When I returned to Portugal, I wrote something like this: There are no words, let alone clean white rooms to describe everything clearly. Nothing has passed yet. Fear will continue and fear separates us. Fear creates distances.

More than three months have passed since this crisis began, however, time, more than ever, has become flexible and strange. We are all in different situations. It's not fair to feel that it's the same for everyone, just because the world has "stopped".

We know the pain of our country up close. We know from near or far the pain of other places. From every single person. We feel and like to repeat that words are insufficient and that it is, more than ever, necessary to be calm.

Many of us wondered what the "end" would be like and it is of immense beauty to observe reunions and people embracing each other, laughing so much. However, tiredness is everywhere. It has not been and is not easy for anyone, however, there are always more positive people, who have done and continue to do things.

This whole side is genuinely good: creating, inventing, and having more time to dream. But everyone, or almost everyone, is still afraid. The fear of holding back hugs and tears, the fear of never seeing someone again. The fear of the future, of the present. And even reliving the past and missing it so much.

We all went through that, or at least almost all of us. When it comes to homesickness we are all the same. We all want "everything to be alright", no matter how polemic it may be, when we all know that for many people it won't be. We feel, at the same time, that this time teaches us so much. It teaches us to forgive, to be closed when we are far away, and, however inconsistent it may be, not to be "afraid" of these reunions.

It teaches us to search, to call, to wait, and to be patient. Even to have to deal with old wounds that seemed to be already healed. Finally, perhaps the most beautiful thing that this time teaches us is to be grateful. To be grateful for the journey made, for the luck that many of us have, and to value courage. An old and fragile courage. "Fragile as the wings of life.

History is made of cycles and it is very hard to think that this has already happened other times, although in a different way. It is very hard to think of all those who are not living this with us and those who have stopped living. It's very hard to think of those who see a future with fewer dreams, if only because the same opportunities don't exist: to feel at home, to have time.

In those places, which exist in every country, where we least think they can exist, time hurts. Wounds are left open and again, that costs a lot. But this is a time that also speaks of hope, of improvisation, and of believing that there are true "more important things in life". It is a time to learn to care or to keep learning. To take care of what we say and what we keep. To take care of the silence. And, once again, to be grateful, always grateful.

Later, after the books, I was lucky enough to be able to read during that time, and so many authors in my head, I wrote like this: When Miguel Torga wrote about the importance of affections, and Manuel Alegre about the fugacity of instants, the fullness of life. When Eugénio de Andrade wrote that it was urgent love.

And we write, today, about the importance of caring. We write, with the immense responsibility of the words. With the awareness of the importance of deserts. We write until the words are worn out between tiredness. And to be, more than ever, urgent:

Keep silence. To take care of silence.