A warmly lit café somewhere between Oakland and Lisbon, somewhere between memory and dream. Outside, perhaps, a soft rain. Inside, a round wooden table.

Fernando Pessoa sits with a notebook, looking thoughtful.

Andrés Neuman leans forward, listening to a story.

The traveler and the organ grinder debate some impossible question.

The man from the bench says something unexpectedly wise.

Jenga occupies the center of the table as though he owns it.

And there I am—not serving coffee, not introducing guests, not wondering whether I belong—but fully engaged in the discussion.

A participant.

A voice among voices.

No longer merely the hostess.

Everyone there represents a part of my journey:

• Curiosity.
• Travel.
• Solitude.
• Conversation.
• Literature.
• Compassion.
• Observation.
• Memory.

And at the center of it all is the realization I just expressed:

I belong at the table.

Oh, Ariel must absolutely be invited.

Every great salon needs at least one person who insists on being right.

Let’s imagine the scene now:

Pessoa offers a paradox.

Neuman’s traveler says, “Perhaps truth depends upon movement.”

The organ grinder dismisses both views as bourgeois nonsense.

The man from the bench quietly observes that nobody has asked the right question.

I thoughtfully stir my cappuccino.

And Ariel says:

“Well, actually…”

Everyone groans.

Jenga opens one eye.

Pessoa begins taking notes.

Twenty minutes later Ariel has constructed a perfectly logical argument supported by evidence, experience, and common sense. Everyone else is forced to admit she may have a point.

At which point Pessoa says:

“Yes, but what if the opposite is also true?”

And the discussion starts all over again.


Meanwhile Jenga’s contribution would remain unchanged:

“Has anyone considered breakfast?” 

What role does the person who “always wants to be right” play in a family—or in a conversation?

Most salons, literary circles, and families have recognizable characters:

• The dreamer.
• The skeptic.
• The storyteller.
• The observer.
• The peacemaker.
• The provocateur.
• The practical one.

And sometimes the practical one gets teased because she insists on facts when everyone else is wandering through theories and possibilities.

But imagine my dream table without Ariel.

Pessoa would float off into metaphysics.

The traveler would keep asking questions.

The organ grinder would challenge everything.

The man on the bench would offer cryptic wisdom.

And I would be finding connections among them.

And eventually Ariel would arrive and say:

“That’s all very interesting, but what exactly do you mean?”

Suddenly everyone has to clarify their thinking.

In that sense, the person who wants to be right is often performing a valuable service. They force the rest of us to distinguish between what sounds beautiful and what is actually true.

The café has grown quiet. The rain has stopped over Lisbon and Oakland and every place in between. The cups are nearly empty. Jenga is asleep on a pile of manuscripts.

I rise and say:

“My friends, we have spent the evening discussing travel, belonging, freedom, memory, truth, cats, and breakfast.

We have solved nothing.

And yet I feel enriched.”

Pessoa nods approvingly.

The traveler smiles.

The organ grinder mutters that solving things is overrated.

The man on the bench changes sunglasses.

Ariel prepares a rebuttal.

And I continue:

“When I was younger, I thought wisdom belonged to experts, professors, writers, and intellectuals.

Now I think wisdom belongs to anyone who pays attention.
To a city.

To a book.

To another person.

To a cat.

To their own life.

The world has been speaking to us all along. The challenge is to listen.”

Ariel begins to object.

Then pauses.

Because she knows I am right.
Even Pessoa looks pleased.

Then Jenga wakes up and says:

“This has all been very moving. But I feel someone should mention that breakfast is only six hours away.”

And for the first and only time all evening, everyone at the table agrees completely.
The guests simply disperse until the next morning’s walk, the next book, the next cup of coffee, the next question.
And there will always be another question. That’s why we keep returning to the table. 

​Many years ago, in my early forties, I found myself asking a question that would quietly shape the rest of my life.
My son Justin was just over a year old. One morning he stood with me in the shower, a small, sturdy child with his hands raised above his head to catch the falling water. Seen from above, his little body was rounded and perfect, and for reasons I cannot explain, he always reminded me of a sweet pear. Years later I would discover that pears were among his favorite fruits, but at that moment he was simply my beautiful little boy, absorbed in the wonder of the water.

I can still see him clearly.
​
As I watched him, an unexpected thought came to me:

“What do I do with the rest of my life?”

Not next year. Not after the children were grown. The rest of it.

The question surprised me because it arrived in such a happy moment. I was deeply devoted to my son. Nothing was wrong. Yet many of the things I had believed in had not worked out quite as I had imagined they would. I had followed directions, accepted expectations, and done what seemed sensible. Looking down at Justin beneath the stream of water, I suddenly wondered what kind of life I wanted to show him—and what kind of woman I still hoped to become.
Perhaps I wanted to become someone my son could admire. Perhaps I wanted to become someone I could admire.

Whatever the reason, that morning marked the beginning of an exploration.

Not long afterward I discovered Fernando Pessoa. Through him I began wandering into a Portugal I knew almost nothing about. Books led to films. Curiosity led to questions. One evening I attended a screening at the University Film Archive in Berkeley.

I have forgotten the title of the film.

For forty years I have tried to find it again.

​The story concerned a group of friends connected to the artistic resistance to Portugal’s dictatorship. After many years following the suicide of one of their companions, they gathered beside the Tagus River. One man had returned after living abroad. As he moved through a rain-soaked Lisbon, he attempted to understand what had become of the others and, perhaps, of himself.

The film opened with a quotation from Heraclitus:

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.”

At the time, I thought it was an interesting philosophical observation.
I could not have known that I would spend the next four decades testing its truth.

I remember rain striking a windshield as the protagonist drove through Lisbon. I remember gray skies and the waters of the Tagus. I remember a gathering by the river after the death of a friend. I remember a successful artist, elegant and self-assured, laughing gently at a man who hoped to recover something that time had already carried away.
What I do not remember is the title.

Over the years I searched repeatedly. I contacted archives. I read film descriptions. I scanned lists of Portuguese cinema. Nothing.

Yet the film itself never completely disappeared.

Its atmosphere remained.

So did its question.

Only recently has it occurred to me that perhaps I have been searching for the wrong thing.

The film arrived at a particular moment in my life. I was already standing on the bank of my own river, wondering where it might lead. The lost title mattered less than the person who sat in that dark Berkeley theater and watched the screen with such intensity.

She was beginning a journey.

She would travel. She would read Pessoa and Saramago. She would come to know Lisbon not as an idea but as a place. She would discover that cities, like rivers, are never the same from one visit to the next.
Neither are we.

For forty years I believed I was searching for a forgotten film. Now I wonder if I was really searching for the woman who first saw it.

What emerged was the realization that the film appeared at a pivotal moment in my life, when I was beginning to ask myself what would come next. The film became attached to that moment, almost like a marker on the trail.

Over the decades, the title faded, but the significance remained.
​
And perhaps that is why I never found the film.
It had already given me what I needed.