Reading the signs

Saw a dying bird with a fishing line hanging from its mouth today. Me and my dad were surfing the south coast of Portugal and it just floated past looking… sad. We thought about paddling over and seeing if we could help it out, but we were both too scared that it might bite us, or give us a disease, or struggle and be afraid or whatever. So we just watched it float past between sets.

Not too sure what this means. My dad thinks the worlds a more interesting place if things like that happen for a reason. I agree, but not in a serious way. 

Personally I like to find symbols and metaphors in things. For example in the Algarve (south west corner of Portugal) you see a lot of those big, California style palm trees. I’m not too enthusiastic about canary island date Palms (I found the name on the net), but occasionally around here you see dead ones, they’re just as big and grand, usually with all their leaves intact, but brown instead of green.

In some ways it’s a perfect metaphor for the current state of economical affairs in this country, but the reason I feel so sober and interested as I drive past a canary island date palm on the south coast highway, is because this palm is used as a symbol of wealth and prosperity, and represents a dream. So to see a dead one, especially one standing in front of a decaying, old Portuguese style villa, strikes me as being a dream lost (failed, eradicated). I’ve been trying really hard to keep my own struggling canary island date palm alive, so I guess that’s why it sits with me as being such a powerful image.