Every night I spent in Porto I returned to the Porto De Cathedral. I felt no guilt returning to the same location each day, I felt no need for new experiences. Each night I sat on the stairs by the monument, I waited patiently for the sun and the horizon to meet. I read Death at Intervals by Jose Saramago, and through the mirth of satire I ached, because even Death knew love, even she made exceptions to the only rules we all play by.
I watched couples walking hand in hand, I watched friends leaning into each other. I listened to the busker, he too returned to Porto De Cathedral each evening, I like to think he did not feel the need for variety, he sat with his back to the sunset, framed by light. He sang What a Wonderful World, and I held those words within me until the following evening when I heard them again.
I love the feel of the word serenade, I love its romance, with its etymological roots in Italian serenata: “evening song”, “calm sky”, from Latin serenus: “peaceful, calm, serene” and of course french which being french specifies: “a musical performance at night in open air (ideally by ones lover)”.
I wish I had such a song, that I could put words to music like Louis Armstrong, like the busker at Porto de Cathedral. I hope he still sits there singing, as the light fades and the couples wander off, that he packs up his guitar filled with the same pleasure that I felt each evening, my gaze lingering like a lovers on the setting sun.
I had never been so filled, so held, as I had each night I returned to watch the final kiss of land and sky. I returned in those moments to the setting sun in Dundee:
when I felt desired for the first time and yet could not create that same desire.
And Palma:
when all I could see was beautiful, lovely things but only as a spectator.
In my mind I walked up Calton Hill and watched the last light fade over Edinburgh:
when though I was alone, I was filled, I had become more than I was before, there was more of me to be filled with that evening song, that calm sky.
And yet in those moments I returned to the constant ache, the desire to be held, to be heard. An intimacy I am only learning I am not excluded from, that there is space enough for me. I sent voice memos to someone I loved, failing to express everything that was inside.
The way I have been scattered, across sunsets and novels, the way in which I no longer know how to pull myself together. I cannot express how the lyricism of those nights filled me, as I watched birds sail through the openness before me, wondering if they relish flight. I cannot explain that this is the closest thing I’ve experienced to romance, to be serenaded in all that gentleness, all that beauty.
To leave in darkness, content. Only to lay alone and dream of someones arms around me.