Dona Ana Beach and a #quote from Fernando Pessoa

Dona Ana Beach in the Algarve and a quote from Fernando Pessoa, (c) Carole Edrich 2015

Last week we stopped off at a service station on the way back to the airport from the trip to the Algarve. I had taken this photo a few hours earlier. While there I found a series of chocolate bars which, instead of huge brand names, displayed one of a selection of quotes along with simple greetings-card type designs. I asked a fellow tea drinker to translate them and she said that one of them was a quote from a famous poem. I’ve got the chocolate bar here and have been trying to find the poem without success. However in looking for it I’ve read quite a bit about Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa.

He was a fascinating and prolific writer who didn’t just use his own name but also over 70 others. Some held some pretty strange views for his times and the approach makes me think of people experimenting with online personae. I can imagine such a man producing the quote I’ve selected to go alongside this picture of the gorgeous Dona Ana Beach in the Algarve; “As we wash our body so we should wash destiny, change life as we change clothes” or in its original form; “Assim como lavamos o corpo devíamos lavar o destino, mudar de vida como mudamos de roupa”.