Longing in Portugal
She was looking straight into the light, towards the only lightbulb that was kept on in a dim crowded space. Even the air conditioner was turned off, out of respect for this sacred work of art. In that quiet room you could hear an occasional cough, cooing of an impatient baby, gentle clinking of glasses being put down onto a table after a satisfying sip of green wine. Any voice daring to comment on the scene would be shushed. All eyes on her, bringing out the song from the depth of her gut. Her, experiencing the emotion of the song, and embodying that experience in front of the crowd. The crowd, who has abandoned their jumbled thoughts, inhaling the feeling in front of them, staying in it, and not letting anyone distract them from it.
Fado is a type of Portuguese music transmitting powerful emotions. The presenter said it is about the Portuguese culture, the Portuguese joy, the Portuguese suffering. She talked about it with so much pride, even when it came to suffering — especially, when it came to suffering. You can experience it yourself in Portugal. Late at night, you can wonder around the old town of Lisbon, letting the music carry you to the Fado houses, knocking on the doors, them letting you in once a song is over, before the next one starts. In a more contemporary version of it, we just booked a table to experience this part of the culture. Locals are so proud of fado as a unique way of story telling, communicating the soulful character of Portugal. Experiencing the joy deeply, experiencing suffering deeply, longing connecting the two. And saudade is the essential part of it.
Saudade is a Portuguese word describing bittersweet longing. It is graffitied on the murals of Lisbon, sung in Fado, echoed in daily interactions. Fernando Pessoa, one of the best known Portuguese writers, talked about feeling saudade while staring into the never ending spring rain flooding the streets of Lisbon. Saudade of summers that passed, saudade of life that is bound to pass as well.
“The feelings that hurt most, the motions that sting most, are those that are absurd; the longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world's existence. All these half-tones of the soul's consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.”
While it may be easy to romanticise beautiful art sharing intense emotions, sitting with an intense challenging emotion of your own may be much more difficult. Emotions demand to be felt, demand attention to be paid, respects to be paid. Acknowledging them, expressing them the way a baby would - unapologetically and fully - and then letting go of them completely. Until a new wave rises.
We are used to talking about emotions in quite simplistic terms, as if sadness and happiness were mutually exclusive. Saudade merges these feelings, soft happy memories delivered in the undertones of blues, underlining the eternal truth, that sadness is there because happiness was there, the very same coin, the contrasting waves of emotions. It reminds me of some lines from a poem by Rilke:
Let everything happen to you:
beauty and terror.
Just keep going.
No feeling is final.
When hearing people talk about it, one particular line stuck with me - saudade is a sentiment of love we don’t choose. A gift unasked for, a blessing by the chaos gods, a reward for courage to surrender control. If you ever fell in love, and I truly hope that you have, your body is familiar with the blessing of early-stage turbulence of feelings — of excitement, which may be suddenly flooded with fear, of being lulled into a deep soothing sense of safety, that safety being abruptly lifted, leaving you raw and vulnerable like a newborn. The emotions mix like paint on a canvas, and while we often admire the beauty of diverse colours in a painting, it may be much harder to appreciate those colours in a off-canvas realm. And yet, sitting in that bucket of mixed up paint makes the experience that much richer, not trying to avoid the pain staining your skin and clothes, or even control the lines on the canvas, but diving straight into that metaphorical bucket, allowing for a period of quiet incubation, a seed in the womb of the earth, shooting straight into the light of the daytime, the light of the stage, illuminating the face of the artist. When ready.
I listened to people talk about saudade on the street, disagreeing if it’s a good or a bad feeling. If it’s mild, it’s good, if it’s strong, it can be overwhelming, said one. But the majority believed it’s a good emotion. Emotions don’t have to feel good to be good — to be helpful, enriching, life-affirming. As long as experienced fully, they hold promises of a lighter life. A life, seen as a piece of art, so colourful, so dynamic, and therefore, so beautiful. A life lived.
