THAT MOMENT WHEN THERE IS NO GOING BACK

Lisbon is calling. Hers is the low droning hum of a singing bowl before it rises to a coppery aria. It is also the moan of a wetted finger running along the rim of a glass before it hits a shrill. This early heeding is anticipatory. I have been inadvertently holding my breath, knowing that either her notes will fall flat or soar into vibratory song. It is only a matter of time. So I move toward her, flowing in along one of her main arteries from the north. I’m nerve-wracked by the possibility of it falling through and also in it coming to fruition. I am spinning to counter the terror, to raise my own vibration, so I do not slip out of trust. It is my heart I ask to guide me as I arrive at her center where, if all goes according to plan, I will be signing a contract to commit to the most massive change I’ve ever made in my life.

In committing to that contract, I’ll be disbanding with my apartment in midtown Manhattan, this bright little nest perched by the river and the 59th Street Bridge. It is where I’ve felt most at home in my twenty years in the city, having moved eight times while running a jewelry business and raising my daughter. I have loved this abode, my own, it’s decor, it’s details well thought through, carefully tended to. I have been at peace in this quiet neighborhood of Sutton Place with its clean sidewalks, it’s aged residents who emerge every now and then to walk themselves or their retrievers.

There will be no going back. I’ll be giving this up to share a farm in rural Portugal with a someone I met three weeks earlier. It sounds absolutely unhinged, insane even but it feels just right, a gift . That the miracle of delay – having been called back by my daughter to NY in January when I had started the search in Portugal – has found me in circumstances I couldn’t have imagined. It is my daughter I truly have to thank. Not only did she postpone my search but she booked my Airbnb on a remote farm where I met Sigrun, a retired Waldorf teacher, mother to three, grandmother to five.

Sigrun is Norwegian. I am Jamaican-American. At first glance, we have no obvious connection to this place. But in signing that document, we will each be making this farm our home. We hardly know each other but what we know is enough. That we are committed to making this barren farm an oasis, it’s barn-like buildings a learning center, it’s well a place for rebirth.

Sigrun has just completed a visit to her daughter and son-in-law and their three children in Spain where they are holidaying with his family. I have recently checked out of a yoga retreat, Almashala, at a surf town north of the city. Sigrun has already arrived at the hotel. She sends a message to say she is waiting on the hotel rooftop overlooking the city. I arrive, I check in, download my email, silently praying the contract has arrived. As the messages slowly load, I scan for our lawyer Adriana’s name. There she is! Please let it have an attachment. The paperclip symbol emerges. Hooray! Our amazing lawyer with little time to prepare has delivered with no time to spare. I drop off my suitcase, print out two copies of the contract and dash up to the roof. 

As I step out of the elevator toward the sliding glass door, Lisbon ululates before me, hills sweeping down into valleys, valleys swooping up to other hills, all sliding into the water. This is a vista like no other. The hotel sits on the top of one of Lisbon’s hills overlooking the Castelo de Sao Jorge. The Tagus River empties into the Atlantic in the distance, so wide that one cannot tell the estuary from the ocean. The red-tiled rooftops typical of Portugal form a percussion of perfectly imprecise uniformity. This city, the capital of my new home, grows more beautiful each time I view it, now, in less than a year, too many times to count. Yet for all I love Lisbon, it is in the countryside I belong.

I spot Sigrun sitting quietly reading a book at a café table. I push open the door and she lifts her head, and waves. If she’s as nervous as I, she doesn’t show it. I join her at the table where we burst into gales of silly yet joyous laughter. It is happening! We read through the two copies of the contract simultaneously, skipping the Portuguese for the English, a question or two to ensure we know what we’re signing. In our outdoor office of what will soon be our new capital city, we put pen to paper. The light dims dramatically, the clouds congregate and fill the stage of the sky, an operatic ensemble whose silence permeates more profoundly than actual sound. And there! Two single squiggles, arias in their own right, commit us to this land. It’s autographed and done! Though there is plenty more to be done to make it actually happen.

The Castile de Sao Jorge on the distant hill in Lisbon

The signing

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