The House I Want

A locked up house where one can play, windows opened, the stone house, a wedding dress, the plants no-one takes care of for months, goats, pigs and horses, rainy days and the pool left unused, the husband who went clandestinely to France, the tree-house to be built, round gates they didn’t let us do, upward mattresses to protect against the dampness, the house build for some 30 years and the unfinished house, the house of our dreams. It’s summertime, the month of August, in Vascões, North of Portugal. Many of the houses of emigrants, empty during the rest of the year, are once more inhabited. We visit six of them, guided by the stories of those who built them.