One of the trickiest things about translating words from other languages is capturing the right nuance. Most things have a literal translation, but there is also a certain skill in capturing the spirit of the words. Some phrases of course, have no real translation into English. They’re the sort of words that you have to experience to really understand.
Saudade, for instance.
Sure, a quick search will tell you that it is the Portuguese word for “a feeling of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia,” but that’s not quite right.
I suppose melancholy comes closest, and there is a healthy teaspoon or two of nostalgia thrown in there. The best way I can find to describe it is the feeling that you now have a missing piece.
It’s more of an ache in your chest, made by loving something or someone that is far from you, or gone.
For example, I still have family living in the Azores, as well as relatives in Canada. I love them so very much, and they love me, but an ocean separates me from some of them and most of North America the rest. The feeling I get when I think of them, so close to my heart, but so far that it is many years between our visits, that is saudade. To be completely cliché, it’s the physical manifestation of the old phrase, “so close and yet so far.”
I am thinking about the nature of saudade a lot lately, because I am about to experience it all over again. I suppose, since I have chosen it as the self-indulgent subject of this week’s column, I am already feeling it.
One of my oldest friends is moving to California in a week.
And I think it will be a fresh start for her, and I am truly happy for her. I’m also proud that she’s striking out on her own and going after what she wants. That’s quite brave.
But I am also a human being, and therefore terribly sad.
Just the other day, it really hit me that this was happening, and suddenly I found myself crying into the kitchen sink as I washed dishes, because I’m sentimental and ridiculous. But we’ve also been friends since we were fourteen.
Some of the saudades I am feeling are in part because this phase of our friendship is over. We’re entering a new one, where we can’t get together at the drop of a hat, and one of us will either have to suffer a trip to Logan or LAX so that we can see each other.
Over the course of our friendship, we’ve gone on some ridiculous and wonderful adventures. We’ve been to New York City half a dozen times, seen rock operas together, toured all kinds of historical places, and have driven over basically all of New England in my car. We have also, by extension, taken many, many meals together. There’s nothing quite so nice as sitting down to something delicious with an old friend. The conversation is either the best, or you don’t even have to talk at all.
For our last meal together, for a little while at least, we went to Cafe Mimo in New Bedford so that she could have some Portuguese food. There are a lot of Portuguese people in California, but she’s headed to Los Angeles, and neither of us is sure how many of our people are there. Portuguese food was the perfect pick, and that’s not just because Cafe Mimo is great.
Portuguese food is a blend of all the cultures that have at one time or another been part of Portugal. There are Mediterranean, Spanish, Middle Eastern, Indian, and North African flavors in our cuisine. You can get acquainted with a good portion of the world on a plate of Portuguese food. It got me thinking about how, though my friend and I are very, VERY different people, much like the strong flavors of a nice Mozambique sauce, we totally make sense together, and the result is something fantastic.
And that’s saudade too: the memory of the meal, long after you’ve mopped up the last bit of sauce with some pão da avó; it was wonderful, but it’s in the past, and you must be contented with remembering how good it was.
But you must also remember that there will be more meals to come, hopefully with someone you consider family seated across the table from you.
Saudade is the melancholy that comes after an ending.
But I would like to leave you this week with another word, one for hope and new beginnings, and more happiness to come:
Otimismo.