Lisbon’s Levant
They were domes of warmth, the journeys through the stars and affections' heatwave, even before the frightening surge was announced by these changing times' meteorology... Announced, but not really anticipated. Three times near the edge of collapsing at the book fair, I couldn't resist Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed (written in 1967-68, published later), which I'd been absent-mindedly looking for over the past 20 years. There was no money left for another book, published this year, on the culture wars that are threatening us as much as the results of global greed and recklessness towards the planet's health prospects. I sat on a very different stage reading my own words to present the life and work of someone I love and admire in front of lifelong friends, and then we had dinner as a family on a terrace serving authentic food, something rare, in an alleyway that has apparently escaped the massive touristification of this city - for a moment, it felt like my own. More than the intensity of the temperature, the awe at the lightness of it all (despite the gigantic absences) didn't allow me to sleep that solstice night.
Before that, I'd taken the train back to the southern countryside looking forward to see my good friend again, the one who says that everything changes always. She would soon arrive for a visit to fulfil the longing for each other and for us to breathe together at a pace that we had both dreamt of for a very long time and which was now real. And that's what we did in a peace that is becoming less and less rare, while we started preparing for the upcoming mail art collective exhibition.
So these are what healthy collaborations feel like.
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