A walk by the stream...

It's Friday and I'm stuck inside. The wind is whipping outside my apartment, high on the alto de ondina side of Vila Matos. I love watching the city at night, it's glorious view displayed on the buzzing landscape beneath me. From my new place, I can watch the sea, can glimpse the far north end of Rio Vermelho. The casa de Iemanja is a small speck on the horizon, a tiny dot of worship where Candomble practicioners pay reverance to the sea godess for all of her blessings.

Well, how is Brazil treating me of late? Not too badly I suppose. This place that was once so strange to me, so foreign and vibrant and scary and challenging, has fastly become solid and normal. I have launched myself into space and made Pluto my home, and now, that great blue dot in the sky once known as earth has become far removed and the strange. I dream at night of walking through my woods in Michigan, of feeling the fall weather descend around me, it's brilliant red and yellow greenery now set to flame.

Salvador has begun to get hot again, begun to swirl into a summer mirage of tropical heat. These are the hottest months of the year, where the movement of sweat becomes the constant norm. At school, things are busy as ever. I just finished another intense masters class, and now have a 8-10 page paper to crack away on for the rest of the week. Though my salary is little, I count my work a great blessing after fighting so hard to get a job. My work is, how to put it, simple. I play with kids all day, talk to them about math and science, cut out laminated pieces of paper and take attendance. I consider it, naturally, a bit beneath my abilities, but figure it a means to an end until I can get my degree.

As far as after, that's a whole nother story. As I walk the fields during break and recess, playing soccer with my fifth grade kids, I wonder what will become of my life. Am I to become a highschool teacher, a writer, a guy who never stops running? Am I to line my shelves with trophies, of memories hard won and lands explored. Will I ever step out of this poverty and turn, ever so graciously, into a capitalist?

These things are a swimming, and my head is mess, but I find comfort in the small things in life, the warmth of the sun on my back, the feeling of fresh grass between my toes, and sleep. Life is busy, I am healthy and alive, and I suppose there is little more I should expect. For now, I'll craw into bed and dream of home, dream of my friends, brothers, dogs, and all other living matter that I feel close to. This is it, the stream, and I am wading in.