Packing in Anticipation of How Much I Dislike Packing

Today, I am re-visiting one of my New Year's resolutions:

* Be 95% packed and ready to go a few days before my flight leaves for Brazil

Packing is always so much more overwhelming than I anticipate. Even when I anticipate that it will be bad.

For the past week I have been slowly slogging away at it, in between wonderful visits with old and new friends, visiting new places (such as Bossa Nova, where I tried a fabulous fruit smoothie with ginger), re-visiting old ones (Kerbey Lane on South Lamar), seeing movies (Avatar)...

Making a pile of "potential" clothes for Brazil and then dividing them in half. Taking a few more out of the pile the next day. Then adding a t-shirt (or two) I just had to buy from Target.

Slowly checking things off my list of things to buy: shampoo & conditioner, Advil, Uno (when it doubt, teach kids how to play cards), Extra Strength Hua Tuo Medicated Plasters, Emergen-C and God knows what else.

Figuring out what art supplies, jewelry, books, photographs I deemed impossible to live without during the next for months (I have some interesting ideas of "necessary" items).

And so after returning from a lovely evening of catching up with two girlfriends, I decided it was time to see if the massive pile of stuff accumulating on the futon would fit in my suitcases...I rolled up all the shirts army-style, just as a friend returning from boot camp taught me. I started feeling hopeful.

And, amazingly, everything fit. With room to spare. Woo hoo!

Even my beloved yoga mat is in there, wedged diagonally, taking up a lot of space in the larger suitcase. It looks pretty reasonable considering how long I'll be gone.

Now, the reality check is that there is a bit more to add. And I haven't weighed the bags yet either. I also feel like a total overly prepared dork. Still, I'm feeling some weight off my shoulders as I anticipate my last 4 days in Austin.

Saying Goodbye

(Cookies Made with my Little Sister)
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

As part of our last evening together, my Little Sister* and I went to pick out stationary together.

She wanted to go to Wal-Mart to find the perfect paper, "Because I trust them."

As we walked through the aisles, she asked, "Why don't you shop at Wal-Mart? Where do you buy your clothes?" And I thought about how I do not shop there as a personal choice, reinforced by certain eye-opening documentaries. And how, in this moment, it didn't matter.

"Oh, I don't know. The other day I was at Kohl's," I said.

"Oh," she said.

She found a pack of pastel-colored paper. We grabbed a box of envelopes and made our way to the check-out line.

Then we went to the McDonald's in the store. Another place that I only go to with her. Armed with cookies (for her) and a latte (for me), we set at a booth next to some Vietnam vets discussing relationships. I pulled out the 17 ninety-eight cent stamps I'd purchased earlier in the afternoon.

"Ok," I said, "Let's get started. I'll write the addresses. Will you be in charge of the stamps?"

I began addressing the envelopes to myself in Porto Alegre.

My Little Sister affixed the stamps. Of course, I was slower than her. "Try some of my cookie," she said, "It's good. McDonald's does them just right: nice and soft and a little chewy."

"Oh that's okay," I started to say but she had already placed a piece of cookie near me. I popped it in my mouth. She was right. It was good. "You're right," I said, "That is good."

"Told you so," she said, "So, when do you get there?"

"On Tuesday."

"Ok, so I'm gonna write you a letter write now. And I'm going to mail it on Saturday and it'll be there for you when you get there."

I laughed.

"What?! I'm going to miss you. I have to let you know that."

"No, no, that's great of you," I said, "I won't look at what you're writing so I'll be surprised."

I continued to write addresses. She occasionally asked me for help with spelling certain words.

She folded the letter, placed it in the envelope and sealed it with zeal. "Now there's a letter for you!"

She returned to putting on stamps. "Oops, I forgot to write USA on the return addresses," I said, "Can you do that?"

"This is fun!" she said, "I like this!"

"I can't wait to get letters from you," I told her.

"What do you want me to write you about?" she asked.

"Well, how you're doing, what's going great, what isn't going so great."

"It'll be like a 1/2 hour TV show every week!" she said.

"Exactly - I'll get updates from you filling me in on what's been going on. The Life of My Little Sister. So what would you like from me? Would you like mostly postcards or would you like letters?"

"Postcards with pretty pictures....oh you know what? Let's fold the paper too and put it in the envelopes so it's ready to go every week."

She divided up the colors to make sure they were almost evenly represented and we put them in the envelopes. Then we put the envelopes back in the box for her storage.

It was a lovely evening (minus time spent wrangling with the Apple store earlier on my Little Sister's behalf which would be a rant so I'll spare y'all for now) spent in two places that I would never, ever go to on my own, with the coolest 15-year-old I know. We've been hanging out for just shy of three years now, with interruptions of no more than two weeks in between each time we see each other.

I'm going to miss her. I can't wait to get her first letter.

---


*The young woman I mentor through Big Brothers Big Sisters

Typical

Under the Highway
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

I've always wanted to avoid being the "typical American tourist." Part of that comes from growing up on an island that quadruples in size during the summer. Tourists cross the street there as though they are in Disneyland and the roads (and the cars in them) are make-believe.

So, I never wanted to be perceived as a tourist. And, especially in my teens, I'd go out of my way to pretend that I wasn't one. Even if I was completely lost. I do recall being flattered at being confused for a Spaniard at age 16 when I was studying in Granada. However, the confused people were American tourists asking me in broken Spanish if I knew how to get to the nearest McDonald's. The locals weren't fooled.

And so I sometimes felt that I didn't want to be perceived as an American. It had something to do with the stereotype of American tourists as boorish and uncouth. I didn't want to be labeled that way.

Yesterday, I saw a piece titled "My American Friends" posted by friend of mine on Facebook, who for a while was an American living in England. I thought it offered a different (or perhaps more nuanced) perspective of what us Americans can be like when we travel abroad. In the article, Geoff Dyer writes:

"The archetypal American abroad is perceived as loud and crass even though actually existing American tourists are distinguished by the way they address bus drivers and bartenders as “sir” and are effusive in their thanks when any small service is rendered. We look on with some confusion at these encounters because, on the one hand, the Americans seem a bit country-bumpkinish, and, on the other, good manners are a form of sophistication."

The article's worth a read and you can go here to find it.

It'll be interesting to experience what it is like to be an American in Brazil. I'll be especially curious to hear what the kids I'll be working with have to say about Americans and America.

---
Reference:

Dyer, G. (2009, December 31). My American friends. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/books/review/Dyer-t.html

Musings on Being Foreign

Journal Entry from a month in Tamil Nadu
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

My father, an American living in France, sent me a link to an article in The Economist, titled "The others." (Thanks, Pop!) Essentially it continues upon the theme I began in my last post on what it is like to live in a place that is not our original home:

The author writes:

"...however well you carry it off, however much you enjoy it, there is a dangerous undertow to being a foreigner... Somewhere at the back of it all lurks homesickness, which metastasizes over time into its incurable variant, nostalgia. And nostalgia has much in common with the Freudian idea of melancholia - a continuing, debilitating sense of loss, somewhere within which lies anger at the thing lost. It is not the possibility of returning home which feeds nostalgia, but the impossibility of it." (p. 87)

This fuller version of nostalgia (though I'm not sure about the angry part...is anger really the root emotion?) reminds me of the Portuguese word for it: saudade. The word means so much more than just missing something and is translated in my Harper Collins dictionary as "longing, yearning and nostalgia."

Re-watching Garden State last night, I was reminded that in some ways, the foreigner's experience of saudade can tie to the experience of leaving one's childhood home for the first time. As the main character says:

"You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place. "

Once you do leave what you've always known you can't truly go back again because it won't be the same and you won't be the same. I don't know that it's a bad thing. In Austin, I miss New England. In New England, I miss Austin. But it doesn't mean that I'm unhappy. It's more like a Beth Orton song, a wistful, bittersweet melancholy that's also beautiful because it's just life.

---
Reference:


(2009, December 19). The others. The Economist, 85-87.

Changing (and Being Changed by) the Spaces We Inhabit

*In Mumbai with my mother and brother some 
years ago back when it was Bombay*
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

Growing up on Nantucket island, there wasn't a great amount of diversity in the year-round population. Luckily, my parents felt it was important to expose us to the wider world, just a ferry-ride (and perhaps a plane-ride) away.

Summer on the island was different though. Between Memorial and Labor day you could hear the Jamaican and Irish accents of folks who had come for the many available summer jobs afforded by the influx of tourists. By the time I was in college and working as a gardener during summer break, my coworkers also included immigrants from Eastern Europe and Central and South America. And they were living on the island year round instead of seasonally.

By the time I was taking Portuguese in college, I often overheard Brazilian Portuguese spoken in my hometown and homestate of Massachusetts. When I flew into Boston this past December, I stood outside the airport waiting for the Plymouth Brockton bus. I smiled when the first words I heard came from a Brazilian man happily greeting his recently arrived granddaughter in Portuguese.

And so, when I was back home in the northeast, I grew curious about Brazilian immigrants to the United States. Here are some basics: according to one recently published article there are an estimated 1.2 million Brazilians living in the country. They often come from urban areas in Brazil and are often from middle or lower-middle classes, though this is changing. The states with the highest populations of Brazilians are (in this order): Florida, Massachusetts (yup good ol' MA in the house!), California & New York (Marcus, 2009).

In an article on, "(Re)creating places and spaces in two countries: Brazilian transnational migration processes" the author Marcus describes a qualitative study of immigrant experiences. In his interviews with Brazilian immigrants in Marietta, Georgia and Framingham, Massachusetts, Marcus (2009) explores how, "...the idea of ‘home’ becomes a mobile, fluid, multi-faceted concept for those Brazilians who remain in the United States as well as for those who return to Brazil" (p. 183).

He says that they often "(re)create spaces and places" (p. 184) for example through supermarkets and stores with Brazilian products, beauty salons, newspapers in magazines in Portuguese (there are 27 Brazilian immigrant newspapers in Massachusetts for example) and Brazilian religious affiliations. One YellowPages advertisement (in Atlanta, Georgia) went as follows: "This is a country where dreams come true: Come to Florida! The Brazil that worked out!’’ (Esse é o país onde sonhos se tornam realidade: Venha para Florida! O Brasil que deu Certo!)" (p. 193-194). Florida it seems is a tad warmer and friendlier than the rather reserved, Puritanical Massachusetts I guess...I wish I could argue against that statement but ah, well, I'd still rather live in Massachusetts...

The article also describes the impact of American experiences on those immigrants who returned home to Brazil (or went back and forth). It's interesting to think how the different places we inhabit change us - and how we all can react differently. I've known so many people who have grown up and lived in multiple cultures, not always being able to truly "belong" to just one place anymore. I can only imagine this experience becoming more commonplace. We all bring little (or large) pieces of the spaces we inhabit with us as we move through life.

As a 10-year-old, I brought back British slang, a taste for English sweets and crisps, a love of Beano, and the tendency to shorten words (i.e. "mag" instead of magazine) and pronounce "can't" as "caun't" back with me after only two months in Devon, England. Of course, some of that drove my American friends up a wall and I toned it down a little for their sake.

I'll be curious to see what will accompany me back from Brazil in May.

--
Reference:

Marcus, A. P. (2008). (Re)creating places and spaces in two countries: Brazilian transnational migration processes. Journal of Cultural Geography, 26(2), 173-198.

Historical Violence

Tree and the Land Below
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

I've been reading a book called "The Brazilians" that my mother gave me for Christmas this year. The other day, I made it to Part III, "The Curse of Violence in Brazil." The description of violence in Rio Grande do Sul (the state where I'll be going) appeared to be the perfect setting for a Cormac McCarthy novel:

"The history of Rio Grande do Sul, a cattle-raising, wheat-growing state in the extreme south of the country and on the borders with Uruguay and Argentina, is soaked in blood. The earliest inhabitants found themselves in constant conflict with warlike Indians, as well as with Spaniards who contested Portuguese control over the sparsely settled region.

"These ongoing struggles made violence part of everyday life...They also produced a tough, belligerent, freedom-loving breed of settler in whose veins mingled the blood of soldiers and adventurers, Portuguese colonists and runaway slaves, Spaniards and Indians. The region's horsemen, known as gauchos, were rugged, fearless fighters who worked the countless herds of wild cattle that roamed the immense southern grasslands.

"The tradition of violence in Rio Grande do Sul did not fade away once the borders between the Portuguese and Spanish colonies had been permanently fixed in the late eighteenth century. During the regency that ruled Brazil after the abdication of Dom Pedro I, a number of regional revolts erupted in various parts of the country. At the end of the nineteenth century, a savage civil war between two political factions tore the state apart. All kinds of atrocities were committed by both sides, the most gruesome involving captors using knives to slaughter prisoners by slitting their throats from ear to ear, the manner gauchos used to kill sheep.

"The violence marking the history of southern Brazil was qualitatively different from violence occurring elsewhere in the country. It did not arise from class conflicts. The clashes with the Spanish (and even the struggles against the Indians) were in the nature of battles between equals. nor did the violence have anything to do with the institution of slavery, inasmuch as relatively few slaves were imported into the region, whose economic well-being did not require an abundance of cheap labor." (p. 236-237)

However, according to the author of the book, Joseph A. Page, despite a historical difference in  violence, Rio Grande do Sul is now on the same wavelength and experiences violence pretty similar to the rest of the country...definitely material for another blog entry.

Chutney, Samosa & New Year's Resolutions

Late in the afternoon my boyfriend and I biked to Mozart's.

 My friend was meeting us there because I guilt-tripped her into it. "I don't know, it's chilly outside," she said. "But it's New Year's day! So you gotta do it," I said until she relented.

The lights all over the deck made me happy and I whipped out my camera and wandered amongst people drinking coffee to grab a few shots.

I was happier still when I snagged a table inside while my boyfriend waited in the insanely long line. And unfortunately dealt with slightly snooty staff, likely overwhelmed by the steady stream of customers.

When my friend showed up, I was making a list of New Year's Resolutions. "You know, I've never done this before," I said, "For some reason, I'm usually not into this sort of thing."

"Perhaps," she said, "It's because you're about to embark on an adventure."

And so, because I felt the need to mention this meeting, I asked her what she wanted her alias to be on this blog. "What's your alter ego name?"

The three of us ran through lists of animal names and checking out their translations in Hindi and Portuguese..."Well, you've got an alias already," I said to my boyfriend, "My boyfriend."

"I want something better than that," he grumbled.

And so, after much deliberation, they chose their aliases...

Meet Chutney and Samosa!

And then Chutney and Samosa reviewed my New Year's Resolutions.

Here's the list:

* Go from proficient to fluent in Portuguese
* Eat more veggies and less wheat, dairy & sugar; Drink more water; Eat smaller portions of food
* Continue to develop my personal yoga practice
* Write & update my Brazil blog on a regular (if not daily) basis
* Take lots of photos & carry my camera(s) with me whenever possible
* Get 8 hours of sleep every night
* Spend less time on the internet
* Become more disciplined in my daily activities (i.e. get things done efficiently as opposed to procrastinating and having less time to play later)
* Be (more) financially savvy
* Get out of my head (spend more time getting comfortable in the right-brain)
* Be open to all the wonderful people I'm about to meet and all the wonderful people I'm lucky to already know
* Learn, learn, learn
* Listen (more)
* Dress up more often and wear pretty shoes
* Come up with a good exercise routine and stick to it
* Find a fantabulous job that plays to my strengths and passions AND compensates me damn well when I graduate
* Be 95% packed and ready to go a few days before my flight leaves for Brazil
* Let myself be happy and creative and open to new experiences & personal growth
* Continue to cultivate mindfulness
* Have fun!
* Practice loving kindness with others and myself
* Find (at least) one thing every day to be grateful for [I'm grateful to Chutney for adding this one]

I'll have to check back in on my resolve in a few months and see how these resolutions are going...

And so, what are y'all's resolutions for 2010? What's on your list?