Photo by Orsolya Ganzler
“Travel is for those who cannot feel.” So says Fernando Pessoa in The Book of Disquiet. He also said: “What can China give me that my soul hasn’t already given me? And if my soul can’t give it to me, how will China give it to me? For it’s with my soul that I’ll see China, if I ever see it.” I’ve never seen Portugal in my soul, but after three flights, two delays, and one night without sleep, I landed in Lisbon and saw its seven hills and the Tagus river for the first time.
I am in Portugal for two weeks attending the Disquiet International Literature Program. The first week of the program has been remarkable. There has been the usual round of workshops and readings, but also port tastings, trips to museums to see art by Paula Rego and Vieira da Silva, film screenings, afternoons having coffee in cafes, nights listening to fado, and day trips to locations such as Mafra and Cascais. Some of the readings have also paired Portuguese writers with American writers, which has changed the dynamic of the questions we ask ourselves and each other about literature.
I also had the privilege of attending a poetry reading in Portuguese. While my mother is from Brazil and knows Portuguese, I didn’t learn much beyond ‘I love you’ and ‘shut up’ as a child. Motivated by this trip to Portugal, I tried to learn what I could before coming. I’ve since mastered ‘thank you’ and the fine art of ordering coffee, but at the poetry reading, I realized I could understand more than I thought. The poets read slowly and precisely, and I could pick out words and phrases. While I might have missed deeper meanings, I always heard the music.
I’ve traveled internationally as a tourist, gone to visit friends, and tagged along on my brother’s jazz band tour, but this is the first time that I’ve traveled to write. Of course much of the day is filled by good food, new friends, and a host of activities, the backdrop of all of this is literature that spans two continents and languages. My own, my mother’s. The backdrop is also the terracotta roofs and statues of saints and poets. Pessoa said travel is for those who can’t feel, but maybe it is also for those who want to feel more or feel more deeply. Maybe some of us need to leave our routines and the comfort of our beds and 24-hour Walgreens to be really shaken awake. Of course travel isn’t necessary to write, but it always reminds me who I am. Pessoa had something to say about that as well: “Eternal tourists of ourselves, there is no landscape but what we are. We possess nothing, for we don’t even possess ourselves. We have nothing because we are nothing. What hand will I reach out, and to what universe? The universe isn’t mine: it’s me.”
É-me também, Pessoa. É-me.
About Traci Brimhall
