June 16, 2012

Amherst, MA. February, 2009


One of the many things I love about Jay is that he gets weepy. (He tells me that he always has. Well, so do I. And so did my father. All pluses, I think.) Can you tell from this picture at his alma mater, Amherst College? It was the first time he’d been back since graduating in 1966, and he told me he got all sentimental thinking back about his time there. We were in town to hear Portuguese fadista Mariza perform at UMass. We’d already checked into our Priceline-secured motel room in nearby Northampton and were strolling about the campus, the town. That evening’s concert was sensational. A local Portuguese marching band paraded through the theatre lobby, and a local bakery handed out pastèis de nata, my introduction to this heavenly pastry. Could Mariza, the music and the pastèis have prompted the decision to make our first trip to Portugal nine months later? And then again the following year? Of course. And now, whenever we think of Lisbon, “our city,” we both get a little misty.

2 comments:

  1. I always knew it! You and Jay love to wallow in "saudade"! Just to hear that lovely, untranslatable Portuguese word makes me reach for my hankie.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRPoy6P1FA0

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  2. Me too, I get a little misty reading this. thank you for talking always so fondly of Portugal and all things portuguese (specially pastéis de nata)

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