By the time you read this blog post, I will have already left my home community in Bahia, Brazil. I spent many months of my life there. To be truthful, I am finding it difficult to convince myself that I even did that: I left my city, my state, my country, and left the North American continent entirely–for so long too. I have lived in cultural isolation throughout this whole time. Even in my final moments here I am thinking deeply about my experience, and I’ve been writing about it. But soon, I’ll be home again.
Soon I’ll be reunited with my old room, with its shelves of needy books, some of which I never got the chance to care for. Soon I’ll be reunited with my car, with its galactic atmosphere when driven on illuminated highways at 12:47am while listening to music at a volume that deafens the rolling tires on the pavement. Soon I’ll be reunited with my backyard, the same backyard where I learned how to fall off trees, how to fall off trampolines, how to fall off my own feet when I first tried to kick a ball during my 2nd birthday party. Soon I’ll be reunited with my neighborhood park, the same park where I sat on the swings during a thunderstorm so the gust could push me, so the rain could fondle my body, so the lightning could finesse away my fears for what is natural and real.
Soon I’ll be reunited with my basketball, whose lumpy texture knows my hands better than anyone or anything else. Soon I’ll be reunited with my favorite restaurant, whose waiters know exactly how much ice I like, and whose chefs write the definition of culinary perfection with spices more foreign than my Portuguese and a cooking temperature more excellent than five A+ mid-term essays. Soon I’ll be reunited with Houston’s skyline, and I remember the first time I went to the top of its highest building and gazed across the cityscape, thinking that after 18 years I knew nothing about this place, because I never thought it could look this way. Soon I’ll be reunited with Texas’ plains, and I remember the first time I drove across them while overlooking the golden wheat fields that glittered and spread farther than my eyes could see, thinking that I was dreaming. Soon I’ll be reunited with my little dog, Pecas, who never ever had a bad day and was always smiling and willing to play with me. Soon I’ll be reunited with my little brother, Erik, whom is brave enough to look up to me and has been working hard to be a better chess player than his silly older brother.
Soon I’ll be reunited with friends, and I wonder if they will remember me. Soon I’ll be reunited with family, and I wonder if they will be proud of the things I did. Soon I’ll be reunited with home, and I wonder if it will still be in the same place where I last remembered it to be.
Soon.
