Tag Archives: brasil

by

…a resume…

The time grows nearer to my departure.  Over the weeks we have
grown to know eachother better, and certainly talked more than
we ever had years ago.  Years ago,  the body did the talking.

When you want to be close to someone, and all you have is the
phone, you think of a lot of things to keep the voice on the air,
no matter what.

The old and new Alcir were merging now, and I was almost all done
with preparations, packing, passport, and practicing Portuguese…
Gee, that was a lot of P’s !…  and I was ready for
Whatever was coming.

I was thinner, tanner, more centered, and all there was to do now
was to get my stuff in storage, and out of my daughter’s house,
and to be sure my dogs and cats were going to be alright for the
month I would be gone.
I had no idea what would be the outcome, so I had prepared both
for coming home and continuing on my own private Idaho,
and for things to be ok for me to continue on this Brasil direction,
and ready myself for further adventures beyond.

I poured over my journals, and re-viewed the things that I had
found about him and those 18 years we had been apart…
One of the first things I had found was a Resume he had put on
the internet, and I read it once again… the robot had translated,
so any possible poetics were gone, but the essence was there…
It had given me a snapshot of his life somewhat, after he left.

“Been born on 14/02/1958, former Rio de Janeiro pupil of the
Collegio Pedro II, former urban guerilla during periodo of the
dictatorship, exiled em 1979, having lived in 5 paises, and
transited by others the 43 in all continents.

Having worked as Fishing of Ouricos of Mar (Professional Diver)
of the coast north of the State of California.  He ties the Alaska,
where I lived per 4 years having worked there tambien as
Fishing of King Crab, that and considered the profession most
dangerous of the world, and having served per 5 years in the
French Foreign Legion, in the Duzieme Regiment Etrangere
de Parachoutists of where I gave low with apos metals of bravery
to have passed for tres great conflicts, as:  Chad, Djbouty, and
finally in the Gulf War Desert Storm.
Eximio sailor, having crossed the horn four times, two times
being ground.

The unica reason pra that I bring everything this tone, and so
that can subsidize what I believe gives a success, my book of
memories that would like to see published, as much how much
the remain of my tedious workmanship would literaria.
None ties the moment, but I wait to revert this picture how
much before.
In the truth, I have dues letters and an article on fishes of
ouricos of the sea, and the Exon Valdez, published in the
periodical San Francisco Chronical.
I Wait Contacts…”

So from what I could glean, he’d attended the most prestigious
school in Rio, which meant Brasil, where when a student graduates,
they are already at the level of 2 years of college.  I knew now
that he spoke Brasilian Portuguese, English, French, and I
believe also touches of several other languages, as well as some
of the Indiginous dialects.
He’d been diving for Urchins on our coast, and going to Alaska
for four seasons  of the King Crab (and the show called the
World’s Most Dangerous Catch had filled me in on That life!
I certainly could envision him on the deck, whipped by giant and
frigid waves, while working 20 hours a day, that Permagrin
melding his face) and he Loved it!

He’d joined the Legion, and although he’d gotten out in two years
and returned to Brasil, still I guess he continued to serve for three
more years somehow…maybe as part of his agreement for going
home early.
He’d been back in Brasil since 1989, and now had a daughter.
His two sons from two different marriages were now grown, and
they were somewhat estranged from him.

I recalled how he had told me the story of his enlistment…
The fellow had been distracted with other things, screens, pages….
and when he finally saw and interviewed Alcir, the guy gave him a
name… in the Legion you loose all history, can make No contracts,
and there is a new name given.

I seem to remember that something was on the TV screen, likely
the series, for the fellow decided that Alcir was to be Scott Austin….
Steve Austin’s brother…. you remember the Six Million Dollar Man?
He said he was his Brother….
And Usually, you don’t get out for seven years.  Period.

He told me that his regiment was the most exclusive, and they
dropped out of planes at such an altitude, they wore oxygen masks.
They were sent in on secret black opp missions, and he had begun
to tell me just a little about those ventures.
I’d known about the Revolutionary thing, and why he was exiled
after some daring stunts, including robbing banks to subsidize
the Revolution.
I remember his tale of doing Two Banks at a time, in the middle of
the street, guns in each hand, and I saw this crazy movie in my
head, with Antonio Banderos, grinning the whole while.

He got very discouraged after learning that the money wasn’t all
going where it was supposed to go, and once again ideals fall prey
to the reality of corruption and lies… the very things he had been
fighting against.  He left on a small boat that his grandfather had
paid for, and came to Norway, Hawaii, and then NorCal.

My time flew at the end… too much to gather together, too many
lists and minutiae… trying to think of things I had to have, things
I couldn’t get in Rio… my CDs, my vitamins and supplements,
cameras, film, watercolors, brushes and paper, journals, stuff for
the sun life (Hawaii helped with that, as Rio is on the same lattitude in
the south)…and I wrapped presents for his birthday…Valentines Day!

I’d found him some vintage sunglasses on ebay, and was quite pleased
with myself.  He had looked great in his Vuarnets, and I knew the 60s
Raybans would certainly do the trick.

As well, there was the Green issue, and since they only had something
the equivelent of what we called Mexican Dirt weed, I bought some
Sees Chocolates, hollowed them out, and put a little Bud in each one,
sealing them up with warmed dark chocolate.
His bandido was rubbing off…
Still, I had this funny movie in my head, these big Brasilians, smelling
and tasting the chocolates, and dragging me away….

And now He had a list for Me… things he couldn’t get there…
a Living Color tape, Marshall Tucker Band tape, the Bill Murray
film, Where the Buffalo Roam…High Times with some Sailing article
he’d  seen, a can of zippo (no can take on plane), and some
good Scotch…of course.

I told him I would do what I could.   He was pretty poor, but although
I was relatively the same, still I knew there were many more options
for me, and I had no problem in fulfilling wishes that would make both
of our lives better….

Details, details, details…. notes to myself all over the place.
And that feeling of Can’t Wait in back of it all….
It was all going like a bus out of control, and at this point, there
was nothing I could do but hurry up! and all I could do was wait
and go with the flow.

 

 

by

…a carnaval birth…

The story of his birth during Carnaval, an incredible time in Brasil,
had the doctor watching Samba Schools pass by out the window…
Each Samba School has lots and lots of members, and they each take
their own special time to show their stuff.

The doctor said he would wait until ‘his’ Samba School passed by.
(this confused me, because he had told me a long time ago that
he was born in Honolulu.  Sometimes I have to question his stories…)
“So my fader got his pistol and held it to the doctor’s head and said ..
“Let’s do it Now!”…”

“So what could come from such a beginning?” he puzzled…
“I came out all tangled in the cord around my neck and I looked
like a wreck, my fader said.
One side of my face was all messed up, from how I had laid or som’thing.
My grandmother was there.  When people kept coming by to see me,
she kept putting the good side up”

And then there was the popcorn issue… when I’d first met him, I had
offered him popcorn, a popular food at my house.  His response was
to tell me stories, that when the doctor birthed him, he’d said
“This Baby Cannot Eat Popcorn!”

Actually, I guess several Santerias did tell him that.  He added that
once after he ate some, and he crashed his car or something,
he then decided that was IT.  Never eat popcorn!

He says he’s not drinking, and he’s working out every day.
“I wan’ to look good for you.  I’ve shaved off my beard, I was looking
like Buffalo Bill or som’thing.  I don’ wan’ to look old…”

Martha Stewart just got out of Camp Cupcake, and he commented …
“Martha Stewart is going to rise like a Phoenix… but not just Any
Phoenix…. no…. but one she’s Made Herself!”

We remembered that night on the beach, the July 4th night, and
how he had ambled up to me, and joined me and the girls on that
huge log near the fire.

“How are you?”
“Oh, I don’ know…. new kid on the block”
“What do you want?”
“To be happy…”
“What makes you happy?”
“I don’ know…”
“How’s your spiritual life?”
“Oh it’s going right along I guess…. I don’ know…”

So now I ask … “If I ask you today, what would be your answer?”
and he said he thinks he now knows what makes him happy.
Today he said he is happy when he is on or near water.
I wan’ my boat, to sail anywhere.  To maybe live on it, to make
money with charters, to live minimalistically, no luxuries,
just simple.”
“Vitoria can come with me if she want to, or she can stay with
her mother….”
And me?  I didn’t ask.  I know the answer.  I can come.

He has it in his mind that he wants to make money hunting for
sunken treasure.  By now, I think well….yes, if anyone can…
He has maps of over 70 sunken ships… oh god, I think…here we
go again… Does he ever stop?
Can you imagine?  He’s a world class diver…why not…?
Maybe I can make videos, and we can work with National Geo,
or something….
He says he’ll start by going and picking up what he already Knows
is there…. even Piney is ready to go on That expedition!

This is a man who thinks of himself as alone.  Probably always has,
and he may always…
But he has never had a real partner in his life.  If it’s there, if it’s
as I believe it to be, then will he be able to prioritize it?

Right now, he is saying “It’s a new year, a new beginning,
an’ I wan’ to do things right.”
but he also says…”I’m not going to change…..
and so you just have to find a way to live with who I am.”

 

 

by

…internal journal continues…

January 10 2005

She was lovesick.  Full of love and longing
and aching burning want.

The hollow pit that was her stomach hungered for him, prowled
the jungle for him, plodded swamps in the rainforest for him.
There was no face to bring into focus.  Eighteen years had left
a blur of pixel mixed elements that really made no sense.

The eyes.  The eyes couldn’t have changed much.  She held to
those eyes, large and dark, slanted with heavy lids.

The moment she beheld the eyes, she would know, she
would be home again.

But what if…. what if they couldn’t live up to their own memory?
He had begun mentioning faults… the bad knee, the bad ankle…
something about his face.
She’d know it…that perfect face.
“What happened?”, she queried.
“Did you see Scarface?”
“Ya..” she lied.  but she let the title take to her mind……
And then he snickered… something about operations and
moving something from here to there…his Cheek?
“You’ll see”, he finalized.

But to her, his scars were nothing.  Before, he was almost too perfect.
So gracefully handsome, so smooth skinned, the lines of the
swimmer’s body adding to his aristocratic elegance.
He would still be him.
She knew this, she held this to her breast like a child hungry
for comfort and sustenance.

But what about her?  Would she be enough like the girl he had
remembered, the girl he had been mesmerized by, as he had just
admitted to, but a week ago..?

She had been wounded too…by life, by love, by time and
other thieves.
Surely a sadder but wiser girl would stand before him.

Still she wondered about the directions they would take…

What will we Do with the new being that he and I will create?
What will be our goals, our directions, with all this Stuff that
we bring to the table between us….

I hope I can keep a perspective, and view myself clearly…
I want to stay in the present, fresh and awake, not reactive
from the past…
Can we both be in the same Place?

by

…just a note…

For those of you reading this from your email, or
from your Facebook page, may I suggest you move
to my site itself, with a little Click….
…and for a couple reasons.

One, it is Ever So Much More Sexy a Layout on the
Blog page, than on some other makeshift version.

And Two… then I am spurred on by the
Number of Hits on my site.

Dear People….. Writing is solitary work, and
I Need ALL the Encouragement I can get!

Alohas…!

 

 

 

by

…internal journal…

  January 6, 2005

So… the talks we have, long and into the night, are frequented
with lots of booze, but when he’s inebriated, he really talks,
expounds with theories and diatribes, on ethics and commitments,
on his mind set and why.

It’s pretty darned interesting, but it’s also a lot of work.  I feel
exhausted from it, and I’m not quite sure of the whys.
I feel like I need to record this, and that it is important somehow.
But why do I feel this way?

It is important because he is a movie in the making, because his
voice is a broad band of incomparable experience of Maleness
in this world.
.. or am I just puffing it all up with importance…?

You can see the cover of my old journal, and it speaks for itself.
I knew what I was getting in to, yet there was no going back.

Interesting things are occurring in my brain throughout all of this…
First there was the fantasy, the romantic movies that were left in
my storehouse, replayed so many times that I was truly unsure of
what was the truth anymore.

I remember writing quickly, to remember clearly, so as not to distort
it, but still after all this time, I am no longer assured it is the truth.
No one else even knew him, except my daughter Piney a little, and
she adored him.  A couple people MET him, but I know no one else
now who Knew him then.

So as these weeks have passed, I notice the old movies fading, and
a new gathering image formulating before me.   One based on bits
and pieces, gleaned from long conversations, one building upon
another, like pixels filling in the dots to dots, and a new man begins
to emerge before me, in my mind’s eye.

Yet these eyes, which lived to eat up his countenance, these eyes
which were so delightfully pleased with the sensual pleasures of his
physical self…….they are not allowed to be involved in this re-
formulation yet, this complete re-assembling of information.

And now I see the brain attempting to overlay one upon the other,
the  old, or rather Younger Alcir, the iconic hero character who
flashed in and out of my reality…overlayed like images on Velum…
over this new Alcir, the more complex and complete picture of the
man, without the eyes filling in and informing my soul.

These eyes see much, and I depend on them to grant me information
that they grasp on so many levels.  Will they adore what they see,
or will they speak of pain and sadness, and too much to handle?

This other life that I head towards, this being that impacted my orbit
with great explosions and re-adjustments…that in effect changed
some of my life’s directions..  enlarging my horizons, and filled in
spaces by his very existence..can I now integrate him into my
daily life, can I hold it all, and still keep hold of myself?

We are tumbling towards eachother, as surely as stars on trajectory
into a future that holds more explosions and murgings, to
create a new being, a new reality, a new star in the night sky.
What will this star pour out into the universe?
And what is IT’s life about?

This particular evening, after he’s heard I have a ticket,
a date, a plan…
…..after he’s been back in the shadows smoking his cigar,
hiding his hopes…
After spreading himself like jam on my  toast …
with that poem, that said his heart was new and open…
….after the shared heart stories…
….his youthful joy renewed…

He’s been back there, waiting for my true reply, waiting to SEE…
“I want to SEE it”   he’s said, over and over.

So he leaves the phone to pee…and when he comes back,
his voice is insistent…
“One thing just occurred to me…
You’re not Bullshitting me, are you?”

It was a statement, not a question.

 

 

by

…the discovery…

The story that Alcir told me, of how he discovered Who he was,
discovered that he was First and Foremost a loner and a diver…
is actually rather heartbreaking, yet  beautiful at the same time.

“My inner self started when I was 6 years old, and I was drowning
in high seas.   My father trew me in the wader, he watch me as
I tried to stay up, my arms an’ legs grabbing.

I wen’ down, and didn’t come up.  I Loved it.  I went down to the
bottom, and sat in the mud for a long time…. maybe four minutes.
Suddenly I appeared up, with a big smile, and I discovered my life.
All I wanted was to dive.
I discovered who I was…. a loner and a diver. I didn’t need anyone
else to help me, or to tell me who I was.
And that is when I started fighting it.
They…my parents… could never understand why I refused to use
my intelligence, which they said I had.
Two times I broke the world record for deep sea diving.
I went over 75 meters down…
I don’t care that it was not recorded.  I know who I am. ”

 

 

 

I remember he told me once that he went down … i don’t know…
200 meters or something crazy.  When he came back up, the
other guys didn’t believe that he’d gone down all the way to
the sea floor, so he went back down, following the anchor chain,
and brought up some sand from the bottom, just to prove
that he did.  This was a Free Dive.

He claimed he could stay down for many minutes… four or five…
and frankly I doubted his story.  I mean, impossible, right?
Then much later, I saw some nature program, where it talked
about how some people have this rare genetic ability …
and can, indeed, hold their breath for many minutes, and also
endure deep dives.  I had no idea.

“All I wan’ to do is make myself happy.  Society wans people who
wan’ to impress society.  I’m not a monkey… I’m not a circus animal,
that lives to amuse people… I jus’ wanna live my life.”

He got a medal for bravery.  It was in Desert Storm I think.
He carried a buddy on his back to safety, but he was already dead.

“He took 6 or 7 bullets for me”, he told me “but he was already dead.
Actually, he shielded me, but that was not why I carried him.
I never thought of that, I only thought of getting him out of there”

Another war story in Desert Storm… he was sleeping in his tent,
and in the middle of the night, he got up to take a piss… he heard
an explosion.
He looked back, and NO TENT…

He’s been shot 11 times, stabbed 4 times, and something happened
to his face.
“I know,” I told him. ” I can’t believe you’re still alive.  I’m amazed.”

“If You are…imagine me?”  His eyes grew dark and clouded over.
Still, his gaze was intent, as he looked deeply into me, knowing
he was sharing things hidden so deeply within his heart.

“When I am at war, I do not see them as human beings…no…
as a target; I have a perfect concept that they feel the same for me.”

“I don’ wanna die,  I don’ know why.  I don’ care about life or death, but …
somehow, I don’ wanna die”

He told me so many things about himself that night.  My heart is
heavy with the realizations of his youthful pain.  He said at six,
his mother told him he wouldn’t live til he was eight, and every
year she renewed her predictions.

“Why?” I asked.
“Because she didn’t like me.”

He was always in trouble, at home, at school.  And then came the
beatings.
Now today, I realize that he is ADHD.  And these people are usually
extremely intelligent, and in those days they were completely
misunderstood.

And the father story… a life of beatings.  With the belt, with a
piece of wood, with whatever he had in his hand at the time….
…even kicking him, and when he fell to the ground and curled up
in a ball, well then he’d kick him some more.
They both took great pleasure in punishing him in front of others.
Strange, how such terrible deep scarring can direct someone to
such drive, such accomplishment.
I’ve felt for some time that all of this was about proving himself
as a man.  But not to be loved, not to be liked by others.
And he was never accepted or shown love by either parent.

No, it was something deeper.  Proving to Himself that he was
what he Knew himself to be……  Extraordinary.

by

…holiday journal 2004…

After three weeks of conversation, after sharing memories
that seemed aligned and clarifying, it was nearing the end of
December, Christmas and the New Year soon to come.

During this time, that Poem had been sent, swooning me into
Cinderella dreams, dreams of my hero coming to whisk me away
to an exotic land and an adventurous, new life.

The next morning I called him… it was afternoon there…
“So… did you get the poem?…was it really bad?”
“No, it was good…it…it bowls me over.  You’re so Bold”
“So….what do you think?”
I pause, speechless for the moment.  Then softly, a whisper rises
from my heart…. yes…….yes…..yes, yes, Yes!
“So….you liked the poem That much?”
“No…I like You that much.”
“So… how do we do this?”
“One day at a time, I guess”
“Oh, like alcoholics….ok…I wan’ to kiss you right now”
“Well…our lips are each close to the phone…”
“I know where I’d like my lips to be…”  he trailed off….
…..I could see his smile…

“I can see you naked right now……I remember that”
“What do you remember?”
“Your nice big round butt…I love it…and your voluptuous tees …
…I’m getting hard…it hasn’t been used much in a while.”
“Me neither… two and a half years!”
“Oh, Tight”… his grin was audible.
“Ya… I guess I’m re-virginized.”

“I live on an island,” he began, “in the middle of this huge bay…
Guanabara… it’s Huge, 15 by 16 miles!  The only way to get off it
is by this bridge that is 21 miles long…”
“It’s the family estate, it’s fairly large.  It is where I was born.
They wan’ to sell it, but they can’t, as long as I’m here.
They keep offering me Peanuts…peanuts and banana peels…
But I don’ wan’ banana peels…I wan’ the Banana!”

The next time we talk, he inserts
“…So…that poem I wrote?  I meant Every word.”
And later he comes back with his frustration…
“So…how are we going to Do this thing?  Are we gonna keep on
with this telephone bullshit?”

So it’s Christmas Eve, and I call him as requested.  I have a
phone card that is so amazingly cheap, it only makes sense, and
so we have our own little party, drinking and chattering,  as though
we are really together, and laughing our guts out, on and on,  for
three or four Hours!
It was the closest we’d gotten yet to being together.

He began telling me all the things he wanted to do to me…
“I like holes…. places I can put inside…” with which the laughter just
exploded out of me…. bwahahahahaha!.
Later he said he was hard again….
“Oh… I think I’m gonna have to peel the banana tonight.”

He told me things he’d never said.  He said things about the first
time he saw me, when he saw my body…. he talked about his
Tahoe girlfriend, back when we’d first met.  He said it was nothing,
something about how she was more like a friend, and not a
girlfriend, but I didn’t get much more.

I don’t know if he’s Ever really been in Real Love.  He’s a Romantic
turned Cynic… but in there, he does want a True Love…
“Somebody by my side” he told me…
“If I had someone by my side…”, and I told him that he Did.
“I’m Here…Alcir, I’m here.  You’re Home my darling…”
“..oh…woman…  what are you doing to me?”……
It came softly, and from a distance.

At first when I had called him, his daughter V was still up,
and he was laughing.
“Oh NO!… what deed you doo?  Did you farted?  Oh,
I can’ belive it.  My beautiful little daughter farted…”
All of us started laughing, all of us.

“You know… it’s wrong for fathers to have daughters, because
we are raised to believe you people don’ shit or piss or fart.
Nothing smells….an’ then we hav’ a daughter, an we fine out
all these theeengs.  It destroys all our fantasies!
The myths are Gone…. ”  he was laughing deeply now.
“She has Brake marks in her shorts!”

He had made a complete Christmas dinner, for the two of them,
and for his aunt.
Turkey, rice farofa, some sweet potato thing, some kind of pupu
which lost me in the translation…
White wine the first night, red the second…
“Is this some sort of tradition?” I asked.
“No…jes’ a good way to get drunk…”

Vitoria could hardly handle the wait for midnite, to open her presents.
At one point, she was crying for him to come lie down with her…
I almost hung up, to call him later, but then he said…
“Oh wait…she’s stopped…her eyes are closing.”
and then he asked “Know what I’ve got in my hand right now?”
“Your cock?” I offered…. and a breathy snicker came forth…
“A nice little gram, and now that my daughter’s aslip…wan’ one?”

Hmmmmmm…….

 

 

by

…journal entry december 2004…

“My mind wandered past years of mind games, years of imaging,
and I wondered:  has all this thinking, remembering, replaying
old mind videos made it happen?  Or did I just Know to begin with?
Gazing continually at scenes of Rio, Pao d’Azucar, Corcovado,
Guanabara Bay, the Islands, the Music… and always him in each…
Think of Rio visit, and Always in my mind there’s the thought…
I want him to show it to me.
I want to be with him, and see His Brasil.

The days are getting longer again, and just the thought
makes me smile… Actually the thoughts of more than a few things
make me smile…
Such incredible things to look forward to, such possibilities…
My dear darling crazy Brasilian is down and wounded, and I
wonder why… His left knee is bad, and where did that old injury
come from, which dragon was he slaying?

Haven’t spoken with him in many days, and it actually feels better
to take a break.  The longing festers…
It’s only been 2 weeks since we first spoke, and so much already.
And I must wait 2 months for Passport, 2 months of selling,
2 months of workouts..
Last times I called, he wasn’t in a talking mood. I felt awkward, like
I was irritating him, and that just led to frustration and feelings
of rejection, so I do not call.  He’s in his cave, even though he says
‘call any time you want’…  I want Him to call Me.

So now, for one thing, I realize he lied to me when we were together
before.  He told me he was ‘tirty tree’, but his real birthdate is
four years later.  So he was only 29 when we met!  What a Brat!
A brash and bold, incredible Brat.

Now back to December 8th, his first call:

His questions came fast… Is your hair still long?  Do you still wear
those dresses and long skirts?  You sound the same, he said.
I can see you right now.  I always loved your voice…. he’d never
told me that …

“Yes, I remember the hot tub…” he continued.  “And it wasn’t just
the drugs… we went someplace else.”  (… we had smoked the kind,
but god only knows what else he had done…)
“That was the only time I had Peace.  I could fall asleep with my
head on you, on your lap.  I never did that.
I was drunk most of the time… I was drunk that first night, but
you sobered me up…”

“So….when are you coming to Brasil?  We can listen to Real Brasilian
music, and you can lay down beside me.
I’ll show you the Best of Brasil…”

He told me that after the first email, he had called my old number…
he still had my old shop card, from back in the eighties!
He read off the address, the phone… he’d kept it in a box since
the Legion.  He said it was now a store in town, and
they didn’t know me.
My shop had been called ‘Celestial Dreams’… and up floated the
memory of that time early on, when the phone rang…
“Hello..”
“Hallooo?  eees thees Celestial Dreeeems?”
“….yesss…?”
“Yes….. I’d like to order one celestial dreeeem, pleees….”
(snickers all around)
“Actually,” he added…. I’ll settle for an earthly one…”

So now he continued…  “Right now I am alone.  All the time.  I have a dog.
I swim everyday.  That’s Alone.  I want to get a Boat,
I want to sail and fish. ”   He said he was semi retired,
living on a small pension from the Legion…

“I have no enemies now” he shared.  “And you remember
All my names!  Only my grandmother knows all those names!
And I? ….I remember your taste…. you tasted so good….
…..you tasted like flowers.”

 

 

by

…finding my way to Rio…

Suddenly my life had taken the turn to adventure.  I didn’t even have
a Passport!  The only places outside of the Mainland States that I had
ventured to were Hawaii and Alaska.
Loved Hawaii and could Live there, but Alaska? only wanted to visit.

My time was now laid out… I had 6 weeks to get my act together,
before I left for Rio for a month.
He had set the deadline as February 14th… his Birthday…and so
it was ordained.
I had things to pack and put in storage, for I was staying with one
of my daughters at the time, the one who had secured my ticket….
I had to ensure that my animals were safe and loved for the time,
the Passport App was mailed, and I began making money in earnest.

I am an artist, and have always been fond of a Bohemian life, living
day to day and on Trust.  It has always worked, although there are
drawbacks, to be sure.  Still, my freedom has always come first!
I was happy to learn that US dollars were doubled in Brasil, so that
made everything seem a little easier!

As I was impatiently awaiting the leave, while simultaneously and
quietly freaking out, I continued my ongoing studies of Brasil.

Through the past nearly 20 years since I first met Alcir, the Music has
largely been my passport to the culture, and it allowed me to share in
much of the passion, concern, and vibrations if you will, of Brasil,
and particularly Rio.

I settled on Jobim as my groundwater.  The Carioca accent, the deep
warm voice, full of passionate joy and melancholic nuance.
He was the one to bring Brasil to the US, and his melodies are almost
cliche now…. but no, never trite.
It’s odd, because still a lot of Americans (and I hesitate using that
misnomer, as Alcir would laugh his deep and heartful laugh and
remind me…. “don’ call them Americans!  We’re American too!!)  …

A lot of the US knows the songs if you hum them, but have no idea
of who he is.  They still play “Quiet Nights and Quiet Stars”,
“Meditation”, and of course “Girl from Ipanema” as background…!

As soon as it gets romantic or sexy seductive in a film, here comes
one of the familiars, and I’ve often heard them in the supermarket
(the elevator equivalent these days).

So…. since 1985 it’s been my mission to know just what Brasil was
about, hear the language, feel the voices, and get into the mindset.

Beyond that, it was that incredible Guanabara Bay, with Pao d’Azucar,
the islands, the views of Rio with the Concrete Christ, arms spread
and embracing that dear, ancient city, that mesmerized me.

The populace is as varied as the US in some ways… a mixture of the
Indigenous, the conquering Portuguese, and the Africans they brought
in as slaves.  Fascinating mixtures that creates this race of people
where each face is completely different from the next.
I was intriqued to see that one or the other had lead in the genetic
makeup, with nuance of the others in the back-ground.  Because I’d
lived in Hawaii and saw the same phenomenon, this only continued
the anthropological studies I had begun long ago.

The Indigenous contributed their fierce, wild, free spirit, along with
wonderful instruments and sounds that had worked their way into the
fusion jazz of today…. an area where Brasil excelled with their contribution.
Many of their sounds mimic and include the forest of their origin.

African rhythms are the basis of much that comes out of Brasil, and
the influence in new Jazz directions is obvious.  As well, as in many
other Latin countries, the Africans brought their ancient religion,
there called Macumba and Candomble, as well as Capoeira, the
martial arts practice that will blow your mind!

And lastly, there are the many representatives of so many other
countries who have moved there, run away there, or just somehow
found themselves there… particularly the Japanese and the Germans.
Interestingly enough to me, Everyone speaks Portuguese, which
must be a very unifying happenstance.  But it always provided a
little laugh for me, to see blue eyed Arians and Japanese speaking
Portuguese, and likely with their own accents.

And then the Portuguese.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve felt that they are the Gypsies, the ones
who were out there so many centuries ago, meeting, mixing, mating
and gathering other cultures.   They seem to have brought back many
subtle flavors to mix in, along with the Latin soul and Catholic
mythology that is still so prevalent today.
And I must add here that it has been my experience that the
Portuguese have a superiority complex, and I was to know that
better as I truly met the Real Alcir.

So there I was.  Filling my senses with as much of Brasil that I could.
Learning some Portuguese, understanding the Carioca accent and
style,  (Rio has it’s own regional dialect)… and realizing Rio was
Ancient in so many ways, and with so much history, and learning
more and more about Alcir, and who he Really was, and had become.

 

 

by

…to be or not to be…

You know, I’m beginning to see readers that are checking out my
story from Norway, Hong Kong, Australia, Turkey, Bangladesh(!)
Brasil, and of course the States…

This is exciting!  Although the audience is small right now, to
have such a planetary interest throws me back to one intention
that has been there since before I started this blog….
I’m going to turn this Romance into a Book, sooner or later!

So for now, that’s all I have to say.  But as the days and weeks go by,
I may have some more definite plans to let you in on.  I’d like to make
it available both on line, and in printed form…

I am always interested in your reactions, so Please pipe up, join in,
and give voice to what would make you happy!
And Please note that when you have a thought, do share it with me,
even if it’s brief.  It’s nice to know you’re out there…

Peace to All…..