Saramago and the Stones of Blood and Story

Travel is one of the great reminders that grace is without borders. Last evening while fixing supper, I chance met another guest of the University of Lisbon who invited me to attend a ceremony on Saturday commemorating the one year mark of Jose Saramago's death. I was of course thrilled to go and would have otherwise missed the entire event.

Saturday was sunny and fair. Saramago's wife Pilar del Rio(pictured here)  spread his ashes under an olive tree that was brought from Saramago's home town. The olive tree is in a small park plaza outside the Casa dos Bicos that will serve as the Saramago foundation. Pilar moved about the plaza with much grace giving interviews and answering questions. Her dignity was to be much admired.

Later, friends and I visited the Castelo Sao Jorge, and I was struck, as I always am, at the magic of that place. The sense of palpable history. I was still thinking about Saramago, his work, and what it meant to be standing on the walls of the castle, a place alternately occupied since the 6th century by everyone from Celts, Carthiginians, Moors and Portuguese (to list but a few). Literally, the land beneath the stones is soaked with the blood and story of countless generations. I try to listen to those voices with body and soul pressing my palms against the coarse rock warmed by the sun. Stones will not be rushed in telling their tales though, but I did not leave empty-handed. This evening I ran across a quote by Saramago that referenced the birth of Lisboa when the Moors were defeated in 1147 at this very castle. Saramago wrote:

We recall that blood was shed, first on one side, then the other, and that all sides make up the blood that flows in our veins. We, the inheritors of this city, are the descendants of Christians and Moors, of blacks and Jews, of Indians and Orientals, in short, of all races and creeds considered good, along with those that have been called bad. We shall leave to the ironic peace of their tombs those disturbed minds that not so long ago invented a Day of the Race for the Portuguese, and instead reclaim the magnificent mixing, not only of bloods but above all of cultures, that gave Portugal its foundation and has made it last to this day.

And I'll end with a quote from Pilar del Rio, who now resides in Lisboa,: “I want Portugal to become a country of entrepreneurs. Who invent, who create another type of work, another form of communication, a different society, a society that is not based on oil. For people to use their imaginations. If the Portuguese discovered the world, let them now discover others.” 

The link above tells the story of Pilar and Saramago in her own words, and is worth reading.