When Being a [Poor] Woman Means Not Being Able To Be Anything Else

Or how “Pain wears white lace”

Caption from Capicua’s videclip “making Teenage Ana proud”. It’s written “In a country that is safe, but outside of our private homes”

First of all, let me introduce you to the places where I live, and then, we’ll get to the rest, the witches, the fire that burns us, and the crap lives we lead.

Where I live, where I was born, where I grew up, could almost be the same place — and for many who don’t know Portugal, it seems to be.

But it’s not.

Each space has been clearly defined by those who inhabit it. And like any small place, this strict definition is necessary because in each one we find worlds that we believe are distinct.

Small places are common; however, in the belief that they are the center of the universe, they ignore everything else, as if on the horizon there is nothing but mirrors reflecting the same image continuously. No wonder people grow up around here with the same blinders on their eyes.

Let’s begin, then.

I was born in a village in the inland Beira-Alta region of Portugal.

Here, we were almost all very poor, with only a minority of one or another who had the confidence to believe they were better simply because their parents lived in large mansions, which had been inherited long ago by them, or by their parents, or by…