I heard the daughters voice downstairs shortly after waking in haze, knowing I will walk the valley the following day. It sounded like compost. She and her mother talked for some time, I learned later it was roaches fleeing the neighbouring apartment building due to construction, finding their way into our poorly sealed drywall and parquet.

I managed to find sleep further, but struggle to rise before 10, the house is quiet all morning, I would be the only disturbance (save for the 658,236 people outside the balcony door I leave open during the evenings now). I call my parents and don’t eat until later, taking fried eggs cooked in a skillet after broccolini with butter and lemon, I forgot I had no bread; I drink the last of my coffee.

The valley is filled, I hear.

Frustrated, I look out to the observatory upon the other side and wrap my ankle ready for a longer trek towards todays seat. I have no need for a coat now, no descent, and instead don a hat for the sunstone blinding, her drawings radiate on the blue roof.

Any path nearing the valley is nigh impossible to walk, a sickly sludge from the world belly leaks up as the council workers flush it with brine, leaving no traction upon the cobbles. Instead I take the hill higher, almost towards Bica, and then circle back. Up down up down and my foot lets me know her dissent, chewing on my calf. On a street below I see into the beginnings of the crevice. Faintly, the deepest eyes look up at me, or at least in my direction, and I feel the sigh of hot steam flatten my hair. After spitting my prayers I keep moving.

I pass the cafe I lived by for some months the previous year, saying hi to the Brazilian who’s name I cannot recall, and get stopped at the gate into the agricultural university.

“Only students and local residents are allowed through, with the road closures we cant have large industry using these roads, too much noise pollution for the seedlings” the guard says in his rough tongue, only vaguely understood in my rough translation.

I don’t have any proper ID with me but I show him my travel card, with the aforementioned old address I point to, and he lets me in after a quick flashlight through my backpack. He confiscates my lighter as the grass dances in coarse gold and fire risk is exceptionally high. Back at my uncle’s home inland one isn’t able to mow after a certain date in June, fearing the metal will hit a rock and set ablaze. “I don’t even smoke anymore”, I lie, thanking him as he retreats back into the small box. I hear clips playing from his phone at full volume all the way up the main drive.

Old latin buildings and a greenhouse pass me by, some fields I pay little attention to, for my eyes are flicking between the loose gravel I walk and the oil spill bleeding out to the river from the valley wash. This time last year I was on the other side of the city, the edge of old town, and only saw such ritual a few days late, when the currents from the south had carried much of the tide of tincture up towards the shores of northern Europe, leaving only a greyish hue to the already brown caste of Tagus’ runoff.

Though my lower body would disagree, with pain blossoming up my hip by the time I drop my ass on the dirt, the longer walk serves me well today with a cool breeze and vantage of the river mouth. I can just see the feint blue of the chaste sea perched cautious between ink and sky, lip ever so curling as she makes nice with the belly refuse sullying her decor. “Fucking prude” I think, “of anyone, she should hold some respect for the valley drainage, its what made the sea floor while she was just rainclouds!”

But, she has been kind to me, and I am still not greatly familiar with all the old accords and animosities here in Europe, and I still miss my Pacific dearly. There is no need for me to be rude.

I call Elise, who calls me back after she finishes work, who I call back because I didn’t hear my phone. We haven’t spoken in some months, nearly ten, perhaps. I wont bore you with the details but she has been living in a small town near Bremen delivering post and working at a left leaning bar that is closed now for summer which confuses me… She explained that people would rather just drink in their gardens during the warm weather and not have to deal with organising a lift to and from the bar; but its the countryside and I thought you were allowed to drink drive there?

She will move to Hamburg in October to study and needs to tell her work, especially her coworker who she speaks (flirts) with for approximately five hours a day over the phone while they both run deliveries. He lives in a house on his parents property with his girlfriend of eighteen years, never having lived elsewhere – wild to us both, but she says it’s right for him and I say I believe her.

She will move to Hamburg and has never lived in such a big city, I tell her we will call more regularly, wishing to offer my support as a city kid.

Our friend Isa, the reason I am in here in Lisboa, is moving to Barcelona in September.

I fell in love with a Norwegian who was passing through during the hard winter.

I begin to roll down the hill, much to the relief of my body in electric flame vibrations of muscle pain – smacking flesh against brick and cactuses, the massage and acupuncture relieving pressure behind my right eye and allowing my sight to regain stereophonics. Once on flat ground I hobble towards the great gash, knee deep in what is now mostly a salt based solution hosed out by the council. Others have taken suit, beginning to swim and douse themselves in the diluted remnants of the deep earth god stink, washing ailments and laundry. From what I know its mostly superstition that it has healing properties, but it is said to cause no real harm to believers so I begin to lightly kick and glide across while looking up to the bruising sky.

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