『Cercal, Portugal. February, 2021.』のカバーアート

Cercal, Portugal. February, 2021.

Cercal, Portugal. February, 2021.

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今ならプレミアムプランが3カ月 月額99円

2026年5月12日まで。4か月目以降は月額1,500円で自動更新します。

概要

 (After you have read these introductory paragraphs once, you can skip to the new/old content below. If you are listening, then the time stamp is around the two minute 45 second mark.)IntroductionThe word settled, to me, carries connotations I am keen to avoid. I have never felt settled or, perhaps, I cannot recall a time I felt settled. I do not feel settled now, writing this, and I’ve lived in the same house for three and a half years. Without even discussing the obvious issues of colonisation, I just don’t feel like I could, or should, settle; better to keep my constituent parts shook up, agitated perhaps, rather than separating and stagnant.Instead, I feel as though I have been travelling for years, maybe because I have not lived in my ‘home’ nation of Scotland for eight and a half years, perhaps because I know I won’t stay here forever, or maybe because I carry that concept of home in a way which differs from many?More precisely, I still think of myself as a slow traveller, globally feral. Recently, I have been revisiting places through the photographs and words I recorded when my feet crossed their soil. This is a way of reminding myself of where I have been, not just in space and time, but in mind, too. It is a wonderful thing, to come out of a low and rediscover myself through words I crafted, through the lens of a camera, when memory has wandered in the fog for too long. Thank you, past me.When I first started sharing letters with the world in this fashion, six or more years ago, I usually began them with a vignette of where I was, a sort-of travel diary, mixed with nature observation, locking in the setting for the reader, before I spoke of other things—and, by so doing, ensuring that place fed into the whole. It was a useful device, for reader and myself both but, as these letters were sent to so few readers, and now languish archived behind a paywall, I thought it a shame not to share these snippets again.As such, I am going to share a short series of these sketches, accompanied by a photograph from that time, sent to you in date order.I shall include the above paragraphs in each of the letters in this series, but I shall also include a link at the very start, so you can skip ahead once you are familiar with the above words. If you are listening and similarly want to skip, then the timestamp you want to navigate to will be in the same place.Taken without these paragraphs, each is a short read, and I hope you enjoy them.Cercal, Portugal. February, 2021.There are worlds within worlds: look closer and you will see.Here, in The Alentejo, it is the season of rain. Heavy, insistent Atlantic rain, or fine, cloud-like cover, blanketing all in moisture, swaddling in grey. Ridge-lines vanish, to reappear as suggestions, trees as spectres, and the woods mere hints. When they do appear, these ancient hillsides are clad entirely in emerald, gone is any vestige of brown, any trace of the bleaching of the long hot summer. Instead, all things grow, fast: from grass to trees, mould to citrus, and lambs to calves, they are all flourishing.The rain, coupled with winter bus schedules and lockdown routines, means there is little chance to enjoy the outdoors as I would like. The trails around here are fantastic for walking and cycling, but in this weather their unpaved nature makes both activities a sticky but slippy disaster waiting to happen. The apartment becomes a vessel on a sea of rain and green, sheets of water passing by, when they do not seep through the concrete and tiles.Yet there is much to see, if only you look. The storks are back, a war for the best nests underway, with much clattering, swooping, and delicate battle. To gain territory is one thing, to hold it in this weather, another—the present victors are miserable, sodden and bedraggled birds, heads down, feathers drooping and dripping. Beneath, the ground is strewn with the fallen cannonballs of oranges, some already green or white with mould, others fresh and tempting. There is so much fruit, just falling and rolling down the streets and lanes, like so many escaped balls.The birdsong is gaining in intensity, with the blackbird, the blackcap and something I do not know currently the most vocal. They are joined by others, occasional voices adding to the chorus, sometimes startlingly so, a strange new song trilling through the window, but nothing to be seen in the grove below. It will not be long before the first migrants reappear, depending on what is going on in Africa, the winds, and the rains and the outlook for the coming season. Perhaps some of them are already here.Look closer, and other worlds are present too. The rooftops here are nearly all covered in orange tiles, which fade with age, slipping into burnt ochres and deeper, brown-reds. Even as the clay ages, the tiles gain other colours—the greens, greys, oranges, yellows and startling whites of moss and lichen, cloaking and coating, spreading and demonstrating the ...
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