If some places force us to think, others have the ability to freeze time and make us feel instead. It is Lisbon for me – the place where I can look ahead in the eyes of the unknown and live my own truth with a new start. I think of what I want from life – I think of how I love architecture and want to play guitar in the parks, I think about the paintings and the daily drawings, I want to braid my hair and wear bright dresses with flowers. I want to travel and feel myself a part of something bigger – I want to stay active and live next to the seaside, I love Portugal and the way I feel myself in its surroundings.
At the old elevator in the center, I find people busking – playing guitar outside to earn money, and suddenly I am talking to a Brazilian who moved to Portugal and started his own band. Busking is not legal here – amplifiers are being taken by the police together with the fine, which is why bigger groups are always present – in case of police they take the instruments and run away. Even though it is not legal, playing outside is quite profitable: on a good day, a guitarist can make 50-100 euros– as I learn now from a conversation with a Brazilian guy I met. That is the way he currently lives – every day busking together with the attempts to record songs for his new death metal band. Funny enough, when I mention the Netherlands the first thing he says is that he visited Eindhoven for a metal meeting – of which I, obviously, have never heard. In the end, my swift opponent asks for a kiss, making our encounter even more hilarious.
This talk reminds me of the times back in Moldova in 2017, playing guitar in the underground, the people I met, and the self-expression it meant to me. This is a part of me that I sometimes forget about – but those experiences were lovely summer evenings together with Vlad; smiles on the passers-by's faces. This Portuguese evening makes me remember – and think of how I could take my guitar – go out in Eindhoven and sing – or take my guitar around the world and sing an ode to this ocean as I keep singing Wild is the wind next to the Atlantic in Porto. The wind is within me, I would go and carry it anywhere with me – it is in my travels or in the camping dreams I have, it is an inalienable bit of my identity.