Get out there, in here

We have a saying that goes “Get out there, in here”, meaning there is enough beauty in your country for you to discover. And if you do so with the eyes of a tourist, you will find a place that feels like a whole new country.

A couple of years ago, there was a campaign about all the castles in the country and I did the math, you could visit one every weekend for an entire year! How’s that for an interesting thought?

Today, I will not share pictures of any of the pretty castles but from the beautiful city I have lived in most of my life. I have been away for some years, returned, then went away again, returned… See where this is going?

The girl always returns.

Last night I got together with family for a run, through the city I’ve come to know, cliché as it may be, like the palm of my hands. You can walk from anywhere in the city and visit every monument with your own two feet.

Get good shoes, yes. But because the sun is usually in a good mood over here in this little corner of Europe, chances are, you get a great day out with all your visiting.

But I will not share pictures of the night run either.

It was dark when I left the house and leaving with nothing but a credit card and my mobile felt like going outside in slippers. I know about this feeling because it has happened before.
It’s very comfortable and yet you can’t help but feel that something is off…

I know about which way to go, what I’m going to see, I can tell the changes in the landscape and I take mental notes on the pictures I could have taken.

Click.

I remember pictures past and stories that happened in the places I walk by, how the city changes through the year and how it’s late this year on Christmas lights.
My story, my childhood, my experiences are in their majority, part of this city.

I walked here to go to school. The bus went through there. I rescued a cat and walked this street late at night almost ten years ago. My first job, there.
Samuel, the boy who skated, did it so, in that plaza.
My best friend, we met there.

The streets are paved in this. Our streets.

I’ve left the city, moved away and I enjoy this.
Everytime I get back it feels like going into a time capsule, and I revisit every moment and feeling as if it were the first time.
As if this was a new book, left on my lap, an unsolicited read.

But I am the hero…ine of my story.

I own every single piece of this town as my own.

“Pelo Tejo vai-se para o Mundo.
Para além do Tejo há a América
E a fortuna daqueles que a encontram.
Ninguém nunca pensou no que há para além
Do rio da minha aldeia.”

Alberto Caeiro, in “O Guardador de Rebanhos – Poema XX” – Fernando Pessoa’s heteronym

“Through Tejo you go out into the world.
Beyond Tejo there is America
And the fortune of those who find it.
No one has ever thought what lies beyond
The river of my village.”

Now go outside and click, rediscover your city.
Van