Lisbon: In the Shade of an ancient Cedar

The splendid city of Lisbon presents countless wonders to uncover, but there is one exploration that has risen to the top of my agenda:

Finding a specific tree, and below that tree - a place that belonged to my mother's youth!

Many years ago she visited Lisbon with some friends. It was during the heat of summer, and she often told about how one of those friends persuaded the group to climb a steep hill to sit in the shadow of a grand tree. 

Not once, but several times during their weeklong stay. 

As the years went by, my mother kept the many visits as a fond memory, but I never heard the reason why they had to climb that hill. 

Now - years after her death - I have the time in Lisbon to finally find this tree. And perhaps discover  why they returned, again and again, to sit and reflect in its shadow?

The internet can be a good solver of life's puzzles - and I did find an answer in one of its far corners:

When the fabled Portuguese poet and philosopher Fernando Pessoa died in 1935, he left behind some boxes filled to the brim with reams of unpublished writings. And one of these was named 'Lisbon: What the Tourist Should See.'

In this text, which was published years after his death, Pessoa mostly writes about the canonical tourist sites in Lisbon, but he also writes about an ancient cedar tree in Principe Real, whose branches have grown so vast and heavy they rest on a canopy of iron bars.

This tree, being mentioned among the author's descriptions of Lisbon's palaces, statues, and grand churches, gives it a magical, special meaning for the many Pessoa aficionados who live to this day.

A mighty tree, high on a Lisbon hillside, and a friend of my mother's who probably - after reading this book - went on a kind of pilgrimage?

This must be it!

Yesterday, I made my way up the steep, winding streets, retracing the steps that my mother took all those years ago. 

The sun beat down as I climbed higher, just as she had described it.

Finally, the hillcrest in sight, I caught a glimpse of some enormous sprawling branches rising above the street ahead.

 There in Praça do Príncipe Real, I found the magnificent cedar exactly as Pessoa depicted it - its titanic limbs supported by iron bars, its trunk thick as a granite column.

This tree has weathered centuries of Lisbon seasons, and sitting below its heavy boughs, sheltered from the city bustle, I meditated on how little and how much has changed since Pessoa's day. 

The cedar's presence is to this day profoundly calming, almost spiritual, and I guess Pessoa clearly felt the tree's poetic allure, drawing its visitors to pause and reflect, and perhaps even to return - the next day and the day after. 

My mother passed many years ago, and I am now an old man on a very sentimental journey, but here in Príncipe Real's plaza, the cedar was still standing mighty, guarding the recollections of her, and the thousands of others who have stayed in its shade during the centuries.

I sat quietly, at peace beneath it, listening to what faint stories might be whispered in the rustling leaves.

And a PS: 

Some years ago Rita visited the Danish artist Christian Frostholm in his studio, where he talked passionately about a tree he once saw, which was so huge, that they put up a whole library below its canopy. 

Frostholm wrote a book about it, 'This Fine Cedar-Tree', and now Rita immediately recognized it from my photos. 

The Pessoa tree turns out also to be the Frostholm tree, and Rita told me she had to see that tree with her own eyes.

By yet another bit of pure serendipity, she had just the other day found a couple of English-language Pessoa paperbacks in our local bookstore - and is there a better place to start reading Fernando Pessoa than on Praça do Príncipe Real?

It is set for tomorrow!

Like my mother, those many years ago, I have to make another climb up the hill to revisit Lisbon's old cedar tree.

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A tree's shade is worth more than the knowledge of truth, my sons, for a tree's shade is true while it lasts, and the knowledge of truth is false in its very truth. 

The leaves' greenness is worth more, for a right understanding than a great thought, for the leaves' greenness is something you can show others, but you can never show them a great thought.

Fernando Pessoa, The Education of the Stoic: The Only Manuscript of the Baron of Teive