Saudade

Mango trench
Oak + Fort top (similar)
Zara jeans (similar)
Rouje boots (similar)
Fendi handbag (similar)
RayBan sunglasses
Mejuri earrings (similar)
Location: The Manitoba Legislature – Winnipeg, Manitoba

Saudade 
(n.) a nostalgic longing for something or someone that was loved and then lost, with the knowledge that it or they might never return; “the love that remains.”

Sometimes, there is no word in our own language to describe an emotion or experience. I learned this lesson growing up, attending French immersion school but living the rest of my life in English. Sometimes, the word I wanted in one language seemed only to exist in the other and no matter how I wracked my bain, I couldn’t find a suitable translation.

Neither French nor English has an equivalent of saudade, a uniquely Portuguese word for the love that remains. That’s what I’ve been feeling lately, when it comes right down to it. Love for the life that I used to have, knowing that I may never get that life back again, no matter how many vaccine doses are distributed.

Maybe it’s this movie camera that’s got me feeling saudade. After all, the idea behind getting one was a vision I had for a photoshoot in Athens. I spent some time searching our family archives, also know as my aunt’s house, which used to belong to my grandparents, before eventually digging one up at a local thrift store. (The archives included a pair of lights for an old movie camera, but the camera itself was missing.) But it’s impossible to know when I might be able to take it to Athens. Or to Paris, where I can imagine it equally easily.

…eventually, resigning myself to the idea that there is no guarantee of when I can return to either of the cities I consider home, I took in out for a shoot a few blocks from home. It’s not the same, but at this point, I don’t know what ever will be. I don’t know that any of us does. All we have now is saudade – the love that remains for the lives we knew not so long ago.

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