A Christmas to Remember

The thing about Christmas is that it repeats, it stays pretty much the same from year to year. With the smell of roasted chestnuts in the air, the promise of smoked ham, and chocolate, and loud boisterous games of cards, my relatives travel from across the country to celebrate a series of short and joyous days as a family. There are some elements of the holiday which remain consistent, be it the gift giving, the large helpings of beer and wine, or the small family tiffs that happen when any dynasty gets together. While there is some comfort to be taken from these regularities, these long standing traditions that make the day special, sometimes it’s good to experience something a little different.

Last night a storm rolled in to the Oklahoma badlands, sweeping with an unseen ferocity across the plains. When I woke up on Christmas Eve I was happy to see a light frosting of snow blanketing my parents property. It is a rare thing indeed to see snow this far south, and rarer still to have it during the holiday. When I stepped outside of the house for the first time, I was taken aback by the extreme bite of the wind—with strong gusts hurling shiny mists of snowflakes around my head. My dad and younger brother took off to the city, promising to meet my older brother, my mom, and I at my aunts house for the party that evening.



As we sat inside, warmed by the Franklin stove, preparing hors d'oeuvre for Christmas dinner, the storm began to pick up, whirling with intensity outside the window. Just after lunchtime, we decided to throw all of the presents into my dad’s four-wheel drive pickup, heading into town before the storm got really bad. Less than five minutes after commencing our journey, we met with an unexpected and rather disappointing failure, with winds raging from the north like a vengeful Norse god. The north-south road into town acted like a wind tunnel hurling blasts of snow past the front of our vehicle, limiting visibility to the front of the car. We headed home to wait it out, only to try again a couple of hours later, and this time getting our vehicle stuck in the snowdrift buildup across the road.



Eventually we headed home, disappointed, wondering if we would ever make it to the Christmas dinner. Before lethargy or depression could set in, we began to receive distress calls from our neighbors who told us of friends who had tried to come in for their own parties, and were stuck freezing in their cars. I looked at my brother with a glint in my eye and he nodded, that stern tightening of the jaw, and we suited up like men on a rescue mission, our hats, gloves, snow suit and snow shovels ready to play.

Out into the cold we headed, winds screaming across the plain at well below zero, trudging deliberately through snow. For what seemed like hours we walked, heading through the valley and out into the flat void of the fields. What little wild life we passed, the deer, birds, and local cows all seemed spooked, like some white ghost had lifted its wings over their home, covering them in a chilled and unforgiving darkness. Eventually, with cheeks turned red from the winds, we made it to the stranded car, which had pile-drived into a snowdrift four feet tall in the middle of the road. The young couple inside, watching us arrive in one-piece snowmobile suits, with snow shovels perched readily above our heads, sat up with mouths agape in surprise. We must have looked like astronauts to them, seeking to make other worldly peace in the blinding snow.



After getting the spooked party out of their truck and out to a neighbors house tucked farther down the road, we headed home. The cold was deep but gratifying, ice crystals hanging off of every branch and blade of grass, creating a crystalline world of reflection. The sun would have blazed itself into a thousand directions were it not blanketed by the falling snow.

When we got home, we found my mother shaken and crying, telling us that the family was going to go ahead and celebrate Christmas with out us, that there was just no way for us to get the truck safely past the snow drifts and into town. This just couldn’t happen, we thought. We hadn’t traveled thousands of miles for nothing to miss the very day and reason for our reunion! So, before you could say nutmeg, a plan was formed. We suited up again, threw the presents into grey plastic totes, backpacks, and large bags and headed out once again into the prairie. Through the dark we walked, over hill and through the wood, to grandmothers they go. A Santa hat was stuffed tightly over my head. We trudged, well past sunset, a long trail blazed behind us of footprints and presents dragged across the snow. Finally, breathing hard and with weary feet, we made it to the other side of the drifts. My dad and uncle stood there smiling, blessedly warm SUV’s at the ready to bring us home.



So it was that we ended up celebrating Christmas with family, warmed by a roaring fire. The storm outside continued to rage, knocking down energy lines and stranding people in their cars. For us, it was a Christmas to remember, and one that if not for the swift planning and good will of others, would never have happened.



To you folks out there, known and unknown, sleeping in your beds. To the orphans, and the butterflies, the mythmakers and matchmakers. To the Michiganders, Oklahomans, and Brazilian blessed be. A merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

This is my dad's video when he took off and drove through the storm.

5 Posts in 1

Well this is it! My first moment free in the last few months!

Next Friday will mark the last day of the summer semester and I can’t begin to express how nice that is. I have been ignoring this blog to a point of extreme child abuse, and am beginning to feel the stomach tightening shame of neglect. It’s as if the collective volume of my blog is rising up, screaming shrill cries of parental disregard late into the night. I’m afraid that despite a seeming lull in inspiration, I simply cannot ignore her any more.

So sorry.

To my credit, this is the porra that has been keeping my busy:

Citizenship, from the dawn of the Greek polity to the formation of the nation-state in the 18th century, has played a major role in the filial, linguistic, and cultural organization of people’s lives. In the days of the small-scale Greek communities, citizenship was seen as a public matter—an obligation deeply connected to one’s every day life. To be truly human, one had to be an active participant in the communal unit, for as Aristotle famously expressed: “To take no part in the running of the community’s affairs is to be either a beast or a god!” In the modern age, communal politics and identity, which was once local and organic, has taken on a global scale. As the world becomes more inter-connected, the lines between citizen and community, nation and its nationals are becoming increasingly distorted. At the center of this deconstruction is the use and adaptation of the national language—the central consolatory power which defines ethnicity, prescribes citizenship, and which feeds the heart of the human polity and its individual and collective consciousness. As these lines become blurred, as one nation becomes coupled to another, and as citizenship becomes increasingly de-territorialized, the adoption of language policies – or planned interventions relating to the use of language – is of particular import for how citizenship and identity may be expressed on the international level. This paper seeks to explore this topic of the world citizen, the process of recognizing oneself in the other, the role of English as a global language, and the possibilities that language policy, at the local level, may hold.

Heady isn’t it? And this is just the abstract so you can only imagine. As much as I like doing research and writing academically stunning, if inane, pieces of intellectual property, there is only so much a man can take.

And so it is, back to the bloggity blog.

First thing of great note and import on this Brazilian journey of mine is that I have graduated!!! A couple of Fridays ago, Vivi and I decided to hit the town with a group of her English students. It was one of those really fun crowds, full of energy, who drink like horses, who are the loudest group in the bar, generously liberal in their jokes, giggles, and smiles. You know, the fun type.





We hit the Rio Vermelho district and sat outside drinking beer late into the morning. Pretty common occurrence by our standards, but what set this particular outing apart was the subtle cultural interaction that happened between her students and myself. To my glee, I have reached a point in my Portuguese that allows me to be my safado, jokester, no public shame kind of self, and it is indeed most liberating. The process of learning a language has been somewhat difficult for me, as I have had to survive being the quiet awkward observant one for too long. I hate this. Truly hate it.

On this particular night, lil’ social Leo came out full storm. Every Bahian joke, slang, and soliloquy that I knew came flowing forth. This was a huge surprise for her students because they had never met a foreigner who could interact with them on such a level (as one of their own). This was accentuated by the fact that I am American, and that there is a real stereotype here that Americans are in a sense, untouchable, if not aloof to cultures unlike their own. So for all of us, it was a breaking down of longstanding and seemingly impenetrable socio-cultural boundaries. And for me, it was a long awaited point of arrival—an affirmation that after two years of brow furrowed concentration, I am truly becoming Brazilian. Thumbs up for that!



During the night, the students gave me a nickname "pombo sujo" or "dirty pigeon" which is a guy that knows all of the bad jokes, slang, and pop culture of Bahia. I loved it, and to my suprise the students made me a certificate of my graduation, making it official!





So as it is, I have been extremely, extremely, stressed and busy trying to get my passport for December. Three months ago, after having bought my plane tickets to come home for Christmas and see the folks, I started the unbelievably bureaucratic process of applying for the document. All I can say is, wtf!

Yeah, um, so Leo, you need to get a voting document. Um yeah, Leo, for that you need to register with the military. For that you need to reschedule for a flag swearing ceremony. After that, you need to get your titular eleitor, for that you need to wait a month, for that you need to get a confirmation of doing that, and then wait for the confirmation to be processed, and after that make an appointment with the Federal Police to turn in your documents, and for that get a confirmation of your place of birth, and for that bribe a representative to make sure that 5 days prior to my travel, the passport is printed in time. Uhhhhhh, breath.

Here I am, with less than a week away from my official travel date, and I still do not have my passport (over three months after bringing the process). Jesus. Really? Can we complicate this any further, just for the sake of fucking over people who need to travel. Can we get a signed and stamped confirmation of the fucking over, in order to prove that the fucking over “might” potentially happen, depending on the weather, and watermark, and level of ……. on that particular day?

Fingers crossed we’ll see what happens.

And wait there’s more.

I have finally finished it. About five months ago, Vivi asked me to design her first tattoo. I am an extremely anal, detailed, and patient tattoo designer, and generally take around six months to develop or perfect a tattoo. Witness Vivi’s phoenix which she will be getting for her birthday.

I received this photo as a reference:



Through countless hours in photo shop, I turned it into this:



You like?

Alright, before I splatter any more of my brains on this page, let me leave you with three ridiculously amazing rock-reggae videos that I found. The first is 311, what I consider one of the shining examples of this little known genera. The following two are from a band called Forfun here in Brazil. This is my absolute favorite genera of music that I am into right now. One day, when I get past this damned masters degree and have some free time, I’d like to form a band and make some music of my own.








Oh Leo, such a dreamer.

I’m out!