Because it is always about MIGHTY Alba ( and her expanding universe! yay!), I’ll acknowledge that I write, and draw, and create for a couple of reasons:
- To somewhat keep her alive, both in the world and in my household, if that makes any sense.
- To get my mind off my grief.
- As an outlet for emotions that, otherwise, would cripple, and crush, and constantly torture me.
At this point, it must be quite obvious that I think about her all the time. Not LITERALLY. I have 3 kids, 3 fish, 2 cats, and 2 dogs…so yeah, I get swept up by the chaos.
Thank goodness for chaos!
Still, she creeps into my mind every day. Normally, multiple times a day. And that’s when SAUDADE hits.
Ya’ know about SAUDADE??
Any native Portuguese speaker will tell you about saudade; its beauty, breathtaking strength, and overwhelming solitude.
Some would translate saudade as the feeling of missing someone or something.
Wrong.
You miss the beach, you miss warm weather when it keeps on snowing in Iowa (sorry, personal flashback), you miss partying, you miss friends, you miss that special pastry from that special place in your hometown, you miss…well…you get the picture.
But not saudade.
Saudade is a longing for someone or something, a yearning. It taps into one’s sense of fulfillment, and refers to one being incomplete. It evokes powerful loving memories, yet is riddled by the melancholy of loss.
Saudade hits you like a wave, pushes down on your chest until you need to stretch out for air. It is beautiful, powerful, cruel.
Saudade is very Brazilian.
Very South American (Latino, if you will) in its essence, its drama, its poetry.
That, my friends, is what MIGHTY Alba is all about.
SAUDADE.
Longing, yearning, incompleteness, loving memories, crushing sense of ‘nevermore,’ aggressive impulse to move on, to honor, to remember, to somewhat patch up the hurt left by saudade itself. It is absence, but so much more since it also involves a strong presence. Makes sense? Nope? Ok. Just repeat…
SAUDADE. (souˈdädə)
And that’s your Portuguese word for today.
Cheers,
