“Hello and good-bye.” What else is there to say? Our language is much larger than it needs to be.
Kurt Vonnegut
Jailbird
There is something to be said for a comfortable routine. Back when I was taking community college classes online, I found it very difficult to get any schoolwork done if my now ex-husband was home. I would take my laptop to the local Starbucks and handle business there. This was back when Starbucks was a cozy place designed to encourage lingering about, with comfy chairs, plentiful outlets, and fast-enough wifi. I often joked that if I ever completed my associate degree, I would owe the coffee giant a line on my diploma or at the very least special thanks (thank you Victorville Starbucks).
The coffee is okay. It keeps me awake, and that’s enough most days. What I loved the most was that they always made me feel like Norm on Cheers. Everybody knew my name, and they seemed genuinely happy to see me. And I know it’s a corporate strategy, but I’ll be darned if it doesn’t work like a charm. In an interview with Oprah, Toni Morrison talked about the importance of being demonstrably happy to see her children. It makes a difference. I am still that child. I will do almost anything for people who make me feel like they are happy to see me.
Our professor is not a morning person, so we didn’t have class until the afternoon. In the morning, my roommates and I, in varying combinations, would go to the farmer’s market1, the swimming hole, the regular market, a Loja Chinesa2, or some combination of the above before class. Ponta Delgada is a very walkable town, occasionally steep, but as well laid out as it can be with that topography, I reckon.
I don’t know much Portuguese, but I used my limited lexicon with great enthusiasm. I greeted every person I met on these morning outings with a heartfelt “bom dia!” I felt like Belle in the opening number of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, except these people had no idea who the crazy lady, with the thick American accent, greeting them so ecstatically was. Fortunately, the Portuguese seem to be a very warm and welcoming people, and as said above, we like it when people are happy to see us.
I’ve never been any good at blending in. I was never going to pass for a local, but still, I felt a part of the community. I felt seen at my little pizza place around the corner. I felt camaraderie with the seniors braving the chilly Atlantic waters every morning. I had favorite stalls in the Farmer’s Market. It had become my neighborhood, and I was overjoyed to participate in my new community, even if that was mostly by greeting people like the untrained labrador retriever that I am in the depths of my soul. What a delight to say good morning to someone in a language that is not your own and have them respond in kind as if you belong after all.
I was genuinely happy to see every person I crossed paths with during those first weeks in Portugal. It was such an unlikely miracle that I, the always-broke girl, the living-my-life-like-I’m-in-a-telenovela tragic girl, the always-struggled-with-school girl, was somehow studying abroad, and on this island paradise I hadn’t known had existed just a few months earlier. I was so happy to be there and so happy for these strangers that they could be there, too. Our very existence in that unlikely place was enough to be giddy about. Squee!
Little town, it’s a quiet village
Beauty and the Beast Soundtrack
Every day like the one before
Little town, full of little people
Waking up to say…
Crystal, Clearly 
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