We never live long enough in our lives

to know what today is like.

Shards, smiling beaches,

abandon us somehow even as we converse with them.

And the leopard is transparent, like iced tea.

I wake up, my face pressed

in the dewy mess of a dream. It mattered,

because of the dream, and because dreams are by nature sad

even when there’s a lot of exclaiming and beating

as there was in this one. I want the openness

of the dream turned inside out, exploded

into pieces of meaning by its own unasked questions,

beyond the calculations of heaven. Then the larkspur

would don its own disproportionate weight,

and trees return to the starting gate.

See, our lips bend.

– John Ashbery –

Maninho, me, and Eukias. This is the day my Angel went to ICU. The guys came over and tried to cheer me up.

Paudalho. my place.

Me, Joelson, and Maninho. i got the “Joe Cool” hat for him.

L to R: Romilo, Junior, GooGoo (ok…that´s what they call him…the guy in the back), Precilla, Benigna, and me

Karine´s 20. old old old. L to R: Her grandmother from England, Johnny, Alyssa, Ivana, Raquel, Kattia, Karine (she is sorta blah about pictures), Rebeka, and Ricardo (making some kind of face.)

Me and Solange

me and Nal. At Acerolandia…the most amazing juice EVER is there.

Sunset. the clouds and sky almost looked like candy.

ok. this just makes me look like a great photographer. not really. it doesn´t do it justice.

L to R: Fernanada, Maninho (a different one), Aninha, and Gaby.

The Supermarket

the cart wheels creak and refuse to turn
pick up your end and lift to cut corners
rice, beans, macaroni, crackers
outside the street lined with streamers
that blow with the saving wind
tarps rise and fail
in their attempts to give shade
i cannot inhale quickly enough
to capture the smells
cumin, cinnamon, mango, celantro
the heat bears down on my shoulders
while sweat gathers on the small of my back
the flies take their share
one Real of this
two Reis of that
by the while pile for five
pay the man with the wheelbarrow
to take it to the taxi
my feet stumble over the uneven cobblestones
i grab a hand
twiddle a thumb
and feel at home

Meat market

a corner of red flesh
hooks hanging and winding
the red and white swaying
some pieces still have black hair on them
the fat overrules
t-bone steak on a rack
waiting to be taken to an restaurant
served with silver silverware
right next to the potatoes and peas
but now it sits next to the intestines
and cow hooves
and large hunks
that still resemble the animal
it still seems too real
too alive
to eat yet. let it
be processed some more
until it is just another bite
to put in my mouth
and finish my plate

i woke up and decided it was time to learn how to cook. i get these urges every once in awhile. so i followed Luzia around the kitchen (the maid/cook at Aninha´s house). we had coconut fish today. really yummy. Brasilian cooking basically just adds tomato, onion, and celantro to everything. but it is all from scratch.

so i figured that the green coconuts had coconut water in them and the brown ones had coconut milk.

we are always buying the green ones and sticking straws in. it looks like water. coconut water. but you know on movies, they have those brown coconuts, and you stick the straw in and it is white–coconut milk.

when i told Luzia that, she laughed. and told Junior. who told Aninha. who told Solange.

apparently, all coconuts make coconut water. the brown ones are better for scraping out the white stuff inside, which grated is coconut as we USians know it. you take the white stuff and blend it in the blender with water and it makes coconut milk. the white stuff is really yummy raw. now you know. now i know. now they are laughing again.

“Sunrise” in Portuguese is literally “the birth of the sun.” every morning the sun is born in the east.

my official nickname is “the girl with the white legs.” “white legs” for short. i even have the name in sign language. at night, they tell me to put on pants so the lights will be turned off.

i am not joking.

exchange rate is 1.7Real for every dollar. i feel the pennies slipping through my fingers…

Do they have more foot deformities in Brasil, or it is just because i see more feet, proportionally?

living here. really being a part of something. makes me realize how long i have lived in the shadows. so no one would notice. so i wouldn´t draw attention. so i wouldn´t be called out. and now that i am…it is not such a bad thing at all.

how can a capture what surrounds me
on paper
in words
in pictures
in feelings
?

i walked to the rock and a little girl cried out “Tia!” She remembered me from the PETI project. what is beautiful thing it is to be remembered. she came and sat down next to me. her name is Luanna. she told me she is going to sell beer during Carnival. she is 8.

i read your recipe book and things are a little different here.

we don´t have pop ´n fresh. how do you make it from scratch?
the meat is not the same. not ground up and in a package…it is hanging from a rack in big slabs
chicken isn´t frozen in nice pieces to put in the George Foreman machine…it is sold live. and they look sick.
how do you make popcorn without a microwave?
how do you make relish? and i am not sure if they have pickles.
there is no celery here. no whip cream. no maple syrup. no Arbys horsey sauce.
how do you make horseradish sauce?
how do you make ranch dressing…or anything to dip carrots into. because eating carrots alone is not fun.
They have things that resemble lettuce, but no dressing.
how do you make granola?
the fish they sell has the whole thing still intact. how do you get the bones out when it is still looking at you? can you eat the skin?
the cheese is squeaky when you chew it. and they have all these weird
kinds. not cheddar. and not nicely grated in a bag. big blocks.
they don´t have crockpots.
salsa doesn´t come in a can. and everything is cut by hand. no slicing/dicing/chopping things.
how important is it to have a beater? can you just whip things by hand…what about meringue?
What can i use in the place of cream cheese? and don´t say cottage cheese, they don´t have that either.
How do you make deviled eggs again?
please send spinach seeds. i shall just grow my own.

the cheap stuff here is the fresh stuff…tomatoes, onions, celantro,
carrots, lettuce-ish stuff, cabbage, cucumbers (oh yeah…i like
cucumbers now mum!), lots of different kinds of yams, potatoes, sweet potatoes, macaxeira
(some weird root thingy)…what the heck could i make with those things?

and then fruit. what to do with fruit? right now, Mangos are in season
and cheap…bananas (lots of different kinds–long bananas, cooking bananas, apple banana…), limes, pineapples, acerola (little vitamin C
bombs of yummy red goodness), Maracuja (passion fruit), guava…

when you pass the vestibular, you celebrate by shaving half your eyebrow off. or, for guys, going bald.

i went out for lunch with my friends instead.

now i need to go find these giant ants and eat one. that is the other thing you do in January.

i took the test. the vestibular. on Sunday. they had an essay. so i wrote it in English and then attempted to translate it into Portuguese. i even completed the Spanish part, which i found out after the fact was unnecessary.

and then waited until Wednesday to get the results.

my name was NOT on the list.

fail
fail
fail

i don’t handle failure well. nope. to speak rather snobbishly, i am not used to failing. i have actually only failed once, and that was to test out of college algebra, and to tell the truth, i didn’t think i was going to pass anyways. i hadn´t picked up a math book in 6 years. and i didn’t study.

besides…

everyone here said that this test…basically everyone will pass because it is a private school and they want the tuition money.

so to not pass really says something. i did that bad.

so i was depressed and slammed a lot of doors and went to Recife to renew my visa and was a complete pessimist and thought my life was over and i would never get to stay or come back to Brasil.

i renewed my visa…until the end of April. which works fine. the day wasn´t totally horrid. i turned up the music in my room and planned some lessons for school.

and got a phone call from a friend.

apparently…i had looked at last years list of names. no wonder my name wasn´t there.

i had, in fact, passed.

Open your eyes
to see reality
it is ugly
hard
dirty
but
it is real
and there is beauty
and God is there just the same
and in the end
with eyes wide open
you will see the miracles
you imagined

“Always speak the truth, think before you speak, and write it down afterwards.”
“i’m sure i didn’t mean–” Alice was beginning, but the red queen interrupted her impatiently.
“that’s
just what i complain of! you should have meant! what do you suppose is
the use of a child without any meaning? even a joke should have a
meaning–and a child is more important than a joke, i hope, you
shouldn’t deny that even if you tried with both hands.”
“i don’t deny things with my hands,” Alice objected.
“nobody said you did.” said the red queen “i said you couldn’t if you tried.”
“She’s in that state of mind,” said the white queen, “that she wants to deny something–only she doesn’t know what to deny!”
“A nasty, vicious temper.” the red queen remarked.

**
“i can’t believe that.” said Alice
“Can’t you?” the queen said in a pitying tone. “try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”
Alice laughed. “There is no use trying,” she said, “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“i
daresay you haven’t had much practice” said the queen, “when i was your
age, i always did it for half an hour a day. why, sometimes i’ve
believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

**
“seven
years and six months!” Humpty dumpty repeated thoughtfully. “an
uncomfortable age. Now if you’d have asked my advice, i’d have said
“leave off at seven–but it’s too late now.”
“i never ask advice about growing,” Alice said indignantly, “i mean, one can’t help growing older.”
“one can’t, perhaps,” said Humpty dumpty, “but two can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven.”

it has been such an honor for me to be with this family during this time. as part of the family. Patricia, Kakau, and Aninha are all having trouble sleeping and eating. please pray for that. it is hard really want anything, and easy to sit around without talking much. Please pray especially for Aninha. her life was taking care of her mom. in reality, she really doesn’t know herself completely, because she lived so long doing everything for the sake of her mom. Not only is she dealing with the grief, but she is dealing with this huge space of nothing inside her.

Sunday night we all went to Patricia’s house and sat around talking about good memories of my Angel. i mostly just watched everyone and tried to understand as the stories went flying around me and over my head. It is good to laugh. it is good to learn more about this woman that really…i didn’t have near enough time with here on earth. i want to write a book. maybe someday.

i am taking the vestibular (SATS) on Sunday, and next week we are planning for the school and hopefully gaining three more month on my Visa.

“…Now we see as through a glass, darkly–but then face to face.”