tech-naaaah-logy

I'm about to write a rant about technology...

as I am typing on my Loras laptop that is somewhat disposable... because

we use them for two years, complain about them (for valid reasons), and then turn them in.

My words appear on this artificial document screen thingy that 

someone super smart, well a lot of smart people, figured out

how to make wires and numbers and codes turn into this blog spot

post that I am typing, and that you are reading.

I have learned from society, education, Mavis Bacon (Beacon? idk..But remember...?),

and my numerous college papers how to swiftly move my fingers across the small plastic squares,

without looking, to form words and sentences in just a few blinks of the eye. 

And the crazy thing is... that is what is ordinary.

This is what we know, 

and this is what we do.

This is what we are 

supposed to know.

Today, I spent my evening working on some work, homework, 

and miscellaneous things that needed to get done.

Then I realized that hours had passed and afterwards I was consistently checking my 

email, text messages, and word documents to see what else I had to do, or if someone

got back to me on some of the things I was working on.

I stopped when I noticed that I probably checked my email five times in 10 or 15 minutes... and

I'm not even waiting for anything urgent. 

it's just this mentality of always being on top of things, always connected to what

"has" to get done and the tasks before me.. or up ahead.

It's frustrating.

Why is that in order to "take in" a moment we enjoy, we take Snapchats to publish on our stories? 

I mean I do this sometimes... but why??

Why is it that the beauty of life is filtered through my lens of my stinking

Apple phone, which I am so grateful for, but so attached to.

I went a week without a phone. This past week, following the tragic fall of my phone into a deep deep deep (yes, deep) body of water.

It was different. Hard. I got lost driving a few times and had to ask random people for directions.

and it was wonderful.

But I love having a phone.

It's great to communicate with the people that I love.

But... why must it distract me from them too.

ahhhhh.

I'm not too sure what I'm saying, just ranting.

I want to live right here.

Where I am right now.

Moving my fingers across the little plastic squares with shaped lines on them that produce this very thought... 

And while it urks me... it also fills me. 

Because I can sit on my bed,

doing just this,

and you can sit where you are... 

doing just whatever it is that 

you are doing.

And you can read this, because I 

jumbled some words into thoughts

into a blog.... 

that you are reading.

and perhaps thinking.

and perhaps we are all just living.

I think I'm giving myself a headache. 

_michelle

"Dig our toes into the open road.

We go into this great bright morning,

leave the rest of this world behind.

Falling into this great bright morning,

You and I."

figuras avulsa

At the beginning of this adventure, when my friend Allison was visiting from her own study abroad experience in Spain, her and I moseyed into the shop of a man who would become a mentor and friend to me.  Rui owns "Amarelo 28", a tourist shop in Alfama with beautiful local/regional artists' work.  His mission is to showcase the work of Portuguese artists and to bring people together so they can form connections and bonds themselves.

I learned this was his mission only after I had asked him for a favor, that day I met him with Allison, of helping me to find someone with whom I could have some sort of ceramics or tile painting lesson with.  Little did I know this was right up Rui's alley.  A couple of weeks later Rui got back to me with the contact information of a woman he knew who agreed to give me a lesson.  Little did he know that I had already spoke with this same woman in her little shop in Alfama a couple weeks prior and had been politely turned down because her space was so small.

...perks of making a friend who has a tile painter as a "dear friend" who will happily help another friend out.

So the tile painting lesson was in the works.

Later that week Rui and I grabbed lunch, he showed me around Alfama, and then introduced me to Elisabete.  She didn't remember me from the polite, "that's sweet, but no" conversation her and I had, which was a-okay with me.  Afterwards I met back up with Rui, we walked around Lisboa some more, there was a fashion show involved and also another one of his friends selling perfume products there.  That'd be a tangent story though, so I'll just keep on with the tile painting...

This past Thursday I finally had my lesson with Elisabete.  I messaged her in the morning the day of to clarify if we were still on.  It was raining pretty hard and she had mentioned that in April her sister, who she works with, paints outside when it is nice.  This April day was not so nice, but she said we were still a go.  So I went.

I met her in her tiny tiiiiny, sized shop (that is about the size of my bathroom back home) and she took me back outside and to the shop's neighboring apartment.  I believe Elisabete rents this apartment out, she explained the woman "living" there hasn't been back for a year now.  She lives part of the year in London and the other part...well still in London at this rate.  She is in her eighties and the travel is not as easy for her.  So, Elisabete transformed a little corner of the, bordering hoarder-like, apartment into a little studio for our lesson on this calm stirring rainy day.

The lesson began.

I never had a lesson with painting ceramics before, my only experience is those therapeutic crafty events Loras puts on and the occasional childhood birthday party that was thrown at a pottery place.  It's harder than you think...or than I thought.  I like acrylic because you layer and overlap and mix and add texture and get messy and let it become what it will be as your hand is moving and moving slowly but surely and intentionally yet sporadically...

Yea, water color, which is what we use for said tile painting, is not like that.

We plan it out, use rapid brush strokes, and never ever go over it again...ever.  Elisabete reminded me of this more than once, from my own fault.  Hey, this is why I wanted a lesson, so I could learn.

I also learned to embrace those mistakes and not let my instant reaction to "touch it up" get me sweetly scolded in Elisabete's enduring way.  Just roll with it.  The mistake becomes the character of the piece when you let it happen and keep on moving, but when you try and go back and fix it, it becomes the center of the piece and un-ignorable.  This isn't my point, but there is definitely a lesson bigger than my painting skills in there.

We'll see how she turns out, I'm not expecting a masterpiece, but only a reminder.  A reminder of Elisabete, Rui, adventure, embracing mistakes, and the beautiful tiles plastered all over the city that will be my home for two more months.  My mom's little idea she mentioned before I left evolved into a staple memory of my time here.  Now I too have hand painted my own tile, even if it's just to be in solidarity with Elisabete or to more deeply appreciate the tradition (and skill!!) evolving from Portugal's Islamic influences or to now be able to say "hey, that style is called figuras avulsa!" when I see a tile similar to mine or all of the above.

Ciao.

the astral weeks i'll share

Well hello again, sorry for the delay.  You'd be right to assume my absence from the "blog spot" equals me doing well.  I am QUITE well.

Here's a month full of updates in a few pics and a few words...once you're done you probably won't feel like "few" was the right word.  Ha, lo siento (that's not Portuguese by the way).

...and because I enjoy doing this I will first include this song I've been stuck on for a while to pump another one of your senses with the ambiance of Tanner's Lisboa Adventure as you scroll and read...ooooooooo yesss...

...& no, the song's not Portuguese...but pshh what does that even mean anyways?

Loved Van Morrison before I knew that was his name.  Anyways, March included...

...a beach, my swim suit, but only my legs in the water, a game of cards, some friends, a friend of a friend, and a friend of a friend's couple of roommates, and these kiddos playing soccer on the beach.

...a Bones Chapel in Evora, Portgual and this cool German guy we met while there that we'll hopefully see again soon.

        

...flashin' lights lights lights lights...& Spanish music that Portuguese go crazy over, even though they will roll their eyes at the end of the song and say something about how all the Spanish do is clap

...a research internship with my anthropology professor!!!  He's a cool dude.

...a birthday + gourmet cupcakes at a place called "Tease" for a reason, winewinewine, & a not so legal, but DELICIOUS Chinese restaurant. 

...man truckin' across a square with two huge bags full of bread, a sticky situation, and Easter treats my landlord graciously offered all of the residents (including Porto wine! <3).

...Indian food with my Indian friend who says it tasted just like home, drawings of our homes to leave our mark in a cutsie tourist cafe (there's an arrow in there to help), and good ole foot-butt graffiti.

...two Polish nights hosted by a couple of delightful Poles.

...much needed and long awaited pizza & beer, a family reunion that very quickly became a family reunion for me too, and the journey up a...very VERY large incline/hill/"mountain"to the highest point where a king one placed a cross you can see from Palacio da Pena.

...Douro Valley (where the vineyards are!), some great aesthetics, but poor architecture, a very kind man who sold us some traditional sweet treats from the next town over, and a beautiful outdoor Mass in Fatima.    

Fatima deserves an extra sentence for itself-- some people don't understand how we could have spent two nights in Fatima when so many just go for a morning, but it became such a beautiful retreat for Leigha's family and me.  Very refreshing/renewing, especially at halfway through this time abroad.

...AND March also included my first Irish Car Bomb that Leigha's (American) dad had to teach the (Portuguese) bartender how to pour.



That's what I got.  God is good and this life is good.

Ciao.

Tan