Last update: 16 September, 2017
Saudade is feeling the emptiness left by the distance of the loved one, that flame that burns within us and that will never be extinguished ... the deep wind that rekindles the memory of our homeland or the melancholy that is generated knowing that something or someone may never return to our side.
Saudade is the presence of absence. The desire for someone or something that we remember fondly, but that we know that we will hardly get back into our life. A deep emotional state that mixes sadness with affection, leaving us with a bittersweet feeling, even though we still hold hope.
“Saudade of a brother who lives far away.
Saudade of a waterfall of childhood.
Saudade with the flavor of a fruit now unobtainable.
Saudade of the father who died and the imaginary friend who never existed ...
Saudade of a city.
Saudade of ourselves, when we see that time does not forgive us.
All these saudadas hurt.
But the saudade that hurts the most is that of someone you love "
-Miguel Falabella-
Saudade - a powerful word
No word in Italian is able to enclose the feeling generated by the memory full of affection, but which at the same time hurts. In the Portuguese language this sensation is represented, in fact, by the word saudade.
A mysterious word, loaded with a meaning widely studied by philologists and linguists in an attempt to establish its origin, without however arriving at a shared answer. This is also why it is so complex to define its meaning.
More than a concrete object, this word represents a set of emotions and sensations that extend into the past and also into the present. An essence that Manuel Melo, Portuguese writer, describes as "bem que se padece y mal que se disfruta" (it is good to suffer and bad to rejoice).
Saudade is a deeply emotional word that is certainly difficult to grasp in a single meaning
On the other hand, from a philosophical perspective, Ramón Piñeiro, a Spanish intellectual and politician, described this term as a mood resulting from a feeling of loneliness. In this way, the different forms of solitude derive from as many models of saudade: the one that derives from the circumstances (objective) and that connected to our most intimate life (subjective).
Other explanations link it to the attempt to return to basic security, through the death instinct, or with the sensations connected to one's place of origin. As we can see, there are many different definitions that all flow into the psychological aspect.
Check out the longing
Although saudade is identified as nostalgia or melancholy, its deepest essence goes beyond these meanings. Perceiving it not only makes us suffer, but allows us to acquire awareness of the importance that certain people or specific moments of our life have had for us. Be aware that nothing will be the same as before and the situations we have already lived and shared.
As we have said, this word alludes to the breaking of the waves on the shore of our consciousness. A beating of the sea that allows the absence to make itself a presence, flooding our spirit. It is then that we evoke the eyes with which we will never return to connect, to the skin that we will never again caress and to the characteristic smell of the place where we grew up, the theater of our childhood, while we witness a timid but inexorable fall of the sun to the horizon, which creates shadows. The saudade is the meeting point between the joy of memory and the sadness of absence.
The romantics understood this very well. Because, as the writer Miguel Falabella says, the saudade that hurts the most is linked to the memory of a person we still love. It corresponds to the feeling of emptiness that precedes the awareness of the impossibility of getting back together, but at the same time accepting destiny, remembering how happy we were together while a breeze of sadness caresses our heads. A beautiful, but painful, way of loving.
“The saudade that hurts the most is that of the loved one. Of the skin, the smell, the kisses. Of his presence and his absence "
-Miguel Falabella-
Relieve the bittersweet taste of memory
Saudade hurts, but it is also connected to happiness through its awns, because by perceiving it, we spread what we feel. We go further to remember happiness and feel sadness, knowing that it is impossible to recover the pleasant sensations of the days that were. It's like learning to savor the bittersweet side of memory. The one that integrates its opposite poles and finds a balance that sometimes consoles us ...
"Saudade is the feeling I perceived in writing these verses and that you, reading them, are probably experiencing ..."
-Miguel Falabella-
Definitely, saudade means feeling life with all the pores of our skin and learning to give the right value to everything around us. Every moment, every detail, every person can give birth to this emotional state that places us between pain and happiness.
And you ... when do you get caught by the saudade?
