Each time, things are cleaner; less is needed. Further and further from home. Packing my suitcases for the thousandth time, I asked myself: Is this all me? Am I the one destroying? Or is it them? Further and further from people. Packing up apartments, cities, and countries. Without the fear of losing, in order to find that which always is and will never vanish. That keychain with the flag of Portugal. Roads, bridges, the homeless, and the socially displaced. Becoming a part of them. This spirit of vagabonding, this romany-ness—it is perhaps the best thing left in modern Europe. I thought: a keychain, a symbol, a meaning—what if Portugal is my home? I checked. It is not. Not home. The monastery is far off. Empty. Unknown.
I’ve even begun to feel as though I am echoing the voice of my country. In a way. Europe has rotted, and I am moving against the grain. This fastidious attention to detail—there’s something addictive about it, something of the junkie. Small tech and special-purpose devices. The flickering of perfection. Lighting up a joint of vitamins and washing it all down with yesterday’s wine diluted with water, I prepared to head out.
Winter is always restorative, youthful. But summer has grown stale in its festering ulcers of pleasure. Mired in the vices of a maturity leaning toward its sunset. And like Yankovsky in The Sacrifice, I carry a cross found in the trash and a statuette of St. Anthony of Padua to the statue of Cristo Rei. I leave them in the church on a bench. Sometimes, giving is akin to theft. An unauthorized offering. I remember a wooden cross accidentally thrown into the trash in Malta, one that had been with me through all my wanderings. And now, I found a cross in the trash. And I brought it to Christ. On this crucifix, the Savior’s arm is broken. I reattach it carefully; it holds.
I have only just begun to understand, to feel, the layout of the streets; I’ve learned many shortcuts and pedestrian stairways. The mountainous landscape. Architectural solutions. Always prepared—for change. This "resilience" everyone talks about now, a trendy topic. But like everything in Europe, the theme is not saturated, not suffered for, not felt in the gut; they don’t know how to feel. Or how to analyze. I am always filled with doubts. But I am always ready for change; and it happens often, because I move against the grain. I say—well, almost always—exactly what I think. Truth-seekers. I am often driven away, and I am worn down, but I am tempered, too. How the Steel Was Tempered. And I have this caste-legacy from my father: I am a warrior. I like to fight. And stealthily, I defend my country while in exile.
Not a traitor. I gravitate toward the heroic.
For the umpteenth time, I pack my bags. I am being evicted. My relationships with corporations never take root. The Cross and Anthony, as I wrote before, were brought to Cristo Rei. The fate of Bixi, whom I also found in the trash, remained unclear. I have a rather personal relationship with him, too, as I do with Cristo Rei. Bixi wasn’t exactly heavy. A small statuette. A bit chipped. Should I take him with me? An overseas dragon with turtles and coins... I thought, too, about a certain inequality, an injustice. There are places to take crosses. Houses of God. But where does one take Bixi? I certainly don't want to throw him back in the trash. Cristo Rei and Bixi might be friends, but taking a statue of an overseas spirit into a church isn’t possible. They’d see it as sacrilege. They’d throw it out. Or desecrate it. Perhaps he will come home with me.
In this thin perineum lies the purity of innocence. The Cleaner. I do what must be done and know not the fruits of my labor. I do not think of them. I taste the fruits of the universal harvest from the tree of Yggdrasil. Jupiter is close to Gemini. To Castor and Pollux. And here, missing my homeland on the shores of a sunny, autumnal Atlantic and a reawakened nature, I listen to Pugacheva. Who would have thought? And I write you a letter with a flourish of the pen.
The magnetic card will "defrost." (I’m thinking about how I put it next to my phone and it will demagnetize).
And perhaps here, on a balcony in Sintra overlooking the castle, a new story will begin—or has already begun. Like a well-forgotten old one. Yes, there is much I don’t remember. How did I spend autumn in Tallinn? Memories from a distant past have begun to surface unexpectedly. Flashes of blinding sun, lush greenery, the colors of a long, warm autumn, occasionally punctuated by rain and thinned by the winds.
Today I ran up the mountain. There is the Pena Palace. But then I choose a deserted mountain trail marked in red and yellow. I go through these thickets. The jungle. Occasionally, the chimes of summer and the scents of spring drift by. Bells greet the pilgrim. My path goes from church to church. Gifts of the road. I find a sealed bottle of 2022 Bordeaux on a small, deserted street sloping steeply down from one of Sintra’s old churches, Santa Maria—it’s always closed. Before that, I find that very chapel carved into the rock that I remember from my last visit to Sintra eight years ago, after finishing the Camino del Norte. I couldn’t find it at all; I had to ask a worker at Parque Liberdade. Senhora da Pena, Queen of the Holy Mountain. Our meeting is like a reminder, sweeter than the rustle of the wind, the whisper of freedom.
And now I am in the thick of the crowd, by the Christmas tree lit for the first Advent. Today is also the Day of the Saints of the Estonian Land. Though the host of Estonian saints differs between Constantinople and the Moscow Patriarchate. A feast day. Bread and circuses, and joy for the children. Is there a miracle here? I never imagined they celebrated with such scale in Sintra. A sense of a miracle, and that European culture’s roots grow out of Christianity. Even if it’s all in the guise of bread and circuses. The sacred miracle hides somewhere far from the crowd. It’s so strange to catch the feeling of New Year’s in this season that is either spring or autumn. But it’s a very "New Year," cozy feeling. Almost like childhood. Mulled wine and people in Santa Claus costumes—like a local Santa cartel. They’re like "Night Wolves" to me, with their helmets and flags. Santas, the Night Wolves.
Where will I find you, and in what will I find fulfillment? Find me on sun-drenched narrow streets, on mountain paths leading to old castles, on the porches of closed temples; find me on the road, in the search, and on the way; find me in paradise. In naked vulnerability at the crossroads, waiting for the call and always welcoming the miracle. I check that everything is decorated and Advent begins. This year, in Sintra and Santiago. I’ve been promoted. And despite the southern latitude, the green leaves, and the warmth, there is this sense of a miracle. The leaves have almost all fallen. The wind blows. The longer you live, the less real death seems. Behind the fence. And so much life and eternity. In this mid-season. Between the lines.
I go up, uphill; it is always good at the city’s highest points—the air is cleaner, you can see further, and there is less left to climb. Always with a little to spare, with an overlap, upward.
Money displaces spirituality. The abomination of desolation; an entrance fee for temples. Most are closed and dormant. People have grown shallow from poverty, from a lack of meaning, ideals, and aspirations.
