5 September 2008. Sparkle and sun, mid-morning now, interrupted, after animated talk with Beatriz, sitting by this window on Solano, Toyota Tundras and all...
The word from Portugal--Lisboa, Oporto, Coimbra, (a university town, "like Oxford or Cambridge, scholarly and old...") The three schools of fado, each one distinct--"Lisboa of course being the saddest." A kind of deep melancholy, or longing... The Portuguese word, saudade... without translation. The quality of a particular place, a particular time... Like the fisherman of the northern Portuguese coast--launching their boats out through the surf, their wives remaining behind, on the shore, alone. The women's feelings at this moment--the immensity of the sea, the unknown... "Some already weeping..."
Or Ercília Costa, in Lisboa, 1930s, casa de fado... A girl from the countryside, simple--almost entered a convent, but instead, the fado bars of this ancient port town. Fados--songs of loss and lament--she sang them always with her hands pressed together, in front of her breast...
Saudade...
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