Letter # 3

Letter writing in Portugal.

Salaams, dear reader,

How are you? How about your heart? I am starting to check in with my body so I am not always in my thoughts. Do you do that as well?

Recently, I started a few letters to you. I could not finish them. They are now drafts on Substack. This never happened when I handwrote letters. Maybe I made a mistake and started again but I didn’t leave my letters half-written.

My summer vacations from school were spent in Miami, whole months in my tia’s pool with my cousin, Victor Hugo. When my older brother got married and moved to Florida a few years later with his new small family, I spent the summers at his house. There, I had chores, learned to separate clothes for laundry, and wrote letters to my friends back in Brooklyn. Sometimes I made envelopes out of Teen Beat or Bop pages. I spent time decorating the letters I wrote, making each one special.

It is difficult to write in a place of limbo. My goal is to stay here for five years to get my Portuguese citizenship and be able to live anywhere in the EU. To be honest, I am not completely sure why I still have that goal. I came to Portugal married with my family and now I am somewhat, not fully divorced.

I used to think that I wanted a nomadic life. Slow traveling around the world, getting to know each place and then when ready, leave and unto the next one. That wasn’t my ex-husband’s plan. He likes being in one place. I thought that we would first travel through Portugal and see where we wanted to live, that’s what we had talked about before moving. We hardly traveled when we got here. We hardly looked at houses either. I should have fully known what was happening, I just suspected.

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Portugal is my good-for-now place. When asked where I want to be I tend to say, “I don’t know.” Perhaps it’s not all of Portugal that I don’t want to be in. Central Portugal is good for people who don’t want to be in big cities but want easy access if need be. I thought I didn’t want a big city but I do.

Big cities have people, lots of people. I love people. Brooklyn had too many people for me, Oakland had just the right amount. The town I live in has about 13,000 and on some days there isn’t anyone on the main street. It depletes me.

If I stay in Portugal I want to be in Lisboa but rent is getting close to Bay Area prices. There’s lots of construction and I hear too many Americans when I walk down some streets.

I’ve never been to the Algarve, I only know it through Instagram. It is beautiful but full of Brits and I have already made up conclusions about the place I’ve never been to. The north is beautiful. I love the landscape, the lushness, the big rocks, and the crisp autumn months. When we went to visit Braga I heard Spanish a lot. It shouldn’t be a bad thing for me because I know Spanish. But it is very white, Northern Portugal and Galician white. I blend in but don’t want to be there.

Lisboa reminds me of home. Black and brown all around. Although many are from different countries as well, I don’t feel the same cynicism as I do with Americans and Northern Europeans. I know I shouldn’t, I know that not everyone is the same or the stereotype we believe them to be; I know people are just people. Yet maybe it’s because I am a child of working-class Cuban immigrants in a new country that I feel more of an affinity to those who come from Africa, Asia, and South America. They may not feel the same affinity towards me, understandably so.

Here in Portugal, I hold a place in the middle. My white skin and American passport give people a narrative that protects me. This is one of the places where my white privilege lies. I don’t have the wealth or stability of most of the other Americans. No one would know unless I tell them.

When I saw a Black immigrant woman, I assumed from one of the countries Portugal colonized, walking finely dressed on a Sunday in Lisboa asking strangers if they knew of any rooms for rent, I knew that even in my circumstances, I do not have to do that, insha’Allah. And when a friend told me stories of the places that rent rooms to new immigrants, the ones with families of three or four packed in a room with other families of three or four packed in their rooms sharing one bathroom, I knew I had to count my blessings.

Before I started to open up about my situation, my Facebook pictures only told one story. I was exploring a new place, it was a wonderful adventure, and everything was fine. How should I document my sleepless nights or my kids in their rooms on their screens trying to avoid thinking about anything else?

The moments my children see me crying has lessened. Sometimes I have check-ins with them. The shifts I am experiencing are visible. Although, I still get frustrated, I now take pauses before I run my mouth.

I used to say that I am stuck here. I am too creative to stay stuck. It may take a little longer than anticipated but I can move, I can stay and enjoy, I can create something new. There’s a list of new things I have done between cries. My daughter thinks I am too positive. I just see everything as a story, it doesn’t matter if it makes me sad, there is a transformation in it.

Yesterday I sat with a new neighbor and listened to a lifetime of stories. I was thankful to have the time, to be in a place where I don’t feel rushed. After a week of anxiety and tears, I sat there grateful just to be here. Not just in Portugal but here, alive.

I don’t know how far my story will go or if my 3 year goal will change. Just like some of my letters stay in drafts, not everything has to be complete.

May your days be filled with beauty and calm. Ameen.