I have a bougainvillea dream, one that i can close my eyes and see come alive. As i was walking the streets last morning, I saw this proud and gorgeous bougainvillea tree standing in front of a mustard yellow building against a clear blue sky and I stopped. A part of my dream was right before my eyes. I stared for a long time trying to capture it in my brain and then I took a picture to remind me of what i need to be working towards in case I forgot this visual.
I am not a beach person - I cringe as I write this. Because everyone I know is a beach person, I am a mountain person. I like beaches but only for a bit. Mountains and valleys I can sit with for a long time without getting bored of the view. But even though i may not choose to spend time at a beach, I love looking at the sea. A friend of mine i had met while living in Bali last year said to me that the sea washes away all fears and pains and regrets. And that I should try jumping into it time to time and let it heal me. It was an interesting proposition and I could have done with some healing then, but I am not one to jump into water bodies. Not yet at least. I can sit on beaches and chill, with a book. But i find that a social activity - even just chilling and reading your own book on the beach is nicer when you have other people by your side reading theirs. Of course it helps that someone will guard your stuff while you go for a small dip in the water now and then! So i did the next best thing, I walked along the coast from a town called Estoril to a town called Cascais and kept walking until I needed food - which I decided to get in an another town called Torre in what TimeOut said was a restaurant I can not miss - Pateo do Pestico. Turned out to a be a good decision because I spent 2 hours there - eating and drinking a glass of wine (didn't want more since I had walked so far in the heat and was afraid of dehydrating myself) and read my book! I have a shot of my meal below : Pedron peppers is one of my favourite things to eat. The fried fish was so delicately fried - it still had a bite to it. The wine was Portuguese Green wine (Vinho Verde) which is basically red or white wine with a little bit of frizz (and it's much stronger).
I was stuffed after two hours.
Here's a picture of their menu - i wanted to try a lot more food! Such is the travesty of eating by yourself on solo trips!
It was a good day to be out and about, the sun was perfect - not crazy hot, just enough to make that blue in the sea pop!
I really liked this tiny little nook and would've maybe spent a lot of time chilling in those waters had I felt like doing so, but I was being Forrest Gump and walking along.
More sea
There were people all along the coast - even on the rocky parts trying to get away from the beach which is where the crowd was.
One of my best hits in the walk yesterday was this hidden second hand bookstore - also a gem TimeOut told me about, called Deja Lu - I spent some time (and some money) in that store. Reminded me of one of my closest friends - she and I dream of owning something like this one day. Yes, I have many entrepreneurial dreams & all of those will happen, slowly but surely.
I had started to walk back home - really i had. But then my friend messaged saying she was going to be back home late and I should wait up, so i stopped at this gelato place and chilled for a bit more staring at the ocean (pictures below)
The flavours were passionfruit cheesecake and lemon tart. The coffee (being naughty at 8 pm!) was divine and just what I needed!
And the last image of the sea as I veered off to a smaller road off the coast to head home.
I will end this post - which turned out to be about my day out with something I read on Instagram. She is a teacher called Naomi Saelens. She posted about how we are so obsessed in today's times with being more efficient and productive. I feel terrible some days when I think "oh I have not produced enough" or "I could have done more and achieved more or been more efficient". Because I attach my self-worth to being productive and churning out work. This is not to say that we should all be lazy and chill and achieve nothing and be inefficient and slow about stuff. But we do not have to feel like we are running a race, one that we are always losing. Even now, in fact especially now, since I do not have a specific time for work and I do not have to go into an office, it is hard to be inspired and motivate myself to sit to work anyway by 10:00 am max and get stuff done - whether that's reading or writing or teaching or practising or posting on Instagram (which I truly hate) and I do get a lot done and good quality work too. But most nights i go to sleep with an "I haven't done enough today, I could have done more, i have wasted the day" - which is not true. I have been "productive", but it is just never enough for my inner critic - i could have always done more.
Naomi ends with these lines that are similar to what my best friend Adithya says, because I do need to hear it more often:
"So if you need to hear that today : you are not a machine, you are a human being who is worthy right here and now. Your worth is not determined by your work or what you produce. You are so much ore than that and you, as much as anybody else, are deserving of love simply for being you."
Thank You Naomi.
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