Walking Out Before the Rain Can Catch Me

Some days hold promise. Other days convey a sense of ‘meh’. As I work my way through morning rituals in the cozinha, making coffee, emptying the dishwasher, I can see the courtyard roofs are wet. There is standing water in anything that collects it. A pregnant grey sky hangs above with the promise of more, albeit of unpredictable intensity, precipitation. After yesterday and my visit to the doctor, I had promised myself I would take a long walk today. Maybe I will take a medium walk in my recently purchased REI rain jacket. As my wife often says, I won't melt.

I am not usually one to use sport’s metaphors but when you are in the fourth quarter (American football), or the third period (hockey), or the second half (futbol) of life you really hope for more days with that aura of promise. I desire more moments when my brain is engaged enough to sit at the keyboard after a morning of experience, preferably fresh experience. I want all those bits and bobs inside me fired up so that the words I am pounding out say something other than the world is a mess.

(1.5 hours later.)

Finished a 2.5-mile walk in just under an hour. Only when I reached the University of Lisboa campus did the rain really begin and even then it was just a light but steady drizzle. In the center of campus there was a job fair going on in a long tent. Outside were the hallmarks of university life. There was a truck selling fast food like bifanas and Sagres beer. Another truck offered what the Portuguese call American Hot Dogs. Yeah, these are hot dogs pulled from a jar warmed up, placed on a bun and covered with cheese, shredded carrots, corn and crumbled potato chips. American style hot dogs indeed. Oh yeah, Red Bull was there. Of course Red Bull was there.

Whenever I see a Portuguese food truck advertising ‘American Dogs’ I lapse into a dream about a hot dog cart. In this fantasy I am setting the cart up next to the roasted chestnut vendor at the Saldanha Circle Metro entrance. I mean the cart would have the whole nine yards. There would be relish, onions, ketchup, mustard, steamed buns and all meat franks ready to eat. There would be a bar above the bins with the dogs and buns with clips holding bags of batatas fritas or Doritos. I would have a cooler with Coke, Sprite and cold water. Ah to be back on the streets of New York City, Philadelphia, Wilmington DE or even Lansing, Michigan.

Ran into one person I knew so I stopped and talked a bit. It is good to have a social circle of outgoing friends. The relationships I have built since arriving here are something I cherish. Moving thousands of miles away from wherever your life started takes a certain spirit. For the most part that spirit is an outgoing and open to experience spirit. I like people who live that way.

Well I got my walk in. Hopefully I can keep it up. Got to keep the doctor happy. Hell, I know this kind of exercise, like my daily walks, is crucial in maintaining both my physical and mental health. So I am not really doing it for the doctor, I am doing it for me.

Jazz as I Clean

 

Seen in Coimbra

Jazz is hearing a warping dropping bass line and thinking where have I heard that style before? Was it Jaco? Was it something Ron Carter did that time I saw him in the 200 seat auditorium? My ears perked up to hear where the guitarist on the hollow body Gibson takes the theme next. I wonder if this will end with soft piano tinkling and brushes playing atop the drums or something bolder? Maybe it will spin off into a much different theme. Jazz plays and suddenly I am back in the 1970s listening to jazz from the late fifties and the fusion sound of Return to Forever and Herbie Hancock.

Suddenly the music takes a sharp left turn and the guitar player drops into some soft melodic noodling and the piano fades to a gentle counterpoint. Just as suddenly I remember a night in the dormitory with all my midterms done and dinner in the cafeteria over. I lit up a damn fine joint and started listening to Joe Sample and then moved on to that Chick Chorea Gary Burton vibe driven thing. With a candle burning I leaned across my bed and rested my head against the pale green wall and let the music take me away. I am pretty sure the snow outside was six inches deep and my room's window panes in that old red brick building were completely frosted over.

Damn the song changes. The combo goes old school. The Hammond B3 is now leading the way into something you would have seen in a smoky New York jazz club circa 1967. I can see a room in dim light jammed full of small circular tables with people drinking Manhattans and nodding their heads and occasionally going “Yeah man.” I think as I continue my chores that before this night is over I should dig out some of those vintage Miles tunes that I had on that old jazz label, maybe Nature Boy. Or maybe I should check out something like Gil Scott Heron’s Pieces of a Man.

Yeah, jazz takes you to places you have forgotten or never been. Jazz is a journey through time and emotion filled with rich, soulful melodies.

Water, Wind, and the Power of Nature Outweigh Fools at Work

16 February 2025

Yesterday after a quick trip down to a hospital by the Tejo River a family decision was made to head out to the ocean. We hopped on a Carris bus to Ericiera. The trip isn't long, merely a few minutes more than an hour. The road winds a wee bit winding and the steep hillsides and the tight turns make the route a fun one.

I didn't care that much about the trip because I have not been feeling up to snuff as of late. Add in the fact that the hills in Ericiera make the hills in Lisboa look like a flat football field and I wasn't looking forward to it. But I went.

Once I got to Ericiera two things made the trip worthwhile. The first was the ocean's power. In my life the closest I have ever felt to God, or to the eternal, is when I have been by the waters of the North Atlantic. Yesterday the waters along the coast reminded me of that sense, that feeling. 

As we stood on the rocky edge of the ocean the swells were three to four meters tall. You could just sense the power in that building ridge of saline water. And then it hit the rocks and threw spray at times up to a height of just shy of forty feet into the air. Then, the spray fell slapping the brown and grey rocks louder than a prissy movie queen hitting her unfaithful fictional lover. 

With all that is wrong in the world today the constancy and the power of the ocean was what I needed to break the doom loop playing out in my mind. I felt at peace with nature as I watched those powerful waves. I realized again that no matter what we humans do to harm and denigrate each other nature is inherently our better. My cares dropped away.

hen there was the walk up the ramp from the fisherman's beach. So many feral cats who live off the scraps of the fishing fleet. It was surprising the number of Siamese cats walking down that ramp. But there were cats of every shape and stripe.Hey, the ocean reminded me how insignificant we are. However, the cats reminded me that there are still a few delights to be experienced in this world.

Saw this guy just watching the day go by. He seemed to take no notice of the beach volleyball game going out just fifty meters away.

This cat was walking with real purpose.  It seemed like he had places to go and obnoxious humans taking his picture were not his concern. 

The Captain below was just waiting for the next jaunt out onto the waves. Fish guts and fish heads await.

 

The Song on the Radio

14 February 2025

Today is the anniversary of my first “real” date with my wife. It was 47 years ago. Time flies.

Last night I did the dishes. A copious amount of pots and pans had accumulated during the preparation of ossos. Hey if you want an excellent meal you have to experience the clean up afterwards. This is what cosmic balance requires.

I have been washing dishes since I was 12. Yeah I came to kitchen work in the era of Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. I came into the washing and drying of dishes back in the days of free form FM radio. You may not have been around and you may not remember that time. However, back then a DJ might play 12 songs in a row and never tell you what they were. It might go from Muddy Waters to Love to Fairport Convention to Julie Driscoll to the Mahavishnu Orchestra capping it off with ELP.

In the middle of those twelve tracks, you might hear a song that just made your heart really respond. This might be with meditative love or agitation about the world as it was. It would take you weeks and sometimes years to figure out what that song you love was. It was during these dishwashing sessions that I first heard Ralph McTell’s “Streets of London”, Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon”, and Fairport Convention’s “Matty Groves”. I had the pleasure of seeing Ralph McTell two weeks ago and his voice is still beautiful. He is 82.

These days I play Apple Music’s stations emblazoned with my name. It picked up what I like using one of its many nefarious algorithms. While I washed many pots last night I realized that my musical favorites with only a few notable exceptions were created between 1967-1984. The notable exceptions are songs crafted by artists performing in those years but still out on the road creatively, like Tom Waits or Emmylou Harris. This clicked for me when the station played a Steve Miller Band song that long predated "The Joker."

Yeah even my modern devices tell me I am old. But there really isn’t another alternative that I like.

I Am Captain Mundane!!!!

Tuesday. Early morning. Early enough, it is still dark. No living thing moves outside this window, this building. The only movement is the slowly but steadily falling of the rain on this February morning. A slow grey day will come soon enough.

Read a novel last night after settling into bed at 10:45. ’Twas a tale of murder foul in the heartland of America. The first forty pages were interesting but the day’s activities clearly must have worn me way down.

Woke up at 1:30 with the iPad glowing on my chest and drool dribbling out my mouth. Got up and shuffled to the bathroom for that pre-sleep pee. Got a sip of cool water. Returned to the comforter snuggling in like a bear moving into a cave for a long cold winter.

Just like that I was off to sleep and dreaming of things most improbable and fantastic. If you quiz me now I could not tell you a single detail. But when I awoke, I was sure I would remember it all.

At 5:57 my body told me it had rested as much as it felt necessary and that I should get up, pee again and seek out some fuel for the coming hours. I fought my corpus’s demands for a time, picking up my phone and reading the headlines and my friends’ latest social media postings. But at about 6:05 I gave in got up and after hitting the bathroom headed for the kitchen.

Today, like most days I set a pot of decaf on to brew. I got a bowl and a spoon. I sliced a banana up and threw some nuts on top of it. Then the Special K and the milk. My breakfast does not vary much although some days the fruit is diced apple with a dash of sultana raisins.

Coffee done, I grabbed a hot cup and took it to the dining room along with the cereal bowl and some milk. After opening the metal curtain that hides the courtyard from my view I ate in the darkness watching for the first signs of light. Those first signs of light are never the sun or a waning dark sky. Those first signs are lights appearing in windows across the courtyard of the poor bastards just getting home from a night shift or just getting ready to be in at 7.

Of the 58 windows I can observe across the courtyard four or maybe five light up before the sun comes up. My vision is poor enough that I can’t see people or anything taking place in those apartments. If the residents of those units knew, my myopia would probably make them happy. I just see blurry pastel yellow radiating out over what I know are pastel pink and green buildings.

As I sip my coffee I try to make a mental list of what I have to do today. There is a trip to the oculista. The replacement lenses for my sunglasses are in and will be placed in the frame I bought a couple of weeks ago. Initially I got a pair with UV protection but not polarization. It took only one day walking on the glaring calçadas of Lisboa sidewalks and I knew I had made a mistake. Luckily the oculista had a satisfaction guarantee for 30 days. So, in order to get the situation rectified all I had to do was pay for the add-on of polarization. A swap of lenses is required and that is why I am dropping in today.

An add-on to the list was a lunch date with friends. Luckily it is at a Vietnamese restaurant near my home. If I remember correctly the place does pho and bao buns. And there was other stuff I added to the list. These included dishes, laundry, purging email, and digging through a bag of papers shoved under the desk. This inadvertent hiding occurred when we had a new year’s party. I need to make sure nothing of importance got put away without being addressed.

As I jotted down some of the stuff to be taken care of on a Post-it I worked on my second cup of decaf coffee. Watching the eastern sky it lightened. Soft gray clouds filled the world's ceiling. Straining my eyes it appeared that a sliver of blue sky might be mixed in but it was difficult to tell. A look at my phone and the TWC app indicates the rain will not be steady but rather have breaks of several hours throughout the day. Typical Lisboa February.

With a list of to-dos in hand I will face the day. With my black rain jacket I will live in, if not conquer, this wet day in the world.