been my goad to adventure, my ticket to freedom. These are some of the passages that would tumble out of my brain:
“Some of the most idyllic spots on the stretch of coast west of Leiria are in the Pinhal de leiria, a vast 700-year-old pine forest . . . an area of great natural beauty with sunlight filtering through endless miles of trees and the sea air perfumed with the scent of resin”(Rough Guide).
Poem by Fernando Pessoa, from Lisbon:
Ah, the first minutes in cafés of new cities!
The early morning arrivals at docks or at stations
Full of a tranquil and luminous silence!
The first pedestrians on the streets of a just-reached city,
And the special sound of time’s passing when we travel. . .
The busses or streetcars or automobiles…
The novel look of streets in novel countries…
The peace they seem to offer for our sorrow,
The happy bustle they have for our sadness,
Their absence of monotony for our wearied heart!
“The famous sacristy window [in the Convento do Cristo, in Tomar] is a riot of virtuosic stone carving, in which twisted strands of coral, opulent flower heads and intricately knotted ropes are crowned by the royal coat of arms, the cross of the Order of Christ and two armillary spheres” (Lonely Planet).
The parish church in Vila do Conde is “magnificent with its precious jewels,” and the Convent of St. Clara and the tombs of Funadores are “two genuine jewels made of stone” (Jose Saramago, Journey to Portugal: In Pursuit of Portugal’s History and Culture).
The Alberto Sampaio Museum in Guimaraes is the most beautiful museum Saramago has ever seen, because of “the perfect balance between what it contains and its architecture.”
“The first step is to slow down. The next one is to treat everything that comes your way as part of the sacred time that envelops your pilgrimage” (Cousineau).
Poem by Rosalia de Castro, whose home and museum in Santiaguino are on the route to Finisterre beyond Santiago:
You will say these verses have a strange,
uncommon harmony, and they do—
their ideas have the pale shine
of fleeting marsh-fires
that glow an instant,
then quickly fade away—
like the uncertain mist
that rolls at the meadow’s edge
and the monotonous murmur of the pines
along the wild sea coast.
Great travel books are “odes to freedom. . . and implicit celebrations of freedom in a world of prisons” (Paul Fussell, qtd. in Cousineau).
“[Car] Accident and fatality rates in Portugal are among the highest in Europe. Poor illumination, bad signposting, potholed roads and reckless driving are usually cited as causes” (Working and Living in Portugal).
“I had been walking for five days in perfect weather along the peaceful pathways that make up the Camino Portugues when I arrived in town and was confronted with a television image of three Christian kidnap victims in Iraq with their Islamic guards standing threateningly in the background. Two had already been beheaded, their execution apparently displayed over the internet. . . . I wandered out into the sunlight in a vain effort to erase the terrifying image. Less than an hour later, I was standing in a chapel before an image of St. James the Slayer of the moors, Santiago Matamoros occupying the central position over the altar. . . I was kneeling before an image of St. James decapitating two Islamic ‘infidels’” (A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino Portugues: A Practical and Mystical Manual for the Modern Day Pilgrim, by James Brierley).
“The story that we bring back from our journeys is the boon. It is the gift of grace that was passed to us in the heart of our journey” (Cousineau).
The folk music in the region of the town of Monsanto is half chanted, half sung, rhythm beaten out with a tambourine known as an adufe. Nothing else quite like it anywhere.
“Batalha is one of Portugal’s most beautiful monuments, and another UNESCO World Heritage Site. The monastery was constructed between 1388 and 1533. Enter the large front portal. Inside, the arches sweep upward. . . and to the right is the chapel of the founders, built around 1426 by Joao I, and here are the tombs of Joao and his English queen, Philippa, effigies eloquently holding hands. Tombs of their children, including that of Prince Henry the Navigator, are set into the walls under regal arches. The room is topped by a dome supported by star-shaped ribbing. . . . stained glass. . . and nearby Alcobaca, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was begun in 1148″ (Insight Guides).
“[The garden at] Quinta Regaleira [in Sintra] is the only place I’ve visited where the god statues are actually in the correct order. . . in the order in which you face/meet the gods on your journey through life. . . You will come to a lagoon. And there, you will find a lion guarding a path which was walked by the candidate [for freemasonry], and once inside, there is the most total darkness you can imagine. You can literally not see your hand in front of your face. You see and hear water dripping on both sides of you, and the fear is that you will fall into the water and drown. It’s like you’re in the middle of the universe with no light to see. You come to a place where you can see out some caves into the garden. It’s as though you are one inch high and looking out from inside your head….” (an email from a member of the Santiagobis yahoo group).
Caldo verde, Portugal’s most famous soup, gets its vibrant color from its main ingredient, a type of kale. Broa is a golden, close-textured maize bread with a thick, crunchy crust. Little round cakes filled with almond paste are called popos de anjo (breasts of angels) because of their delicate shape. There are 362 ways to prepare soup made with dried cod (Eyewitness Guide).
The Capela de Sao Joao Baptista, in Lisbon, was designed and built in Rome in 1742, using amethyst, alabaster, agate, lapis lazuli, and Carrara marble. It was shipped to Lisbon piece by piece and reassembled (Rough Guide).
At Finisterre: “Here at 241 metres above sea level is an uninterrupted view west over the Atlantic. The large boulders here (sacred stones) make up the Ara Solis (Altar to the Sun). The pre-history of this place is shrouded in myth. Today we can only marvel at the zeal of early pilgrims, Christian and pre-Christian, that risked life and limb to travel to this remote corner of the Earth” (Brierley’s guide to the Camino Fisterre).
Not that everything I read is ideal. Litter is said to be a problem. McDonald’s detritus is especially offensive. Garbage dumps outside of towns are the same as garbage dumps everywhere, unless perhaps the rats are a little fatter. Bedbugs are a problem in some hostels and homes. Pickpockets proliferate in major cities. But given everything, how could anyone not long to go? I think I have just about read enough. Now my preparation goes deeper: physical and spiritual preparation. Letting-go preparation. Repacking and leaving out what seemed indispensable last week. Severing-the-chains-of habit preparation. I may not be able sleep sitting up, nor to maintain my vegetarianism in this country where sausage is a major seasoning ingredient for thousands of dishes. But what the hell? I’m in the last quarter of my life. I am happy to hurl my body into the unknown about which I have read so very much. To avoid carrying fifteen books with me, I have created a personal guidebook for myself: cut outs, copies, pictures, maps, all written or pasted onto nearly-weightless lokta paper in a journal I got from Nepalesepaper.com.
“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of humankind as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing at all.” –Helen Keller, qtd. in Joyce Rupp’s Walk in a Relaxed Manner.
Tags: Books and Movies, Preparation
Kendall
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