hanging by the toenails....

In Rio and waiting for the days to pass so I can travel home to see my family, I walked to the end of Ipanema, the end between Ipanema and Copacabana called the Arpoador. Climbing around on the rocks and enjoying the ocean sights and breezes, taking photos as I always do - I thought this cactus as an apt metaphor for LIFE , my life in particular. How do you like that? Its roots clinging precariously to the rocks, its flowers delicate and its fruit sweet (well I can take poetic license here), its protective thorns dangerous but not deadly, this desert plant growing in the land of palm trees - thriving because it is designed to survive despite its location, despite the weather, surviving because it draws nourishment from its surroundings. Possibly this is a lesson I could learn.

In search of a new perspective

WOW those stars without makeup - takes me back to being 12 again, (way-way back) hoping that someday someone would 'discover' me, my real beauty shining through! Many of these women are more beautiful before the magic wand of the make-up artist was applied but the demanding standards of the public must be met.

I keep hearing, 'been here five years' running through my head. I am finishing up my class, Lingua Inglese, at PUC and the new crop of hopefuls have been asking me about myself. Curiosity about the estrangeira. When I say I have been here 5 years, there is a barely discernable (polite) lifting of the eyebrow. Their thought, ' why then don't you speak Portuguese?' can be heard floating in the air between us.

I no longer try to explain that for the first 3 years I made no effort to learn the language; I was convinced that what I wanted was to go HOME; I wanted my old life back; I wanted to feel comfort again from my world. These are not sentiments that you try to explain to strangers passing through - it is barely understandable by me let alone those that only want to hear that life is 'a polite great'. There are days and sometimes only hours, that these feeling still surface but this class, that is about language acquisition, the understanding of the structure and the purpose of language, has helped me in a surprising way. Did you know that our culture is a very big portion of who we are (of our ego or the I, as Freud called it), and that Language is the most important component of culture - therefore - an important part of how we define ourselves. Oh, the class has talked about many theories about language but this one fit into my particular situation with ease. If the house where you live is different, and the government, money system, music, and noise of the city are different and you give up your language too, who are you? [Like being a two-year-old again and resiting potty training, you don't really understand why, but you know it has to be fought in order to save yourself] How do you resist the impulse to fight this major change in who you are? And now with five years of subtle changes that happen despite my fight to maintain the 'who I am' portion of my life, I woke-up and found myself CHANGED. Now the battle to accept and to understand this newest me begins.

GingerV

To adapt - To adjust

After returning from a trip whether it be to Europe, to the United States or even a short trip into Southern Brazil, I always find myself not depressed exactly, but with a heavy, distraught feeling of need to re-adjust to Rio. On the surface this does not seem to make any sense. Rio is a beautiful city, in fact

Central Rio..........................................................Central Madrid

the farther away you go, the better your view and the more beautiful the city is. I always look forward to returning. My question here is really about adjusting or adapting and why I would have to RE-adjust on every return. If you look at the meaning of these two words they are basically the same. In fact the dictionary uses the word adapt to define adjust. Adjust (1) to adapt or conform (as to new conditions) and adapt (1) to make fit (as for a new situation) often by modification. This did not help me to understand my feelings, but down a bit at the bottom of adapt there was a section that said.... adapt implies modification according to changing circumstances and adjust implies bringing into a close and exact correspondence or harmony.

Based on this definition, I realized that I do the adapting part well. I can go to the cramped and chaotic supermarket and still remain polite, take a taxi to catch the bus to Friburgo, take the bus to go to the mall and sleep to the sound of buses shifting gears and horns of taxis protesting closely shared space, but I think that I have never adjusted.

There is no feeling of peace, of being at home, of being in harmony with my surroundings. I am always aware of being the stranger on the streets, anything I say in Portuguese marks me as 'Estrangeira' just as the blouses I wear or my sensible shoes, my broad shoulders and long stride do. Maybe speaking the language would bridge some of this need to adjust, it might bring some sense of harmony, but I fear it won't. I fear that only a life in your own country, among the major things that make home home can bring back any feeling of really belonging.