"The clock talked loud.

I threw it away,

it scared me what it talked."

(Tillie Olsen)

and who's here with me????

"I am, ONLY I am!!!"

Saudades....

A palavra Saudade...

SAUDADE is a Portuguese word for a feeling of longing for something you are fond of, which is gone, but might return in a distant future. It often carries a fatalist tone and a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might really never return.

Saudade is generally considered one of the hardest words to translate. It originated from the Latin word solitate (loneliness, solitude), but with a different meaning. Loneliness in Portuguese is solidão, also with the same word origin. Few other languages in the world have a word with such meaning, making Saudade a distinct mark of Portuguese culture.

In Portuguese, this word serves to describe the feeling of missing someone (or something) you're fond of. For instance, the sentence "Eu sinto muitas saudades tuas" (I feel so much "saudade" of you) directly translates into "I miss you so much". "Eu sinto muito a tua falta" also has the same meaning in English ("falta" and "saudades" both are translated for missing), but it is different in Portuguese. It also relates to feelings of melancholy and fond memories of gone-by days, lost love and a general feeling of unhappiness.

Saudade is different from nostalgia. In nostalgia, one has a mixed happy and sad feeling. A memory of happiness but a sadness for its impossible return and sole existence in the past. Saudade is like nostalgia but with the hope that what is being longed for might return, even if that return is unlikely or so distant in the future to be almost of no consequence to the present. One might make a strong analogy of Nostalgia as a feeling one has for a loved one that has died and saudade as a feeling one has for a loved one that has disappeared. Nostalgia is located in the past and is somewhat conformist while saudades is very present, anguishing, anxious and extends to the future.

Historical origins

Some specialists say that this word has come to life during the Great Portuguese Discoverires, giving meaning to the sadness felt by those who departed in journeys to the unknown seas. Those who stayed behind—mostly women and children—deeply suffered with their absence, and such state has almost become a "Portuguese way of life": the constant feeling of absence, the sadness of something that's missing, the wistful longing for completeness or wholeness and the yearning for presence (as opposed to absence), that is to say, a strong desire to matar saudades (literally, to kill the saudade).In the latter half of the 20th century Saudade has become associated with the feeling of longing for one's homeland, as hundreds of thousands of Portuguese-speaking people left in search of better futures in North America and Northern Europe.

Saudade and Love

Although named by the Portuguese, saudade is a universal feeling related to love. It occurs when two people are in love, but apart from each other. Saudade occurs when we are thinking of a person whom we love and we are happy about having that feeling while we are thinking of that person, but he/she is out of reach, making us sad and we start to feel our heart crushing. The pain and these mixed feelings are named Saudade. It is also used to refer to the feeling of being far from people you do love, e.g., your sister, your father, your grandparents, your friends; it can be applied to places you miss, pets you miss, things you used to do in your childhood, in the past...

"If it's not even easy to explain it's even harder to feel!!!"