could-have-beens and could-still-bes
it’s hard to articulate what it all adds up to
Love notes from Siel is a monthly-ish newsletter from Siel, who used to live in Los Angeles but is currently traveling around. If you love the notes, subscribe for free.
Dear friend —
Heathrow is a labyrinth. An orderly, well-run labyrinth with good signage, but a labyrinth nevertheless, being incredibly spread out, the airport a city unto itself. Last week, I landed in terminal 3, walked half a mile, took a long bus ride to terminal 4, then navigated another mile or so of escalators, elevators, and long, metal corridors to get to the Hilton.
I’d picked the Hilton because I had an overnight layover and the hotel was technically in the airport, though even without going through baggage claim, it took me 75 minutes after disembarking to get to the registration desk. After that I went to my room, slept a fitful eight hours, then it was back through the corridors and elevators and escalators to take a train to terminal 2, to transfer to another train to terminal 5, to take an elevator down three floors to passport and security check, then two escalators to gate A10d, then another long bus ride, then a climb up the final set of stairs to finally get on the plane to Lisbon.
It was somewhat cathartic for me, this time around, arriving in Lisbon. Or more accurately, it felt cathartic leaving Los Angeles, and before that, Mexico City, too. Nothing particularly dramatic happened in either of those places, yet there was the sense that I was making a clean break. Before, whenever I left those cities, there were loose ends — mixed emotions, longings, stubborn little hopes, could-have-beens and could-still-bes, things I still wanted to work out or change or make happen in some inchoate future.
This time it feels more final, like I’ve accepted that I’ve run through all the possibilities and am ready to wash my hands of it all. It feels freeing, and also a little hollow.
Of course, my feelings could change in a week, a month, a year —
A few weeks from now, I’ll officially have been a nomad for three years. Remember when I packed up my apartment in June 2020?
There’s so much of life during which nothing much seems to happen, but then you look back and realize a lot has, even if it’s hard to articulate what it all adds up to. What have I learned? Where am I going? And how long will this continue, this life?
I landed in Lisbon on a perfect day. The sun was shining, the air a warm hug. I walked down Rua Augusta eating a caramel ice cream cone. All the calçadas as beautiful as I remembered, and I felt glad I’d arrived.
Love,
Siel
Three links you might love
I have a new short story in Hobart. It’s called “New Life” and it’s set in Lima, Peru — a city I visited back in October 2021. In the story are listless friends and llamas and strange dates. Read it and let me know what you think — and thanks to Elizabeth Ellen for giving it a home.
The next #1000wordsofsummer begins June 17. Sign up and commit to writing a thousand words a day for two weeks straight, with the help of writer Jami Attenberg and friends.
Will I find a place I want to settle down in one day? This article is actually mostly about American digital nomads pricing out locals in popular cities around the world, but what gave me pause was this bit of conversation the journalist has with a digital nomad who’s been moving around for a decade. “I asked him if he would ever settle down. He said the perfect city existed only in his mind. ‘If I could make one place to live, it would combine the optimism of an Asian megacity, the tech culture of Eastern Europe, and the nightlife of Latin America,’ Seebauer said. ‘And then I’d probably leave.’”
Two reads starring Lisbon
The Two Hotel Francforts by David Leavitt (Bloomsbury, 2013)
Here’s a novel that you start out thinking is going to be about an American man and his wife escaping Europe during World War II — that turns into a story of the man’s unexpected affair with another handsome man. I loved that surprising turn, and I also loved reading about this strange temporary world that was created when Portugal — officially neutral during World War II under the dictatorship of Salazar — served as a safe haven of sorts for the many people trying to get off the continent.
Even during war there are the personal dramas — romance, desire, new friendships, old rifts, small tragedies. The human heart never stops wanting. Pick this one up to experience Lisbon in the 1940s — the old customs and the new dictatorial laws, the strange bureaucracies of wartime.
Requiem: A Hallucination by Antonio Tabucchi (New Directions, 2002)
This dreamy and surreal novel follows a man — Italian, like the author — through Lison, a city where he lived many years, as he runs into old friends and strangers both dead and alive and holds brief, illuminating conversations with them. Even Fernando Pessoa makes an appearance.
A travelog with no clear plot, this book wanders and perambulates and gets lost often — easy to do in Lisbon with its curvy, hilly streets. Pick it up to go on a journey of memory and sensory delights, of private remembrances and public histories.
Lisbon1 I'm jealous!