Same same— but different

It’s been over 3 years since I took that first nomadic step, since I first touched down in Lisboa, since I first came to samesame— but the deepest connections I made in those first two months are still alive, though not as deeply.

I remember standing outside on Rua da Madalena with my two backpacks and that old battered suitcase, looking up at the glass door entrance to the apartment building towering 5 storeys above me, waiting for someone to come find me. I remember Roya, sweet Roya, greeting me and showing me up to my studio on the top floor— she pushed me and my bags into an elevator the size of a broom closet and then squeezed in with me: our proximity was disconcerting but she didn’t seem bothered by it and happily chatted with me in heavily accented English on the ride up. I was vastly unfamiliar with various European accents and to this day I still don’t know where she is from. She showed me into my apartment and then left me to get settled— it was lovely, with plenty of natural lighting and windows opening onto views of the terracotta roofs of the distant terraces of the city all around. More space than I’d ever had to myself outside of that one Cambridge apartment I sublet during lockdown.

I was suddenly excited. Up until that moment, I hadn’t felt much more than…oh how did I describe it before? That pale anxiety of travel and the rush of arrival. But now I was here, I was here, and I was excited.

Those two months at samesame were honestly wonderful— I can compare it only to when I first moved into a dormitory 11 years prior and began my undergraduate university experience. I spent my days working at cafes until the late evening (I began around 10-11am) whereupon I would return to samesame and ascend the steep stone staircase to In Situ, the terraced community bar and dining area, and pass away the dying light in the company of a dozen transients from around the world sharing and listening to our stories. I quickly grew close to the family that owned the place: Gonçalo, Maria, & Antonio, cousins and siblings whose parents had gifted them with the building after they finished school and essentially said, “Do something with it.” They all wanted to travel but suddenly they were burdened with owning this building; one day Gonçalo had the idea to bring the travel to them, and together with their close friends, Pipa and Zala, they began to grow the seed of samesame— the closest thing to a wayside inn I’ve ever encountered.

Tuesday evenings we would all gather for a community meal, cooked usually by Antonio (a fantastic chef) but sometimes a few of the residents would band together and cook for us all. Thursday nights In Situ would host live jazz concerts by local musicians and open to the public; this quickly became my favorite night of the week— the musicians were always on point and I loved the energy that would flow through the space. And then on Saturday nights, there would be music of a wider variety: sometimes traveling performers, sometimes larger bands, sometimes DJ sound sessions. Throughout the week and sometimes on the weekends, little groups of us would gather for some purpose: to try out a new restaurant or bar or cafe, to go see a site together, to go hiking.

I loved living there, then. I’ve returned several times since that first adventure, and each time it remains true to name: same same— but different. In fact I am living there right now, for the fifth time in three years. But, as I was to discover time and again, the magic of a moment can never be recovered, and I’ve never felt quite as at home here as I did that first time. I have a feeling that once I leave, it will be a long while before I return.

Chasing Summer

That first experience at samesame defined my standards of community living, and when it was time for me to leave and head to London, I was dead-set on finding ‘a London samesame’. I quickly discovered that coliving was an ill-defined term growing in popularity and being applied to all sorts of living situations, from a typical ‘living with roommates’ situation to living in an apartment building with a shared fitness area. I was not pleased, and I made a bad first choice. Within a month I was searching for a new place, and thankfully my second choice turned out far better. Mason & Fifth became my London samesame, though they are nothing alike; and despite living there for nearly two of the last three years, with another lease on the horizon, I’ve never felt very much at home there. But I attribute that mostly to London itself, rather than anything particular to M&F.

London. I did not enjoy my first six months of London back in 2019— blue skies and friendship were a deep and distant dream. This next time, however, was a different story: I came with a different attitude, armed with whatever I might have learned from my first experience. My flat was located just south of central London, in Bermondsey not far from London Bridge Station. I quickly grew quite fond of my new neighborhood, and there was a bus that would take me almost directly to where Summer was living up in Russell Square within 30 minutes. And despite having the same complaints about living in London I managed to enjoy myself a decent amount, enough that I decided I’d come back to the same place when I next returned.

At this point I was four months into my orbit— fast-forward to the end of that first year, and on average I’d moved to another country every month (not new countries, just different from wherever I was). Not visited— moved. As in, without intent to return to the place I was leaving. And that trend was fated to continue another year: Portugal, the UK, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the USA, Costa Rica, Argentina, South Korea, China….

By the time Summer graduated, I was tired; and soon after, I lost my job and started this blog. I moved back in with Summer for a few months until I found a new job. Summer decided to start a company with some of her graduate cohort; I ran out of my ‘London allowance’ and went back to Hawai’i alone, to rest and evaluate my next move.

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