“Oh Lord! You too?!” That’s how my little chat with my plants begins – not exactly a great start, but I’m shocked and disappointed. The one I planted last was the first to signal that things weren’t going well, showing brown edges on its leaves, and now it’s busy with a slow, withering death.
Human-plant relationships – complicated, too
“I suppose you don’t feel understood, do you?” I ask its sibling while removing a white bindweed. “And well, you’re right about that … but I don’t suppose it makes much difference, does it?” They’re all rhetorical questions, because plants apparently answer in such a subtle way that I miss it completely. “Why don’t you act a bit more like that pumpkin?” I say, sounding somewhat reproving. “It doesn’t let anything bother it; it just grows through and over everything – reminds me of my ex.”
He, too, would carry on seemingly undisturbed with whatever he was doing, no matter what was happening around him.
That relationship was a mistake. He now has a *real* woman – someone who accepts everything, just waits things out, and talks a lot in the meantime without him listening. That works out fine. Besides, they don’t live in the same house and don’t have small children. That makes a big difference. I wasn’t the right partner: I thought the idea was for him to actually put his talk about emancipation into practice, and I’d get furious when that didn’t happen.
Plenty of talk, but cleaning and doing the dishes was a step too far. He was far too busy watching the Tour de France, making at least six copies of various documents (professional deformation of a lawyer), and other such important matters. Sure, that’s very important – after all, if no one watches the Tour, what’s the point of doing it? – but in the meantime, all sorts of things were piling up: dirty dishes, dust webs, and the like.
We were living in the wake of the third wave of feminism, and you are much more a product of your time than we realize. We like to think we’re unique, but the spirit of the times exerts far more influence than any unique individual cares to admit.
I’m really curious to see how things play out for the younger generation – and how it compares to Portuguese couples.
What are relationships like between Portuguese people, and between Portuguese people and plants?
That last part – the relationship with plants – is rather withering away. Where people used to have a small vegetable patch by the house – filled with bean poles, lettuce plants, and that typical Portuguese collard green (a sibling to our Brussels sprout) – there is now just a lawn with a hole in the middle for a decorative plant. And a small tree.
That’s the front garden. Behind the house, people prefer everything paved over, with a covered BBQ area for outdoor dining and entertaining guests.
There are certainly still people with vegetable gardens, but they tend to belong to the older generation; young people move to the city or abroad, and/or simply don’t have the time for all the work a vegetable garden entails.
The relationship between humans and plants has changed significantly, and so has the relationship between people
Life in Portugal is good, though economically and financially rather complicated. Since long, women worked outside the home, although this practice only gradually became the norm starting in the 1970s. The birth rate has been quite low for decades, despite Portugal being a Catholic country.
I once heard a friend say that his mother told him, later in his life, that she had undergone five abortions. He was an only child. Five! And back then, it wasn’t done neatly in a clinic with sterilized instruments – it was likely done with a knitting needle that had been briefly dipped in alcohol. She didn’t go into detail about it, and naturally, he didn’t ask, but given that he was born in 1956, it is safe to assume the scenario described above.
Domestic violence was only recognized as a criminal offense starting in the year 2000 – just to cite a telling example. The patriarchy persisted for a long time – and I mean that in a legal sense. In everyday society, you don’t notice it all that much, since most Portuguese people are simply very friendly by nature. Portuguese machismo isn’t very “gorilla-like”; it’s more subtle.
It was also a bit of an issue during the C-risis …
Nowadays, I come across young Portuguese couples – new parents – who treat each other very well. It’s not much different from elsewhere, I’d say. Both work, the child (or two) goes to daycare; she gets up early to pick the child up in the afternoon, while he heads to work a bit later to drop the child off. The dishes are done by both of them or by the machine, and the rest of the housework … well, what does it really amount to, anyway?
Statistically speaking, she does earn a bit less, but things have changed so much in the twenty-six years we’ve lived here. Back then, I could go to the bank on the day the state pension was paid out and stand in line, watching the bank clerk use a practiced motion to press the *senhora’s* index finger onto a ready-and-waiting ink pad, and then onto the cheque and the receipt.
I stood there open-mouthed, wondering: What is happening here? The senhoras just kept chatting away; they were completely used to the procedure. It took me a moment to figure it out.
Illiteracy. Instead of using an ‘X’, the bank was prepared in such a way that they would bring out the ink pad on payday. Without any fuss, the problem was solved for everyone.
But that certainly changed quite a bit …
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(Disclaimer: I’m a bit tired of the keyword stuff and Google’s dictatorship. So here they are, and I’m also hoping for the cleverness of AI in this matter that it will still be found and read, but that I don’t have to force myself to use the right terms in the title and headings. #relations #portugueserelations #plants )
We moved here in 2000 from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to the Termas-da-Azenha, Portugal. We started to rebuild one of portugals cultural heirlooms: Termas-da-Azenha, an old spa.You’ll find mosaics and paintings everywhere. Since Covid we rent the houses for a longer period of time, not as holiday houses anymore.
Each week a little blog about what is happening around us. An easy read. A few minutes in another world. A little about what it going on in Portugal. If you plan your holiday to Portugal, it might be a nice preparation.
In the weekend we publish it on Bluesky, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.