Summer aproaching

It is true. If you come from a warm climate, you will miss the warmth when it´s time for it. And I am sure I was born for hot summers.

I was born in Mozambique´s capital, Maputo, former Lourenzo Marques. It is Africa, it is hot and it is a coastal city. My parents are portuguese, so we went back to Lisbon when the colonies became independent, so I really only got to live in Mozambique the first 3 years of my life. But I am sure something become engraved in me, something to do with the heat, the sun on the dry skin, the long days, the waves of heat showing up in the horizon.

We then moved to Lisbon, not that hot during the summer, but still warm enough (which would be considered hot by lots of people) and still coastal. I do like a type of weather that has 4 seasons, and that´s how I spend most of my life. Four distinguished seasons.

When I lived in England, for nearly 3 years, I missed the heath, the sun burning on our skins. I missed the summer, a proper summer, a summer that changes you from inside out, that changes your skin, your nature, your rhythms. I loved England, but it was not the place for me to live permanentely. Something very essencial in me was missing all of the time.

I am a south person. I need that time of the year in which everything changes drastically, in which I need a minimum of clothes. I don´t even wish for freshness at night, I like warm nights, and I sleep perfectely well in the heathm thank you very much, as long as I don´t have any clothes on.

Last year we (my love and I) went to visit Almeria, shortly. For the ones who don´t know it, it is a coastal area of Spain caracterized by the fact that is has a desertic sort of environment. It is dry, hot and sunny....and I felt strangely at home. I can´t explain it. The dryness of my skin, the heath in the air, the smell, that sensation that the world is slowed down, that everything happens in a sort of maze...I love it.

The oposite thing happens to me when I go up north. I love the north of either Portugal and Spain...it is probably the most stunning part of both countries. But for me, it is always a place to visit. I feel happy to be there, I feel alive, I love it. But I don´t feel as if I arrived home. Even when it´s hot, it´s not what I feel yellow hot, sandy hot. It´s just...hot, sometimes very hot, but not the same.

Now, in Extremadura, I feel the summer aproaching and I know that although I am far from the coast, and I am, in essence, a coastal person, I will still feel at home here. Not as much as if there was sea. But still somehow at home.