Category Archives: brazil

a love story

by

…he said…

I’ll never lie to you….  I’ll be true to you….
I’ll carry you on my back if need be…

The words.  They rang in my head now, as I lay near him,
tossled, sweaty, still drunk from the new years night.
Who was he now?  He’d said so many things, perfect things,
and now that I was once again his prisoner, a stranger in
a strange land, at his command, his mercy, his brutal life
style which had included lying, and cheating…. and now?
Now I had carried Him for hours of cold and lonely fear,
protected Him, been true to Him, and it all just came
crashing down.  Morning light was cruelly harsh, lighting
that crumbling hovel he called a home, filled only with
him and his sad and bitter life.
Back in Rio, full of hopes and dreams that were beginning
to crack and crackle before my reddened eyes.

Aside by

Getting back into the frame of mind will be a challenge.
I have been busy doing other things, things that are somewhat
180 …………from writing about stuff from the past.
I do life coaching now, and being in the moment is what
it’s all about……….. not recalls.
Responding to the voice on the phone, the face of Other,
reminding Intuition that This is me too,  and
I Know this, I understand this, and
I only need to trust this intuitive part of me that
has been stuffed away forever,
and it will tell me Everything, and give me every answer
for this Other that IS me.
We are all just a mirror for Self.
Realize this, and life becomes a magical movie full
of sound and fury…………and yes, i’m going there…….
………and signifying …………..ALL.

 

————————————

…here and now…

by

good morning, good afternoon and good evening

Well old friend, it’s been a long time since we last visited.

I have stayed away on purpose.  One can only do so many
things at a time well, and my focus has been with things
new and quite different from reminiscences of old loves.

Still, I have made a vow to myself, and I am not one to take
that sort of thing lightly.  I promised I would write a book to
share an experience in my life, one that drifted with me for
a long long time, and then flared like flash fire….and then
evaporated like the ethereal thing it became.

Oh it was real.  No doubt about that.  But it was not something
to last in the planes that we here call real, the here and now.
Worth telling….. worth sharing….. worth finishing.

I’ll be back……………

————————————————–

by

… new year’s take two …

The rain is soft, too soft to hear yet, but I am glad
we are out of it, under a high roof and in a well lit alley.
There are others there, here and there, lovers, laughing
friends, young guys wandering and joking.
Alcir stands, his back leaning on the wall, and he fights me.
“Sit down Alcir, Sit Down!”  I plead, but he’s still fighting me,
unable to stand alone, unable to make sense of any of this,
yet still insisting he is fine and knows what he’s doing.

At last he gives up, sits down much to my relief, and
I sit down beside him.  I am exhausted, bewildered and
confused.  Which way is the bus, and which bus do we take?
I haven’t the slightest clue…

He does not, cannot answer me.  He lays his head on my lap
and proceeds to pass out.   And I don’t mean fall asleep or
doze off, I mean Pass Out Cold.  He is dead to the world, and
after a while I am afraid.  He won’t respond to me at all, and I
wonder if he might die, he’s so out of his body, so completely
inToxicated.
At last I manage to extract myself from his bulk, and do
my best to lie him out flat, and crouch down beside him,
feeling out of control, out of my element, my head spinning
with confusion.  Now and then someone comes by and
in their own way asks if I am ok, if there is something they
can do.  The warmth and sweetness of those Brasilians is
overwhelming, as their tender inquiries make clear
their concern.

A fellow who actually speaks some English tells me he lives
just a few doors away, and if I need anything, I should come
by, cause he’ll be up all night.  I smile, and some relief returns.
But what am I going to do with Alcir?
I shake him….I yell at him….I slap his face….. I jiggle his body,
running my hands up and down his arms.   Someone gives me
some water to drink, and I splash his face…
Nothing…. no response no matter what I do.  I have never been
around anyone this passed out… what should I do?

NYEve Alcir sick

After a long while he starts to vomit, and I help him up to sitting,
so that he accomplishes his purpose.  The sad pile sits beside
him now, the story told to anyone willing to listen, and there
I am, keeping company with a dead person and a pile of vomit.

I decide to take a picture, so that I can show him what a fool
he is, what he’s put me thru.  I sit a little away from him now,
wishing I could put miles between us…  and the hours pass.
It’s been perhaps two of them by now, and I have to pee.
I wait.  It gets worse.   I decide I must visit that fellow a few
doors down,  I have no choice at this point, and he did really
seem young, sweet and sincere.

I remove his wallet, sunglasses and watch, and place them in
my purse.  I turn his head to the side, in case he vomits while
I’m gone, and I wander down to the designated door, behind
which I find simple surroundings, smiling people, and a clean
toilet.  They are drinking and laughing, lost to the delight of the
night, and they do their best to cheer and reassure me, and I leave.
I am afraid to leave Alcir for any length of time alone.

Alcir is in the same position when I return, and I take my post
beside the almost dead and wounded warrior.  I am now his
Protector.  The 5’2 Protector of this large and solid man, this
world class kick ass trained killer warrior, who was going to
protect Me, and now humbled by drink and fear….
and of What I wonder.
Of himself, I suspect.  Of love, of feeling, of failure.

Another hour passes, maybe more.  The people still wander
to and fro, smile at me, come over to ask me one something or
another that I can’t understand, but I never feel threatened.
Not once, or in the slightest, which truly speaks to the
sweet humanity of Brasil.
I sit holding my head, too tired by now to feel fear or even
to fall asleep.   I am in some sort of dazed reality that just seems
to go on and on.   It is all Completely Surreal….

And then at last the time comes, perhaps 4 am, perhaps 5, when
he stirs and opens his eyes.   He quickly sits up, gathering his
senses, and I recount the last few hours, showing him his proud
little pile of throw up.
He’s awake now, and we rise and begin the walk to whatever bus
that might be running at this hour.   Wordlessly we walk, board the
bus, and sit… dazed, distant, and finally homeward bound.
I am seething inside….

__________________________________

by

… new year’s eve …

NYEve beach scene 1

It’s New Year’s Eve, 2005, the day long looked forward to…
we awake late, and spend the day cooking, talking, having
sex, and laughing.  He is drinking beer all day, and by beer
i mean in large liter bottles pulled from the freezer, in a
consistency much like what we call Slushies back home.
Near frozen, super thick, and just the thing in the hot humidity
of Rio’s summer months.
He is jolly, but more Trying to be jolly than jolly coming
from the heart.  He seems disjointed, still not truly there,
eyes far away.

He has been planning something for the big Eve, and is
excited to share with me that he’s bought two tickets on the
bus to Copacabana, for the huge celebration on the beach.
Sounds great to me!  I dress festively, in long flowered dress,
mostly white as that is the tradition, and he in flower covered
Hawaiian shirt, and we walk to the bus stop and catch the special
ride, alongside a crowd of very jolly Brasilians.

NYEve bus 1

After a long walk, we wander the beach as darkness approaches,
and we find ourselves shoulder to shoulder with so many people,
more than I’ve ever seen together in one place.  I heard later it
was about Two Million covering the miles of beach and walkways.
The joyous mood is like perfume in the air, and we all catch it
without effort.
The famous walkway is lit up, just like in those old pictures, and
all the buildings shimmer and shine with proud anticipation.
Off shore are Boats…. huge ships to small boats, all lit with
every sort of lighting device, so the ocean is just a continuation
of the shore, wall to wall undulating excitement.
Two Million Brasilians!!

NYEve beach people
I mean, Brasilians are crazy joyous wildness on normal days,
and this is amped up beyond measure.   My eyes are wide like
a child on Christmas, times ten.   I can’t stop smiling.
I’m Here…. at last I am Here.

He wants a drink.  We find an outdoor bar, out under the stars,
and start on beer.   Since the only way to sit is to pay for a place
at one bar or another, we decide to just stay, and I pay the $100
it takes for two.  He has very little money.

NYEve fireworks 2
We sit at a little table out of doors, under the stars.
Each time he leaves to refresh the glasses, he’s gone for a few
minutes, and I am just sitting there alone, taking it all in,
still a little in shock, a little spinny, very spaced out, not quite
all here, but doing my best to get my feet on the ground.
I feel a bit bewildered, but always hopeful.
It was sometime later I realize that with each beer he brings
back, he has taken a shot at the bar, but with him it was hard
to tell.
I just keep waiting for Him to be there, for he seems less and
less so, his energies scattered, and not really grounded at all.
He still seems bewildered in his heart.

NYEve fireworks 5

We have brought a bottle of Champagne, and he sends it back
with the waiter to chill on ice.  We are smiling now, and it seems
like maybe with the fireworks, there will come a sort of
culmination, a crashing into eachother, finally falling into arms
and looking into eyes, and maybe he’ll be like he was when last
I’d been there.

But that never happens.  By the time the show is in motion, he
is gone more and more, now at the bar, now talking to some
woman, now here, now gone.  I am now disoriented.
Midnight!  where is my love to kiss, to smile at, to hold?
Glancing around I see him talking to some woman, gesturing
and laughing, telling her some story no doubt…
I’m so confused….
At last the champagne is opened and he shares it with her glass,
and then comes back to me and we toast the new year… finally.
Someone takes our picture, and our faces indeed register the
strangeness we were enveloped in.

NYEve A&C
The Fireworks show is Glorious, massive fire flowers lighting
the sky and making the crowd glow, mostly dressed in white.

NYEve beach blurry

Finally the show is over, and we begin walking in the direction
of homeward bound buses.  The crowd is a solid mass as we
slide together, like lava slowly down the mountainside, and
I realize he is stumbling.  His eyes are glazed and far away, and
he is stumbling, nearly falling, catching himself, bumping into
people, mumbling to himself, and I try to steady him.

Nothing is working.  I am trying to steady a 6 foot, 200 pound man
who is so pickled, he has no bodily functions under his control.
Yet he is sure he’s just fine and doesn’t need help.

I am talking to him how, yelling over the din of the crowd…
“Alcir!  Alcir!….here…..this way….no!, no, come on, watch out!”
and it goes on…
I start getting scared, for he is now nearly falling, catching himself,
falling down, getting back up, and fighting me the whole way.
and I cannot control him, and he keeps stumbling and falling
into people, and I worry someone’s going to punch him.
Then he falls down again, and it’s all I can do to get him to his feet.

Doing my best not to become hysterical…. in a crowd who
could easily crush us, in a sea of people who speak Portuguese,
moving down a street where I am lost to direction or destination,
I find myself with absolutely No idea where we are going or
where we Should go, and he is unable to converse in any
sensible way.

Fear is moving up my spine, filling my brain cavity, and comes
close to overwhelming me…  I am holding back panic.

Then suddenly there are two young men by our side, and they
are picking him up and carrying him off to the side of the street,
then to the right, and into the next alleyway, out of the crowd,
out of the light rain now falling, and they stand him up against
the wall of a building where he continues to fight them, fight me,
mumble to himself, and refuses to sit down no matter what.

And there we are.  A small crowd has gathered in this sheltered
space, a crowd that is mellow and mixing, and I lean against the
wall next to him, and wonder just What I am doing here at all.

___________________________

by

… from paolo coelho …

Love Is...Paolo Coelho

In order to hear Love’s words, you must allow Love to
approach.  However, when it does draw near, we fear
what it might say to us, because Love is free and is not
ruled by our will or by what we do.
All lovers know this, but refuse to accept it. They think
they can seduce Love through submission, power,
beauty, wealth, tears and smiles.
True Love, however, is the love that seduces and will
never allow itself to be seduced.
Love transforms, love heals.
We are used to thinking that what we give is the same
as what we receive, but people who love, expecting to
be loved in return, are wasting their time.
Love is an act of faith, not an exchange.
Contradictions are what make love grow.
Conflicts are what allow love to remain by our side.
Life is too short for us to keep important words, for
example, ‘I love you’, locked in our hearts.
MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN ACCRA

Shared on Paolo Coelho’s Blog

——————————————

by

… a sonnet from the heart …

Mine is a story yet half done
The Telling of it Saddens one.
For Romance true and Beautious be,
but just as True is Cruelty.

So True Love starts and fills the Half,
As well as Kisses and the Laughs…
But then the world both Past and Fore
Undoes what once was……  Nevermore!

And so and thus you know the Plot…
We near the Halfmark, told the ‘What’.
But now Before us lies the ‘Why’ and
‘How’ it is that Love should Die.

________________

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… it’s all about me …

face in love

face in love

I used to think that Love could do all, heal all, and be all.
I used to believe in love Above all, and that it could conquer
every doubt, no matter the cost, because the ultimate in life
just had to be finding the One and Being in Love with that
other, that mirror, soul mate and journey friend.

I still believe in Love, but in a very different way.
I have grown up, finally, and it feels wonderful!
Real Love, True Love is not attached to any one person….
It is that which is called Unconditional Love.
And that includes yourself, and can include others, and
the world at large, Life itself.

This story is about me, and my journey through and to the
other side of this naiive, albeit heartfelt notion.
It may appear to be about the particular man at a particular
place I was at in my life, but it really is about Me, and how
experiences that we call to ourselves, create for ourselves,
are really such rich learning grounds for reaching for other
levels and bardos of awareness.

Shedding those sometimes thick and tenacious skins can be
painful.   And often we resist, especially when there is love and
attachment involved.  I mean, isn’t love supposed to feel good?
Well…yes… but there are always deeper reasons, and if we are
willing to delve into it and actually look, we can have the great
opportunity to benefit in ways we may never have dreamed of
consciously…. but our Soul knows.

Let your Soul be Your Pilate…Let Your Soul Guide You,
as my friend Sting has said…

We have called this to us… I called this to me, as he called
it to himself as well.

Growing up is hard work.  It means letting go of a whole lot of
shit that we would rather hold close.
Change is hard, and the human animal resists change at all cost.
It’s painful, and it’s costly on many levels.  But nothing is more
valuable to our Soul’s work here on this planet, and particularly
at this time of evolution and transition to higher vibrations and
consciousness that we are a part of.

So this story is an attempt to share not only a remarkable life and
being that I was privileged to be very close with, the heady intimacy
of it all…..It is a wonderful Romantic adventure worth telling….
But it also maps the journey that I took to move through and
beyond all my childish notions that I held so dearly…
Notions about what love really is…
and on to a more stable and rich abundance of Options in my life,
now that I am no longer imprisoned within the confines of fantasy
and wishful thinking, which I indulged in all of my life.
We All tend to see what we Want to see, what we Expect to see…
and often ignore signals and signs, out of our Desire for Love.
And we don’t get a lot of help from the culture we live in!

Genuine love, and truly Seeing someone and how beautiful they are,
how unique and delightful they are, and how thrilling it is to be so
close with someone so overwhelmingly powerful and Full of Life…
well….it is just that…
Thrilling, invigorating, humbling, terrifying and exciting…
the potential crashing together of two Souls filling your imagination…

This Truly was a Love, for Both….but…
As a close friend said, so simply and so wisely…
“Sometimes love isn’t enough…”

_______________

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… home …

house 3Our home was small and modest.  It was on the lower level of
this old multi leveled place, an old  manor of sorts, something
the family had lived in for generations.
The Grandfather had had it built a long long time ago, and I’m
sure at one time it was quite grand.  But it had fallen into disrepair,
and had this very sad aura about it.

Alcir was born here, and his mother and father still lived on the
upstairs level, although I never saw them.
He was disabled, in a wheelchair, and the only time I saw Her was
one day during my first visit…
I was sunning out on the deck of stone slabs, Not naked I might
add, and she came out on her upstairs veranda and yelled down
at me in Portuguese.

“nao fala Portuguese”, I responded, using one of my favorite
phrases while I was in Rio…
“Tu sabes bla bla bla…”   You Know what I mean!
I got That much… I didn’t know the specifics, but I certainly got
the gist… she neither liked nor approved of me, or my presence,
at that place.  Certainly she had no desire to See me, reminding
her of Alcir and his lifestyle.
I knew there had been other women, many other women, and
she had no idea who I was, or of our history and plans.
That one encounter was enough to not only chase me inside,
from the only sunny area… it also made clear her energies and
angry demeanor.  She was full of hate for him, and he for her…
I sometimes referred to the house as a Karmic Layer Cake.
And she was the Dark Cloud Frosting dripping over the whole
entire place.
And this incident of course led to a giant screaming fight between
Alcir and his Mother…. oh goodie.

Our front room was maybe 12×12, and also served as the
bedroom, the bed being made each evening from the cushions
of the couch.   The floor was concrete, with wooden tiles over
that were loose and shifting, creating concrete dust everywhere.
He threw a small rug over the worst part.   There were ornate
wrought iron bars over the one window, the wall 3 feet away
being the only view.

Attached to this room was a sort of hallway that led to the
shower (cold only), and held the small cabinet where he hung
all his clothes.   That in turn was side by side to an equally small
kitchen, with sink and small table.  It was likely 12×4, just wide
enough for me to lay down my yoga mat, (between one wall
and the sink) when I wanted to do my practice, and get away
from the tv, which was on all the time.
He frequently reminded me that that was a  great way to learn
Portuguese.
As I would do my yoga, he sometimes came through, stepping
over me, on his way to the shared kitchen.

Leading out of our kitchen was an amazing old tiled outdoor hall,
very narrow and with stairs leading up to another level outdoors,
where we hung our laundry.  I actually liked this area a lot,
up above.   Sky and quiet.
The walls, tiles and stairs were all a seascapes of rust and
breaking down paint and chipping finishes, creating
something that an artist might try to replicate in faux finishes.

If you went straight, instead of upstairs, there was the laundry
room, with concrete floor which was always cool in those
sweltering summer months, and the cooking kitchen for us
and for Maria.
A four burner stove, pots and pans of the most ancient aluminum
and worn metals, and a sink with cold water, were it’s accessories.

Maria was called Aunt, although she was not actually related to
the family.  She had been companion to Grandma since she was
a very young woman, and was just part of the family.
Now she was alone, and her routine was her life.
There were doors here, one to the outside veranda, and one
to Maria’s.  She had a nice little flat, with several rooms, two
bedrooms, a full kitchen, and lots of food.  I think Food and
the Doctors were her life.

Then there was the front Veranda.  My space.  No one used it,
and the curtained french doors leading to Maria’s were behind
me as I sat, watching the streets, and the people as they traveled
up and down the easy hillside, to the market, to the favellas behind
us, and to little homes that had been there seemingly forever.

The island was built up as Suburbs to mainland Rio, with winding
streets that held the most rundown places covered in graffiti, and
the most lovely landscaped and freshly painted abodes, side by side.

This Veranda was pretty much mine, and the many times I had
to get away from Alcir, or the tv, or the incredible clostraphobic
atmosphere, I came here and looked at that incredible sky,
for it was an island, and weather came and went with great
haste……wind, the people running up the hill to home, then the
giant drops…warm tropical rain and often wild and crashing
thunder, which I loved.
And then the sun would come out, and the island steamed clean.

Alcir and Maria thought I was crazy…. but for me it was thrilling,
invigorating, and Life, in that strange out of time world that both
Maria and Alcir lived in.
During those days, I called him “Dead Man Walking”, for much of
the time his presence was hard to find, fleeting between utter
depression, and the exhilaration he found with drink and powders.

_______________________________

by

… synchronicity …

How I Love Synchronicity

The film last night was eerily similar to things I’ve
been thinking about lately.  The main character was brilliant,
a genius actually, clever, gifted, abused as a child, and deserted
by the very people who were supposed to protect him…

He was unable to be close to anyone, and always left first,
so as not to Be left.  He did not expose himself to others,
and looked for their weakness, in order to divert attention
from his own fears, and to throw them off balance,
gain the advantage.

Because he thought of himself as unlovable, he could not
venture to love another.  He preferred to keep the distance,
to maintain the fantasy, the perfection of the other.
Real was not something he was comfortable with.

It was so pointedly on, I was tempted to write down some
of the lines.  But the most powerful one, the one that
gathered it all into something that could be absorbed,
and was stated by the shrink was this:

IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT!, IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT!, IT’S NOT
YOUR FAULT, It’s Not Your Fault, It’s Not your fault, It’s not
your fault, It’s not your fault, It’s not your fault, it’s Not
your fault, it’s not your fault, it’s not ….  over and over
and over until Finally….
Finally the layers slid away, one by one, and he heard…
He actually Heard and Felt, and the tears came, the
Heart opened, the bruised and battered child allowed
himself to be held and forgiven by….himself.

It did indeed remind me of someone I used to know.
The film is Good Will Hunting… and
it Did help, just a little.

_________