Madeira 🗞️ Slow News Day #29

Hey,

Saturday night, we landed in Funchal. The lights of the south coast twinkled and rose up steeply into the hills. We took our taxi from the airport to Ponta do Sol in sacred silence, marvelling at the steep rise of cliff-faces on our right and the steady drop down to the Atlantic on our left.

I get this feeling sometimes in Cornwall, that I’m on the edge of the world and things are always a little more severe, a little more intense, more vivid. I feel it here. I feel it madly.

That’s one of my favourite things right now: finding that places completely apart from each other can share an essence. Or maybe it’s that they touch some similar essence in me.

There are some challenging questions and issues that come with being in a place like this. My mind is drawn to Cornwall again (another similarity appears), as this whole situation is not so far from the Airbnb-ification of the South West of England.

I get to be in—and ultimately pass through—this beautiful place. Directly and indirectly, I have a knock-on effect on the people who were here before me and will be long after. Costs inflate and housing stocks go down. I contribute positively (I like to think) by using local businesses and services, but I cannot escape the uncomfortable feeling that I’m an interloper and part of a new wave of laptop-wielding colonialists.

I don’t know. I’m hesitant, writing this email. I’m not sure I’ve fully formed my thoughts or opinions yet. I imagine you judging me. I imagine I’m a bad person and I’m afraid to admit it.

And I’m happy I’m here. Madeira is astonishing and I love it.

Nomad life is a constant questioning and it sometimes gets uncomfortable. I don’t have any answers, so the best I can do is speak the questions out loud and see what comes back at me.

Slow down guide

Need a little help moving slower?

Ease your way out of Friday afternoon with this newsletter, a nice cup of something, and a little background music. Steal my setup if you aren't sure where to start.

After I press send, I’m drinking the last of Crankhouse’s Cacatu AA. I wasn’t even sure I could transport coffee across borders, to be honest, but it’s a lovely routine to carry with me. I’m brewing with my new Aeropress Go—it’s the most travel-friendly option I’ve found so far. I like what it’s producing so far, even if it’s taking a few tries to get the technique down.

Tune for the week: Backseat by cameron lane. She sounds like Olivia Rodrigo if she’d grown up on a healthy diet of 00s emo. There are some lovely audio artefacts throughout this track, especially on the first chorus, when the full, grungy sound trips out into a 2D, recorded-over-landline thinness. It’s like a chorus, a bridge, and an ending all in one. I imagine they had a lot of fun producing this song.

Take it easy,