Never Really Belonging

A little bit more thankfulness for the Thanksgiving Blog Hop:

The hardest part about growing up as a first-generation kid who would spend her summers back in the "old country" was this constant feeling in my life of never really belonging. We were raised too European for the US and vice-versa. As a kid, it sucked.

As an adult, I love that I was raised with roots in both worlds. I'm thankful for that gift that my parents and grandparents gave me.

And, oh, what an incredible gift:




The Dolmen da Orca, Oliveira do Conde (Carregal do Sal), Portugal. A 5500 year-old megalithic burial chamber

The other side of the Dolmen. A similar dolmen site closer to town is in ruins, but since this one is in the middle of nowhere, it survived

The Poco Iniciativo at the Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra, Portugal. This well's circular walkway lead to subterranean caverns and is one of the gems of the magic-infused grounds of the Quinta and Palacio da Regaleira. It takes a lot of wandering the forests near the house (estate? Palace?) to find this place.

Reading by the wood stove on a cool October night (and yes, my parents have a modern stove, too)



The castle walls of the Convento de Cristo in Tomar

And I have more pictures and videos from this year's trip on my Tumblr.

There's a burden with having so much history and having these roots. It can be a weight, sometimes, knowing (and caring!) that you have to pass this history to the next generation. It's hard to maintain a connection to Portugal when you grow up outside of the Portuguese community-- no Portuguese school for me or my sisters, limited exposure to other Portuguese-American kids.

It's hard to put down roots here (a place that I love) when I have roots there, as well. I have hundreds of years of ancestors weighing on my shoulders.

And it's so hard to walk out of my bedroom on the last day of vacation.

But for every heart-wrenching moment of saying goodbye for the year to our home there and all of the saudades that I have for this place that I've been tied to since before I was born, I've also been given a million moments of joy and inspiration.

What place are you thankful for?

Bonfires and Visions

(I'm late with my Midsummer post, mostly because mine was spent on a plane to Seattle for work. I still wanted to share a few Midsummer traditions on this blog without having to wait until next year, though, so... let's pretend this was written a week ago, okay?)

There's magic in the simple fountain* in my family's village. According to legend, if a girl drinks its water in the middle of the night on Midsummer's eve, she will dream of the man she is meant to marry.

If you believe in the old traditions, that is.

And if you believe in these traditions, you probably would have already jumped the midsummer bonfires, maybe while holding hands with the boy in town who had stolen your heart. Because, you know, jumping the bonfire means that you will stay together.  And, of course, you would also have devoted a few minutes to setting out a glass filled with water and an egg for another 'bout of pre-sunrise fortune telling.

Anything is possible on Midsummer.

A lot of this folklore is amazingly similar to Midsummer traditions throughout Europe. Generation upon generation of girls dreamed of the boys they would love. Will o' the wisps were chased through forests. Magic and wonder wove into the everyday for just one night a year.

These customs are dying out with my grandparents' generation as young people move overseas or to the city, or push away "silly old superstitions." Sadly, they stretch back centuries, back to before Christianity replaced "Midsummer" with the feast of St. John. I still think the magic is there, waiting. All you need to do is take a sip and believe.


*These aren't the jumping water kind-of fountains, but usually just spigots of continuously running spring water from the mountains or faucets connected to a communal well. Before modern water towers and plumbing, families who didn't have their own wells were dependent on the town fountain for their drinking/cleaning/bathing water. Many towns still test the water to make sure it's drinkable, and many fountains still run to this day.

Walking Inside Fairytales

About a month ago, I blogged to give y'all a glimpse into the images and places that inspired The Desired. Today, I want to tell you about the legends and magic that surround one of the images-- the stone tombs on my great uncle's property.

In the middle of the woods, you can stumble right into the tombs if you're not looking

As I mentioned in my last post, these early medieval tombs littered the landscape...until practical farmers broke them up to use the stone for buildings and walls (and get it out of their way! What's a tomb doing in the middle of perfectly good farm- or wood- land, anyway, right?) The few tombs that survived did so out of luck, geography, superstition, or a sense of historical preservation.

But... an entire blog post about a tomb wouldn't have the same impact without a legend, a guardian, and a locale, right?

Let's start with locale: the foothills of the Serra da Estrela (Star Mountains), the hilly terrain filled with giant granite boulders, ferns, foxglove, blackberry brambles, briers, oak, and (a new transplant) eucalyptus. Twilight brings a fog that rolls over the land, concentrating over forgotten wells that litter the landscape. No city lights-- no lights at all-- exist to fade out the Milky Way that stretches across the sky. The stars are a touchable distance. And this tomb sits in a clearing, undisturbed by people or time.

And now, the guardian and the legend.

There are stories all over Portugal and the Galicia region of Spain that talk about the Moura Encantada, an enchanted maiden who guards castles and lakes and treasures. She can guard the mundane of this world or could be guarding the frontiers of fairyland (the Mourama.) Her tales stretch back from pre-history.

Even though some legends make her a Moorish princess, the name "Moura" doesn't come from "Moor"... but rather from the Latin word for death or the Celtic word for spirit.

She can seduce you, trap you, reward you. But only if you know how to help or free her.

And the tomb? Depending on who you ask, it's her bed (a cama da moura) or where she kneads her bread (a masseira.)

She is legend, woven into the very stone and walls of the land. She is in the songs and the soul of the place. Stories from the Beira region mountains also speak of witches, werewolves, and ghosts that wander the land in addition to these mouras. Is it any wonder that this place is so inspiring?

Side note: The name of my uncle's property where the tomb shown above is located and the name of another property that has been in my own family for centuries is Vale da Maceira, which is pronounced a lot like like "Masseira." "Valley of the Masseira." Interesting...