back in december last year i found myself alone in the apartment with a few days to kill before flying home for the christmas holidays. julia had left early. and as the calmness settled in, my on-and-off relationship with my camera switched to on. there was an urge to go out and create.

i grab my sony and jump into the car. what follows is a sense of freedom to let my visual curiosity guide the day. i drive down the 30km coastline of costa da caparica towards arrábida. the highway slowly narrows into an ever-winding country road, advertising banners giving way to broccoli-shaped pine trees. i park at the lagoa pequena. bummer, it's closed. i find a hole in the fence and step in. i walk past a fellow trespasser on the other side of the fence. a bird watcher equipped from head to toe, a tele that can probably see into distant galaxies. i glance down at my 24-70mm and have to smile. silent nods are exchanged. a few hundred meters later i realise the park gates are open. at the visitor center the friendly ranger is eager to tell me about all the birds they have. i keep up as best i can with species i'll never tell apart. half an hour later i'm back on the road. turns out most of the birds i shot look no bigger in my photos than an undifferentiated star in the night sky.

i stop at herdade do cabeço da flauta to admire the gathering of puffy pine trees. from there i head down to the lagoon of albufeira, where i capture most of the imagery. the shore is scattered with things the tide gave up on: a jellyfish in the sand, a doll's leg, a stranded motorboat in the lagoon. i stop and look, instead of rushing past. i find myself playing with the camera. i run and stand still. i film and let my gaze wander. i am a dog on its first time at the beach. aimlessly running around, everything at once tugging at my attention, thrilled to the brim. my physical needs fade until hours later. back at the parking spot. it's dark. clothes drenched in sweat. starving. so content.

i'd be lying if i claimed there was any artistic vision or message in putting the footage together. the only thing i knew was that it resonated for reasons i could not explain. months have passed since. i started this blog a few days ago and thought it deserved a spot.

looking back at my 20s today, i can see parallels to the way i lived.  sometimes i feel the urge to run away, to start from scratch, somewhere else. giving in to that feeling has led me to adventures i wouldn't trade for anything. i lived in maastricht, buenos aires, berlin, bujumbura, barcelona and lisbon. i did a full round trip in both berlin and lisbon, leaving each only to come back. i travelled to distant corners of north and south america, east and west africa, asia and the middle east.

yet when the newness and adventure settled, the only thing that had not changed was me. maybe my beard was longer or shorter, but the same things were washed up inside me, still waiting to be looked at. the questions of who i am and why i’m here were the same. only when i started looking at myself could i see it. 

all that running never moved me an inch. the standing still did.