I’ve just left Porto, which not the fountain of Port wine, a wine so fortified it makes your mouth shiver, and which is produced, for tax reasons, across the river and down the hill in Gaia. Unlike Porto, Gaia had the fortune of obscurity, and housed no Bishop, and no Bishop’s taxes. Porto does, however, shockingly, have a port-river, and is tamed with seven bridges, and at least one double-decker bridge, the lower deck you can jump from if you are exceptionally daring, and have several friends egging you on, possibly the same friends ragging on you for years, and some training in how to dive, how to slice, how to avoid cowardice, the belly flop, I wouldn’t believe it would be safe to jump from that height, to me any leap from something taller than a house is death, probably, but I saw some jazzed-up Portuguese kids do it, and who am I to tell them otherwise. The higher deck of the bridge was level with the touristy cable cars, the same ones that take skiiers up mountains, and looking down made me excited to be in a crowd, if people are so fun to watch from above, it’s fun too to be an agent in the crowd, the pleasure in watching people from a bridge is all passive, synthesis and pattern, whereas if you’re in the crowd, you have power, conflict and foes, allies, a goal to achieve with your power, as long as you accurately measure how little power you have, and which also depends on the moment, the crowd.
Green wine is not green, but some roses are red, if you’ll forgive the agonizing segue, I was extremely provident in which hostel I picked, and spent four nights making friends, and now they’re lost in time and space, never to be seen again like that, which is how traveling is, a flourish, a spin and a death, a bit of a relief.
I spent a lot of time exploring. Narrow, stone, streets and stairs. Tiles and scalloped terra cotta, red roofs. I stumbled into a mass and felt the pleasure of bowing my head. I don’t speak Portuguese, but it was a good sermon, I could tell by the spitting. Plus churches are cool, literally, the sun is not welcome inside.
There is some pleasure in submitting to a God. And pain, too, because it’s not a seamless submission, He’s not my God and I resist losing myself in Those depths, I think he’s got problems, for starters, the Christian god is the only God without a wife, and His image of the world is the root of evil, paranoia and power, the world is of peoples, it is not a vision of one, for one, I think people are inherently good and this God disagrees with me, I think cooperation is our only strength as a species, everyone knows we’re not as smart as we would like to be.
But then again, climate change, that’s the simple argument against my position, maybe it warrants a response, I didn’t mention the size of the cooperative social unit.
Porto is a maze, on purpose, one-ways, narrow and hidden squares and slick bulging cobbled sidewalks, I wasn’t on time anywhere once. A nicer way to say this is, Porto was designed with a purpose, and that purpose was to avoid being invaded. I got my first non-shitty tattoo. I don’t tell you what it is, but I tell you I wear my heart on my sleeve. 🙂
Now I’m sick as a dog. The rapid covid test came back negative, and PCR tests here in Lisbon are 100 Euros (!!!!!) I’ve either been hungover for four days, or I’m really, truly, unavoidably, have a cold. Also, I’m in Lisbon, but before I see it I visit a dreamier land. The wise body delivers an ultimatum of rest. Ciao.
cdzhouse 