Category Archives: brazil

a love story

by

… reflections on a week …

Journal musings…. January  2006 in Rio

“You have to really Want this, for this to work,”  he says,
and the words echo through the convolutions of brain cells,
concentric circles from a center…. created by a leaden heart.

It felt so heavy.  All of it.  Sad….. Dark.

Confusion had set in, and too much thinking could be dangerous.
Yet to not-think was unthinkable…. Hmmmm.

She’d been given the front veranda upon which to sit, to get
away from him, from the constant TV, and his moods.
….which actually was quite remarkable, amazing really,
and she could view the wandering streets and flashing
cloud storms and island comings amidst the constant breezes
with a sort of detachment that she needed… desperately.

“This is My House”, he would announce to no one in particular,
at no particularly special moment…except
to her I guess, and the dog, and his Mother upstairs,
and to himself most of all.

His stubborn willfulness had served him well at one time,
most of his life more likely.  But now it felt like stacks of
concrete pillows, between the two bodies lying side by side.

Was she to be like the desolate dog, if you could call him a dog,
that was allotted two small spaces within which to eat, do his
duties, be quiet and cower.

He addressed him as “Get the Fuck….” as the poor wretch
jumped up, desperate for a touch, for tenderness… and the
man would cringe, because he hated the dog.
It was the most disturbing thing she’d witnessed so far, the
distain he held for this shit eating dog who had so thoroughly
disappointed him and his visions of what a dog should be.

Maybe the dog was just trying to clean up his jail cell,
she thought, maybe he’s really trying to be a good dog…

Was she to be the “other twin”, protruding from his ribs, ever
connected, never her own, never as large or as individuated?
“Be by my side” now had it’s double meaning.

Did he even begin to know how to let anyone in, even one
he claimed to love?  Was he even in control of the little door
that swung open and closed, daily…
There’s the light, and wait…. oh, and now it’s gone…

Did the most courageous man she’d ever known cower
at the possibility of real love?
For this was love becoming real, going far beyond the
fantasy he loved so well and could keep in control.
Beyond the heroes in books he’d emulated, the ones
who would run off to fight another dragon.

No pretense holding distance… This was so real it was
palpable, in the air and sifting like dust to the surfaces
of everything he touched in this cell he shared with her.

“I’m going over the Abyss”, he had sighed one morning,
a couple of days ago.
……………..”and do you know Why?”

She looked long and hard at his face, now miserable
with confusion, yet here he was, the little door opening
just a bit once again …

She motioned to herself…. and slowly he nodded,
…. sadly, tenuously, as though for that moment he had
risen out of his automatic self and was viewing it all
with clarity and a mildly puzzled perspective.

“What do I do?” …..

After a moment, her own answer came, as it always had,
since more years than she cared to remember.

“Jump and Trust…. that’s all you can do…….

“OK….”, he nodded, and it was done.

 

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Aside by

It’s now Thursday, five days into my visit to Rio, to Alcir,
and we’re home, and he’s drinking.  I have never known
anyone who can drink like he can, and yes I know it’s a
bad sign, and yes I know Brasilians drink more beer than
any other country, and yes in that tropical heat, that half
frozen freezer stored refreshment cannot be beat, but…

This man has such high tolerance to everything, since
maybe birth, and so it’s a gift and a curse.  I have seen
him put away liter after liter, go to the store, buy eight
more, I drink one, he drinks the rest, and while he’s out
he’s done shots of Scotch at the local garage bar.

Yes, along those winding urban streets there are countless
bars in garages, little gatherings of men sitting on cheap
plastic chairs, smoking and bullshitting.  It’s a part of
Brasilian culture, the men just go out at night and drink.

So Thursday he drinks, we cuddle, he asks me not to
let him go, and then sneaks out when I fall asleep.
Friday there’s the usual hangovers, denials, and Mr
Bad Mood.  Sullen isolated shit head.
We go grocery shopping at the giant Mercado that we
usually walk to, sometimes holding hands, but this day
he drives us, because his elderly Aunt Maria needs to
go too.  He goes to a chair at one of the little mall stops,
and Maria and I go in with our separate carts and get
what we need.  She is not a happy person in general,
but when neither speaks the other’s language, it’s pretty
lonely.  She cooks, and I can’t even ask her about
ingredients or where something is.  And he’s back in the
mall drinking beer, and beginning to refer to
us as “you people”.    This does not bode well.

I’d so looked forward to getting out and shopping for
things, finding new fruits and vegetables, people watching,
and now he’s just mean and doesn’t want to be there.

When I’m in line, which is always endless… I mean, take
a book or some playing cards when you shop here…
he comes by long enough to load the cart up with beer,
and a big Scotch.  Oh, and I’m buying.
Of course I’m buying… I’m a rich American and I’ve
intruded upon his space, and I will pay.

Maria and I are now pretty much the same, in his eyes.
Irritating women who want something from him.
Never fall in love with a man who hates his Mother.

 

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… not even a week ….

by

…the hero…

Ayn Rand is not someone I was familiar with.
I had heard of her of course.  And I was aware that
her writing was important.
But I never read anything of hers.

“The Passion of Ayn Rand”, brilliantly played by Helen Mirren,
convinced me that I need to start reading, especially since
a core in her writings refers directly to the heroic character
that plays the lead in my book.

“Are you happy?” she asked in the film.
“You’re a heroic being.
It is the moral purpose of your life.
And the man must have the woman who reflects
his deepest vision of himself,
and in her surrender is his deepest happiness…”
“and the woman?” asked her friend.
“…the woman must worship the hero.”

I remember so many years ago, when I’d first known him…
I asked him that very question…
“What do you want?”
“To be happy.”
“What makes you happy?”
“I don’t know”…but still, his soul knew that was his purpose.
And I knew my purpose for him when, without a thought,
I asked   …”How’s your spiritual life?”

Love for me has always only felt right with surrender.
And the ultimate high is complete surrender.
How her words struck home.

“I’m looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient,
consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.” said Carrie …

I was dealing with a genius with such high ideals, vast education,
and with the physical prowess and unique gifts to accomplish
whatever it was he came here for.  And he knew it.

He knew he had a bigger purpose, and deeply desired to fulfill it.
The feeling that I was there to be the One who really Saw him,
perhaps the first one… and that by my presence I might encourage
and affect the course of this truly heroic being …
Intoxicating.

A purpose beyond me, bigger than me.
Failure never entered my mind, really.
I knew it was bigger than the two.
It was something beyond, that had to be acted out,
in order for some larger picture to coalesce.

There was no doubt.  The compelling conviction lingered
much too long to be anything less than something beyond us.

I still don’t know what the effect or purpose was and is,
but I think for now it just can’t be known.
Something shifted, something altered.
But we are not perfect, and our actions were not always perfect…
or perhaps…
Perhaps they were, and it’s just that we can’t see it yet.

Some heroic dance being enacted, imparting a feeling of
eternity for both, a role being played out greater than either,
something beyond the day, the moment,
beyond the persons themselves.

This was and is the conviction of some sort of
ultimate truth between us.

My fulfillment was the part I was playing in bringing out and
seeing clearly his heroic dreams, his path of righteousness,
the pieces in him that were the truth,
the best elements of his very core.

Holding him to the course the true north, embodying that,
as in the Poem he sent to me; this challenged me to a new
height of My truth.

My search for something larger than myself was just that… holding
to that north that was his vision, what he’d been trained for, born for.

And I found two quotes from Ayn that speak to me…

“What is the nature of Love?
Love is a command to rise to one’s highest potential.
The best and noblest vision of ourselves.
Love is a reward.  The greatest we can earn.
Granted to us for the moral quality we have achieved in our lives. ”

“My philosophy in essence is the concept of man as a heroic being,
with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life,
with productive achievement as his noblest activity,
and reason as his only absolute.”

……….Ayn Rand

I’m still working on all of it.

 

 

Aside by

ImageJanuary 1, 2006

Rio de Janeiro, on the island in Guanabara Bay…

Sunday morning is a disaster.  I was demolished, maybe slept
an hour at best, and can hardly begin to sort out my feelings.

Our fabulous NY Eve had turned into near disaster, with him
so drunk, more so than I’d Ever seen him, crashing into people,
passing out for 4 hours, leaving me in a strange country with
no idea where to go or what to do.  Thank God for the kindness
of Brasilians, all Two Million of them along Copacabana Beach,
for there were a few who knew 3 words in English and helped
me while I waited for Mr Wonderful to wake up.

When he awoke, it was dawn, and he was still drunk, and
kept asking me if I still loved him.   Once he awakened on the
street, we found the bus, walked home up the hill, and collapsed.
The same thing went on all day Sunday, him all pitiful and so
hungover,  but somehow we got through it.  Not pretty.

Monday, no one was working, so we stayed home, and I got sick.
Throat sore, coughing, sinus ache… tired… We slept a lot,
watched movies, and slept some more.  It was a good way to
avoid facing our reality from both sides, I suppose.

Tuesday we went for a long walk to the town area and stores
where we could get groceries, and I bought a great set of
stainless steel pans to replace the toxic antiques he was used
to using.  Here I was buying organic produce, and he was
using aluminum and teflon, with no idea what he was doing
to his gorgeous cooking.
He was a great cook, having learned at his Grandmother’s
side, and I remember fondly the way he would make cross cuts
on the half onion in his hands, using a small paring knife,
then make slices across to make little squares for his sauces.
He’d do it the way old people used to do, and beautiful hands
he had…brown and graceful and elegant, as he laughed and
stirred and tasted.

I am sick with fever, and after we walk home through the
old delapadated suburbs and put things away, he goes out
again.   He doesn’t just go out… he comes back and goes out
again, getting drunk, snorting god knows what, and getting
drunk again.
The third time he wants to go, he tells me not to let him,
to tell him Not to, so I do, and he lingers.
Finally I say…”want a massage?” and he melts.
“OK”…  and he falls upon the couch pads.
He falls asleep during the entire back side massage, and
sleeps deeply, quietly, the way he almost always does…
How can a man like him be so peaceful in sleep?

He wakes up speaking Portuguese, and I guess talking
himself awake from a dream leftover.  I laugh…
He does amuse me.

 

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Dead Man Awakening

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Dead Man Walking

Dead Man Walking… an excellent film, with Sean Penn and 
Susan Serandan.  Couldn’t get much better, and the theme 
is pretty universal, when you get down to it… Live or give up. 

But this isn’t about the film, or even about the soundtrack 
cut with Bruce Springstein, which i share with you.   
This was the Name i began calling him, and for many months…

Alcir…………..something had happened while i was gone, 
and likely it was just an extension of what had been occuring 
for years, decades between then and now.  But he was 
different, perhaps showing me, or unable to Hide, a side of 
him that was complex, fractured, and unavailable to me. 
I arrived so full of hope, and the way i am, i always believe 
that it can work out, if we want it badly enough… 

So…. it’s midday.  New Year’s Eve has been told, and has
passed… so you know what i was left with.  
A very hung over, very still-drunk man, who was unavailable
to me.  I’d come 5,000 miles, and he held an equal distance.

 

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Here I Am…………

Trust.  What a word…. encompassing so much.  I have always
tried to Trust… people, intuition, feelings…..  it is something that
comes naturally to me, idiot that I am….and that precisely
is how I got myself into this conflagration…. the Fire in Rio…
a Fire of the Heart.

I come, hat, heart and lingerie in hand, sure of myself and the feelings that were put on ice for the year we were apart.
I was the Keeper of Love, but I have such bizarre assurance of
what I know and feel, that comes somehow from within…..

I go to Rio, I hold to that Feel that is US… Us… and oh my
what a feeling, a knowing, a fire that could blaze through all of our visions, and onward to a future that has no boundaries.

Have you ever been with someone who you Know you can do
Anything with?  I mean, the two of you are such a nuclear fission,
fusion, crashing of dreams and raw energies…  and somehow in
your heart you just know it is fate and it was agreed upon so long ago, that there was no way this prior agreement
cannot be fulfilled.

So Here I was, after nearly a year of waiting and holding and keeping close to him and the agreement… to return to Rio, be together, find a way to co-create our life, and learn just who
WE Are together…
For when two blend into one, a new Entity is created…

So it’s Morning, and our NewYears’Eve has turned to a dawn
of Reality, neither of us had dreamed of or imagined.

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Back but Not …

This blog started as a running commentary on Dating sites.
Then it went in a direction that was not planned, yet one
that was in the card catalogue…
You know… that thing that you know some day you will write about………Someday.

And then that Someday became a train that I hitched a ride on
for quite a while….

Time was,  it was Time to get off that train… for a while at least.

Perspective.   That is what matters in life.  And perspective
depends on your locale, no matter the Bardot, the Time Zone,
the Chakrah….

So here I am, listening to Brasilian Jazz for the first time
in a long time…
I have avoided it… I did not want to go back to it….
go Back to it, to the emotions that the music lead me to. 
For many years, I used Brasilian music of all sorts to
take me back to that magical place that I had attained with
this person who had come into my life. 
And now, for years, I have pushed all of it away….

It’s called Survival.  It’s called Healing…
It’s also called something … oh,
and Right Now as I write, Jobim has come on Pandora, the
station that will be my slave and play whatever mode I choose…
And like I said, I am allowing Brasil to re-enter my reality,
because… although it represents Him… it also represents
the culture that I fell in love with many years ago, and
opened such beauty and rhythms and sweet language sounds to me.

Please…. I am a girl from the sixties, and I loved those days
when Samba entered our culture, and became a part of Movies that
are Dated by the Samba notes that are played as Party background.
I mean, check out Peter Sellers, and an early film… “The Party”…
which, if you haven’t Seen it… oh you Must!
It’s one of his Best, and Samba and those times just envelope
the film. It was a heady, sweet and naïve time, before Reality
struck. I am so glad I got to be there… But…
I am a girl of the times, and all those notes, those feels
go straight to my soul and to my Netherparts as well…

So now Jobim … and his brilliance, his iconic purity…
reminds me that Brasil is more… so much More than Alcir and
all he happened to bring to me….. I fell in Love with Brasil,
and was lucky, privileged enough to really get a taste of a
culture that mesmerized me for so, so long.

So I guess I am saying a few things… I still love Brasil. 
I am still in love with the Music that falling in love with a
Brasilian took me to…. and now I seek to, on one note,
Separate one from the other, and on another level, Allow me
to feel some positivity towards finishing my story about
my love affair with Brasil, and with this crazy Brasilian
who really in all honesty, fucked me over big time…
whilst bringing what I wanted, which was a true real visceral
experience of uniting with this culture.

And yes, still, I feel there are things that need to be
confronted, completed, shared, and yes, even enjoyed,
before this tale is over.

OH… and ps… I am now Listening to DEAD MAN WALKING
soundtrack, and yes, You Alcir know what that means…

 

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by

… marauder …

“my black marauder, one day I’ll have my death of him”
– Sylvia Plath

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v. ma·raud·ed, ma·raud·ing, ma·rauds. v.intr. To rove and raid
in search of plunder. v.tr. To raid or pillage for spoils.

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