Note: With this post, I’m experimenting with a new format: a kind of digital postcard. Shorter, more specifically tied to an image and a momentary experience of place. I hope it will become a recurring series, in addition to the longer letters that I’ve been writing since the beginning of The Ministry of Imagination. Please let me know what you think.

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April 1, 2022

It’s late afternoon and I am hanging around a funicular tram stop at the edge of a park called Jardim de São Pedro de Alcântara in Lisbon. The park is situated on the edge of hilltop neighborhood, Bairro Alto, which affords a sweeping view of the northeastern section of the city and out to the Targus River. But the main attraction at this moment is the graffiti crusted tram car slowly creaking up the street to its terminal stop. I’m leaning over a metal railing, watching the shadows deepen over the tram and its track and the steps that lead up to the avenue. A lisboeta sits on the steps alone, head bowed. A larger head hovers close by, patiently watching with an expression of sad benevolence. Is this a private apparition, conjured out of the reverie of this seated figure? I imagine a host of angels inscribed on the surfaces of the city, soothing our pain, whispering benedictions, like those ethereal beings in Wim Wender’s film “Wings of Desire.”