Egidio and Sofia both has introduced to me a wonderful and sensitive word: saudade.

Wikipedia defines saudade as

an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for a beloved yet absent someone or something. It is a recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events, often elusive, that cause a sense of separation from the exciting, pleasant, or joyous sensations they once caused.

The word Saudade might translate ”longing”, but it holds so much more… and that is what I feel for the place where I grew up. Everything was sold and lost to us when my grandmother died in 1988. The piece of land where my grandparents worked so hard, the fruit trees, the raspberry field, the strawberry fields and all the vegetables. The gravel road leading up to the house – how many times have I walked it? I used to go there every day, before school and after school. Helping them with the picking, and packing the harvest to be sold.

Looking through some old photo albums for this challenge, I found these precious photos that I want to share with you. They are marked with time and were sitting in pressed plastic folders, so the quality is not that good. But they hold so much of my life, my gratefulness and saudade…

This is the house, and grandmother and grandfather picking black currants. They had hundreds of those bushes. I remember every piece of that path around the orchards, and the joy ( and sometimes tough work) of helping my grandparents. My mother and her brothers all helped out during harvest times. After we had finished for the day, we were rewarded with coffee and cake in the garden – and strawberries with creme of course.

Those where times when the sun seemed to shine every day and life was easy being surrounded by loving people. I only wish I had some more photos from when I was a child.

There is also another kind of longing – where we can return to the place we long for, even if we cannot go back to what it was the first time. Because everything changes, and so do we. Sometimes maybe the change is bigger within than in the particular place we are longing for.

The Azores is a place for much saudade. Faial, Flores and Corvo occupy many rooms in my heart.

When we hiked the island of Flores, in 2007, we were looking for the valley with eleven water falls. We could see it from afar, immersed in the lush greenery.

And when we finally reached it, we were all alone and could totally immerse ourselves too. Body and soul.

It was really an otherworldly place. Still today, I think of it as a Paradise.

The island of Faial is renowned, among other things, for its Hydrangea hedges. Instead of fences for the cattle, they have 3-5 meter high hedges.

Finally, the island floating in the sky and sea – Corvo. My heart aches for it.

Now, we are curious about what You are longing for! When you join the challenge and share your saudade, don’t forget to use the “lens-artists” hashtag so we can find your post in the Reader.

Your responses to Ritva’s challenge were wonderful last week. It was what we all needed – Next week, Tina returns with a new challenge. It will go live at noon EST in the USA. Tune in to find out more about the challenge then. Until then, take care and be kind.