Chapter 40: Emergency Brakes in Cascais Portugal

It all started the day when another alert from the "Home Front Command" mixed in with the annoying "ding" sound of the messenger. Suddenly I didn't know if I should enter a protected space or simply delete my profile from the universe.

I threw away all dating apps a long time ago. I have no patience for plastic "matches." But Messenger remains the last battlefield - legions of mostly married fakes, or just generic profile faces, puzzling messages from people I've never met, and all that static that chokes thought.

Here in Israel, the air has become too thick. It is filled with heart-breaking “clearances” and studio arguments that burn the brain. I found myself staring at the ceiling at night, exhausted from the effort to distinguish between a real message and an Iranian bot trying to bait me into a conversation about “the situation.” I felt like I was living on perpetual “standby,” a copywriter of someone else’s life, while my creativity drowned in a sea of unrelenting tension. The fatigue was total; not a fatigue of the soul that sleep can relieve, but one that only the ocean can wash away.

"Enough," I said to myself as I closed another campaign at work, feeling like I was the one who needed an emergency brake. I decided to become a digital nomad with Pazm. I dug through maps, dug through blogs, and locked myself on

I'm going to write. No more slogans for sale - I'm going to realize my lifelong dream, to be an adventurous writer amidst a setting of white sidewalks and the liquid gold of sunsets.

And the sea there... The sea in Cascais is not our sleepy Mediterranean. It is an ocean. It is lyrical, wild, and breathes to the rhythm of a giant whale. The water there is painted a deep blue, almost inky, and when it breaks against the cliffs it turns into white foam and lace that scatters in the wind. The light at sunset is not just yellow, it is liquid gold that is absorbed into the walls of the white houses, and the smell of salt mixes with the aroma of ancient pines. It is a sea that reminds you of how small you are, and precisely because of that it gives you permission to simply be.

I can already see myself sitting in the Old City Square, with the air smelling like salt and fresh coffee, and all my Tel Aviv cynicism crumbling.

Manuel will be there, the guardian of my lost time. He’ll be sitting in a light blue linen shirt, reading glasses dangling from a golden chain, and I will approach him in my Portuguese - the one I’ve kept tucked away for years like a secret weapon for doomsday. When he raises his eyes to meet mine, I’ll feel my frantic Israeli pace come to a halt against his silence. He’ll tell me about the Cascais of old, back when kings lived here in exile, and he’ll describe the lace on women's dresses in a broken, yet rich, Portuguese. He will be my teacher of stillness. He’ll speak of exiled kings, and I’ll think to myself how in my country, the kings spend their time shouting at passersby; but here, before him, history isn't just a wound—it’s a beautiful nostalgia you can wrap yourself in. "Your pulse is too fast," he’ll tell me with a gentle reprimand, "in Portugal, words need time to ripen, like wine." He’ll say it, and I’ll make a note to myself: Learn from Manuel how to breathe before every comma.

At Boca do Inferno, "Hell’s Mouth," I’ll meet Manuel’s polar opposite - Tiago. He’ll be standing there barefoot with an old surfboard, his hair turned pale by the sun and salt as if he were formed from the ocean foam itself. He’ll laugh when he sees me lugging my laptop against the power of the tide. "Words aren't captured inside a machine that needs a charger," he’ll say, "you let them soak you." I’ll look at the crinkles of his smile and think of all the years I spent trying to "manage" media, while life was happening outside, waiting for me to simply be. Tiago will be my light romance, the man who teaches me that my body is more than just a vessel for carrying my worried head.

And suddenly, within this serenity, Ricardo from Rio will appear. I haven't seen him in years, not since the last time I was in Portugal, young and restless. He’s still there in Lisbon, a tour guide with a yellow tuk-tuk and an endless rhythm to his life. He’ll hear I’m in Cascais and arrive in a wild dash in his tuk-tuk, just to break his own exhausting routine. We’ll sit on the pier; he’ll take off his sunglasses and flash a smile full of Saudade—that famous Portuguese longing. "Querida," he’ll say, "my tuk-tuk has been circling the same alleys for a decade, but you? You look like you’ve found a brand new alley inside your heart." Meeting him will be my bridge between the past and the present, a reminder that time passes, but human connection remains immune to any fake news.

But the true silence will come on the morning I hear a far-too-familiar sigh in a café overlooking the marina. It will be Itai. He’ll be 62, with wise eyes and a laptop covered in stickers of tech companies that were delisted from the stock exchange long ago. We’ll look at each other and understand everything; both of us refugees of the same madness. With him, I won’t have to explain why I jump at the sound of a motorcycle. He’ll be my "home" in exile, but a quiet home, without the white noise. We’ll sit for hours and write together at opposite ends of the table, and between one paragraph and the next, we’ll talk about the lives we had, and how we traveled to the edge of the continent just to finally feel alive. With him, it will be a mature romance—two people relearning how to fall in love with the morning, without Messenger, without exhausting messages, and without fakes.

When I get stuck on the third chapter, I’ll head to Maria’s gallery. She’ll be standing there wrapped in silk scarves, her voice raspy from cigarettes, telling me that in Israel I learned how to fear death, but here I must learn how to fear life—because it is so beautiful it might break me. She’ll be my mirror, the woman who forces me to close the glowing rectangle of my laptop and go smell the fish in the market. Because a writer doesn't "work"; a writer must go out and breathe life instead of just documenting it.

So here I am, Cascais, I come!

To the cobblestone sidewalks, to Manuel and Thiago, to Ricardo and his tuk-tuk, to Itay who would wait for me at sunset. And to Maria when I needed strength.

Israel, take care of yourself. I'm going to seek the peace between the waves.

Cascais, get dressed and prepare the wine - the writer has arrived, and she just put her messenger into "airplane mode" permanently.

Chapter 40: Emergency Brakes in Cascais Portugal