More Than Just
Simple Acts of Kindness

Olá! Bom dia, boa tarde ou boa noite a todos! Hey there! Good morning, good afternoon or good evening to everyone!

It all depends on the time zone you are joining us from. We currently have friends joining us from the United States, Mexico, Canada and Columbia. Over the Atlantic other friends have joined us from Portugal, France, Italy, Ireland, England and Scotland. Welcome everyone! Bem-vindos todos!

On the Road Again

Portugal was extremely strict with its lockdowns. Leaving your home was allowed only for outdoor exercise, shopping, medical appointments and going to work if you were classified as an essential worker. Our sole daily option was to hit the dirt roads behind our village and to walk. So over the last two years Joseph and I have walked thousands of miles. These dirt roads became the stage on which our lives mostly played out.

Today we hit the road again. We are headed out, but not for a walk and not with Joseph. Many mornings I go out for a run. It is my time to screw my head on straight. I run in the early morning and I usually begin before sunrise. My run ends soon after the sun has crested the tallest of the two- to three-story buildings here in Santa Luzia.

The quiet and unpeopled morning fuels my imagination. I enjoy the crescendo of birdsong that becomes a deafening cacophony as the sun peeks above the horizon. I cherish the night sky in her cloak of galaxies. But as the sun advances, she sheds her cloak to reveal her dazzling broach of the one remaining bright star, which ultimately must yield as well.

As I said, morning fuels my imagination… it can get a little over the top. Apologies, and forgive me in advance.

The nascent sun brushes a soft pied brilliance over the sky, water and land. It is a new canvas each and every day. My morning runs allow me to watch these incredible scenes unfold. Unfortunately they holdfast for mere moments and then fade. I try to hold tight onto these brief flashes with my paintings and my photographs.

Wizened Sentinels

The morning show plays out at ground level too, not just way up yonder in the heavens. The first mile of my run — also the last on my return — is not hemmed by the tall walls that I described in an earlier post. But the road is still narrow.

Here, at the road’s edge, gargantuan, wizened sentinels guard the farms. For the first half mile ancient carob (alfarrobeira) and even more ancient olive (oliveira) trees watch the right flank while slender tall pines (pinheira) patrol the left. These all yield to the silver beech (faia) trees as the road turns and passes over wetlands.

As the gentle morning breeze blows off the Atlantic, the alfarrobeira and the oliveira remain silent. I sense as I pass them that age mutes them. That is, wisdom has taught them to listen closely and attentively, and so they do. The pinheira and the faia are different. They are not loud and noisy, but they do give voice to their thoughts.

It is a tired cliche but the pinheira seem to actually whisper. No, on second thought, that is not quite right. A whisper seems a telling of secrets or a revelation of indiscretions. I think it more accurate to say that the pinheira murmur. Murmur, yes, a quiet, gentle utterance of pleasure or gratefulness. While the pinheira can puzzle me with their intent, there is no confusion for me with the faia. Their voice echos pianissimo praise to the morning and for the bright and glorious day that lay ahead. The shimmer of their leaves in the rosy fingered dawn, in the glare of noon and in the faintness of twilight makes their gratitude clear.

Under A Carob Tree

At the first mile mark, I pass one final enormous and elderly alfarrobeira on my left. Afterwards the trees give way to the tall stone walls. The wide spread of this alfarrobeira’s branches creates a deep, secluded room. A neat wrought iron fence has been erected around the perimeter of the alfarrobeira’s canopy. At the far back of this treehouse stands an electric transfer switch box that announces “perigo”, or danger. It appears as a stern warning to stay away, to not trespass into this sanctuary. A large colony of feral cats has made this safe space their home.

On my return trip, as I reach the alfarrobeira for the second time, I always meet the same woman. She and I habitually acknowledge one another with a wave and a mutually cheerful “bom dia”. Despite our regular morning meetings we have said nothing else to each other. Each of us is too involved with our own immediate activities to venture further.

The woman appears to me to be in her late forties or early fifties. It is only a guess and I admit that I have never been terribly accurate in guesstimating age. Additionally, I have guessed from her appearance that she is a schoolteacher. She is up and out early on weekdays and she is professionally dressed. Offices, stores and the like do not open until much later, at 10 AM. But I do not know for sure; I am likely an even worse guessitmator of occupations than age.

Simple Acts of Kindness

As I pass her she is either disgorging her car of 5-liter bottles of water and bags of cat food, or engorging the wild denizens under the alfarrobeira. In either case, the cats by now have broken into a raucous hallelujah chorus and have started a crazed, dervish-like dance around her feet. It is a wild, riotous scene. I watch a simple act of kindness played out in the dim light of the otherwise uninhabited morning.

After our first meeting, as the days passed, an urge grew for me to paint this mysterious woman’s portrait. It needed to be in situ as well: with the cats, under the alfarrobeira and in the sanctuary she has created. As these thoughts blossomed, I wondered to myself why this scene intrigued me so much. The time spent creating her portrait and pulling out its details would help me to tease out an answer, or so I thought.

The painting would be hard for me to do. Usually I work from photographs that I have taken. I had gone back to this place under the alfarrobeira to take pictures. But I could not take a photograph of this woman, that would simply be too weird. The painting would be hard because I have would have to recreate her from memory. That was not something I had ever done before. But I would try because I wanted to understand her as well as myself better.

Figuring It Out

Anyway, back to our story. Generally I look back over my shoulder after I have run past the alfarrobeira. Usually I see that the woman is intently preoccupied with her charges and their insistent demands. One morning, as I turned back to sneak my last peek, I saw her looking right back at me as if I was an exotic, strange apparition. Her expression was one of bewilderment. It is this portrait, as I remembered her in her moment of bewilderment, that I would try to paint.

Then, one late afternoon, as I walked by the same alfarrobeira, I noticed a rusted bucket. It sat way at the back, to the left of the tree. When my head started to turn back to the road ahead, two ears poked up. Then followed two eyes peeking over the bucket’s rim. A quizzical cat stared at me intently.

I stopped and I stood simply enjoying this cat in her bucket. I snapped a few photographs as well. But, as our eyes locked for a few moments, it occurred to me that this kitty’s expression was the same look of bewilderment that I had seen before. It was the look on the face of the mysterious woman as I ran away from her and her act of kindness.

Now her unspoken words echoed in my head. “Why do you look at me as if I am doing something special? What I do is nothing more than a simple act of kindness. It is not special.” In that moment, eye-locked with a cat in a bucket, I realized something else as well. Her bewilderment with me and my fascination with her arose from one and the same verdict.

More Than Just…

Our mutual judgement, I like to think, is that we recognize in each other kith and kin. As far as I am concerned I find this verdict more than just okay; i hope she would as well. Perhaps she might think that what she does, each and every day, is nothing more than simple act of kindness. Nonetheless, I find her act very much out-of-the-ordinary, yes, even extraordinary, as well as peskily, naggingly memorable.

Her daily routine is more than just a simple act of kindness. It is an infectious, light up the world act. Kindness spent on the abandoned, spent on a creature who cannot reciprocate in any way, powers transformation. My fascination with her was her spark within me. This spark could inflame kindness within me if I recognized it and then if I allowed it. And I do try to allow it. It is not easy.

As I mentioned in my very first post, these small, simple acts are far from small or simple. They are all — everything — that we can do. These acts are potent and powerful. If we do them, if we all did them, well, the world would be an even more amazing place, a better place.

If this mystery woman under the alfarrobeira were alone in her particular and peculiar kindness, then it would be so much easier to dismiss her as a crazy person. Her singularity might allow me, with a great sigh of relief, to miss or to ignore the power of her simple act of kindness. Fortunately, she is not alone.

Not Alone

Along the dirt farm roads where we walk and I run, there are numerous colonies of feral cats. Each is tended by a diligent caretaker. The purpose of feeding them, as i have learned, is so that they are less likely to destroy native wildlife. In addition to the caretaking, these good people contribute and raise funds to spay/neuter as well as to ensure the cat’s health so they do not spread disease. Our go-to local organic farm/market seems to serve as a hub of this activity. There we can participate by dropping our loose change into a jar or buying local art to support these activities. It is all seemingly very well thought out and well organized.

Sure, it might be easier to destroy the cats. But easy is not always nor even ever best. Violence begets violence; it hollows and shrivels our humanity. Kindness enlivens and expands our souls, I believe. These feline caretakers beget a contagion of kindness with their simple acts. As we all know by now, a contagion starts with one and becomes a pandemic. The one becomes three, then nine, then 81, then 6,561, then 43,243,551… it explodes exponentially. In the end, no one is untouched.

These feline caretakers are themselves forever changed personally. Their efforts, I believe, change the world too, locally at least. Our birds, hedgehogs, screws, hares, and other native wildlife are all protected without the need of violence toward the cats. The spread of disease is prevented. In the end the caretakers create a gentler, kinder, more welcoming world for all of us… feline, avian, mammalian as well as human. These feline caretakers challenge us to do the same, each of us in our own way and within our own lives.

Ate a próxima quinta! // Until next Thursday!