The Importance of Making Ceramic Tiles
It's about forming new relationships
Life is Like Portuguese Tiles- They’re intricate, layered, and beautiful!
The first five months that we’ve lived in Setúbal have passed quickly. The progress report? We’re happy, healthy, and comfortable. Daily shopping is becoming a little less adventurous now that we’ve figured out what to buy. Shopping may not seem like such a feat for those who haven’t traveled, but the brand names that we knew in San Diego are not present here, so a lot of our purchases are done by exploratory sampling and the use of Google translates to read food labels. Appliance and electronic shopping? That will be a story for another day.
We feel ourselves getting healthier too. No longer having a car means that we’re walking a lot more. In addition to local shopping that’s just down the street, we make a 4-mile roundtrip on foot to a big shopping center for bigger purchases. We also hike up a hill to our Portuguese language class twice a week. While we usually prefer to walk, Bolt is handy when it’s raining hard or if we have too much to carry back home from shopping.
Figuring out transportation, how to pay our bills, and learning the language are all things that we were prepared for and have figured out, for the most part. What has been more challenging is Portugal’s brand of bureaucracy and our lack of fluency in Portuguese, which makes things a bit challenging. Luckily, we’ve found some local help and new friends who have helped us navigate through the healthcare, real estate, and immigration services.
When you move away to a new country, everything is a new adventure. It’s a healthy mindset to be in awe of differences instead of stressing over them. For us, getting used to a new country and culture has been more of an exploration of self than anything else. I think you learn to question your priorities in life, what inspires you, and what makes you truly happy when you decide to move to another country.
Our Weekly Meetings Continue to Help Us Settle In
Reestablishing ourselves took some energy to develop new daily routines. We’re still adjusting to the restaurant hours, especially since people dine later here. Restaurants aren’t open for dinner until 7 pm. We continue to have our weekly personal business meetings that I wrote about in the first edition of these blogs entitled “The first step of our adventure was the decision to have one.” Essentially, we bring our meeting notebook with us to a coffee shop and review the notes of our previous meeting. We both take turns sharing the personal goals we’re going to work on and the progress we’ve made from the goals we set the week before. Then we plan and discuss our combined concerns and projects. We end each meeting by making a schedule for the upcoming week.
Though all of this sounds rigid and perplexing, it is a simple and flexible agenda. We can focus on specific topics depending on what’s going on in our lives at the moment. For example, we spent a lot of time on the topic of emigrating when we were still in San Diego. I’m convinced that those meetings not only helped us make the move happen but it helped us find a country that suits us.
The reason for bringing up our “business meetings” again is that is also a dedicated time for us to dream out loud, and frankly, sometimes dreams that seem impossible can blossom into possibilities when shared and discussed. Conversely, I wonder how many dreams are lost because time was never set-aside to discuss them. For us, it has almost always been a matter of breaking things down into doable chunks, then methodically peeling back the wrappers of the dream.
I believe that identifying dreams, talking about them, and breaking things down into incremental steps will not only lead you in the right direction, but often, the byproducts along the way will result in wonderful moments. We wanted the experience of living in another country and culture, we wanted to build an international social circle and we wanted new sources of inspiration. I think we’ve found that all here and more.
New Friends
One concern that many people may have about moving away to another country is leaving their friends and family behind and the worry about forming new relationships. It was comforting to us to travel here as a couple. At least we’d have each other, right? But we also knew that we wouldn’t thrive without a circle of new friends. We also knew that forming new friendships doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We learned from a Facebook Setúbal community group that there was a sketching group that I could meet up with and that the city had many events and activities to lure us out into the city. We also attend our Portuguese language class twice a week and have made new friends there too. It’s difficult to make new friends if you’re afraid to leave your comfort zone.
We learned on our visit to Portugal in 2019, how accommodating and friendly the Portuguese people are. For us, friendliness was a very basic consideration we wanted to find in a new home city.
There’s something exciting about not knowing what to expect from day to day and experiencing the sense of wonder that accompanies the taking of adventurous chances. When we wander around the city to explore or run errands, we frequently bump into new acquaintances. Each meeting, even by chance, helps to build friendships. We’re becoming more familiar with our new city too. From the beautiful shore of the Sado river to the old town that is rustic with tiles and cobbled paths, there is so much that calls out to us. And because Setúbal’s streets articulate fairly well, we often choose different routes to walk to get here and there. We want to see everything!
Beyond the matters of emigration, learning the language, and setting up our healthcare, we’re focusing our attention on nurturing our new social lives. Facebook and WhatsApp have proven to be good ways to keep in touch with friends and family back in Southern California, but the best thing we’ve done to make new friends here is to participate in life. In addition to our Portuguese language class, and attending the expat community meet-ups, we also signed up for a tile-making workshop in mid-September.
Tile Making Exhibition
Back in September, Dave found an announcement for a tile-making class. We made our reservations to attend and the three consecutive days of the workshop was written into our meeting notebook. That was almost 4-months ago! The workshop included instruction, prepared tiles, and glazes. Everything was included without any fee, including the firing of the tiles. You might know that glazes look like powdery cake frosting until they’re fired. By the end of the workshop, not only did we end up with three finished tiles, but we also ended up making three new Portuguese friends whom we still meet up with today.
Since the workshop, we’ve gotten together with these creative, friendly young people on several occasions. On December 17th the city put up an exhibition of tiles, plus the ones we made, at the Setúbal School of Hospitality’s Galeria Municipal do Onze. It was a time to be reunited again with our tile-making friends and the class instructors. The icing on the cake, or rather, the glaze on the tiles, was finding how beautifully the organizers had set up the show.
Traditional Portuguese tile designs from Leiveira Azulejos de Azeitão (a local company that still creates handpainted ceramic tiles with traditional methods), were also on display. Several large installation pieces created by one of our tile instructors, Pedro Pires Rodrigues, were also beautiful to see. His work represents a contemporary spin on today’s tile art. His work is fluid, bold, and surprisingly full of spontaneity, knowing that the glazing process is a slow and sometimes tedious process of painting on the liquid glaze that is chalky and doesn’t flow as easily as paint. Pedro was also at the show.
We hadn’t seen our tiles since the last day of the workshop and now they were displayed in a glass showcase in the middle of the exhibit. On the wall near the showcase, was a graphic display of our tiles that were graphically reproduced to illustrate how our tiles would look if there had been enough time to duplicate them. It’s the placement of identical tiles, side-by-side that creates the kaleidoscopic effect that is so prominent on Portuguese walls.
A nice crowd wandered around the gallery. There was a video running on a loop put together by the Leiveria Azuleijos Studio about the tile-making process. Later, there was a lineup of the people responsible for the workshop and exhibit to thank those for making the events possible. They asked the workshop participants to sign their work that was hanging on the wall.
Expected and Unexpected
Since we love to travel, settling here in Portugal would be very convenient for us to explore the rest of Europe, Morrocco, and Africa. I knew we were in store for differences between the US culture and Portugal’s, but I didn’t expect the changes that I’m finding within myself: reestablishing my creative energy, getting over my timidness of wandering out alone and testing out my very limited knowledge of Portuguese. A big and wonderful surprise is how quickly relationships can build here. I eventually realized that our fellow expats are going through the same process of seeking out new friends, being far away from their home countries. It’s been helpful and comforting to have each other as resources about the residency process, and where to find various offices and services.
A bigger surprise is the friendships we’ve made with the local Portuguese people. After all, they’re already in their home country with established relationships and family. They don’t need help assimilating into their own country, but they’re willing to help us. I sense that the Portuguese people that we’ve become friends with have a curiosity about the world and people. Likewise, since we have curiosity about the Portuguese, finding venues where we can meet, has been indispensable. The tile workshop was the perfect meet-up opportunity since we had multiple days together and a common activity to do together.
What has also helped is that our new Portuguese friends all speak English, and they speak it well. I still have to improve my Portuguese speaking skills to the point where it’s not agonizing for my new Portuguese friends to practice with them. I am fortunate to have found a Portuguese language tutor who has also become a good friend.
I expected changes in our lives when we transplanted ourselves from San Diego to Setúbal, Portugal, but the most surprising changes have been those that I have found in myself. Making such a big change in our lives by moving to Portugal sent a message to my brain that this is a time of new beginnings. We followed our plan of jump-starting our social lives and with that plan, I’m watching our new relationships grow.
The newness and rustic historic charm of almost everything that we see here has filled me with inspiration. I’m enjoying sharing our adventures in photos and a monthly blog with friends and family back in Hawaii and California. Dave and I are also taking every opportunity to travel within Portugal and Europe. It won’t be long before I start oil painting again too. There’s another big happening that I haven’t shared with you all yet because… well, I just don’t want to jinx it. But stay tuned. It’s going to happen soon!
I’m pleasantly surprised about how quickly we’ve acclimated to living here. The slower pace of life has opened up more time to think, reflect and create. Although I’ve shared my insights about settling in and building a future here, I’m sure that many of my thoughts are still a bit blurry. There’s a lot to contemplate here and a lot that is difficult to put into words. When I figure things out, I’ll be sharing that too.
I can’t exactly pinpoint why I’ve had a sudden awakening as far as my creativity is concerned. Thankfully, I’ve been jolted out of my comfort zone, and with the new experiences, there is also fresh inspiration. In the future, there will be new experiences, adventures, and observations to share. In the meantime, I’ll just count my blessings knowing that tomorrow I’ll find something new.
Yes! I visited many towns this past summer and knew Setubal was the right place from the moment I arrived. Well, maybe I wasn’t so sure as I walked through the train station neighborhood ;) I’ll return in September to look for an apartment and hope to move after my daughter graduates college in 2024.
Clyde: thank you as always for sharing history; cultural gems of Portugal, and now also your own internal development and awakening. I'm enjoying seeing Europe through your eyes and I so enjoy our chance and planned encounters as we share our seeing and noticing. I look forward to being co-witnesses to our evolving lives.