35mm Diaries: Things I Kept From Portugal 🇵🇹
Lisbon and Porto c. Spring 2023
Since the age of 25, I’ve gone on a group birthday trip every five years. It’s interesting to see how life shifts through these trips. The mid-20s Miami Beach trip when I was broke af with my cousin and best friend. The 30th birthday trip to Mexico, (which I like to call The Real World: Tulum because it was seven of us living in a house) that I couldn’t completely enjoy because I was in the midst of a battle with uterine fibroids. This time last year, I was in Portugal for my 35th birthday which was not a milestone but felt like a departure from this trend of traveling while also enduring hardship. My time in Lisbon and Porto was mature, cultured, and vibrant. In the middle of this trip, my sweet boyfriend gifted me an Olympus Stylus 120 35mm camera. The first post of this 35mm diaries series features the first photographs I took on a camera that has sharpened my eye and my perspective. Through these photos, I reflect on the knowledge I gained, the habits I built, and the beautiful and challenging lessons I learned about life and friendship.
History
I stood at the edge of this cliff gazing out toward the Atlantic, enamored with the teal waves crashing against the cape. I still can’t get over the color of the water but it was impossible to look at this ocean, on this continent without thinking about the land on the other side of it, and my ancestry. Just two days before taking this day trip to Sintra, we went on a cultural tour exploring Lisbon’s African roots. We learned about the Portuguese colonizers who started the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and how the Catholic church supported them. We examined the problematic monuments erected that honored the men who led these atrocities and explored the forgotten enclaves of long-departed Afro-Portuguese people who worked as servants and laborers after slavery was banned in the country. After those first few days in Lisbon, it was impossible to look at any road, building, or ancient structure without thinking about the hands that built them and the backs that carried this culture.
Music & Language
