Sense in the City

Yesterday (Saturday) I stole precious working time to drive into the empty city centre, principally to make sure I got my heatwave-proof haircut before Senhor António, proprietor of the 'Casablanca' salon (pic.1) also abandons Lisboa for most of the month.
Oh, don't worry anybody, asked him first! You see, I told him I wanted this shot & he readily replied that I - of all people - was entitled to it.
You see, there is someone in a framed photo on the shelf. It has stood there for every client, every hairdresser to see, since I offered to him 15 months ago.
This sweet, intelligent sensitive woman, who was my friend,who made it such a pleasure to have a haircut, wash, scalp-massage AND get wonderful conversations - deep or trivial - was Mila. A true, great Lisboeta. When I went to get my hair cut & hear her update on our last discussion on politics, I walked into something like I'd never experienced anywhere before. No Mila, is she away for Easter? Not quite; Mila had gone away forever. She had died in pain in hospital, 4 days before, aged 32. The atmosphere of real grief among everyone there was palpable, in silence. António became my barber that day. To me, he unloaded, in low voice, his pain, describing what had happened to HIS angel. I had always thought they were related somehow; wrong.But for 11 years, she had been like his daughter. My barber CRIED while cutting my hair! We both talked openly, which makes bonds, doesn't it?
I felt for days, weeks, like I had lost family. I went the next day to London, where I decided what I must do. 3 weeks later, I went in again just to talk.
I had remembered the series of photos I had taken of Mila exactly 1 years before she died. When I asked António if he had any good photos of Mila, he opened a drawer & showed the only ones - 4 poor little instamatic prints shot 10 yrs earlier. My tact made me ask him if he'd like one of my portraits of her, holding her scissors & comb, as I'd suggested she do. He recalled the session 6 for the first time, his face lit up. I was pleased & a few days later, delivered a newly-enlarged print in an envelope,asking only to open it when I'd gone. Next time I went for a cut, there it was. And there it will stay. Every client has looked at it, commented, or asked. I kiss it whenever I go to sit down.

After that, I went across the road into the Gulbenkian garden with the camera. I spoke to these 3. I asked them if they knew why I felt so changed.
All 3 told me the same thing: I am burned out. By work demands; by heat; by change; by the excess of suffering of too many close to me at the same time; by war; by knowledge; by so many burdens;....by being me.

Mila discovered, after 3 miscarriages, that she could not have naturally the one thing she most wanted, for which she was, in all respects, so wonderfully qualified. We would exchange our experiences of loss, including miscarriages. She & her fiancé were close to arranging an adoption, with the help of the Church, of all things! They were shortly to marry. Perhaps the only mercy in her passing was that that did not happen in time, for the baby's sake.