Love, the wren, and the nest

Musing from this liminal space somewhere in between winter and spring: favoring cooking on the woodstove over the gas one, and a kettle always whistling, ready for teas and coffee. Flipping through my garden notes of years past while dreaming of the spring and summer garden, and planting new fruit trees around the house. Putting up our wooden birdhouse for the resident great tits, and observing the steady nest-building carried on by the male wren in our compost toilet (making every toilet trip an ornithologist’s dream) — one of many nests, for his mate to pick her heart’s choosing. Dreaming of warmer days, and noticing the blossoming of native and cultivated daffodils, a sure sign of slowly unfurling spring.

And in the meantime, the wattles have bloomed and started to wilt. And, while in full bloom, yellow and explosive, fluffy and warm, Sam and I did that thing where papers are signed and we commit to being in partnership and flourishing together through life. Even though marriage (as a tradition, institution, or mono-heteropatriarchal concept) is an odd concept to us, and something we said we’d never do, at the same time taking this step to legalize this relationship made sense of some kind. I don’t have a romantic story, proposal narrative, or even argument to share here, but do we really need one?

But wait, hold on a second. Romantic might be a stretch, but there is a story to this story and, go figure, it has everything to do with living on the Land.

I was 18 when I decided, set in stone, to leave the city and move to my grandparents’ village in the mountains, even if just for a couple of years — to cultivate food and tend goats and chop wood and carry water, all that. My grandparents had passed away by then, so the land was still in the family. It just made sense to move there - both for the practicality of not having to purchase a place and also because that was where I already had made many memories. I already knew that landscape, deep in my bones.

Whether I moved out and in by myself or with someone else, it didn’t really matter. My parents sweet-talked me into going to university, as I had always planned to do, before the big move, and thankfully I listened to them.

And this is how, on a January at 20 years old, I found myself during a university holiday, about to graduate from Fine Arts, biking alongside a cold river in Belgium, in the dead of night, in the company of two people I had just met but somehow shared a deep connection with. The river was loud, and the trolleys attached to the rear of our bikes cumbersome and awkward, but we had a clear goal in mind, and that goal was the full, brimming, bursting garbage bins of the closest chain supermarket for some good old dumpster-diving. The type that required actual climbing and diving, because goodness me, those were the biggest garbage bins I’d ever seen, with the most fruitful harvest I’d ever gathered. Take that, late-stage capitalism. Our group back at the squatted farm would feast like kings.

Of course, I would have never been cycling under the full moon that night were it not for having joined the Rhythms of Resistance group back in Lisboa, where I was studying, which fed my soul on so many levels. From protests to squats, transnational meetings, and cross-pollinating with other collectives, this very group led me there. After all, I was hitchhiking through France and Belgium to make it to an activists’ skill-sharing for protest tactics, taking place in that little farm my late-night cycling companions lived in.

And it was shortly after that, as I spent the night in a squat in the middle of Brussels on my way back home, that Sam and I ran into each other. A piano was involved, stories were shared, and I fell completely, utterly, irrevocably in love with this punk who had hitchhiked across the Atlantic ocean (on a sailboat!), had tales to fill a book, and the sweetest eyes I’d laid my own eyes on.

I definitely overstayed my stay. During those few days we spent together, hunkered down in the attic, we realized we had so much in common, including the dream of house-building, food-growing, and animal-tending. Also, I had no manners, so I blatantly asked him "Do you want to come and live with me in an old stone house on the mountains and grow food and maybe grow a family at some point?". To which Sam promptly responded, "Sure, why not?". That’s when I knew — gosh, isn’t he a keeper.

We bid farewell some days later (painfully, but I did have to return to my ceramics finals and my last semester). Sam visited me once in March and easily found his way around the city and its people. But we barely knew each other — I didn't even have a phone at the time, because I refused to have one, so we only communicated via email and quick calls from public cabins — when we met again, in June, this time in my grandparents’ little mountain village, to stay. Me, not even one month fresh out of university with a quick stop on the way up the mountain for a short permaculture course ("and now my education is complete", I proudly declared). Sam, just dropped from Belgium in a car that quickly drove back north, leaving him with a huge backpack, a few cooking pots, and some hand tools.

Love and a cabin, that's what they say, right?

We were so excited. Everything seemed possible. We had barely any savings when we started, but we knew we could make do with little, just like my grandparents, and my great-grandparents, and others before them had done. The village was small, tucked away on a mountain road bend, with 20 inhabitants (counting with us!), all of them over 70 years old. It was such a rich learning experience to be passed down folk knowledge from these elders (all of them who knew me since I was a wee babe) - from goat tending to bread making, from gardening to game meat processing, from old lores to how to chop wood the right way. It was just so exciting to learn so many new skills and experiment with so many new things. We started a garden and ended up moving into my grandparents’ old goat shed, a 16m² stone building which we converted into a home by ourselves. We quickly learned that you can go a very long way with resourcefulness, locally available materials, mutual community support, and time. 

Remember the first year, everyone?

Fast forward eleven years, and here we are now — a child and two nests later, living that same dream we shared on the day we met. Isn’t that something, I remind myself sometimes. It is.

And so, last month, we signed some papers and said some words, and then celebrated at home among the blooming wattles with family, friends, and neighbors the beauty that is love and doing things in the order that feels right to you. It was a potluck kind of party, and there was music, botanical cocktails (and mocktails), our friends’ pizza oven, a bonfire, and even an attempted champagne tower, because why not, even though we only managed to cascade the whole thing to fill two flutes. It’s the intention that counts. The next morning, we woke up to a house full of friends, getting ready for breakfast together, and just felt so incredibly showered with love and care.

How beautiful is love in its many forms. From that between humans, to the trees that signal to each other in a shining example of mutual care, to the wren building a nest for his mate in our toilet, very well knowing she may not even pick that one to lay eggs in.

Life paths may be windy, and odd at worst, creative at best, but if this story has taught us anything it is that following your gut is usually a good idea. You never know where it may lead you.

Lastly! I’ll be going to town in May to facilitate a workshop at my favorite little store. Will I see you on May 17th at Retrosaria Rosa Pomar to weave some lavender wands together?