Saudade

I come from a country with a beautiful word: saudade...

Saudade is a longing for what we lost or what we know will never come but also the joy for what we have and a hope for what will come.

Saudade is also a sadness for being apart from "our loved ones" and at the same time the happiness of having such " loved ones."

At last, saudade has a lot to do with your motherland because it is the sadness of having left it (my country is a country of sailors) together with the joy of knowing we have it with us in our hearts.

So saudade is in itself a mix of contradictions. And being such a strong feeling that my country-fellows and I share proves how contradictory and complicated we are.

But I know we are not the only ones. We exported this feeling to the ends of the earth. In South America and Africa, in Asia and Oceania there are people who know this word and share this feeling... Or this mix of feelings. And we're all happy and sad that we can feel saudade.