Category Archives: brasil

by

…babe…

It’s March 9th…2005

We’re at the aeroporto… we cling to eachother like frightened
children…. or frightened old people…..
we’re too quiet to be children…

I can only hold onto him, hold his hands, touch his borders,
until the very last minute, knowing full well that time just keeps
moving on, and soon all this will be gone…the now of now
will soon be the now of the future, evaporated
but for foggy memories.

He sits beside me, and we are quiet together, our last moments
before the long distance once again pulls us to someplace else.
I lay my head against his maleness, holding to his arm,
head on his shoulder, my hands absorbing all I can of him.
He feels solid, grounded, calm, sad and resolved.
He says nothing… there is nothing to say.

I cannot hold the tears that fall down my face, and onto our
mutual hands…… and he looks long at me…

“Oh…I think thees separation ees going to be harder on
you than me…..”
He trails off …… I hold tight.

He takes my journal, borrows my pen, and writes
one last message to take home …

I remember turning to him for one last look, after I walked away,
before I moved into customs, and readied myself for the long trip home…

I may not see his face again for a long time… and for all that life offers..
….and for the way he is… it could be never.

The old panic buttons send their blaring sirens off into my nervous
system, for the so-many-times he’d left before, all of it coming up
like a slide show carousel on the dark wall of my brainscape.

I remember boarding the plane, and asking the assistant to please
bring me some kleenex…
“I am leaving my fiancee,” I tell her…” and I know I’m going to cry…”

And I did.  I cried as the wheels left the runway, as the plane banked
for the last time over that city, over that bay, and away from that
magical place…my magical place…..until I could no longer see
that city, that bay, that coastline, or Brasil at all.

And then I wiped my eyes, sat up a bit, pulled out my book and
began the long journey home.

 

 

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…i’m leaving babe…

Journal, March 8, 2005…..leaving Rio tomorrow.

“She tried without success to see beyond.  To find the path leading
to the future, to their future.  But all was dark, cloudy, full of foggy
mist, tiny lights flitting in when she least expected it.
Lights leading to hope, hopes of a life constructed of dream upon
dream, until it walked in and bit her.  Knocked her in the head
with its head.

That’s what he used to do to introduce himself to someone new,
when he was young… and a few passed out.  She hadn’t passed out,
but Lordy, he surely took her breath away.

She remembered her darling Carrie, who in the last episode
(Sex and the City), had said something wonderful, something so
her feelings…
“I believe in Love, inconvenient, all encompassing, can’t live
without it Love”

And now she’d found it, dreamed it, created it, and it completely
overwhelmed her.  It’s power, the knowledge that no other man
could ever again walk into her life and possess her the way he did…
this one man.
He was the love of her life truly, and the swept away feet off the
ground, the heart over head of it creating waves of pure emotion
without name.   And he had made it clear that it was mutual.

It was completely new territory, another universe, their own world.
.. Wasn’t that what he had said in that first poem….

“Meet me in a timeless world where we can be ourselves.
Where we are who we are..where I can be a true man who’s capable
to love a real woman, without limitations, without lies…
Free to become the most of our possibilities…”…”

 

The Present, May 2012… the story continues…

Reading this journal entry now makes me very sad…
sad for that girl there, the one with such overwhelming mind
stopping emotion and connection with this man.

At the same time, I feel such sadness at having lost it, for I do
love being in love, no matter how impossible it may be.
I believe in it.

The connection between us was real, and still is real.
I know it…he knows it.
He may have tried to move on, but the indelible sting of the
connection between us does not wash away, no matter the effort,
no matter the turning away, no matter what kind of elements you
may try to use, to dissolve away the stain.
Love is like grapejuice stains on the heart…

It’s something in this lifetime that doesn’t get to play out here,
on this particular plane of existence.
Too much territory to cover to get us to a place where who and
what we want is baked long enough and ready for consumption.

But… I think I’ve said this before… I do believe in other realities,
other dimensions, simultaneous places that we sometimes visit in
our dreams, or even at moments where this reality and the other
sort of cross wires, and things bleed through.
Strangely, I almost never dream of him.  And that’s odd, because
I have quite vivid and emotional dreams with other people with
whom I have deep connections.

But there was a magic to the entire thing, with loud and blaring signs
of breaking through the illusion, those signs of that Jungian Web thing,
where everything’s connected, timings, words, clicks,
and simultaneous thought.

These things happened from day one, and although I have pushed
much of the joy and pain altogether, out of my day to day, still
when I review things like I must in order to write this story…..
still there are wellings up, waves of memory of what might have been,
what could be somewhere, sometime, somehow, in another life.

Soul connections, mapped out long before we got here, work to be
done, energies to be shared, knowledge to keep.

We tasted paradise, we drank it in, we cradled it to our hearts, and
we will never be the same because of it.
And isn’t that just great…. and can’t that be enough?

 

 

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…into Rio, the old city…

One of the more wonderful things to do, at least from
my point of view, was to go on the ferry and into the
mainland city, the old city that has held such fascination
for so many millenia.
Rio was the destination for the rich and famous, Hollywood,
and the glamorous.  It was also the place to run away to, for
its vastness made it possible to hide forever, from whatever
or whomever you were running.

Traveling through, it is such an unimaginable combination
of centuries, styles and cultures…
My camera’s eye was enthralled with the contrasts and combos,
the most incomprehensible next door neighbors created by
circumstance and availability.
I share some photos, because Words do not suffice.

Rio just goes on and on.  The sidewalks are made of broken
marble from older buildings from the past…puzzled together
to create artful walkways, each street with its own pattern.

The beaches themselves, lined with deco lighting and the
eternal sidewalk strolls, enabled by parks and grassy spreads,
and that white white sand, going on for miles…..
Copacabana…. Ipanema…. who does not feel a little thrill,
at the sound of these almost mythical places…
Nothing creates sand like that, but a million years…
This I know from Hawaiian times.

There, as the sea bed’s volcanic activity keeps on spewing, the
land mass moves over it, traveling NorthWest, and one by one
the islands were formed in order.
This is a beautiful example of geological creation of land mass
that is a clock, a window on the timing of movements
and how it all works.

Kauai is the oldest, and thus, those immaculate white sand
beaches that are indicative of long time coming…muito tempo…

The Big Island, at the other end of the chain, is relatively new,
and mostly you see black sand beaches, and lots of lava rock,
while the volcanic activity is still fresh…. the irridescent lava beds
lying like moon landscapes out before you…as each forming island
straddles the upwelling energies.
Actually off the south east end, there is yet another island forming
under the ocean, while the islands beyond Kauai on the far northwest
end have already sunk, only coral atolls marking their perimeters,
the memory of islands eons ago.

Thus… what I am trying to say, to express, is the Ancient
Quality of this so Ancient a Port…Bay…Islands…of Rio de Janeiro.
This place has basically been there forever… forming, rounding,
sheltering, protecting, like a huge womb, even in its shape…
and being the nursery for the sea for more eons than we
can even conceive.

Port of a million years, Born of a million years…. yes.
James Taylor got it right…. he got the Magic of the place.

And so did I…. and it helps to see a new country with a Native…
Obrigada……!
Ate amanha meu amor………. amanha….

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…nascimento…

What a Beautiful Spirit…. this man.

I love this song for so many reasons, for when it first came out
in 1987, I was in the throws of my love affair with Brasil and Alcir…
I believed that it was more than a dream…

…and when Milton sings it, his deep and spiritual nature permeates,
lending layers with that voice and those eyes.   …..Enjoy…..

Quando a nossa mãe acordar…………………When our mother awakes
Andaremos ao sol………………………………….We shall walk in the sun
Quando a nossa mãe acordar…………………When our mother awakes
Cantará pelo sertão………………………She shall sing in the wilderness
Quando a nossa mãe acordar…………………When our mother awakes
Todos os filhos saberão………………………All her children shall know
Todos os filhos saberão………………………All her children shall know
E se alegrarão………………………………………….And they shall rejoice

But it’s more than the shining eye, more than the steaming green,
more than the hidden hills, more than the concrete Christ,
more than a distant land over a shining sea,
more than a hungry child, more like another time.
Born of a million years, more than a million years.

 

 

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…on the road…again…

We went to visit another old friend, Buquinha, and he had a nice
little place with a friend, where Alcir found some of his favorite
garden plants, and we shared drinks, smokes and talks.

He was a gentle fellow, very sweet, and once again there was lots
of Portuguese, yet I never felt left out.

We went to a little place where we sat by the small stream and
were served favorited snacks….very popular in the region…
In Brasilian grocery stores, you can always find Quail Eggs,
big trays of maybe 18 to 24 at a time, and So inexpensive.
I seem to remember them being like 2 reis or so, which at that
time was about $1 American.
For some reason they just Love them, and they are served in bars
and restaurants as little appetizers with beer.

There were streams all around us…

Here, sitting on park benches along the stream,  we had bowls of
them, and also a great munchy that I have taken home with me
to serve to my friends…. little trouts, sliced into small and handy
pieces, and fried til crunchy….
These are all served with a little dish of light salsa, nice and spicy.

_________________________________–

Fried Trout Slices…

*Slice fresh trouts crosswise, into 1-2 inch pieces, bone and all.
Dust with flour, and heat a good oil, Olive or Grape Seed…til very hot.
(Grape seed is my favorite, as it can get much hotter without smoking,
so your fried foods end up crunchier and less greasy. )
**Fry til browned and crispy, but not too dark or dried out.
Remember…fish is delicate…
**Drain on paper, and serve with a nice smooth salsa for dips.
**Little Quail Eggs hard boiled and peeled are a very nice complement,
and of course, if you want to be Brasilian, serve very chilled
Ice Cold Beer.
____________________________________

The next day we visited a local artists’ gallery, and enjoyed some
very creative wooden pieces, the house itself being a work of art,
and had lots of fun chatting up the locals.

We also traveled along the coast and made a stop at a tourist-y
spot that had wonderful hand made chairs, made from tropical
hardwoods, and large models of Portuguese ships that I wanted
to bring home to my brother.


The Chairs were gorgeous, and so inexpensive, so well made.

As well, there were little table and chairs sets with animals
themes, similar to what was coming from Bali at the time.
These were some of the things I hoped to import by the container
full, and I was so filled with great ideas on how to make the money
flow, whilst still having Fun!

Problem was, I don’t think Alcir was anywhere into it as I was,
and he never took me back to get one of those chairs to take home.
I was sad, because Piney had sent money for the chair, and I
realized I would have to be more independant in Brasil if
I was to get things done, and be happy.

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…ah, milton, angel…

Seller of dreams
I have the profession Traveler
the clerk who brings in baggage
life and repertoire of songs

And of hope
more stubborn than a child
I invade the rooms, the rooms
windows and hearts

Phrases I invent
they fly aimlessly in the wind
looking for place and time
where someone also wants to sing them

Seeing my dreams
and in return the faith walking
I have at the end of the trip
a stone path happy

So many years telling hitória
love the place I was born
many years singing my time
my people of faith I smile
many years of voice on the roads
so many dreams that I’ve lived

 

 

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…born of a million years…

James Knows…….

Quando a nossa mãe acordar…………………When our mother awakes
Andaremos ao sol………………………………….We shall walk in the sun
Quando a nossa mãe acordar…………………When our mother awakes
Cantará pelo sertão………………………She shall sing in the wilderness
Quando a nossa mãe acordar…………………When our mother awakes
Todos os filhos saberão………………………All her children shall know
Todos os filhos saberão………………………All her children shall know
E se alegrarão………………………………………….And they shall rejoice

But it’s more than the shining eye, more than the steaming green,
more than the hidden hills, more than the concrete Christ,
more than a distant land over a shining sea,
more than a hungry child, more like another time.
Born of a million years, more than a million years.

by

…on the road…


The days were speeding by, and soon it would be time to leave.

The near month had passed quickly, and her mind overflowed
with information……..her heart with feelings as yet unsorted.
The memories of what those last two weeks held tumbled
into view, as she anticipated leaving Brasil, and Him.

Soon after the daughter went home, and half their time together
had already passed, he took command and as Captain of the
little Gervel ship, deciding it was time for him to show her the
world out there, beyond the gates.
They packed and planned for a grand getaway into the hills
behind Rio, and he did his military thing, with a checklist,
and assigning her her duties.

One very amusing aspect of this trip was their musical choices…
She had brought some favorites from her now vast Brasil collection,
and chose carefully,  packing up a little zipper bag of her very best
ones.  For years, as she’d listened to so much music from Brasil, and
she’d wished he’d been there to translate….and  now…!

He, meanwhile, packed up His bag of favorites, and once in the car
and showing eachother what they’d each brought, they had quite
a laugh….
There She was with Jobim and Veloso and Nascimento, and
Here He was with Willy Nelson, Neil Young, Janis, the Stones,
Van Morrison, and Sade ….  funny stuff.

Well, at least they had a good selection, although facts were he didn’t
want to listen to Brasilian music at all…. overload perhaps….?
so they dined on the USA all the way.

His bitter disgust with Brasil in general had a lot to do with that,
but more so, she thought, it was his nostalgic love of the past times…
Ten years…… of living in the States.
He had issues with the politics, but he loved the freedom
and free thinking West Coast of California.
He actually envied her having been a hippie in the sixties… and
knew that if he’d been here, he would have been right beside her.
And she loved his taste in music, especially Neil and Sade…

Since she had seen little of Brasil, besides the freeways and this
quaint island in the middle of the Bay, she found it hard to imagine
what lay ahead, but his excitement overflowed onto her.
Ever the Adventurer, he would now be in his element.

The Gervel performed like a little jeep, and once they were on the
backroads of red clay and gravel and sometimes cobblestone,
sometimes stones,  they moved back in time, through layers of
this convoluted land.
There were times when the views from rainforest mountain
tops were completely 360,
…Nothing but forest in every direction.

Thrilling, mesmerizing, terrifying, waves of every feeling and
emotion passing over her through the hours and days they took
into the unknown.
They didn’t see another car for hours at a time.  Mostly Not…
They were truly into the wilderness, and with wild and treacherous
landscapes.
Still, she trusted him implicitly, and knew he would take care of
her, no matter the circumstances.


It seemed like every turn revealed yet another Waterfall, a
Cashoeira… such glorious beauty, with flocks of loud and colorful
birds scattering into the trees and across their views.

One day, it took Two Hours to go Two Miles.  It was a varying
combination of dirt, then large rocks mixed with deep ruts, then a
little patch of road of some sort, then rough gravel over old
cobblestones, then drop off to big rocks and ruts…. the little Gervel
performed like the trouper she was… climbing and plunging,
crawling and struggling, yet always proceeding onwards…
…Sort of like Him.

This was on what was called The King’s Road, and he told her that
this was where all the Gold in the country had been carried over
the mountains on the backs of slaves, eons ago.

“…and don’ you think one or two of them hid some gold somewhere,
when they stopped to pee?
Don’ you think some was dropped, when they fell down and
were being beaten ?
“Babe!  if we had a metal detector, we could come back up here
an hunt for gold!”

There were vistas breaking through of groups of the Pau d’Arco tree,
covered in brilliant pink flowers, a medicinal wonder whose bark is the
strongest detoxifier known, and used for thousands of years as an
anti oxidant, anti bacterial, fungal and virus cleanse.

Valleys and hillsides covered with a very special, now protected tree,
because it had been so ravaged by cutting and burning…
the Parana Pine, the Brasilian Pine… stately, elegant, beautiful,
and spreading plentifully across the vistas before them.

How to describe driving for hours through places that
No human, or anything related to Human, is visible, and then
suddenly coming upon the most incredible mansion, farm,
villa or vineyard, just there all by itself in the glory of
wide open varietal rain forest hillsides.

Passing by little villages, she saw  a cart being pulled
by a donkey,  people relaxing amongst the bundles.
Brown skinned families walked peacefully along the grassy paths,
and it could be that they had time traveled into another century.

One night they stayed in a small town, Santa Clara,  that had a
hoppin’ bar and some simple street life, an art gallery, although it
was probably all of a few hundred people total who lived there.
Little street vendor spots, where she bought herself a beaded
bracelet, in opalescent blues and lavenders.
They were like cute little hippies, young and smiling, loving
to say the two or three English words they knew, always looking
as though they were having the most wondrous time of their life.

The two of them got so Toasted….and notice that’s with a capital T….
Oh, Good Lord as he would say, beyond belief…
…so much so that when they’d had their fill of dancing and kissing and
running hilariously hand in hand, they jumped into the Gervel, and
suddenly realized they Couldn’t remember if the motel they’d found
was up the hill, or back down.

Taking the gamble, they headed up.  The little backroads went on
forever, it seemed…  and remembering all the little dirt roads, all the
turns… and it was all very spinny for her, and she wondered just how
on earth he was driving these little dirt roads to what seemed like
nowhere, with so many turns and so many choices to make….
back and forth, and it was crazy shit…and she would began to slightly
panic, as much as she could maintain any continuous state of mind,
with such an inebriated brain, whose thoughts changed every five
seconds, with all the laughter and singing going on.

He just trudged on, and wait….There….around the turn, Lights….!
Turning into the driveway now, where that beloved bed awaited, all
soft and inviting, their exhausted and confused bodies.
Hello…..!!!!!

“How did you Do that?” she wondered at him, completely
Beyond Belief, over How the heck he’d they’d even landed …

“I have no idea…!”  he laughed….

His internal gyroscopic compass was working just fine somehow…..
Out they tumbled … quite literally… and fell upstairs to deep sleeps.

The next morning …..she realized she couldn’t find her shoes……..
And now….. where the heck was her bra…!
Very strange… what the what?…. where…?
They turned the room upside down, under the bed, along the walkway.
At last,  she trudged downstairs to the car, and …..
There they were!!!…in the car….!!!

Apparently she’d taken them off in all that hilarity, and had no
recollection whatsoever of having done such, with the top down and
their oblivious semi consciousnesses, trundling along blindly.

“It’s a wonder,” she thought, “that I didn’t throw them overboard,
the state I was in… !  That would have been interesting, cruising the
roads, trying to find my bra!”
“Excuse me sir, have you seen a green lace bra on your walk?”
….and they laughed all the way into their next delight….

 

 

by

…a watershed…

Friday, sometime early March 2005

Last nite was a watershed of story, as he poured the scotch
and poured his heart.
It started after he came home, after going out to get smoke, and
coming back two and a half hours later.  He goes to the favellas
to score, and although I worry about that, he tells me not to worry,
they know him, and he can take care of himself.  That I believe.

He’d run into friends, drank, coked, come home and looked into
her eyes, searching for anger.
She could not hide anything from him.  He always saw,  so this
time she truly said no, not anger, just adjusting to frequency.
It’s every 2 or 3 days…

“No… not every 2 or 3 days… no……. oh…………….yes….
I guess you’re so damned smart.
Just don’t be like the other ones, please.  Just understand me.
I will never lie to you, I will always be true to you, always,
I swear.  Can you handle me babe?”

She looked long into his eyes.  “I Think so…”

This night she desperately wished for a recorder. The things he told
her, the way they rolled from his tongue…how could she ever capture
a tenth of them…?

She told him her main concern with his drinking…
“Your drinking is your business…how it affects me is my business.
I’m concerned with your health, that’s what worries me.”

“When I die, they oughta cut out a few organs…burn the rest please…
but take some of me and study, because I am not a normal person.

“I have drunk and snorted and shot, and been shot, and I live.
I’m not normal.
I’m not going to live long, babe, and I’m not going to change.
I can stop, I have stopped if there is a reason.

“But I don’t wanna spend my life sober.  I’ve seen too much.
No, you’ll see me dead.
Just don’t bury me.  Burn me, throw me in the ocean.
A Viking burial would be nice.  But otherwise just burn me, please. ”
Water filled her eyes…..

“I’m not afraid to die.  I never have been .  You know what scares
me…the only thing?.  I’ve never told anyone this.
What scares me is dying without being called a man.
To be worthy of being called a man, that is the one thing.
Not to die one of the masses….. oh….”

“In the Legion, they had a name they called me…..”
(I know it, but I’m not sharing it right now, as I’m not
sure he’d be OK with that).
“Oh, I’m good…I never miss.  Never.  One shot to the head.
I took out a squad of 40.  I wait…I watch…watch for days,
I know their routine, I know how many and where.  Pow Pow…
I could take out 5 in about 14 seconds.  I was the Best.

“Once they found me, they chased me for 4 days in the desert…
140 degrees day, -35 at night.  I covered myself for some shade.
I drank my own piss.
“They called out my special name, “It’s ___we gotta get him!”,
and they chased me … a bunch of them…
It was 35 miles to the sea, Once I got there, there was a beeper
and I could be found.  But I had lost mine, and no one
knew where I was….”
Obviously he escaped and was found, but I never heard how.

As a child, he was always in trouble, always being punished,
and the parents seemed to enjoy it, and from his stories,
they were quite creative.

They laughed at him, and called him Tatubola… little Armadillo…
The parents had a new horse whip and were trying it out on him.
There were other family there, and they all laughed as his mother
whipped him, and he rolled into a ball, rolled all over the ground
and down the hill.
The others said the parents must know what they are doing,
they’re the parents.  Little Armadillo, rolled up in a ball.

“My father decided the belt wasn’t good enough.  So he turned the
buckle on me.  A man 6’2”, 190#…do you think he needed to use a
buckle on a child?  What a coward.  But I never cried.  Never.
I thought of what Tom would do (Sawyer), he wouldn’t cry.
No, it was not me who should cry.  It was them, they were the
ones who were not human, they should cry.

“Once, when my mother left him, in order to get her back, he tried
to impress her by taking me on the back of his bicycle, for a ride to
show what a good father, a good man he was.
He put me behind him, and we rode.

“My ankles rubbed against the wheels, rubbed them raw and bleeding.
And when he saw, he told me how stupid I was, and he beat me.
I’d ruined his beautiful fantasy picture.”

Turns out he was ADHD.  I know it.  Total Right brain.
Got in trouble in school every day.  He read voraciously, and
everything at school seemed stupid, he already knew it.
Typical of ADD brains, unusually bright and intelligent,
easily distracted, able to focus intensely, and on their own.

He read all the classics early on, filled his head with the heroes
of so many times and places.  All of them, the great books, he read.
History, Geography, but not math, not numbers.

“If you got a woman laughing, you’re gonna get some pussy… ”
he continued.
(She remembered the big swedish nurse who assisted in her last home
birth, the most perfect birth.  Smile Carol, big smile, she’d say.
An open smile means an open pussy…. see?  it was true!)

“You always made me laugh, you’re good at that,”  she purred…
“So you must have gotten a lot of pussy…”
“Oh Good Lord, you have no idea!”
He shook his head and grinned.

“You’re clean.  Your eyes are clean.
I want to rebuild myself from what’s inside you.
I planted something in you, back then.
I planted it, and it grew inside you, and 17 years later,
you come and find me.
Because you never forgot me, and I never forgot you.

“When I saw you, I saw your goodness.  I saw you’re clean.
I was not a nice person at that time.  But with you, I gave my best.
It was out of time, and I saw another way.  I drove 400 miles..
….do you know how many times?  Just to see you.
It was apart from my life.”

She had no idea of this.  All she knew was he was diving at the pier.
So it turns out he was driving from Tahoe each time?

He and his Tahoe girlfriend fought about her.  She had called that
day, when he’d been gone for so long, took that chance, and the
woman answered.
Later, the woman asked him, and he told her…
yes, I’ve met someone, and this is why I drive.

He told her his friend Mark was a good man, a good friend,
and he lost him as a friend forever, because he hit that woman in
this fight…”knocked her lights out”…and he knew he was wrong,
that was the only time he did that.
She asked him why he was untrue to her.
“She was not a good fuck.  She had become like a sister.
I left soon after I saw you”

“You know, they are offering me a job…. I can’t believe it…
$80,000 and I said no.  I couldn’t do it… I felt like a whore.
The Legion keeps asking me to come back, come back, we could
live in France, you would be my wife, we would live well.
I would be maybe a Sargent Chief.
And I would teach people how to kill.
But no, I can’t do it.  I said no, I want something else.”

“You wanna know the two saddest things?
A soldier without a war, and
and a Man without a job…
I know….. I’m both.”