Did I mention

2015
when we first visited this place.

I am now an official resident of Portugal and actually for about a month already. I forgot to mention it but it is something of a milestone. It took over a year, a lot of paperwork, getting health insurance, renting a place, etc but it's official. And it actually does, or did, feel a little different at first. The idea has since settled into its mundane context but I'm glad it's done. The next step is that I must now start learning Portuguese. It will have to be, as a friend in Florida used to say, "little by slowly".

Good-bye John Prine. I never knew ya.

Singer/songwriter John Prine died of the corornavirus a few days ago.

I never heard of him until now. His debut album was released a year after I "renounced the world" and for the next 12 years. Yeah. That's pompous, and it didn't end well, but it's what I did.

I missed him till he died. My loss.

One-sided coin

Day and night have become a one-sided coin as we begin our fourth week in isolation. It matters less and less which it is. The neighborhood birds keep me more connected to the changing hours than the clock. I'm not complaining. I've lived on earth before, I prefer it, on earth meaning I've been tactually connected to nature before, as a child and as an adult including . . . once living for awhile in a one room mud hut with no electricity, or running water, a wood stove for heat, and corner with a hole in the floor for a shower . . . with my then-husband and our two children.

Being isolated like we are now is a great reminder of how we are always at the mercy of artless nature. All day I listened to a strong on shore wind battered the building where we live. Sometimes it hit then crashed over us the way storm waves hit then crash up over rocks. Other times it rattled, and banged things as it tore by. It's still blowing now. I imagine the roof tiles are quivering as I sit in bed writing this in the dark, waiting for sleep.

Pigeon Cafe

"Today is today, the only day there is,
this day, today, so live it and love it"!
- Juan Carlos

It's been open for a long time, five or ten thousand years, give or take a few thousand but, most importantly it is open this morning. In the words of Juan Carlos, "Today is today, the only day there is, this day, today, so live it and love it"!

I can think of no better place than here at the Pigeon Cafe and I use that word "here" lightly because pigeons are everywhere.  In fact, the way I see it, it's their world. I just live in it. So, I'm having coffee this morning at the Pigeon Cafe and what better place to start the day?