176.  More of less.

Green Heart Hostel, Lisbon.  Wednesday morning.  Quite early.

Yesterday was spent travelling.  Trains, a plane, the Lisbon Metro.  It has sensible Capital M signs at the stations in red, which are lit up at night, acting as guiding beacons to the stranger in town.

My room is small, simple, basic, light.  It has elegant European shutters at the window, and a noisy floor standing fan.  I briefly thought yesterday evening that in future I should look at choosing better hotels but here is actually fine, it serves my needs well, and the point of travel is to embrace different experiences, not to be wrapped in familiar luxury.  Using a communal shower reminds me of Carry On Camping.  I have momentary feelings of uncertainty, loneliness, wanting to be at home again doing familiar things, but I know I would regret not doing more with the time.  So I should travel more, get over that fear of the unknown.  Use travel as inspiration.  It’s the small details that make me feel unsettled. 

Opposite is a hospital, the windows all have outside shutters adjusted to different heights.  Inside are bland rooms with office furniture, people having dull meetings where you have to stay inside a room discussing important things earnestly and respectfully, pretending to take it all seriously.  I’ve concluded that I don’t want that life any more.  As we flew over a mountainous part of Spain, or it may have been Portugal, it’s hard to tell from above the clouds, Harry said that looking at the tiny houses in tiny villages formed in the crevices made us feel insignificant.  I know what he means.  Those people in those meetings don’t know about my existence.  They might dream of other things.  I hope they do or at least have the ability to dream.  Maybe none of them want to be there.

I’m sitting now in the lounge of the hostel, a first floor self service kitchen area with a view overlooking rooftops.  Immediately below is a yard area with a tarpaulin stretched across to form a roof/ceiling.  We ate very nice pizzas under there last evening.  There is a fire escape staircase, which is making me think that my next trip should be to New York.  I’m drinking strong black coffee.  Actually I could visit Rome too, and casually bump into George and feel awkward.

Other travelling people here are exactly what I would expect them to be.  Young healthy men, mostly English, white, middle class, or maybe Australian.  I could adapt to a travelling life.  Last evening there was a man sitting working at one of the tables on a laptop.  Another, an east Asian man was wearing a face mask – not the sort we wore during the plague, a cosmetic skin care one.  He must be a social media influencer.

The next day.  When I get home I’ll try to perpetuate this morning writing routine.  I could sit on the balcony, drink coffee, feel the cool morning air, listen to the day beginning, imagine I’m somewhere else.  I’m going to start on emptying the room when I’m back.

Yesterday we went to lots of places.  We met Harry’s friends Michael and Lucy, took trams, including one which goes up a steep hill.  It’s amazing that the very old trams with mechanical parts and polished wood panels seem to keep on working.  There must be people with the engineering skills to keep them going.  In so many parts of the world they would have been replaced several times by now.  There are remnants of old tracks set into the roads which end suddenly, indicating where routes used to go.  Maybe once there were trams on every single narrow street.  We saw a lunatic jump into the sea, ate at the Time Out market, which is a huge covered street food and drink outlet, a nice capitalist tourist trap, but good food so that’s fine.  Harry saw a lot of donuts.

Later in the evening we ventured up to the top of a hill where a band was playing covers of 70s and 80s easy listening British and American rock hits.  The band was inside the grounds of a large castle hidden by a wall, so we could hear but not see them.  We likened it to Glastonbury, although neither of us have been.

Later still we found a street full of rough bars, tacky gift shops and overt drug dealers.  We know where to go for our cocaine now.  It is odd, there is a broad main thoroughfare called Avenue de Liberace, or some such, full of luxury shops, theatres and hotels, several grand squares, and monumental erections along its route.  In Paris the equivalent is the Champs-Elysees.  London doesn’t have an equivalent at all.  Certainly not Oxford Street, which is a national embarrassment.  Running parallel to Avenue de Liberace, tucked just behind is a more traditional European street, narrow, winding, with tall buildings with balconies and shuttered windows.  Down this street are bars, cafes, tiny shops, launderettes, a Lidl supermarket, drug dealers.  It is odd that two main thoroughfares can run in parallel but be so different.

Friday: the last day.  I feel settled here now.  It is morning.  I’m looking out over the rooftops.  We found several tiny bars in buildings up narrow steps, met seven drug dealers, including one who resembled a London theatre manager we both know.  In fairness I could imagine him being a drug dealer.  It must be something to do with the climate here but the city comes alive in the evening.  Streets are crowded with people.

I think I will do more lone travelling.  As soon as I get home I want to book the next trip.  I like hostels; they are places where life’s natural drifters gather.  Self sufficient, minimal needs, one conditions oneself to live in the moment, appreciate simplicity, banish mental clutter.  The quietness is almost meditative, certainly conducive to writing, thinking in a different way, free of daily chores and distractions, freedom of the mind.  I need more of it.  More of less.