One year ago, I published my essay, The Grace of Letting Things End, about my bittersweet experience of leaving England in the wake of Brexit for a new life in Portugal.
One year later, my life in Portugal still feels radically new.
Time passes differently in Portugal. I set my intention, from the outset, to embrace this move as an opportunity to slow down and live a more authentic life.
My day-to-day life has irrevocably changed.
I’ve gone from being a livery yard customer in England, with all the drama and conflict this sometimes entailed, to becoming an independent small holder with two horses on my property to care for all by myself. Practically, this has translated into a lot more work, but also a lot more peace.
I’ve also been devoting considerable time and energy into learning Portuguese. My husband and I have been taking classes once or twice a week for nearly a year now and are making slow but steady progress.
But the most deep-seated change has been to my whole relationship to work and life. In the UK, I led a very productivity-centered life, existing from deadline to deadline with barely any time to breathe in between. I often felt too busy and wrapped up in my projects to meet friends for lunch.
For years I have struggled to heal my dysfunctional relationship with time management, embracing lifehack after lifehack. I’ve all but abandoned social media. I’ve done my utmost to milk every single hour of the day in order to become more productive. This pattern led to disillusionment and epic burn out, something more and more women are facing, particularly those who balance the demands of their careers with childcare and other care-taking duties.
Even writers and artists can fall down the hole of the Cult of Productivity, taking the creative process, which is at its essence slow and organic, and trying to force it into an industrial process with regular, reliable yields that are judged on how well they can be monetized. Even the refuge of spirituality can be compromised if it’s just another task on a never-ending to-do list.
Thus, despite my official intention to slow down, I found myself trying doggedly to replicate my old hectic, tunnel-vision working schedule in Portugal only to discover that it just didn’t work here. I hit a brick wall. Because I couldn’t sustain the same level of busyness AND care for two horses AND learn a challenging new language AND keep my initial intention of slowing down and enjoying the life I moved here to experience.
Something had to give. The move to Portugal all but forced me to heal my relationship with time and productivity, to create a life that was sustainable and nurturing. No lifehack could help me anymore, because I’d already given up television. I don’t even watch Netflix.
We hear a lot about the Slow Living Movement, but actually slowing down involves so much more than decluttering your closet or posting pictures of photogenic hipsters in hammocks on Instagram.
Moving to Portugal forced me to slow down. Because life is slow here. It’s no accident that the Slow Food Movement had its birth in Italy, another slow country in southern Europe. Food is also big in Portugal. In fact, I like to joke that LUNCH is the national religion. No matter how busy or important you think you are, the whole world stops for lunch. Shops close. People pour out of offices and go to restaurants for beautiful, affordable meals. Proper, cooked meals, mind you. Not a sandwich or salad to be inhaled at speed. To say you are too busy to meet your friends for lunch in Portugal would be sacrilege. Even in the height of the pandemic when all the restaurants were closed, people went home for lunch and ate with their families.
Any culture that prioritizes good food also prioritizes human relationships. My social life here is unlike anything I’ve experienced anywhere in the world. I’ve met wonderful Portuguese people, such as our local Priestess, Luiza Frazao, as well as new friends from the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Columbia, the Netherlands, Israel, Russia, Germany, Spain, Poland, Hong Kong, and Belgium. My husband and I have made so many friends in our village. We can walk to each other’s houses and invite each other for dinner or go on long walks together. The other foreigners who move to Portugal have made the conscious decision to make time for friendship, not just shove it into a twenty minute “let’s meet for coffee” slot. I haven’t had this much fun since I was a student.
Other things are slow here, too. The post office can be painfully slow. My New Yorker subscription has gone AWOL and I’ve resigned myself to reading the digital version. Plumbers and technicians come when they come. Just when you think they’ve forsaken you, they manifest at your door. But then again neighbors I’ve never met before also show up unexpectedly with gifts of apples for the horses. One day an old man pulled his tractor up in front of our house and presented me with two sapling banana trees.
What I’ve discovered is if I give up any notion of trying to control the clock or manage time, it becomes more expansive. When I’m with my horses or laughing with friends, time disappears and I’m living in an eternal now. The same is true when I’m deep in my writing flow or trying to speak my best Portuguese to thank my neighbor for the banana trees. In a rich and authentic life, there is time for everything.
Life Balance is a feminist issue, because too many women have been brainwashed by the Cult of Productivity for far too long and this has kept too many of us chained to a patriarchal machine that eats us up and spits us out when we’re too broken to go on doing anymore. Let’s rebel and meet our sisters for lunch!
Further reading and listening:
Do Nothing by Celeste Headlee: how to work, live a value-driven life, and also have time for friends and hobbies.
Sacred Time by Christine Valters Paintner: how contemplative practice can heal our relationship with time. Highly recommended!
Mary Sharratt is on a mission to write women back into history. Her acclaimed novel Illuminations, drawn from the dramatic life of Hildegard von Bingen, is published by Mariner. Her new novel Revelations, about the mystical pilgrim Margery Kempe and her friendship with Julian of Norwich, is now available wherever books and ebooks are sold. Visit her website.
feminismandreligion.com 
What a lovely post. Thank you, Mary. More of these reflections would never be too much!
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Thank you so much for reading!
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Dear Mary, let’s have lunch here at my home in Óbidos one of this days!
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That would be lovely!
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Congratulations! it sounds as if you have slowed down and made good friends too…I love the comment about food and relationship – it’s true.
I live in a culture of speed and noise -even here in what is supposed to be country – I can and do slow down – I must in order to keep my sanity…. daily walks in the woods or a kayak ride on the water – rarely driving except to do errands – and then I do them all at once – watching frogs in my pond – being with my animals, watching birds – these things make up my days along with writing…
I find though that I am lonely for something I would call genuine community – still – the way I live my life feels utterly authentic. Faster is a real killer isn’t it?
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Thank you for reading, Sara. Your kayak rides sound lovely!
I hope you find real human community.
And yes, I truly believe that faster is a real killer. The world was getting too fast, so I jumped off. ;)
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Slow living sounds like a good idea. Good for you for doing as much as you do, but doing it (I guess) more slowly.
I still remember the leisurely lunch we had in Anaheim several years ago. It was great to spend that time with you.
Bright blessings to you and lawn-mowing ponies.
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Thank you, Barbara! When you visit Portugal, I’ll take you out to lunch! <3
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I love this essay, Mary. I have been struggling with enjoying summer while editing a novel and suffering from “writer’s guilt” while having the most delicious time with my youngest daughter and family visiting for a week. Enjoying the innocence of toddlers was enchanting and still I had to reign myself in from the “guilt.” I do think, however, that I’m just realizing on this lovely Saturday as I’m back at my desk that I have more tolerance for my “neglect.” I love my life. I am happy. Thank you for affirming all of what’s been banging around in my head. Thank you! Julie Maloney (www.juliemaloney.net)
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Thank you so much for reading! Enjoy those precious moments with your family. I believe a rich life enriches our writing immeasurably.
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My husband and I have lived in a small town in Costa Rica for 22+ years. Here they say “Pura Vida” (Pure Life) to mean that all is well, my health is great…and anything in between. In January 2015, I started a painting series called “52 Divas”. It was to be a Diva a week. Well…my best laid plans came to a halt when my father died. “Pura Vida” kicked in and I decided that I would keep the number 52 and finish the series when I reached that number. I just started Diva #46…in August of 2021!!!! Sometimes you just cannot rush the Muse. Pura Vida!!!!
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Thanks for reading, Jan! I love this and I loved Costa Rica. I visited many years ago and loved it. May you enjoy your Pura Vida and may your paintings flourish! La Vida Pura Diva!
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Another wonderful post! I had a work colleague, Diana Laskin Siegel, who co-edited Ourselves, Growing Older (the later life women’s version of Our Bodies, Our Selves), when I was in my 30s, raising a toddler and working full-time plus, who told me “Women can have it all, we just can’t have it all at the same time…” She said that women of her generation that she knew had a sequence of lives in order to fit it all in in a way that was healthy and fulfilling. As I’ve grown older myself I have seen the value of that – prioritizing what is important at the moment, knowing that there will be time for the other things in life when you are ready. Your post made me think of her!
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Thank you for reading, Carolyn, and for sharing Diana Laskin Siegel’s insights. That reminds of Jean Shinoda Bolen’s reflections on all the various lives a woman lives within one life–all that she embodies at various stages in her life. What I’ve discovered is that I can’t cram every single thing into every single day. I need to take a more expansive view and then there is time for everything.
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“What I’ve discovered is if I give up any notion of trying to control the clock or manage time, it becomes more expansive.” Love this line! Patriarchal time is linear and pushing us into Puritan productivity, at least as I see it. Thanks for reminding us that there are different notions of time and we can grow, be happier, and be more content (and perhaps even more productive – depending on your definitions) when we use different measures time.
In the Hawaiian language there is no past nor future tense. They see time very differently as well.
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Thank you so much for reading, Janet. That’s so fascinating about the Hawaiian language. It would interesting to read a cross-cultural study about different perspectives of time.
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Hmm, I hadn’t heard of the “Cult of Productivity” before, but I’ve dealt with it all my life and now that I’m retired and caring for my mother full-time, I still fall into the trap of feeling that I’m unproductive, and thus a failure. Oh, and add to the mix that I have a rare illness that makes it hard to stand on my feet for very long. The “Cult of Productivity” reminds me of the “Cult of True Womanhood,” another patriarchal trap! I may not be what others would consider productive, but I still often forget to make time for myself. I feel like I rush from appointment to appointment, or get distracted by a million little things. I think I’ll get “Sacred Time.” That sounds like a great book! Thanks for writing this, Mary. It was so nice to learn how you and your husband are settling into your new life in Portugal. Many blessings.
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Thank you so much for reading, Linda. It’s heart-breaking, in my opinion, that our warped notions of creativity do not value or even recognize caregiving! Caring for your mother full-time is a precious gift. What you are contributing is priceless! Treasure yourself and make time for yourself.
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Thank you so much for your kind words, Mary. I do try to take time for myself, but I don’t always do it. I need to make it a priority.
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I love this glimpse into your new life, and the wisdom you share. Thank you, Mary. This is the perfect read before leaving for a meditation retreat in the woods. I will be thinking of this as I wind down, with the intention of bringing more of the stillness back with me.
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Thank you so much for reading, Candace! Have a wonderful retreat! <3
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