Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps

What is Brazil for me? It began as a dream state, a minuscule grain of sand, imaginative, something hoped for. Brazil was a mental escape, an insatiable hobby, both intellectual and divertive, something to lust over as the harsh northern winters dragged on. It began with my father on a warm summer day, the sound of the cicadas drawing heavily in the Michigan air. I was 13, skinny, a mass of brown hair perched lazily on the top of my head. Perhaps it was the way I sat, the way my body sluggishly moved through the humidity. I was a boy in the throes of summer vacation, without work, with little purpose but to head to the lake, dance away time, eat mulberries and candy bars until my belly was ready to burst, the dark red juice dripping languidly off my chin.

“You need something to do”, my dad said stepping out of his home office. His days were long, busy, the scramble of a man with three kids to feed and too many obligations to fulfill. In the adult world of the 90’s, there was no time off, no care free life spent running amidst the trees, no three month lull in personal responsibilities. He took a drawn out look at me and smiled.

“What’s up Pop”, I said skeptically, looking up at his face with dread.

“My boy, you need something to keep you busy”.

Spit! I thought. Fun times over. I had heard those words before and they could only mean one thing. Dig me a hole yay wide. Mow the lawn. Finish grouting the tile in the basement. Clean up the garage. Actually, they could mean a lot of things, and all of them equally unimaginable.

“I want you to write me a book report”, he said to my surprise, “something on your great-grandfathers book.” He handed me a slim inconspicuous hard back with the words “It Happened in Brazil” on the cover. I’d never seen it before, never passed its off-color gold binding on the family book shelf. As a kid, my days were spent reading fantasy novels, the thick epic kind that Tolkein might enjoy. For me, the real world was drab and mundane affair, a far cry from the swashbuckling poetry that generally occupied my head. It was no wonder that this particular volume – void of witch, or ghost, or goblin – had gone unnoticed.

“What….?! Ahhh come on Pops! You want me to write a book report?” I paused. “But it’s summer!”

His expression remained fixed.

“Your great grandfather wrote this in the 40’s after spending most of his life working as a missionary in Brazil. Read it”, he said, “you might learn something.”

I grabbed the volume out of his hands muttering something about homework underneath my breath. Could be worse. Writing a book report was better than sweating under the hot sun. I took the book back to my room and sat down, flipping gloomily through the first few pages…

And so it was that I experienced my first isolated incident with Brazil, remote as it may be, and a far cry from my current reality.

And here we have a seed waiting to be born.

Perhaps, a novel about these two worlds. A comparison of my great grandfathers quest for souls – the saving of the Catholics – with my own adventure tale. Brazil would loom large, would perch on the precipice of personal experience.

I would make this real for you, and forever for me, and finally check of that burning necessity to write something greater.

Hmmm indeed.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

Beer and Chicken fingers

It’s hot. Too hot. Small beads of sweat are forming on my forehead as the heavy weight of humidity presses in around me. The power has gone off in the school, and the kids sit fidgeting, struggle to complete their science experiments with the air conditioning turned off.

Last night, Vivi and I strolled past the noisy avenues of our Rio Vermelho neighborhood, searching for some place to grab a bite to eat after work. We ducked in and out of busses, lamenting at the accumulated aches and pains of our twelve hour day. How nice it would be to have a car, to escape the purgatory of public transport, to jump in a little Fiat and cruise around the city with the wind whipping through our hair.

With a frosty draft gripped listlessly between my fingers, a light foam mustache glistening on my face, I have begun to appreciate the brief respite of a Thursday night out. Time is short when you work full time, a kind of floating void of space that lives to be filled. Which activities shall I divert my attention to, what shall I do when I finally get home?

On this Thursday, time was chicken fingers smothered in garlic, hot pimenta sauce with some Arabian sides. Vivi sipped on a beer, as I glared lazily into my choppe. When I stop to think (on the rare occasion that I do), it is intimidating to think how fast life can change. Just over a year ago, I had arrived in Salvador with no job, no prospects, no girlfriend, and no Portuguese. My apartment was a cockroach infested dirty little corner of the universe, void of furniture or other complimentary marks of civilization. I was stressed, but free, hungry, but determined, swimming in the desire to find another life. Now, sitting on that stout totem of future earned, my life is much changed. I have a job, career prospects, a girlfriend, and hard won fluency. I have a new apartment full of stuff, blessedly free of rodents, and plenty of material trappings to gather dust on my shelves. Is this the natural way of things, to move from wanderer to a sedentary man—to sling oneself from the void of space to the material matrix of planet and place?

I do not know. I know little for sure with this sweat on my brow. Life remains, concrete or otherwise, a mystery better left unsolved. Strolling down the black and white sidewalks of Portuguese stone, the warm generosity of a woman marching at my side, I remain a butterfly floating through this silly world.