I spent the first 20 years of my adult life in Philadelphia. Philly is a special place. It’s a city of neighborhoods. The neighborhoods are made of row homes. Living so close has some ups and downs, but the biggest plus by far is that each house has steps outside the front door that lead to the street. In Philly parlance, it’s called “the stoop”. We sit on the stoop. It’s where life happens.
Stoop-sitting. I can’t count the number of nights my best friend and I made plans to grab some ice-cold beers and meet on the stoop – hers or mine depending on our mood. Friends and neighbors, dogs and kids, come and go, chat for hours, late into the soft summer nights. This is the fabric from which I am knit.
It was during my Philly years that I met my husband João. He is Portuguese, and when we decided to move to Lisbon 10 years ago, I imagined taking a coffee at the counter in the morning, an imperial at the kiosk in the afternoon, and all the other small rituals that make daily Portuguese life so lovely.
If I thought about making friends at all after our move, I assumed it would happen easily. You don’t think much about the water when you are already swimming in it. I took the stoop for granted – the ease of the conversations and friendships, if not the cement step that we sat on.
Making new friends as an adult is one of those things that no one talks about. I don’t know why. Maybe so many of our friendships are fully baked by the time we reach mid-life. But there are moments, often caused by some tectonic life shift, where it becomes as necessary as oxygen. Moving to a foreign country is one of those.
During our years in Lisbon, I made friends slowly, one by one. One from Portuguese class. Another, introduced by a friend back home. And still another at a wine tasting. Most of my friends back then were foreigners. The Portuguese were busy with their lives. It’s a small country and people stay close, emotionally and geographically, to their extended families and childhood friends. Their lives are full. Unlike us, they are not actively looking for new friends.
But still, I longed for a friend who really knew me – a friend to laugh with (something else no one tells you – humor is hard to translate!), to share cultural points without having to explain. It was like dating. There were friendships that blossomed, others that faded out. It takes time to create bonds, to build trust. Slowly, it happened – like sewing a quilt, each patch a friend with their own beauty.
Four years ago, during the pandemic, we decided to move full-time to our farm in rural Alentejo. This time, I was prepared. Here, I thought, it would be harder to make friends.
And it was. In the beginning, I cried sometimes after a strange interaction at the store or the post office. My foreignness felt like a sign that I wore around my neck. I wanted to take it off, but I didn’t know how. Instead, I stayed busy with our farm, with work, with friends in Lisbon and the US.
Until the day, two years ago, that my husband came home and told me that he had volunteered me to lead a yoga class in our village after a group hike. I said no. I haven’t taught yoga in more than 20 years. Much less IN PORTUGUESE. He asked again. I refused.
And so it went. Eventually I agreed – with one condition. I would teach in English and my sister-in-law would translate in real time to Portuguese. It was a mess – real time translations of yoga poses don’t exactly flow. But still, 20 women came. They followed my movements, sat quietly through the meditation, and were gracious at the end of class.
That was the beginning. For the past two years, I’ve taught a weekly yoga class at our local community center, open to everyone. I light incense, we close our eyes and begin. There is so much love in that room. I do my best to navigate through words that I don’t know. We laugh. Each class ends with a yoga posture of self-love and then always, always a spontaneous round of applause that still takes my breath away.
After class, we chat about their health, kids, grandkids, village things. It is all such a gift. They are my teachers, as much as I am theirs.
I’m often asked for advice about moving to Portugal. What I’ve found to be true is to focus on the best of the places I’ve called home, and to resist comparison between them. I missed the stoop for so many years without realizing that it goes by other names, in other places, in languages not my own – but that doesn’t make it any less concrete.
By Maureen McDermott Carreira
Maureen McDermott Carreira is a certified coach, teacher and writer. She lives between Lisbon and Estremoz (Alentejo), where she is also a part-time farmer, olive oil maker, and lover of the land. She is the founder of “A Field Guide to Mid-Life” for those of us embracing the second half of life with purpose, humor and joy (come hell or high-water).
https://maureenmcdermottcarreira.substack.com
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