Olá a todos! É óptimo estar de novo convosco! Hi everyone! It’s great to be with you again! Today’s post takes on weird and wild here in Portugal and within Portuguese. That is, weird and wild from the perspective of expats, os estranhos. English can seem bland, even boring, compared against Portuguese.
In post 2 and post 3 we chatted about the Portuguese language of courtesy. As we saw, this gracious mode of speaking uses the past imperfect tense, o pretérito imperfeito, as well as the conditional tense, o conditional. But like all Portuguese verb tenses and even the verbs themselves they all do far more than just one job. This is especially true of the Portuguese past imperfect tense. English speakers will find this kind of weird as well as a wild ride of verbal wizardry.
It’s Weird and Wild: Portuguese Does So Much Work For Its Speakers
O pretérito imperfeito, as we have seen, permits one to be gracious to others, to strangers especially. We already spent a lot of time on this aspect so we will move on. It also enables a range of other emotions. Beyond politeness it allows hope, it expresses wistfulness and it calls forth melancholy. It also imparts irony and conveys gentle sarcasm. In English, a speaker’s tone and mannerisms may have to carry these emotions. In Portuguese, the words themselves can do the emotional heavy lifting on their own.
For example, there is that gentle sarcasm bit. Let’s say you know a person who is habitually late for everything. We all have at least one of these folk in our lives. How do you convey your good-natured frustration with this family member of friend? In English, verbally, I can only say something such as, ”oh, late again are we.” The light-hearted frustration will require vocal dramatics as well as theatrical gestures. It is, comparatively, a lot of effort. You want to let the person know you do not appreciate their lateness. And, nonetheless, you love them anyway.
In Portuguese it is easier, almost effortless. A Portuguese speaker need only switch from the present tense to the past imperfect. The sternly corrective present tense amounts to, deve chegar a horas (you should be on time because that is what is right). The sweetly chiding past imperfect delivers, devia chegar a horas (you should be on time but, sweetie, I know you have not learned that yet). In Portuguese, the words themselves deliver the emotion, the gentle sarcasm in this instance. The speaker does not need to commit to it in tone nor gesture, but may if she wishes.
Wild Doings, But Not So Weird
To be courteous to strangers in Portuguese, you need the past imperfect. To be lovingly sarcastic to familiars, you need the past imperfect. The juxtaposition of courtesy and sarcasm as well as of strangers and familiars definitely appears weird as well as wild to this English speaker. But remember our encounter with saudade in an earlier post. The Portuguese are comfortable with the in-between whether between past and future, or sadness and hope. They are equally adept balancing day-to-day difficulties with the everyday good of life. This latter we peaked at in last week’s post.
So all this may seem wild, but not so weird. Just Portuguese, like both the language and the people. And the more generic use of the Portuguese past imperfect is even more typically Portuguese. It allows the speaker to glance over her shoulder and to remember the past with wistfulness, sadness and longing. Nonetheless, all the while, the speaker stays put in the present and even eyeballs the future. As I said, all very Portuguese.
I am going to pull apart the complexity of Portuguese’s o pretérito imperfeito. That is, separate the past from the future, which I hope will make some greater sense of it. I will use Fado, Portugal’s defining musical tradition, to describe o pretérito imperfeito’s grasp of the past. Fado is the musical expression of, the very essence within saudade. And saudade, as we discussed, comprises the Portuguese soul. Incongruently, I thought I would use Saga, one of our pups, to help me with o pretérito imperfeito’s future orientation. So here we go.
Backward Glance
Returning home to Portugal after this past Christmas. After burying my beloved father-in-law. I got trapped in allegorical painting again. And this time it got me in trouble with one of my dearest friends. Long story. I did not, however, know how otherwise to express what I felt. Future hopes and past dreams floated off over parched land. A small oasis emerged in memories.
O pretérito imperfeito evokes the past with longing and reverence, that is, as the “used to be“. The only good English translation in the Portuguese for o pretérito imperfeito places “used to” in front of the main verb. For example, trabalhava na cidade translates to “I used to work in the city”. In English it is hard to sense the longing, the angst and the wistfulness. But it is there if you listen intently to the “used to” bit. In Portuguese, the longing for when you worked in the city is palpable, throbbing.
If a Portuguese shared, without emotion, that “I worked in the city”, then trabalhei na cidade. Just the facts, nothing but the facts; he uses the past tense. But Portuguese needs to do more than just share facts. Portuguese wants to put flesh on the facts as well as to give those darn facts a heart! O pretérito imperfeito does that job.
O pretérito imperfeito was my language throughout the pandemic. Like you perhaps, I lived in the “used to be”. I longed for all the things I felt I had lost, I did in fact lose. Swathed in masks, anointed with alcohol gel and six feet (or, 2 meters) under, no, I mean away. The past seemed the only place to go. There I dreamt about and hoped in the future. Past and future merged in the surreal present.
Making It Real
In 2016 Joseph and I, along with many friends and family, rented a house and traveled to Tuscany. Six months earlier I had cardiac arrest and died on a busy avenue in New York City. I was returning to my office after a business lunch. An angel, Claire O’Neill, stopped and, using CPR, did the work that my heart would not. She worked and worked until the ambulance arrived. The medics had a hard time restarting my heart. After a point they gave up, that is, until Claire not so gently nudged them on.
During our first evening under the fading Tuscan sun, I came upon Joseph, alone, looking out over the countryside. I do not know if he knew I was there. This image, however, burnt itself into my brain and onto my heart. Only when learning Portuguese did I begin to have words to understand it. Here was the longing, the sadness, the wistfulness that memory insists. That it demands whether the memories be happy or not. The past now gone — over — but still held tight and close. O pretérito imperfeito.
I imagined Joseph, standing on that terrace, still griped by o pretérito imperfeito of just six months earlier. Mourning all that was surely lost. Fiercely hoping — willing — the future. Stuck in the present between the former and the latter.
Perhaps Joseph was enjoying the softening hues of the evening sky and the parade of poplars. Or perhaps he simply heard the pool calling his name. I prefer my initial intimation at his memories; it is what my painting him in that scene four years later revealed to me. If I am correct, then Joseph was humming in his head and murmuring in his heart, without knowing it, the gut-wrenching score of a Fado song.
Fado
O pretérito imperfeito is the grammar of saudade. Fado is saudade’s lyrics and rhythm. The first time I heard a fadista, in Lisbon during a concert organized for tourists, I immediately thought of American Blues. Although I did not understand the singer’s words, I certainly understood her emotions. As with the Blues, the fadista shares her personal woes inflicted by a harsh world. Lovers abscond. Jobs and money disappear. The law is brutally unjust. Life scrapes along the gutter.
Fado remembers the past vividly. It tries to make sense of how things went wrong. Infused with fate and resignation, melancholy wells up. Like the Blues, Fado is the music of the downtrodden, those without much choice nor many options. Remembering, however, also gives strength and potency in the present. The recollection braces and fortifies the human soul. The fadista’s voice carries strength and boldness. A song of hope emerges in the soulful, woeful retelling.
My earliest fascination with Fado began with Amália Rodrigues. She is certainly the greatest fadista of the twentieth century. She died is 1999. As with every new experience now I desire to paint in order to understand better. I painted the great a Senhora as I imagined her younger self, in between sets. She mulls the last set. A Senhora remembers the mistakes, the bad bits, that moment she lost her key.
With these memories, however, she stiffens herself for the next set. She has found strength and determination. In o pretérito imperfeito she “will sing again” // cantava de novo. Yes, with o pretérito imperfeito, dwelling in and remembering the past carries one, via hope, into the future. Cantava de novo means, in its fullest sense, “I sang before, I am singing now and I will sing forever more”.
Not Static, A Little Weird And Definitely Wild
In Portuguese nothing is inflexible or absolute, especially not o pretérito imperfeito. This Portuguese tense certainly permits, even encourages, a wistful glance over the shoulder to the past that is undeniably chockablock with melancholic longing. But o pretérito imperfeito also encapsulates hope and desire. It insists on a glance away from the past through the present into the future. Past longing, at least in Portuguese, creates future-oriented hope and desire. That may be a little weird and it is definitely wild.
Speaking of wild, I need to tell you about one of our pups! We have two rescued Sealyham Terriers, Tucker and Saga. I would like to tell you Saga’s story here. At a later date I will share Tucker’s. Today, 2 June, is Saga’s birthday. She is 10. She came to live with us when she was 4.
Sealyham Terriers are a farm working breed. Our two seem to me still very close to their original instincts. Like all dogs they are lovable, intelligent and incredibly sensitive, that is, great companions. However, Sealys, what we aficionados call them, carefully watch and dutifully control visitors, especially small children. And, well, other dogs, cats, rats and all other manner of small furry creatures, forget about it.
Saga comes from incredible Sealyham stock, the nobility of Sealyhams. Bred as a show dog she indeed became a great champion. She placed best in show or best of breed in Finland, Sweden and Norway and she earned overall Scandinavian champion as well. And, befitting a noble Sealy, her instincts are feisty dominance and irascible independence.
My World, My Terms
When Saga reached three-and-half years it was time for her to prove her metal outside of the show ring and in the breeding pen. We were in line for one of Saga’s first puppies. Fortunately or unfortunately, the breeding did not go as anyone expected, except perhaps from Saga’s perspective. Saga lived up to her breed standards when matched with a suitable champion partner. To his surprise, however, when he attempted a romantic advance, Saga turned on him with unmatched fury yielding blood as well as traumatic ego injury.
In another match the same result occurred. Saga simply was not submitting to any other dog. When I contacted the breeder about our promised puppy, Saga was about to be euthanized for her behavior. Attacking other dogs — especially champion males — was a not acceptable even in uber-liberal Europe. I pleaded to adopt her as we wanted an older rescue; we were never-ever going to breed her.
In our home Saga is living, breathing, leaping energy and spark. She is always on the move; her tail is always in full wag. Her curiosity knows no fear and, seemingly at times, it is unconfined by common sense. She follows us everywhere in anticipation of some unknown, yet-undiscovered excitement.
She is a bundle of love, too, but she decides how that love will be dispensed. Saga is not a dog who can be picked up and cuddled. Oh, she will cuddle, yes, she is totally into it. But only if she makes the advances and only if she also decides on how it unfolds. The world is hers, on her terms. But her joie de vivre is totally contagious and infectious.
Looking Wildly Ahead
Outside of the house, on a walk, Saga is quite literally, preternaturally and forever on the hunt. The entire world is hers to subdue and to tame. She stalks it with determination and tenacity. Every ounce of her, every fiber, sinew and cell is firing at 200% capacity. Once home again, Saga collapses in complete exhaustion. Tucker, having finished the same walk, returns home barely panting.
In my imagination, Saga is the progenitor, archetypal dog. She embodies the wildness, curiosity and fierce independence of her grey wolf forbearers, but tempers these in devotion to and joy for human companionship and love. Her wildness is evident and it cannot be undone.
I envision, in my mind’s eye, that one day Saga will again meet up with her pack of grey wolves. She will become their legendary, heroic alpha. Saga was once wild, she is wild now, and she will be wild again. Saga embodies o pretérito imperfeito’s enthusiasm in and wild expectations of the future.
Holding Weird and Wild Together
It is beginning to seem to me, two and half years into this pandemic, that much of life is about holding opposites together and in tension with one another. I have begun to learn that with tolerance and personal conviction as I shared in the post about our trip to Seville. The same is true of our memories of the past, collective and personal, and our hopes for the future, again, collective and personal. Our memories in the past need to be held in together and held in tension with our hope in the future.
What the heck does that mean? I mentioned in another post that our past can be fabricated from partial memories. Our used-to-be may not be what we remember; it may or may not be as good as we remember it to be. That can be dangerous. The Far-Right and the Ultra-Nationalists teach us the dangers of falsified memories about the past. They are the experts in these self-serving half-truths
What we remember, however, forms our future, that is, it serves as the base on which we build the future. O pretérito imperfeito teaches us that. The past flows through the present into the future. Fado’s lament of past misery, the remembering, yields strength and resolve to endure the present and to build a different future. Saga’s present energy and fierce independence, derived through ancestral DNA, will allow her to be wild again — fazia selvagem novamente.
We have to be brutally honest and truthful about our pasts, collective and personal. We cannot achieve the future we all deserve without the strength and perseverance that our genuine past gives us in the present. That future is just, fair and equitable. Our pasts need to lead us there.
Reflections On The Way Life Used To Be…
Sometime in 2021, between our second vaccination and before Delta, there was a space of time when things seemed almost “normal”. The weird and the wild seemed behind us. The perpetual blue sky was back from its wee-little winter break. Days were lengthening. Temperatures were warming even more. Joseph and I ventured away from the dirt roads and onto the city streets. Coffee and a dessert beckoned us to the sidewalk cafes. We enjoyed lunch at our favorite spots along the Ria Formosa and the Rio Gilão.
The past, however, was still omnipresent. During that “sometime in 2021” I snapped a photograph of a building in Tavira that I wanted to paint someday. An old beauty of white stucco, well-worn limestone detail, terrific symmetry, red highlights and an enormous “window” onto the sky beyond.
Earlier this year I was scrolling through photographs looking for a subject to paint. I looked at the one of that old beauty. I noticed for the first time Joseph reflected in the window on the lower right. He had just emerged from the old market building into the plaza across the street. He was masked and air drying his hands of alcohol gel. The day was perfect and the past was still with us.
I cannot run from my past; we cannot. And we should not want to. We should embrace them truthfully and with honesty. Then our past(s) can give us the strength and the perseverance to build that future we deserve. You know the one, the one with social, economic and environmental justice. This only happens with o pretérito imperfeito, that is, when truth flows seamlessly through my past into my present and on into my future. What do you think?
Até à próxima quinta. Abraço. // See you next Thursday. Cheers.
Toujours aussi passionnants tes écrits et réflexions sur le Portugal , sa langue ,ses habitants…….j’avais bien entrevu que Saga était particulière…..je comprend mieux …..merci.
Comme toujours, je vous remercie pour votre soutien. Et oui, Lina, Saga est très spécial, sauvage et merveilleux !
Your posts are never too long for me Will
And your kindness Phil is more than generous!
I find it amazing and rewarding that a language and then so too it’s people can be so complex in emotions & expressions without having to actually use all the words. Please never feel that you go on too long.As I have said I always learn from you… I love the paintings !
What a blessing to have such dear and enduring friendships! Thank you for the gift of yourself.
As usual, a fabulous post. Your paintings are really spectacular. Love the one with Joseph looking out over the countryside.
Thank you Davidson. I so very much appreciate you support!
Will, thank you for your reflection on how language emits many feelings and ways of expression. Thank you for the lovely reflective paintings that capture a mood. As I advance in years I have come to the conclusion that if people, situations or institutions are not helping us be more loving then it is time to move on.
Agreed Bill. We can only do what we can do albeit we must do what we can. I appreciate your support. It helps me be more and more loving.