a first day in lisbon | a vignette

But this time, when she catches my eye again, she gives me a smile of such pity that I wonder if I maybe look very, very sad.

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After Australia, I spent a few days back home before jetting off to Portugal at the start of May.

I don’t know where I’m walking except it's towards what the guy at the kebab stand said was the “cooler” part of town. 

Lisbon, I’ve decided, is a city that demands to be seen from the ground. My feet draw a soft, pleasant patter from the cobblestone roads; the sound is layered, textured, oddly comforting. Above my head, red rooftops sprawl across the cityscape like a burgundy moss. The architecture of the city astonishes me at every turn: the multi-paletted walls, the mosaic of azulejo blues, the way the buildings frame the sky and city like a Wes Anderson still at every intersection. If you find yourself at the top of a hill, you’re in luck. Turn around and let the city spill in front of you like a just-finished carpet, unwound for the first time.

As I walk, the street fills with the motions of locals getting off from work. The clink of beer glasses, chatter of rapid-fire Portuguese, and smell of something fresh out the oven fill the air.  

Amidst all this, a small yellow sign outside a cafe catches my eye. The first word, chocolate, brings me to an abrupt pause mid-step; the second word – mousse – turns my feet 180 degrees and into the shop where a cheery-looking girl waits at the register. Chocolate fucking mousse, I think to myself. It was not on my agenda for the evening but there are certain pleasures in life I cannot deny myself.

5 minutes later I’m crammed into a corner table outside between a vanilla-looking couple and two businessmen in the middle of a passionate debate (though from their raucous laughter I assumed it was about anything but business). It’s 6:30pm – 30 minutes until sunset. Between bites of mousse (some people like eating their mousses horizontally, layer by layer; I on the other hand eat vertically like an excavator – digging down at each part of the crème fraiche until I feel my spoon tap out at the bottom of the bowl) I wonder where to catch my first golden hour in Portugal. I’d like to spend it, ideally, with a beer in hand. And maybe a little live music to ease the soul. 

One thing at a time, I remind myself. I pay for the mousse and pop over to the bodega next door. It’s a dollar fifty for the local beer – Sagres. I ask the cashier to crack it open for me as I dig into my pockets for small change. 

First rule of sunsets: go as high as you can. I chance on a sidestreet steeping upwards; just as I’m starting to sweat, the cobblestone path spills me onto a terraced park looking over the city. And voilà: a 3-piece band stands against one of the terraces, playing an acoustic set redolent of Rema and early Bob Marley. Behind their silhouettes, the setting sun slowly brings her face down to touch the Tagus River. 

I’m leaning, now, against the side of some stairs facing the band; the sun warms my face like a gentle blush. A pretty middle-aged woman sitting nearby catches my eye as she talks to her friend. I squeeze a soft smile at her in acknowledgement. 

Someone once told me you can capture the soul of a city by its sound: I disagree. I think the heart of a city lies in its smell. Sounds can be muffled, muted, misdirected, orchestrated; smells, on the other hand, cannot be hidden. Whether a smell is an aroma or stench cannot be covered up and is a simple fact of nature that reveals itself inevitably in time. 

Closing my eyes, I exhale between my lips and try to capture the city of Lisbon in one breath. I smell cigarette smoke, a sweetness like the fresh custard tarts the Portuguese are so famous for; I smell fresh grass and worn sneakers moving across cobblestoned streets. I smell a cold evening zephyr that reminds me of the California sun. But most of all, I smell an unmistakable essence of desire and intrigue, like a cool wind moving down the streets, snaking through doorways and windows, winding its way between the soft grip of interlaced hands and the folded spaces between bodies pressed against one another in alleyways all over the city. 

Lisbon, I realize suddenly, is a city of love.  

I think this realization would normally excite me but on this particular evening it just makes me sad. 

I knew without looking that I was surrounded on every side by couples; that this park was not just a sunset spot but a sunset spot for lovebirds, and for a second a rare anger swells inside me at the way couples manage to unconsciously occupy every god-damn viewpoint that has even a morsel of romantic charm (can’t they just leave some space for the rest of us?); then just as quickly this anger falls and reduces itself into something between melancholy and frustration as I think that, until 3 weeks ago, I would have been one of those couples. 

Until 3 weeks ago. Until 3 weeks ago I had someone to watch the sunset with, someone to laugh alongside at how everyone was taking the same picture, and on whose shoulders I would drape my sweater over as the the sun started to disappear and the sky glowed like embers in the gold-orange aftermath; and we had, often, caught the sunset together, on mountains and beaches and lanais across Honolulu, showing each other our favorite sunset spots that we discovered separately but now colored ours with the dye of shared experience and memory. 

I find myself sipping my beer self-consciously, as if these people actually cared that this stranger in a navy blue flannel and beat-up converses was, in fact, here alone. 

Or maybe I felt self-conscious because I had, up until that very moment, chosen to forget the second rule of sunsets: that it’s always, always better to watch it with someone else.

The sun falls behind the distant mountains as I empty the last of my bottle. I dare myself to look around again; the middle-aged woman is still there, still talking to her friend. But this time, when she catches my eye again, she gives me a smile of such pity that I wonder if I maybe look very, very sad. 

I’ve always thought that first days are exciting and bittersweet at the same time. To get to where you are now, you first had to leave something behind; an invisible string, joining past and present, follows you on your journey forward, growing longer and thinner at every step over time. But on that first day, the string is still taut and every movement tugs at you, beckoning you back towards the past. You want to turn around but you keep your eyes forward, stoically, though part of you just wants to cry.  

On this particular first day, I notice myself sitting with a little empty space to my right, as if to leave her room, out of habit, to be by my side in Lisbon, watching the sunset together like we used to.

We were still talking, at least at that point, and I decide to send her a text. First day in Lisbon, I write. Street band playing a rooftop park at sunset. 

Wish you were here.

Vignette (noun): a brief evocative description, account, or episode.

Photos taken by yours truly, in Lisbon, across a few days in May 2023.