This essay is a companion piece to an earlier reflection. Both explore Lisbon through memory, literature, and landscape, but each approaches the city from a slightly different perspective.​

“Tudo vale a pena se a alma não é pequena.”  
— Fernando Pessoa, Mensagem

Seagulls stood on sand in the middle of the gallery.

Around them, ghosts of dark figures in wide hats sat at a table as if engaged in quiet conversation, their pale faces emerging from deep shadows. Visitors moved slowly through the room, pausing before the paintings as though they had stepped into a dream. Sacred archeological pieces of Pessoa's life were shown in paintings surrounding the setting of a table from Pessoa's favorite restaurant Cafe Martinho on the water front where he met with fellow artists to plan the introduction of Portuguese culture to the rest of the world.

It was 1981, and I was standing in an exhibition at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. The Portuguese artist António Costa Pinheiro had created the series as a tribute to Fernando Pessoa and the mysterious world of voices he brought to life through his heteronyms.

In the gallery, Pessoa’s universe had been transformed into a kind of theatrical landscape. The figures seemed both familiar and enigmatic—echoes perhaps of Álvaro de Campos, Ricardo Reis, or Bernardo Soares. The seagulls standing on sand suggested the harbor and the river, as though Lisbon itself had quietly entered the room.

I did not yet know that this exhibition would open a doorway into Pessoa’s imagination—or that Pessoa himself would eventually lead me to Lisbon.

The artist had lived through the years of the Salazar dictatorship, a time when many Portuguese writers and artists endured imprisonment or exile. When he was finally released, he left Portugal for Paris and later Munich, carrying his country with him through his art. He proved to be a sweet and generous man, willing to correspond and share his thoughts. I was fortunate enough to acquire several of his works, small anchors to a cultural world that was just beginning to reveal itself to me.

Through that exhibition I entered the writings of Fernando Pessoa, and Pessoa, inevitably, led me to Lisbon.

One of the works that affected me most deeply was Pessoa’s small but powerful book of poems, Mensagem. In it he evokes the historical figures who shaped Portugal’s destiny—kings, navigators, dreamers who imagined a nation reaching beyond its shores.

Among them, the figure who stayed with me most strongly was King Dinis.

D. Dinis was known as both the Farmer King and the Poet King. He planted the great pine forests along the Portuguese coast, forests that would later provide timber for the ships of the navigators. But in Pessoa’s poem those pines become something more than a practical enterprise. The wind moving through their branches seems almost to whisper toward the sea, as if the trees themselves were dreaming of voyages yet to come.

The image is simple and haunting: the murmur of the forest becoming the murmur of the ocean.

When I later walked among the pines near Belém, close to the great monastery of Jerónimos where so many explorers once prayed before sailing into the unknown, I suddenly understood the poem in a new way. The scent of resin in the air, the wide river opening toward the Atlantic, the quiet movement of wind through the trees—it felt as though the landscape itself was repeating Pessoa’s lines.

Lisbon is a city where history and imagination mingle easily.

At the Miradouro de Santa Catarina, beneath the brooding stone figure of Adamastor gazing toward the Tagus, the city gathers each evening to watch the light fade over the water. In Chiado, I like to sit quietly toward the back of A Brasileira, imagining Pessoa and his companions among the artists and writers who once gathered there. Along the river in the afternoon, the broad movement of the Tagus seems to carry centuries of departures and returns.

Other writers soon joined Pessoa in guiding my understanding of the city. The elegant social observations of Eça de Queirós, the philosophical depth of José Saramago, and more recently the searching psychological voice of António Lobo Antunes all reveal different facets of Lisbon’s soul. I also discovered inspired lovers of Portugal like the Swiss Pascal Mercier and Italian Antonio Tabucchi whose writing has brought Lisbon to me through philosophical and poetic images in works like Night Train to Lisbon, Requiem, an Hallucination, and Pereira Maintains.
​
Together they show that Lisbon is not only a place but a cultural inheritance—one that extends across centuries of poetry, philosophy, and memory.

A line from Night Train to Lisbon has often returned to me: we leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, and there are parts of ourselves we can recover only by going back there.

Perhaps that is why Lisbon never feels entirely distant.

Some part of my life still sits quietly at a café in Chiado. Another part walks along the river in the afternoon light. And somewhere among the pines near Belém, the wind still moves through the branches, carrying that soft murmur Pessoa heard so long ago.

The whisper of the pines calling to the sea.

And when I think back to that gallery in Lisbon in 1981, I realize that the journey had already begun there, among the seagulls and the silent figures gathered around Pessoa’s table.

A few days ago a friend asked me to give him a rundown of the jazz clubs I frequent in Paris.  I love Paris and I love jazz but that does not make me an expert.  However, when in Paris I have my little haunts.  
Years ago I never went to Paris without spending every night I could in a club called Le Bilboquet.  This sweet little club on the left bank at 13 Rue St. Benoit, originally an old cellar first operated under the name of the Club San Germain frequented by Django Reinhardt and all the jazz performers who were fascinated in those days by the be bop from America. They chose the caves because they were available and cheap and they could play what they wanted without being criticized by the classical jazz fanatics who were suspicious of the new wave of music, considering it to be unworthy of the name jazz.  In these clubs young and old gathered to dance and listen and Django loved to play there.
When I first visited Le Bilboquet in that same location, it was both a restaurant on the upper levels overlooking the club and the music and a jazz club of the old style with small tables and red velvet stools or red covered couches and was a very friendly place to listen to the bands who played there. I loved the nights they featured Ahmet Gulbay’s band. Ahmet on the very hot piano and with a tremendous smile was of Turkish descent and welcomed friends and visiting musicians to join in the fun.  One night he had invited a young high school student visiting Paris with his parents from Berkeley, California to play with him. It was delightful. 
I met many interesting and friendly people both French and from other countries including Turkey during the time I was a regular. One sad night I showed up to find the club closed for ever! I felt absolutely lost.
On subsequent visits to Paris I searched for other clubs but never found one quite like Le Bilboquet although they have opened a new club called Le Bilboquet rive doite near the old opera house with a dance floor and featuring Swing, Be Bop and Shuffle which could be worth a try. 
On a trip dedicated to following the footsteps of Django Reinhardt I came across a listing at a website I follow for a club featuring jazz manouche on Thursday nights. That night they were featuring Simba Baumgartner. Recognizing the last name of the first son of Django from a first marriage, Lousson Baumgartner, I learned he was the great grandson of Django. My daughter and I hurried over to the Jardin de Cluny where the club MONK is located and were blown away by the music and the intimate atmosphere there. Simba was sweet and shy and his music was out of this world. MONK in La Taverne de Cluny (5th arrondissement) is one place I will visit every time I am in Paris, especially on Thursday evenings when they feature jazz manouche.




I wanted to show my daughter some other authentic venues so we visited another “cave” venue called 38 Riv. on Rue de Rivoli (4th arrondissement). It was so cool and the group from Brazil who played that night was great.  The club itself is worth the trip.






The site I use to locate the jazz I want to experience is parisjazzclub.net. They give you a run down of who is playing and where and it is very complete. 


 With their help I visited several clubs including Duc de Lombards in the 1st arrondissement, with a high quality of jazz musicians. I was happy to take in a show by Hugo Lippi, a very talented jazz manouche guitarist who had just released a new album entitled Comfort Zone with the favorite, Manoir de mes rêves. The music was great and the atmosphere oh so French. 








Conveniently Due de Lombard is surrounded by less formal clubs like Sunside in an adjacent alley-like street filled with jazz clubs and cafes. Some of my all time favorites artists have played outstanding concerts in the intimate space of Sunset. You never know who might be booked!  Bireli LaGrene for example was booked there for three concerts just after I missed a very fancy concert of his at a beautiful site due to Covid issues.


There are numerous clubs all over town so if you are courageous, just try some out. New Morning in the 10th arrondissement,  Baiser Salé in the 1st arrondissement where I see Sylvain Luc an extremely accomplished jazz manouche player is playing January 26! Caveau de la Huchette in the 5th arrondisement. That is just to name a few!


If you look carefully you will find all kinds of venues in Paris featuring a generous  variety of music.  Just go and have fun!

Mafra central to Saramago's wonderful saga of Balthasar and Blimunda

Luxurious evenings in a neighborhood park.

Antonio Tabucci offers recipes in his wandering amongst old friends in search of answers to old questions In Requiem, an Hallucination

Strolling on Avenida Libertad.

A literary group still meeting here after 40 years. The conversations continue at Brasileira..

You cannot cross the same river twice as the River goes on and on. (Heraclitus)

My son Justin was down last weekend for a much needed visit. I had been very down physically for three or four weeks and actually off and on for most of the winter. Justin’s visit just gave me new energy. 

Somehow my illness began turning around and we had a wonderful day, chatting and eating together and during that time, since he had brought his animal spirit cards with him, we looked at my year and my spirits for this year. 

My animal spirit for the year is the elephant, a very good omen and a very appropriate animal, I believe, to guide me through this year.

ELEPHANT
UNSTOPPABLE, AUSPICIOUS, WISE
The Elephant is arguably the most auspicious figure in the deck. Like Ganesh, the Elephant represents immense wisdom, as well as good fortune. It is said that the great Elephant is the destroyer of obstacles, so if this card appears when you feel
"stuck," rest assured the path will soon become clear. To add to the mystery, the Elephant is also known to create obstacles in order to steer us in the right direction. Trust this gentle, noble creature.it illuminates the way with the light of self-knowledge.
WHEN IN BALANCE: one-pointed focus, generous, loving
WHEN OUT OF BALANCE: misunderstands fate
TO BRING INTO BALANCE: trust.

In fact, I had been feeling stuck with this extended “illness” that had me in pain and in and out of bed which is very unusual for me. It was something I could not understand and still do not fully understand but feel I am overcoming.  I had lost hope and lost the belief I could move forward with my dreams of an energetic future. The elephant has helped me to see this as an obstacle I can overcome and I am resuming the forward looking attitude I have treasured most of my life. 

The tiger, my February card, encourages me to take in the wild darkness of this “illness” and awaken my own power!

TIGER
LUNAR FORCE, EASE IN DARKNESS, FEMININE ENERGY
The Tiger hunts at night...at one with the silence... fearing nothing. This card reminds us to take in the wild darkness, to allow the lunar forces to soothe and heal our spirits. Sensuality, receptivity, and devotion are all heightened in the midnight hour, and the Tiger takes advantage of these boons. spend some time in silence this evening, drinking in the potent calm. There is nothing to fear in the stillness except the awakening of your own power.
WHEN IN BALANCE: passionate, strong, sensual
WHEN OUT OF BALANCE: over stimulated
TO BRING INTO BALANCE: trataka (candle gazing)

Thank you Justin for your visit, your kindness and your inspiration!

Two of my favorite writers were featured in the New York Times last week: Orhan Pamuk and Haruki Murakami. And they weren’t obituaries. They are both alive and well and producing wonderful images of their experience.

I am giving you pieces of these articles because the New York Times often limits viewing of the entire articles unless you are a subscriber.  However I wanted to give you a taste via these quotes.

From The New York Times article on Orhan Pamuk:

“Six years ago, the Turkish author and Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk received the plot summary of a planned television adaptation of one of his most celebrated novels, "The Museum of Innocence." As he flipped through its pages, he was horrified.

The production company had taken liberties far beyond what Mr. Pamuk considered reasonable in condensing for the screen his 500-page-plus tale of obsessive love in Istanbul in the 1970s and '80s, adding plot twists that he felt egregiously diverted his narrative.

So he struck back, suing the producer to reclaim the rights to his story.
"I had nightmares during that period, paying a lot of money by my standards to the California lawyer and worrying about, what if they shoot it the way they wrote it?" Mr. Pamuk said, speaking in his book-lined office on the top floor of the apartment building that his family built in Istanbul and where he grew up.”

I will be watching for the February 13th release of Museum of Innocence on Netflix and hope you will give it a look as well. Pamuk finally worked hand and hand with the Turkish producer of the film to ensure the story portrayed the Istanbul he knew without embellishments. It took 4 years but apparently is well worthwhile. 
My interest in Pamuk came from my sister who lived in Turkey during the same period and her close friend went to school with him. When he was awarded the Nobel prize she called to tell me of it. His many novels include the celebrated mystery of manuscript illustrators of the Ottoman period called Red, Snow, an intriguing story of politics and daily life in the eastern Anatolia region of Kars, and Istanbul, which paints the picture of his childhood and family life.  Of course there are so many more!

From Murakami article in the New York Times:
"I don't have any plan, I'm just writing, and while I'm writing, strange things happen very naturally, very automatically," Murakami said during an interview in New York in December.
"Every time I write fiction, I go into another world — maybe you can call it subconsciousness — and anything can happen in that world," he continued. "I see so many things there, then I come back to this real world and I write it down."
Murakami doesn't regard himself as a masterly prose stylist or a brilliant storyteller. In his telling, his one unique skill is his ability to travel between worlds and report back.”
Murakami’s novels have fascinated me ever since I read my first of his novels, The Windup Bird Chronicle, and was blown away. Here Murakami passes from one reality to another in his telling. Since then I have read at least 10 more including the marvelous Killing Commendatore and Kafka on the Shore. I am always tantalized by his style and magical adventures. 
A great fan of jazz—in fact in his 20’s he had a jazz bar in Tokyo—his writing is peppered with references that invite you into the experience. His culinary accounts also bring one into everyday life in Tokyo.

At 77 he is still writing and loving it. There are several new books I am anxious to read including one to be released in the fall, Abandoning a Cat, which apparently takes on his relationship with his father. Because of this article I have discovered many titles I must explore.

The beat goes on and I am pleased to be able to report to you these pleasant surprises from our international artistic community inspiring us even in these otherwise dark times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/world/europe/orhan-pamuk-istanbul-turkey-museum-of-innocence.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/08/books/haruki-murakami-profile.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

It was in Lisbon, at an Argentine restaurant, that I first felt my conscience stir. Above my table hung a large painting of a cow’s face, its eyes meeting mine as I ate a plate of beautifully prepared beef carpaccio. The meal was exquisite, the setting warm and convivial, yet I found myself oddly unsettled. I kept looking up at the painting, then back down at my plate, aware of a quiet tension I couldn’t immediately name.

Not long after that evening, I began to notice a subtle shift in myself. At the market, meat no longer appeared as it once had. I would think, Yes, I love a steak, and then hesitate—seeing not just the food, but the animal behind it, as if it were looking back at me again.

Lately, I’ve found myself quietly turning away from meat. I look at it in the market and think, Oh yes, I love a steak—but then the price is too high, and at the same time I have this image of the cow looking at me. The same thing happens with lamb chops, with chickens, with pork. I find myself imagining each animal, as if it were asking, “Why me?”
So I thought perhaps I should try being vegetarian. But the truth is, I’m not especially fond of many vegetable-only dishes, and that makes the idea less appealing. I began asking myself what it is about meat that is bothering me, and I think it comes down to that moment of recognition—the sense of the animal as a living being, not just food.

My son is a farmer, and he raises animals for meat. He and his family are very careful about how their animals live and about whom they use for processing. They believe—and I trust—that the animals are treated humanely. I know this is worlds apart from industrial livestock practices, which I find deeply disturbing. There is something important to me about animals being well cared for during their lives and handled with compassion at the end.

These thoughts led me to ask my usual source—AI—about when and why humans began eating meat. What I learned made sense to me. Meat was available. Early humans observed other animals hunting and eating prey. As they developed tools and skills, they were able to hunt or scavenge animals themselves. With the discovery of fire, they could cook meat, making it easier to digest and more appealing. Seen this way, eating meat was not a moral decision but a matter of survival.

Today, of course, the situation is different. For many of us, eating meat is a choice—and therefore potentially a moral one. That’s where I find myself uncertain. I’m not quite able to commit to avoiding meat entirely. I worry about getting enough protein. I’m not very fond of soy, and although I adore cheese, I’ve been warned to limit it because of cholesterol issues. I do love nuts and eat them often, but I’m not convinced that a fully vegetarian diet is right for me.

So for now, I’m thinking rather than deciding. I’m trying to balance my desire to reduce animal suffering with the need to nourish myself properly at this stage of life. At nearly 84, with low bone density and high cholesterol, this feels less like a moral puzzle with a clear answer and more like a careful, ongoing negotiation.
​
I’ve decided, at least for now, not to decide. I’m allowing the question to stay with me, rather than pushing it toward a resolution that doesn’t yet feel true. At nearly 84, I’m learning that not every question needs an answer—some ask instead for presence. I want to remain awake to animal suffering and equally awake to my own need for nourishment, and to move forward with care for animals, for my aging body, and for the complicated space where those concerns meet. For now, I’m content to live with the question, trusting that attention itself is a form of compassion.

Maybe this is a clue:

Recurrent dream of familiar house with so many unfamiliar rooms! Astounded by so many unknown possibilities. The original house was reminiscent of Knollbrook Way home when I was a teenager.

Was this the storehouse of who I am, who we are?

Who do I think I am vs who I can or could be? Or am simultaneously?

A friend asked how would I define intuition. I think it draws from this “house” full of experience/possibilities. When I go back to recreate past experiences, they shed light on the past or my memory of the past. When I share with my sister, she doesn’t remember it like that. When discussing intimate thoughts with another friend, she says she could never go there. Maybe in other words she could not enter that house. Her pain is too deep and she refuses to go there? So can we only intuit if we allow ourselves to go there. We know some people have extensive intuition. Is that what they are born with or where they allow themselves to go? Women are sometimes credited with greater intuition. This is sometimes seen in our favor and sometimes used against us by those who want to just stick with the facts.

The ability to move from reality/the visible or that which can be proven by acceptable knowledge, to let’s say dreamlike sensibility, is that related to gender, dna, culture? Pessoa probably had a strong feminine side as do many poets I suppose but let’s not go too far astray at this moment.

I know I have always been fascinated by the notion of simultaneous realities and as in Alice in Wonderland, the potential to travel between them. (Wind Up Bird Chronicles, Haruki Murakami?) I imagine a thick fog obliterating the lines between simultaneous worlds. I feel this aligns a bit with Jung’s travel to the unconscious and many ideas of dream reality. There was also that dream of entering a room and tripping on a rug, plunging into a dark hole. I repeated that dream numerous times., same door, same hole. I remember my repeated dream of the Hotel Imperial on the Reforma of Mexico City (before I ever saw it in real life) in search of my ex husband (the past) and the University (knowledge?) always in vain. Many other dreams that seemed so real I wondered if the people involved remembered them as well. They were meaningful and transforming. 

So what is the reality of this moment? Of last night’s dreams?
Where does intuition come from? We say I feel like… is true. Maybe it’s all true.


Countless lives inhabit us.
I don't know, when I think or feel, 
Who it is that thinks and feels. 
I am merely the place
Where things are thought and felt. 


Fernando Pessoa

Image of Empire of Lights by René Magritte—Rene Magritte painted this house over 30 times, each slightly different. Did he have the same dream I had? And is this his mystery house?

National Autonomous University of Mexico that was in my dream

Hotel Imperial on Reforma in Mexico City that I dreamed before ever seeing it. Attempting  to understand my past and pursue knowledge?

After a nice pre-Christmas visit, my son and his family, who live in Sebastopol, took advantage of being in the Oakland–Berkeley area to visit one of their favorite pizza places. While there, he sent me a photo of a picture displayed at Zachary’s Pizza on College Avenue near the Rockridge BART station.

“Look who is here,” he wrote.

He had mistaken the figure in the picture for Fernando Pessoa, and when I saw it, I understood why. The resemblance was striking. But tipped off by the bowler hat (Pessoa always wore a fedora) and the red tie (far too extravagant for Fernando), I recognized the man as René Magritte — another favorite of mine.

Magritte famously questioned the nature of what we see reproduced versus the real object itself: the reality of what we think we see versus the thing’s own reality. His best-known example is the painting of a pipe accompanied by the words Ceci n’est pas une pipe — “This is not a pipe.”

As the curator of an SFMOMA exhibition explained, “the canvas highlights the fact that the viewer isn’t looking at a pipe, but a picture of a pipe. Far from a petty provocation, the distinction gets at the difference between art and reality.”

That idea reappears elsewhere in Magritte’s work, particularly in paintings that show scenery framed by a window. I’m reminded of something similar in the paintings of Antonio Costa Pinheiro, especially those depicting Fernando Pessoa. In both cases, I find myself wondering whether the act of framing a subject — a statue, a ship, a person — subtly removes it from reality. Does a frame announce: this is not the thing itself, but your interpretation of it?

Magritte was influenced by the Surrealists in Paris and moved from Brussels for a time to immerse himself in the movement. Yet a certain rigidity within Surrealism eventually sent him back to Belgium. He was also deeply affected by the stark, minimalist works of Giorgio de Chirico. That economy of detail, along with their shared metaphysical concerns about reality, is evident in much of Magritte’s work.

So Fernando Pessoa and René Magritte, de Chirico and, most likely, Antonio Costa Pinheiro — without conspiring — were drawn to the same question: reality versus the ways our interpretations shape it. For all of them, I suspect, the answers lay within the mind, and they remained in constant pursuit of some ultimate truth.

As curator Caitlin Haskell writes in the SFMOMA catalogue, Magritte “asks viewers to reevaluate their acceptance of what they see… and as rapidly improving technology amplifies our ability to realistically distort images, it’s more important than ever to consider what is a pipe, and what’s not.”

I find myself agreeing with Magritte’s doubts — that the world as we see it differs from what we are told we see through replication. Is that too strange a thought? I remember once asking my mother whether the reflection we see in a mirror is the same as how others see us. She didn’t want to deal with that question. I still raise it from time to time, though not too often — largely in the interest of keeping the peace.

 This essay is a companion piece to my earlier reflection “Nocturnal Wanderings.” Both explore Lisbon through memory, literature, and landscape, but each approaches the city from a slightly different perspective.
​

​ Seagulls stood on sand in the middle of the gallery.

Around them, dark figures in wide hats sat at a table as if engaged in quiet conversation, their pale faces emerging from deep shadows. Visitors moved slowly through the room, pausing before the paintings as though they had stepped into a dream.

It was 1982, and I was standing in an exhibition at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. The Portuguese artist António Costa Pinheiro had created the series as a tribute to Fernando Pessoa and the mysterious world of voices he brought to life through his heteronyms.

In the gallery, Pessoa’s universe had been transformed into a kind of theatrical landscape. The figures seemed both familiar and enigmatic—echoes perhaps of Álvaro de Campos, Ricardo Reis, or Bernardo Soares. The seagulls standing on sand suggested the harbor and the river, as though Lisbon itself had quietly entered the room.

I did not yet know that this exhibition would open a doorway into Pessoa’s imagination—or that Pessoa himself would eventually lead me to Lisbon.

The artist had lived through the years of the Salazar dictatorship, a time when many Portuguese writers and artists endured imprisonment or exile. When he was finally released, he left Portugal for Paris and later Munich, carrying his country with him through his art. He proved to be a sweet and generous man, willing to correspond and share his thoughts. I was fortunate enough to acquire several of his works, small anchors to a cultural world that was just beginning to reveal itself to me.

Through that exhibition I entered the writings of Fernando Pessoa, and Pessoa, inevitably, led me to Lisbon.

One of the works that affected me most deeply was Pessoa’s small but powerful book of poems, Mensagem. In it he evokes the historical figures who shaped Portugal’s destiny—kings, navigators, dreamers who imagined a nation reaching beyond its shores.

Among them, the figure who stayed with me most strongly was King Dinis.

D. Dinis was known as both the Farmer King and the Poet King. He planted the great pine forests along the Portuguese coast, forests that would later provide timber for the ships of the navigators. But in Pessoa’s poem those pines become something more than a practical enterprise. The wind moving through their branches seems almost to whisper toward the sea, as if the trees themselves were dreaming of voyages yet to come.

The image is simple and haunting: the murmur of the forest becoming the murmur of the ocean.

When I later walked among the pines near Belém, close to the great monastery of Jerónimos where so many explorers once prayed before sailing into the unknown, I suddenly understood the poem in a new way. The scent of resin in the air, the wide river opening toward the Atlantic, the quiet movement of wind through the trees—it felt as though the landscape itself was repeating Pessoa’s lines.

Lisbon is a city where history and imagination mingle easily.

At the Miradouro de Santa Catarina, beneath the brooding stone figure of Adamastor gazing toward the Tagus, the city gathers each evening to watch the light fade over the water. In Chiado, I like to sit quietly toward the back of A Brasileira, imagining Pessoa and his companions among the artists and writers who once gathered there. Along the river in the afternoon, the broad movement of the Tagus seems to carry centuries of departures and returns.

Other writers soon joined Pessoa in guiding my understanding of the city. The elegant social observations of Eça de Queirós, the philosophical depth of José Saramago, and more recently the searching psychological voice of António Lobo Antunes all reveal different facets of Lisbon’s soul.

Together they show that Lisbon is not only a place but a cultural inheritance—one that extends across centuries of poetry, philosophy, and memory.

A line from Night Train to Lisbon has often returned to me: we leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, and there are parts of ourselves we can recover only by going back there.

Perhaps that is why Lisbon never feels entirely distant.

Some part of my life still sits quietly at a café in Chiado. Another part walks along the river in the afternoon light. And somewhere among the pines near Belém, the wind still moves through the branches, carrying that soft murmur Pessoa heard so long ago.

The whisper of the pines calling to the sea.

And when I think back to that gallery in Lisbon in 1982, I realize that the journey had already begun there, among the seagulls and the silent figures gathered around Pessoa’s table.

It may be true that you can never go back to a place because the past is the people and the experiences more than the physical landscape. 

When it all changes, what is left? Only the memories interpreted by our current minds? 

I write to remember those illusive passages of time only to find they may exist only inside me. The one who experienced them. 

Maybe life is not what we live but what we imagine we have lived.

People we knew either don’t exist or exist without any recognition or memory of us. Is that why we can never find them? 

Perhaps you have to write about them to find them. Then maybe they will remember. Kind of like putting out photos on Day of the Dead but they may not be dead, just missing.

I do indeed look for people I think about from the past but as the world has become almost entirely digital, many people seem to have disappeared from view. 

I did find someone who I thought of yesterday. I was encouraged by a line and link from an article I wrote a few years ago titled My Love Affair with Mexico wherein I mentioned a trip my first husband and I took with his brother and sister in law to Mexico. 

Completely out of the blue we hooked up with two young men from the east coast who agreed to travel with us to Mexico City sharing expenses. One of them, Tony Kahn, made a huge impression on me and at the time I wrote the article I looked him up and found him. I had included a link to his website in my article. 

Tony who had been working on his doctoral thesis on Trotsky in Mexico at Harvard when I met him, documented his and his screen writer family’s experiences during the McCarthy era in the United States. His fathers name was Gordon Kahn. He was a very highly regarded and popular screen writer until the House of Un-American Activities got very busy on their mission to “so-called” cleanse the film industry of supposed communist elements. By the way, we are talking such subversive films as Tarzan! 

I revisited the program Blacklisted by Tony Kahn yesterday and was so impressed both by the family’s resilience and Tony’s detailed and personal  telling of the story that I highly recommend your following this link to discover what destruction so many people experienced due to the relentless persecution of innocent people during the anti Communist scare of the 50’s. Many of us read and heard of what was going on as children and were frightened by the propaganda spread on the radio during the period however the detailed personal suffering of the victims was not presented nor understood by us.

https://www.tonykahn.org/blacklisted

Tony addresses the ostracism and fear experienced by his family in school or anywhere in public as well as the economic hardship suffered due to not being allowed to work once targeted by the McCarthy war of terror on members of the film industry and later universities and other influential  organizations. Once a happy, comfortable family of four, they became hated “commies” in the US and unwanted “Gringos” in  their adopted home in Mexico. That is a lot for a family to endure.

The story is eye opening and tragic and yet told without bitterness.

Gordon Kahn was loyal and committed to truth and to revealing the truth throughout his short life. His only goal was to provide for his family and uphold his values even when faced with such adversity. Five foot two and 120 pounds, no bigger than I am, he was a giant in his support of democracy and freedom of thought and expression.

Today I read in the news that the FBI under the Trump regime is making a list of all left “extremists” in the United States. I guess that means anyone who has participated in an anti war protest, rally to raise wages, against unwarranted police brutality, etc.
Well I guess that is me and I am quite proud of it.
Is this here we go again?


Quote of praise of the project:

With an all-star cast including Stockard Channing, Eli Wallach, Ron Leibman, Carroll O‘Connor, Jerry Stiller, and Julie Harris, "Blacklisted" used the power of radio to immerse listeners in the experience of the political and personal dramas of the time.  Featured in articles by Newsweek, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post, “Blacklisted”was also praised by many listeners as one of the most riveting radio dramas they had ever heard.