13 days and counting of living in Portugal (how is it like for us?)

: on coughing my head off, some photos and videos of our life thus far in Portugal, wrapped with a weird poem, and a weirder sketch | HopeMail #140

Weird Poem Ahead

Quietening down your heart,
ceasing striving in action¹,
so that you can hear
yourself
again
is not a waste of time

Come home
Come home

It’s a safe place
here
When you know who you are
again
When you dare to stay with 
living what’s true
now,
in your heart

As I am here,
writing 
what’s true
now,
in my heart

Which is…
I have an overwhelming amount of things
I want to tell you
as I
experience them
Trying to piece them together
Squish them into
A
Neat
Newsletter issue
for this week

But there’s nothing 
neat
about 
Moving to a new country, living a different life
and 
summarising them into
A 
Neat 
Newsletter issue 

So, I surrender
This piece of me
through this 
Untidy
Newsletter issue
for this week.

in plain English…

I have been coughing badly since I arrived in Portugal. Counting from June when I had COVID in Malaysia, I’ve chalked up a month of coughing mileage. 

I’m exhausted physically. 
Mentally, my brain is foggy.

I’m frustrated that I still couldn’t fully resume my work, post-COVID.

I couldn’t do anything with my writing, or my drawing. The two things amongst others, that give life to my soul. 

So, I’m currently feeling out of sorts. Here, and not here.

My sketch is proof.

Cough, cough, cough. Poor girl, she’s coughing her head off. Lemme go and cheer her up [and steal her sandwich at the same time]. 18/24 new drawings for HopeMail

Coughing, be darn. Finally headed out, cough in tow, to somewhere else other than the neighbourhood supermarket. I was thinking, “When will I start sketching again?”, when this cheeky seagull strutted around me, just three steps away. Against my second thoughts of, I’m not in the mood to draw anything—I whipped out my sketchbook and a pen (always, always bring your tools out, even if you think they don’t like you anymore), and captured the moment. 

Other than that, I am well, and so, so happy² (thesaurus needed to replace the elementary “so happy” with a fancy word) to be here in Portugal. 

By God’s favour, we are eating well, making a lot of new friends, and adapting surprisingly well, given that it’s only been 13+days.

Besides the HopeMail newsletter, I’m restarting my personal blog: to document my experiences—through my drawing, painting, writing, photos, and videos of living in and travelling around Portugal. There’ll be more posts once I’m recovered from the cough. Check it out.

That’s all for now, folks. Thanks for reading. Till the next issue on August 5th, I’ll leave you with this from my devotion message of the day:

“When you are afraid to fail, you shun all kinds of risks. If you are not taking risks, you’re not growing.”

You’ve read HopeMail #140. HopeMail is a newsletter on musings and art from chapters of my life. Current chapter: living in Portugal. "Your emails make me smile." ~ says a happy reader. ☺️

1. Not stillness: I wanna run with my work. I wanna draw. I wanna write. I wanna head out. I wanna see things. I wanna capture so many things. I wanna work out. I wanna sleep. I’m so tired. I wanna normalise my routine. I wanna. I wanna. I wanna. 

2. We are happy back in our home country too. But as I’ve said in my previous post, “leaving—doesn’t mean we are leaving for something better. We are leaving for something different.”