He wakes up with a slow stretch, lying on top of a tangle of sheets that have been thrown aside during the night. The morning is already half over and the only reason it didn’t get later was because the summer heat didn’t allow us to stay asleep.
Breakfast awaits and fresh fruit juice beckons. But you can wait. Just a little longer. First, you need to wake up in the right way, getting your body to take its first dip in the pool. “Wonderful…” is the sigh exhaled by the majority, after stretching out their wet bodies in the blistering sun. Such a simple pleasure will never be invented.
The beach is also too close, so you don’t want to try a salty swim. From Matinha you can see the blue of the sea, embedded in a landscape cut out between the hills. Kids, surfboards and lunchboxes stuffed into the car. Everything is in place for a full day.
The hours go by, and the desire to return to the cottage begins to creep in. Watching the sun go down on the beach is a beautiful sight, but it’s something you won’t find anywhere else on the Vincentian horizon. When you see the day come to an end, in the lull of Matinha, the experience is different. And it’s unique.
Guests with tanned smiles stroll around the estate at a leisurely pace. As a couple, as a family, or with themselves, some stop here to pick a blooming rose; others stop there to smell a hydrangea. The dogs play between your legs and try to keep up with the calm pace of the walk.
There’s no rush to get anywhere. Ideally, I’d like to stay right here, in this fraction of a moment, where the green of the plants seems to breathe, and where the orange light seems to shine with a gentle warmth that dilutes the shadows.
The promise of nightfall ends slowly. Summer nights never want to stop being children. There are too many stars and cicadas calling to play. The sheets can wait.
And even then, perhaps they’ll be sidelined again, just as they were the night before. That’s the good thing about fruit in summer: There’s enough juice to sip the sweet side of life without getting sick of its taste.
