Saudade

This piece of writing refers to Saudade – a unique untranslatable Portuguese term that typically characterizes both Portuguese people and their state of mind.

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To feel Saudade can be generally understood as to remember a moment, a person, a word or an action that truly touched our inner hearts. When one feels Saudade, our soul is deeply filled with nostalgia, with an everything that becomes, suddenly, a nothing. A nothing, however, that because it still exists in our mind, is, therefore, an everything.

Saudade is, for me personally, remembering, reviving a sensation we once felt, which still resides in our brain and momentaneously returns into our mind; Saudade is to remember that one person who means so much to us, or the impact we had on someone due to something we did. Saudade is watching as a spectator to certain passages of our own lives, exteriorizing ourselves from our own body and soul, solely becoming observers of a certain individual, act or moment, seeing it pass right in front of our eyes, once again.

Saudade means having, simultaneously, a feeling of ephemeral sadness and melancholy, but also peace and full happiness. It is a mixture of emotions that balance and prove to us that we both exist as human beings and are intrinsically alive. One feels Saudade for something or someone who is not there or is no longer there.

I also perceive Saudade as a driving force, which guides one back to a person, a place or a moment, given its value and impact on one's lives. It can be understood as an attempt to feel again, what one had felt, the way it made one feel; it is wanting to feel the affection of someone or something when you don't have it.

Occasionally, I feel Saudade of feeling Saudade when I am away on my thoughts and, motivated by Saudade, I wonder how life would look like if, in a specific moment, I had taken a different path.

To feel Saudade is to look at the blue from the sky and seeing through it; to feel Saudade is to reconnect with the roots, in state or in spirit; to feel Saudade is to be hold in our mother's arms, once again, or the naive sensation of her protection; to feel Saudade is to have a teardrop in the corner of the eye that falls onto the soft face; to feel Saudade is to hear a word or a song, to breathe in a smell, or to see a flower that takes us back in time; to feel Saudade is to find comfort through words.

Saudade is also being sure that one has lived life on the present, such that one desires to experience it over again.

Saudade is to have clarity of what makes you happy.