"Red Coastal Event Warning"

Storms, leaks, and finally – some progress

Life at Large

Porto has a bit of a reputation for wet, cold winters. This year has taken that reputation to a new level. Several powerful storms have battered the coastline, including last week’s “Storm Kristin” which left five people dead, more than 500,000 without power, and countless others dealing with property damage due to floods and blowing debris.

In Porto, we were prepared for the worst, but the worst landed south of us. We had strong winds and heavy rain, but nothing like the destruction in Peniche, Nazaré, and beyond.

In our little world, the main issue was another round of leaks in our rented apartment. This time, it was my turn to be jolted awake at 2:00am by smelly, brown water splashing my face and arm as it dripped onto my nightstand.

I woke Michal, and we numbly went through what has become our “usual” procedure when the abandoned apartment above us springs a leak. We do our best to place buckets and towels were we anticipate the water will travel. We cover the bed with a plastic tablecloth – there is nowhere leak-free to move – then we retreat to the spare room for the rest of the night.

On this occasion, something told me to check the bedroom again later. I’m glad I did. The leak had worsened, and one of the buckets was full. The leak over the bed had spread as well; water was pooling in the plastic tablecloth and small waterfalls ran off the bed onto the wood floors. I spent the next few hours sopping up smelly water, wringing out towels, and emptying buckets. Here is “middle of the night, documentary only” footage of one of the leaks that opened up over the bed:

The rain stopped at some point in the night, and a few hours later the leaks slowed, then stopped altogether. We began the long process of cleaning and drying everything. We know it will take weeks for the damp, musty smell of wet walls to fade, even with dehumidifiers running.

In the grand scheme of things, this is a small bump. Many people are dealing with far more severe troubles. Still, it was a relief that in the same week, we were able to complete the home inspection on our new apartment. The little boost of positive anticipation the inspection brought was deeply welcome.

While there were a few things the engineer flagged during his inspection, there were none that would prevent us from moving forward when we’re finally invited to sign the title. The current timeline for that is “by the end of March – hopefully sooner.”

Hopefully sooner. There’s much more rain in the forecast, and I have been sleeping with one eye open, anticipating the next flood. I can confidently say that Michal and I are both eager for a fresh (dry) start, one where leaky ceilings slowly fade into distant memory.

Projects and Events

The last two weeks have been spent largely indoors, with quick trips out for necessities and hopes of dodging the worst of the rain. That has meant, for the most part, it’s been a good time for projects.

I’ve made steady progress revising the chapters of Mom’s story, while Mom and Michal have been tackling finer edits and proofreading. Everything still appears to be on track to have copies in hand when I visit Canada in May.

In the background, our Relocurious project continues to churn along. It’s not yet a year old, but we’ve met so many people – mostly through the podcast, but also through broader conversations about the project.

One of the people we’ve really connected with is Tracey Zhang, our guest on podcast episode S2:E9 “Come Home to Yourself”.

Around the time we recorded that episode, we had several deep and energizing conversations with Tracey. We talked about our personal experiences with arriving in a new country, and the tension between having the time and space to explore our evolving identities and find a new path, and the urgency we felt to “belong”. We committed to continue the conversations – and last week, we did.

This time, the conversation took a new direction. Tracey challenged Michal and me to think more clearly about our intention for the Relocurious project.

She asked, “Is it education, or is it entertainment?”

Huh. I hadn’t thought of it in those terms. Now that I have, I’d say it’s both. People share their personal experiences, along with the advice they’d offer others based on their own journeys. We don’t tend to interview “experts”, per se, who offer checklists or step by step advice.

Across ages and cultures, storytelling has been a way of passing wisdom, history, and big ideas from one generation to the next – education embedded within entertainment.

Tracey’s question sparked a conversation we didn’t realize we needed to have, and we are glad we did. As we plan for the second year of the Relocurious project, we’re intentionally creating space to listen and reflect.

If you have thoughts on what’s been most meaningful to you so far – or what you’d love to see more (or less) of – we’d genuinely love to hear from you. Your perspectives will help shape where we go next.

We’re mapping out a more focused approach for year two—so stay tuned.

Writing

As I mentioned above, I’m in a period of revising Mom’s story. There isn’t really anything new to report on that process, other than that we are making progress.

As with most things, the progress isn’t linear. Some days I have better focus and attention to detail, and the revised chapters I send to Mom for review are fairly clean, other day’s, not so much. One issue that consistently trips me up is the use of British versus North American spellings and terms – is it travelled, or traveled? A pavement or a sidewalk? A yard or a garden?

In the early chapters, this was straightforward. Mom was an English kid growing up in Liverpool in the 1940s and 50s. There are styles guides, articles, books set in that time and place, and, of course, Mom’s own narrative to draw from.

It gets murkier in the later chapters, after Mom moves to Canada. The story is told in the third-person limited point of view, so Mom isn’t the narrator. If she were, we’d naturally use her English terminology for naming things in Canada – pavement rather than sidewalk – but in a third-person POV, the voice becomes an “invisible” narrator, hovering somewhere between places.

The invisible voice has to indicate where a sentence “belongs”. Is it still shaped by England, or has it shifted toward Canada? The questions that come up aren’t strictly about vocabulary or spelling, they also elude to place, identity, and belonging.

Regardless, my choice of vocabulary leads to lively debates. In the end, we will choose words that fit best with Mom’s memories and her sense of connection to events and place. And then, eventually, the book will be done!

Photography

I haven’t been inspired to venture out into the rain to make new photographs over the last few weeks, however, on our way home from dinner, I enjoyed the lights inside this staircase:

A trusty cellphone image of a local building.

The weather isn’t looking very camera-friendly over the next while, but you never know.

Final Thoughts

This time of year is often dark, wet, and full of the anticipation of spring, and this year is no different. While I am very much looking forward to spring, I’m also content with the routines of working on my projects, drinking tea, and doing my best to stay warm and dry.

How do you navigate this time of year? What do you do to keep your spirits up, and your creativity flowing?

Até a próxima,

Kathy