There is a stairway in Bica that I have photographed more than any person I know. It is steep, uneven and lit at seven o’clock by a kind of honey-coloured light that makes even the bins look sentimental.
This month I gave myself a simple assignment: sit on the fourth step for one hour, seven evenings in a row, and write down what I saw. No phone, no headphones, one notebook.
Evening one to three
The first evenings were mostly impatience. I counted trams, noted the neighbour who waters her geraniums at exactly 19:10, and wished I had brought a jacket.
The stairway did not change. I did — slowly, and only because I kept coming back.
Evening four to seven
Then the details started to arrive on their own: the cat that only crosses when the tram bell rings, the way the light climbs the facade one window at a time, the two old men who argue about football in a tone usually reserved for poetry.
Field notes are not about exotic places. They are about staying put long enough for an ordinary place to start talking.
