February 28, 2012
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Typing just to hear the sound
I am feeling outside myself. It happens often enough I can begin to notice it coming. Maybe it is from eating peanut butter every night. I don’t even really like peanut butter. But I like it because right now I have a jar of it, and the rest of Brazil doesn’t. That makes me feel special.
The room is alone, and square. It is so empty. How do I fill it? I feel the coconut and beans mixing in my stomach. I saw Cesar today (one of the kids from Living Stones). I don’t know why there is a special bond between us. There just is. I don’t remember choosing it, it just did. Some things are like that. You can’t figure them out, and you are darn glad you can’t. But sometimes you like to sit back and think about them.
The problem is, once you know one child, and learn to love them, you begin to find them everywhere. The boy on the kombe, working a man’s job. He should be in school. 12, 13 years old. He looks like one of mine. He could be one of mine. Is he one of mine? Why do I feel responsible? It is such a heavy thing to be responsible. Isn’t it supposed to be fun? Oh it is, with Milena playing her fingers across my arm, wiggling every direction but up, asking me to hold her tighter.
Every hug. Are they only nice because I am American, because I have something to give? What if I had nothing left—would you still love me? In all of the unknowns, would you still be there? Oh God, I feel Saudades. I feel tears, but don’t know why. I want to add a name to my deep longing, but no names satisfy me.
I am simply grieving. And I don’t know what I lost. Where has it gone? So many things I could do. Right now. But what are the ones that count?
What would it take to write a book like “The Help?” Why do I like it so much? Because it gives voice to people who didn’t have one. It empowers them. I want to do that for my kids. In the USA as well as in Brazil. I don’t want to just write about them, I want to write THEM. But I need to find the right one. I need to understand better. There are no books to read. Ok, I have some. But really, it is about knowing them. Living with them.
And for goodness sake, I need to learn how to take myself OUT of the picture. I am really pathetic at that in my writing.
