The Heart's Treasure - Lessons in the Art of Living (1)
from the Nomad Collection: Portugal & Spain
Note: This is the second essay in a sequence of stories. If you haven’t already, I invite you to read the first essay of the series before you read this essay.
This essay features captioned photography as an important part of the story. Best viewed in the Substack app or on the Substack website from your desktop browser.
In the spring of 2022, burnt from the life I had been living, I resigned without a plan from my 10 year career path as a lawyer in London to go on a period of slow, often solo, travel journeys in Portugal, Southern Spain, Switzerland, Peru and Japan.
Gathered over 9 months of leaving behind life as I knew it to explore the world through dance, yoga, art and nature, this is my offering of lessons in the art of living, learnt in the language of mountains, waterfalls, landscapes, cityscapes, luminaries, constellations, flowers, art, emotions, sensations, dreams, memories, and the heart — here, translated by me into the language of words.
I hope they speak to your heart and spark your own remembering.
Casida de la rosa
por Federico García Lorca
Granada, España (1898 – 1936)
La rosa
no buscaba la aurora:
Casi eterna en su ramo
buscaba otra cosa.
La rosa
no buscaba ni ciencia ni sombra:
Confín de carne y sueño
buscaba otra cosa.
La rosa
no buscaba la rosa:
Inmóvil por el cielo
¡buscaba otra cosa!
Lessons in the Art of Living (1)
from the Nomad Collection: Portugal & Spain
Northern Portugal
(March - April 2022)
After 15 mins walking up a 30 degree incline slope while recently recovered from Covid, to arrive out of breath but full of excitement at a tile-painting workshop in Porto
— “Some people think we’re crazy, but we go around to all the demolition sites of historic buildings in Porto to save and collect these beautiful azulejo tiles, so that they don’t completely disappear. We started this project to make a comprehensive catalogue of these unique tile patterns from years and years of our history. It’s part of this city’s heritage.”
— “When they are lost, they are lost forever. You need to protect what you love and care about.”
Granada, Spain
(April 2022)
A rainy day in Granada
— “I spent so many years studying biochemistry, but I realized I really didn’t want to become an engineer. So I left my home in Vietnam and moved to Paris, where I found perfumery. I didn’t even know this world existed and now it’s my life. I found this opportunity here in Granada for a few months, so I came here to teach.”
— “Can you smell that? No? That’s ok, it’s normal. There are some of us who can’t smell this scent for years. When I first started, I smelt nothing at all when I sniffed this. But I kept at it every day, and one day it was like my nose suddenly opened up and I could finally smell it. I was so happy.”
— “It doesn’t matter what you are taught about how much you need to mix of this with how much of that. Ultimately, you trust your own nose in creating a scent you love.”
Lunchtime surprise in Granada
— “I know you ordered the pollo al curry. And our shawarma is good. But while you’re waiting, please, I invite you to try this falafel with the special sauce – it’s our speciality here at Falafel Damasco.”
— “I don’t usually eat falafel. But. Wow. This is the truly the best falafel I’ve ever tasted. I see why your shop sign says you’re El Rey del Falafel!”
— “You’re smiling, I’m happy. You see, that’s why I wanted you to try it.”
Sevilla, Spain
(April - May 2022)
1 ½ hours in a clothing boutique in Sevilla
(Trying on as many clothes as I wanted: 35 mins, Chatting and laughing non-stop: 55 mins)
— “I’m in love. I have never experienced a city like this, that loves colours and patterns as much as I do. And I can literally stop anywhere and talk with people for ages. In London, I can never find anything I want to wear in the shops that reflects how I feel inside, because all the clothes are black, grey, navy blue and white. Everything needs to be ‘understated’. People think you’re too much if you’re too colourful, especially in the office. And they also think you’re too much if you talk too much. So, you know, all the time I ended up feeling just like how my clothes looked.”
— “In Sevilla, we are in love with colours, patterns, textures, we want as much of that as possible — everything we wear and have in our homes is this way. You know, I’m so happy working in a shop like this, where I get to be surrounded by beauty every day. And we are Andalucian – we love talking a lot, and laughing a lot, so you must feel welcome to be as you are here. It’s important to us to live life in a way that’s full of colour.”
Flamenco dance class in Sevilla
— “All of our lives, most of us have been told to be quiet, to not make noise. Here, to stay true to the origins of flamenco, we want to do the total opposite — so, be free, be strong, use your voice and make as much noise as possible.”
— “When we dance flamenco, our legs are our voice. Keep your upper body strong, straight and unmoving to save all your energy for your legs. Imagine you are a tree. Gather all your energy, all your emotions and channel it all the way from the crown of your head down into the roots of your legs.”
— “Make noise. Be stronger and louder. Con fuerza!”
Las Alpujarras, Sierra Nevada, Spain
(May 2022)
With Montse in the garden at her cortijo in Bubión village
— “Here in Las Alpujarras, I am your mother, ok?”
Invitation to wine with Ana in her taller in Bubión village
— “It’s raining, come into the shop for some wine. Look at the two barrels there. Do you want the dry or the sweet?”
— “I used to work in this office job in the city. I was never very happy. One day I came here to visit my friend, and I saw someone who was doing this traditional weaving, in Alpujarran style. After I saw that, something came over me — I quit my job and sold what I had in the city to move here. I spent months learning every day, everything there was to learn, from this weaver. Then I bought these looms over here, guess how old they are, they are 150 years old, and I started this shop. I wanted to spend every day weaving.”
— “Look, a TV station crew came from Japan and made this documentary about my shop and my weaving. They put it on YouTube. I don’t understand what it says, but every time I watch it, it makes me so happy.”
After flamenco class, with Cristina, on the way to try the best jamón in the world in Capileira village
— “We used to live in Madrid. Then the mountains started calling to us. And so we moved here and opened our flamenco school. I love it here. It’s very special being able to teach and dance flamenco here in nature, together with my daughter. It’s good to see you enjoying it so much. And how about you, why did you leave the place you were born?”
— “I guess, as I grew up, I just started to feel it was not compatible with my heart.”
— “So it wasn’t the home for your soul. You know, to me, it feels like you have an Andalucian soul. Isn’t that how you found your way here?”
Dinner with mi familia and the mountains, in a traditional casa alpujarreña in Bubión village
— “And here you see the reason why we made our home here, facing the mountains. In the summer time, we sleep out here on the balcony, surrounded by the mountains. We fall asleep under the stars and wake up with the sun on our faces.”
— “I wish I didn’t have to say goodbye. And you know, it’s not only because of the mountains.”
Málaga, Spain
(May 2022)
A taste of championship coffee in Málaga
— “You have to try this. I freshly made it. It’s my competition brew for the Andalucía Aeropress Coffee Championship. And this is part of my secret… I’m using this delicious water from the mountains that I bought specially for this.”
— “My grandparents moved from Switzerland to Argentina. Then I moved here from Argentina. My business partner came here from Morocco. We happened to find each other here, two people who wanted to start a coffee business, and we opened this café together. We source our beans from independent coffee farms in Latin America and Asia and roast the beans ourselves. We’re still a young business facing its own challenges. But this is my dream. I just want to make incredible coffee every day and share that with people.”
Central Portugal
(September 2022)
Somewhere between the forest and the trees
— “We’d had enough, honestly. We quit our jobs to start our own business and started living on a boat. We travel to most places by boat now and yeah, it’s pretty awesome.”
— “Boat life can be intense. It’s really important to be linked up with others so you are never all by yourself. Something crazy happened to one of our friends — he was by himself and his boat capsized in a storm one night and he had to figure out how to swim to shore by remembering what he could about navigating using the stars. It took him hours, all night. He told us how all the time he was swimming, he kept thinking he wouldn’t make it. But it turns out, he managed to keep going. That boat was completely ruined, though. So he got himself another boat, where he’s living now.”
Song of the Rose
by Federico García Lorca
Granada, Spain (1898 – 1936)
The rose
wasn't looking for the dawn:
Almost everlasting on its stem
it was looking for something else.
The rose
wasn't looking for science nor for shadow:
The edges of flesh and dream
it was looking for something else.
The rose
wasn't looking for the rose:
Unmoving in the heavens
it was looking for something else!
〰️ 〰️ 〰️
Writer’s Note:
This is the second essay of the series titled “And What Did Your Heart Tell You?”, which continues on from the first essay.
Read the third essay, The Heart’s Treasure – Lessons in the Art of Living (2) from Switzerland.
Suyin thank you so much for recommending this piece. I felt like I traveled to those wonderful places with you ! Loved the stories, the photos and its captions. You are a wonderful storyteller 🤍
I felt such a sense of expansion reading this, like there is always more world to see, colours to enjoy, love and passion to feel, stories to hear. What a gift it is to read your writing and feel like my heart has grown 💛