Three Weeks In

Three weeks ago on this day we were selling my Subaru and getting ready for a plane trip with a cat. Three weeks ago we said goodbye to our adult children (and one adorable grandchild) and headed up and away from the USA. Three weeks ago we took the final steps launching a new adventure and hauling 13 pieces of luggage (along with a backpack and cat carrier) to our new home in Lisbon, Portugal.

As was my practice back in The States, I still begin the day perusing the New York Times and Washington Post headlines, in the spirit of “what fresh hell hath happened overnight” which is not the suggested Zen way of greeting a day, but keeps me connected with the reality of the fascism and plumb crazy sh*t I left behind but can’t and won’t look away from.

A somewhat related story from the wayback machine via my mother (deceased). As a little girl, she was periodically asked in the classroom to duck and cover under her desk during nuclear attack drills. She said she knew that the adults were crazy and/or untrustworthy, because no way in heck was a school desk going to protect her from a nuclear blast. I’m going to make a value judgement and state that there is some crazy, untrustworthy crap spewing from my country tis of thee’s White House these days. Even though I’m approximately 3,600 miles away, I am not looking away. During the No Kings Rally in Lisbon, a Canadian couple we met stressed that they hate the U.S. Government but love and feel very bad for the U.S. People. That’s the only kind of Anti-Americanness I’ve heard about “on the street” so far.

What I hear on the streets, sidewalks, and in stores, is Portuguese. Which makes perfect sense because it’s PORTUGAL for gosh sakes. So that means most of the time I have no idea what anyone is saying, and that’s an odd feeling. I’m a word person. I pay attention to what people communicate, but in this context, three weeks in, I cannot understand a word. In the vet’s office, the grocery, bank, sitting on a bench in Parque Eduardo while Jeff does laps (I’m getting over a cold and not up for power walking) I am surrounded by sounds I cannot yet comprehend. Except for obrigado, thank you, which I learned today I should be saying obrigada because I am a female person.

This doesn’t mean I haven’t started the footwork. Before coming here I paid for access to one of those online language apps. Did I use it prior to arrival? No, I did not. However, I recently signed up for one of the many services that pledge to teach non-portuguese speakers the language in a useful accessible was. I’m getting the sense there’s a thriving cottage industry here in teaching what EVERYONE (the language teachers, the uber drivers, the expats/immigrants) attest is a very difficult tongue to tangle with if you weren’t born to it. It’s even rough for the Brazilians whose Portuguese is different from the European strain. The fact that I fell asleep during my first foray with a 15 minute training video says less about the content and more regarding how I sometimes deal with new/stressful realities. [Bonus points if you are familiar with the Ben Folds’ song Narcolepsy.]

There’s a yoga and pilates studio a short walk from our apartment. In the muted facility there are lit candles as well as battery operated ones flickering up and down hallways. There’s incense burning and always a pot of lemon ginger tea surrounded by cups that fit snugly in the palm of your hand, which you wash when you are done sipping. There are people from all over the globe who practice there, but the dominant language used to lead classes is English. It has become a place of reprieve for me, not only because of the meditative nature of the yoga classes, but the primacy of spoken English. For Jeff that escape comes with 14+ core members of the NO KINGS Team here in Lisbon — over half of whom are either California natives, or California transplants.

I’ve been thinking of stories I’ve heard about people who came to the U.S with their parents when they were little kids. How they picked up the new language much quicker than their parents, and sometimes ended up having to serve as translator for moms and dads. The children were indispensible, dealing with business and legal matters which skewed the child/parent power dynamic quite a bit. The kids became the experts and the bewildered adult immigrants were reliant on their offspring to help make sense of a new culture. I don’t have a young emissary, but I do have Google translate, thank goodness.

Despite my lack of native language prowess, I have little trouble navigating stores and am starting to use the public transit system, taking the metro/subway and the occasional trolley to get around downtown. Slowley, but surely, I’m physically and metaphorically finding my way here. And it’s only been three weeks.

[Cat Sofie watches from Jeff’s lap while I puzzle out another blog entry.]

[New (to me) grocery store; new cod pic.]