A most surprising, curious thing happened early Monday evening: some people showed up at my apartment completely unannounced. Worry not—home invasions have thankfully not arrived in the sun-drenched hills of Lisbon, and there was even a small window of warning in the form of a brief telephone call. “We’re 500 metres away from you and should be ringing the buzzer soon,” the voice declared. Whoever was on the other end of the line must have been moving at the pace of a slow crab walk, because it took them a full twenty minutes to cover that half-kilometre stretch. This leisurely advance provided the household with a remarkably comfortable margin of time to execute a series of frantic domestic triage tasks: shuffling stray magazines out of sight, aggressively fluffing sofa cushions, checking the inventory of the home bar, and critically inspecting the ambient lighting.
As I darted about the apartment executing these hasty preparations, my mind began to wander backward through the decades, searching for a familiar ghost. I tried to recall: when was the last time someone simply came by without days or weeks of careful planning, calendar coordination, and digital invites?
Perhaps if you happen to live in a secluded hilltop village in Piedmont or a cosy, tight-knit town in New Hampshire, this sort of thing happens on a daily basis. In those idyllic settings, tradition dictates that residents must always be ready to welcome, host, and let the course of the day or evening unfold organically. I grew up with these types of spontaneous diversions, taking them as a natural part of the social fabric. In Kitchener, Ontario, circa the second grade, a neighborhood kid named Peter would knock on our back door—never the front, for reasons lost to time—and suggest that we go buy some chewing gum and comic books, or ride our bicycles down to the local park.
A decade later, in early-1980s Ottawa, friends like Susan and Jennifer would call up casually after dinner and invite me over for an impromptu swim and a spirited Duran Duran singalong session in the living room. Fast forward to Notting Hill in the early 1990s, and the revolving door spun even faster: Melanie, Max, Sally, and a host of others would just drop in on a Saturday afternoon or linger through the early hours of a Sunday evening.
Yet, looking back, a melancholic question hangs in the air: why did it all stop? Is this erosion of spontaneity an inevitable byproduct of modern big-city life? Have we become inherently more guarded, intensely private, and protective of our schedules? Or is the culture of the scheduled appointment more of an upper-northern-hemisphere phenomenon, born of chilly climates and rigid work ethics?
Anyway, despite these lingering sociological musings, I was genuinely delighted to head down to the building’s lobby to welcome Henri and Solène, then shepherd them upstairs via the service lift. This routing was chosen not because our gathering was a clandestine operation, mind you, but rather because we are currently waiting patiently for Kone to come up with an inspired, long-term replacement solution for the building’s main elevator.
Once we were comfortably settled in the living room, Solène immediately offered apologies for the sudden intrusion. She explained that they had just finished attending a nearby screening for one of her documentary films around the corner and simply felt an irrepressible urge to seize the moment, swing by to say hello, and catch up on the state of the world. As I set about mixing gin and tonics and pouring wine, while Mats coordinated the snack selection—reminding us all that if you haven’t yet tried Mercadona’s canned jalapeño olives, you are in for a proper treat—the conversation immediately found its rhythm.
Henri offered his characteristically sharp take on the evolving political situation in France and the broader state of affairs across Europe, while Solène was full of eager questions regarding my recent travels to São Paulo. Naturally, the dialogue soon meandered toward the world of cinema, touching upon Solène’s aspirations for yet another Academy Award—she works as a film producer—before looping back to European geopolitics, specifically questioning whether Portugal has the economic and institutional apparatus in place to successfully dodge the structural problems plaguing its continental neighbors. For the record, I found myself taking a somewhat more hopeful stance than Henri, expressing my belief that Portugal has geography, ginga, and highly favorable demographics securely on its side. But, as they say, time will tell.
At some point, as the evening progressed, the conversation naturally drifted away from macroeconomics and toward the micro-details of domestic life, specifically furniture acquisitions and sofa makers, given that the pair have recently taken on new living quarters in another part of town. More gin and tonics were prepared to meet the demands of the hour, and before the night drew to a close, a warm invitation was extended for us to meet their visiting parents later in the week.
Eventually, as our supply of Mercadona snacks dwindled to absolute zero and a childcare provider needed to come off shift, Henri and Solène said their warm goodbyes and disappeared back down through the service lift. What could easily have been a perfectly quiet, predictable evening à deux had miraculously transformed into something lively, entirely off-script, and oddly nostalgic. As we tidied up the living room and finally sat down on the sofa to catch the final episodes of The Gentlemen, I made a quiet resolution with myself: it is high time to welcome more spontaneous appearances back into daily life.
For our loyal subscribers located all the way out in Manila, consider this your official warning: I am about to show up for a little surprise visit, though given the immense distance, rather than having a mere twenty minutes of warning, you will have a full week to prepare. See you soon!
