Saudades

2012-01-25T22:56:00.003-06:00

Saudades: "a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist."

Mito Barbudo asked me why I wanted to go to Brazil, besides him. I said the Amazon, and that I wanted to travel somewhere English wasn't spoken.

The best time to learn a language is when one is mildly intoxicated. Inhibitions lowered, the stereotypes of the native tongue fall away. Unembarrassed, it's easier to speak and to listen; to comprehend what's being said without second-guessing; to have faith. Cues of the body are also noted more clearly in this state of immediacy, consciously or otherwise. Smiling, laughing, touching or almost, the gerund is forgotten or forsaken, and the new language seeps in better.

"It also leads to knowledge--however, knowledge of a varied and superficial type--and provides an informal education which, in the lack of any other, serves as an adjustment to society."

The Brazilian version of The American Dream is more temporary, uma brasileira told me. In the Brazilian Dream, you can also become anyone you aspire to despite your background, but only for a moment. I didn't know enough Portuguese or Simple English Phrases to ask whether the brevity of this transformation, this distinction, was part of the dream itself or the reflection of a culture committed to realism rather than American delusions of grandeur. Then, that woman spoke of backyard barbecues as if they were baptisms.

The first boy I kissed, in daylight, spoke no English at all. It wasn't horribly consequential. There, looking became no less sacred or arbitrary than turning down the most unfamiliar stretch of road, aiming to get lost.

Aonde você vai?

Also: "a turning towards the past or towards the future"; An irrational infatuation with "people and things whose whereabouts are unknown."

Kaleidoscope Tuesdays

Saudades