# Brazil Reflections *A memoir* *by Dominic Rand* *For Laio and Mariana, who parked and came inside.* ## Author's note When people asked how my two weeks in Brazil had been, I found it difficult to give an answer that felt large enough. Writing gave me room to understand why certain moments mattered and to share more than a list of places I had visited. This is the Brazil I encountered through my friends and their families. Some conversations happened through translation apps or with someone helping us understand each other. I am grateful to the people who welcomed me and gave me so much to write about. ## 1. Being met ### Eight hours at the gate I booked a direct flight from Chicago to São Paulo because it seemed like the cleanest way to begin. Ten and a half hours in the air, overnight, landing in the morning. My friend Laio would meet me, and we'd drive about an hour to his house. The plan had the satisfying neatness of a solved problem. One long drive, one long flight, no connection. I don't live particularly close to Chicago. The five-hour drive felt worth it to avoid a connection. There was a light snowstorm on the way, but I arrived two hours early. I had done what I could to keep the plan simple. At the gate, people paced, scrolled, or sat with their carry-ons at their feet. Everything seemed ordinary until the delays began. First, weather. Two hours. That was annoying, but understandable. Then came a maintenance issue and another two hours. The departure time moved again, and the original schedule began to feel less real. Around ten, the restaurants closed. We hadn't eaten a meal, and the remaining options were snacks. Eventually the gate agents brought some out. It was a small kindness in a place that had become less comfortable with every hour we spent there. Then came weather again. By midnight, waiting had become the whole experience. There was no useful way to hurry it along. I could keep checking the time, but that wouldn't make the plane ready. Airports usually make strangers invisible, but eight hours at a gate wears down anonymity. I noticed the family trying to keep their children occupied, the couples, the other people traveling alone. I didn't know their stories. I knew each of them had somewhere to go and a reason for wanting to get there. Our lives had no reason to meet except that we had been held in the same room long enough to notice one another. Eventually boarding began. The flight attendants hurried everyone aboard without the usual sequence of boarding groups, and for a moment it felt as though we were finally moving. Once we were seated, we learned why they had rushed. The crew was running out of time to make the flight within the pilots' duty limits. Boarding quickly had been an attempt to leave before that window closed. We didn't make it. New pilots had been called, and we were told to expect another two-hour delay. Everyone got off the plane. By then, resentment would have been easy. I had driven five hours and arrived early. I had chosen the direct flight to make things simpler. There was a familiar argument available about having done my part and being let down anyway. But none of those choices gave me control over the weather, the aircraft, or the crew. I had treated a schedule as something firmer than it was. I could be disappointed in the delay without treating it as a personal insult. At home, I'm used to a car that waits where I leave it and moves when I decide to move. Air travel asks me to fit into something shared. I had bought a seat on a plane, not command of everything required to get it into the air. Near the gate, small groups began talking. A group of Brazilians and a group of Mexicans occupied the same stretch of floor. Music came out. Someone danced, then others joined. They laughed and made something of the hours. I didn't join them. I watched. Nothing about the delay had improved. The plane was still waiting for pilots. The restaurants were still closed. Yet those people had found a way to enjoy one another in the middle of it. After about eight hours at the gate, the new pilots arrived. We boarded again, and this time we took off. ### Arriving I slept a little on the flight. Not deeply, but enough for the ten and a half hours to compress into something strangely brief. After all that waiting, the distance itself seemed to pass more easily. By the time we landed, I was glad to be there. Customs was uneventful, and I made my way through long corridors of shops that made the airport feel a little like an IKEA maze. I assumed meeting Laio would require the usual coordination. I'd call, find the right level and pickup zone, and try to get into the car without holding him up. I was already thinking about how to make my arrival easy for him. Then I came out and saw Laio. He had parked. He had come inside. He was waiting. I didn't have to orient myself yet. I didn't have to find a curb or worry about slowing him down. The practical relief came first, followed by gratitude that felt larger than the gesture seemed to require. There is a difference between someone picking you up and someone stopping for you. I had been preparing to fit into Laio's movement with as little disruption as possible. He had already paused it. He was there to receive me, and for a moment there was nothing I needed to do except arrive. I kept returning to that feeling because it exposed something uncomfortable. I carry a fear that I'm not worth the interruption. In my head, I'm the slower hiker. Everyone else wants to keep moving, and I'm the one they have to wait for. I imagine resentment where none may exist. To avoid causing it, I try to be efficient and easy, someone who doesn't need much. Giving comes more naturally to me than receiving. If I'm helping, I understand my place. When someone stops for me, I feel an urge to minimize what it costs them. Friendship had often felt safest when I could justify my place by being useful. Receiving made that arrangement less certain. It asked me to believe that someone might want me there before I had done anything to repay the trouble. Laio hadn't asked me to prove it. He had parked and come inside. Not long after we pulled into traffic, someone bumped the back of the car. We were in his brother's car. Everyone got out, checked, and found no damage. Then we continued. Laio didn't make much of it. A minor collision could have become the subject of the whole drive. Instead, it was over when there was nothing more to do about it. ## 2. The life I came from For most of the previous eight years, if someone asked me who I was, my answer was simple. I'm an engineer, and I move a lot for work. On average, I moved about once a year. Work determined where I lived, what I owned, and how I structured my days. If there was ever a question of priority, work came first. In many ways, that focus worked. I became good at my job. I earned the respect of the people I worked with, received employee-of-the-year recognition, and developed reliable systems. I regularly worked eighty-plus-hour weeks. There were stretches when work consumed nearly everything, sometimes twenty-six hours at a time. During those years, I also learned how to be an adult. I stopped hating myself. I learned to care for my mental and physical health, handle my responsibilities, and become comfortable being myself. I developed a better understanding of what I liked and needed. Those changes mattered, and I don't want to dismiss them because I now see the costs of how I was living. But my life outside work was narrow. I went home, then went to work, then came home again. My hobbies were mostly video games and television until the later years, when I began going to the gym, writing, and taking photographs. I didn't spend much time building relationships outside my family. I didn't date. I rarely put myself in situations that required emotional risk. Moving constantly felt freeing. It also gave me an excuse. I couldn't have relationships because I didn't know where I'd be next. I couldn't develop certain hobbies because I moved too much. I thought about buying a drum set for years, but it would be too bulky to take with me. I told myself this devotion was necessary to reach my financial goals. Everything else could wait. When people asked where home was, I answered with some version of wherever the job is. It was a practical answer to a question that could have meant much more. It kept me adaptable, but it also let me avoid deciding where I wanted to belong. If leaving was already part of the arrangement, holding back could pass for common sense. I didn't have to admit how much the possibility of attachment frightened me. In reality, I had choices. I had free time. Building a fuller life would have been difficult, but it wasn't impossible. I said no anyway. I feel conflicted looking back. I'm proud of what I accomplished, and I question whether all of that sacrifice was necessary. There were times I could have asked for help or found a more sustainable way to work. Instead, I kept relying on willpower until it ran out. When I reached my financial independence goal in June 2025, my immediate reaction was fear. Work had given my life a clear structure and an identity I understood. Removing that organizing force left me facing open time. I worried about losing my sense of self and not knowing what to do with the freedom I had worked so hard to create. At the same time, I wasn't the person I had been eight years earlier. I was more honest with myself and more comfortable being seen. Writing mattered increasingly, especially publishing it. I wanted to practice openness instead of keeping everything safely internal. Changing my circumstances didn't make that easy. The things I hadn't practiced were still difficult. I could afford to spend time differently, but I still had to learn how. ### What earlier trips had taught me I traveled constantly for work, though most of the time my world consisted of a job site and an apartment. I rarely explored the places I lived. Travel itself wasn't enough to make me curious. The experiences that had affected me most happened earlier, when I spent enough time somewhere to participate in ordinary life. In Honduras, I lived with a local family for ten weeks to improve my Spanish. A family friend named Sandra had grown up in Choluteca and arranged for me to stay with her mother for part of the trip and her sister for another part. Sandra helped me get settled and visited at times, but most of my days passed without any English speakers around. My Spanish improved. I also started noticing assumptions I hadn't known I carried. I grew up in Southern California, where women wearing bikinis at the beach was unremarkable. In Honduras, I saw women go to the beach fully clothed. Yet public breastfeeding seemed far less fraught there than it did at home. Seeing those different responses to women's bodies made each culture's rules feel less inevitable. Things I had treated as obvious were often just familiar. The most important part of that trip wasn't something I had planned at all. Sandra returned to Choluteca to do humanitarian work. Her plan was to record families describing the conditions they lived in, then share the videos with people and networks in the United States to raise money for permanent homes. Some families lived in corrugated-metal structures that didn't keep out rain or animals. People described snakes biting them while they slept and water coming through the roof. Children spoke calmly about conditions I had never experienced. I was tagging along. Sandra hadn't brought me there to fund anything. Through her work, I met Olga and her son, Edwin. When we entered their home, Olga offered me an avocado. By then I understood how much accepting hospitality mattered in the homes I was visiting. Refusing felt like it would place my discomfort above her generosity, so I accepted. But eating it was uncomfortable. I had never worried about food or shelter, and I was receiving food from someone who had very little. After the interview, I decided to help secure a house for Olga and Edwin. Their house was built for around ten thousand dollars while I was still in Honduras. I was there when it was finished, and I celebrated with them. When I visited, Olga embraced me like a son. I still remember how completely she expressed her gratitude. I had gone to Honduras to learn a language. Nothing in that original purpose would have predicted celebrating the completion of her house. Idaho began with another practical goal. I went to stay with a family friend named Gary to learn about personal finance, investing, and financial independence. He had built a life around those ideas, and I wanted to understand it. We talked about money. But Gary and his family lived on a farm, and the days taught me things our conversations couldn't. They raised sheep and grew corn. I learned to set siphon tubes for irrigation, run a tractor, and corral sheep. I also buried sheep. Death was visible there in a way it hadn't been in my ordinary life. Animals were born and died. Crops grew and were harvested. The work continued through those changes. Over time, that became less shocking to me. Gary's father was elderly and still working relentlessly. When I asked why he kept doing it, the response was that if he stopped, he would die. At first, that sounded bleak. Eventually I understood it as a statement about purpose. The work gave him a reason to get up. A life that required something of him could sustain him. I had gone there wanting to learn how to reach financial independence. I left with more complicated ideas about what I might want independence for. ### Leaving room Shortly after college, I read *Vagabonding* by Rolf Potts. What I took from it was the value of staying somewhere long enough to do more than pass through. I liked the idea of traveling light, including in the expectations I carried. It took longer to practice than to understand. I could become so busy measuring a trip against what I expected that I missed what was available. Pretending to have no expectations didn't help either. Unspoken ones still affected me. It helped more to recognize what I was asking of an experience and leave room for it to surprise me. Honduras and Idaho had both served the purposes I brought to them. They had also become meaningful in ways I couldn't have requested beforehand. Brazil began with an invitation from Laio, a friend I had met on a job site about a year earlier. He had offered to host me in São Paulo. It was the kind of generous offer that can remain a nice idea indefinitely unless someone follows up. During this transition in my life, I remembered it and reached out. Before going, I wrote him a letter explaining how I hoped to approach the trip. I wasn't asking for constant plans or for every day to be profound. I wanted to see his life, try unfamiliar things, and notice what felt different from home. Laio would be planning much of my time. I would be entering his routines and relationships. The more requirements I brought, the less room there would be for what he wanted to share. I knew very little about Brazil. Laio was among the few Brazilians I had met in person. I had no lived understanding of the places we would visit or the homes where we would stay. I couldn't prepare myself to understand everything. I could prepare to ask, listen, and tolerate being unsure. That was what I hoped for when I accepted Laio's invitation. I had asked to be shown his life, and now I was about to enter the home he shared with Mariana. ## 3. Living close ### Living without the buffer When I hear the word house, I picture California. I picture a separate building with space around it, somewhere I can close the door and hold the rest of the world back. Even after years of apartment living, I still want home to be where the noise stops. I feel frustrated when neighbors are loud, as though sound crossing that boundary is evidence that something has gone wrong. Laio's house challenged that picture almost immediately. It was its own structure, with its own walls, but neighboring houses stood directly against it. The house occupied the whole property. There was no strip of space separating one life from the next. I heard people in the street, dogs across the neighborhood, conversations and activity nearby. It was harder to forget that other people lived beside us. In the homes I knew growing up, inviting someone over often required preparation. We cleaned and organized. We made private life presentable before allowing someone to see it. Laio and Mariana seemed comfortable letting me enter the life they already had. Mariana was Laio's fiancée. They had been together for nearly a decade and had lived together for a long time. I had come to see my friend, but I was staying in a home the two of them had made. She greeted me warmly. Afterward, she excused herself and went to lie down. Only later did she explain how much pressure she had felt about communicating in English. She had been studying seriously for years and had a Duolingo streak of more than a thousand days. She wanted to communicate well and help make the visit good. Her body had reacted to the pressure before she had fully understood it herself. I hadn't seen that during the greeting. Hearing her explain it made me appreciate how much effort could sit behind a welcome that felt easy to receive. When Laio showed me around, we entered a bedroom. It took me a moment to realize it was theirs. There was only one bed, so I asked where they would sleep. He said they would take the couch. I immediately refused and took the couch myself. I wanted to get better at accepting hospitality, but I didn't need their bed to feel welcomed. I was entering a home arranged for two people. Some adjustment was inevitable, and I could share it. Sleeping on the couch was a small cost for the chance to stay with them. That evening we went out to eat, then walked through the neighborhood to get drinks. Homes and businesses were mixed together. Bars, grocery stores, gyms, dog washers, tattoo parlors. Sometimes a building looked residential until I noticed what was happening inside. There weren't the large parking lots and sharp separations I expected. We could move among ordinary parts of life on foot. I found myself connecting that mixture to the way I divided my own identity. For years, engineer had been the category that explained me. Writing, music, photography, and everything else had to fit around it. I treated those interests as less real because they weren't my main work. Mariana made that division harder to maintain. She had studied engineering too, and her life had room for other things. Being around her, I felt more willing to let the parts of myself coexist without deciding which one counted most. I still valued quiet. I still wanted privacy. But being in that house made me question how much distance I had started to treat as necessary. I could hear the neighborhood because I was part of it for a little while. There was something comforting in that, even when it was loud. ### Breakfast first I woke on Laio's couch to footsteps, motorcycles, cars, and the busy sound of São Paulo close outside. Soon Laio joined me, and we had breakfast. I don't regularly eat breakfast at home. If I have something in the morning, it's often a protein shake before moving on to the day. Here, we sat and ate together. Most mornings on the trip, the food was simple. Pão francês with butter, cheese, and some kind of deli meat. Fruit on the side, often papaya. The details varied, but the gathering kept happening. At first I didn't understand how ordinary it was. Later, I noticed that no one asked whether we wanted breakfast. People drifted into the kitchen. Someone prepared food. Dishes appeared. Eating together was assumed. I liked having that beginning already decided. I didn't need to choose between rushing into something productive and making time for other people. The morning had room for them before either question came up. After breakfast, Laio said we needed to rent a car. Mariana's hatchback could carry people, but there wasn't enough room for the three of us and our luggage. We rented a crossover that would count as compact at home and felt large beside many of the cars I saw in Brazil. Even my sense of normal size needed adjusting. The lanes and parking spaces were tighter. The cars I thought of as small seemed entirely adequate to the places where they were used. We packed and headed out. Once we were on the road, I asked how long we'd be in the car. I didn't ask where we were going. ### Mariana singing About thirty minutes into the drive, the conversation went quiet. Mariana said she wanted to sing for us, and I encouraged her. She sang along to songs in Portuguese and English. Her English pronunciation was strikingly good, even on songs whose lyrics she didn't fully understand. She had learned them phonetically. The best English I heard from her on the trip was often when she sang. Then she played "Veludo Marrom" by Liniker. The song blew my mind. It felt cinematic, with patient stretches and changes in intensity large enough to make me stop thinking about anything else. It trusted the listener enough not to rush. I wanted to stay with it and hear what came next. The setting mattered too. We were in a car, somewhere I usually treat as a space to endure until I arrive. Mariana was sharing something she practiced and cared about, and I got to hear it close beside her. It was an intimate thing to witness, someone letting me hear a part of her life I couldn't have learned by asking what she did for work. I often divide time into the thing and the waiting for the thing. A long drive becomes overhead. My attention tries to jump ahead to wherever I think the value will be. Sometimes I imagine a future version of myself looking back with regret at the hours I treated as disposable. The present can be perfectly good and still lose my attention to whatever comes next. I don't want to recognize only afterward that I had been where I wanted to be. On that drive, I didn't even know our destination. There was nowhere specific for my mind to hurry toward. I could listen to Mariana, notice the music, and be in the car. The drive was already part of what I had come for. ### Sorocaba Eventually we left the freeway, and Laio told me we were in Sorocaba. We were going to Mariana's parents' house. She had been born in Serranos, a small town in Minas Gerais, and spent her early childhood there before her family moved to Sorocaba. Her parents' house was on the outskirts of town, in another neighborhood where the houses stood close together. We brought in our luggage. I met her parents, and Mariana took me upstairs to the room that had been hers growing up. There was something different about staying in that room. I wasn't arriving at a place prepared for anonymous travelers. I was borrowing space in a family with a history that long preceded me. Her mom made a big lunch. Rice, beans, meats, dishes I recognized and others I didn't. One of my favorites was feijão tropeiro, beans mixed with farinha de mandioca, eggs, and bits of meat. Laio made a caipirinha with cachaça, lime, sugar, and ice. Try this. Taste that. Almost everything they handed me was good. Someone hands me food they've eaten for years and watches my face change. To them, it's Tuesday. To me, it's discovery. The next day, Laio would introduce me to coxinha. I'd read about it before the trip and mentioned wanting to try it. A small, teardrop-shaped fried snack, soft dough around shredded chicken. It became an immediate favorite. I still miss them. Laio and I had talked about people traveling abroad and searching for familiar comfort food. The joke was an American going to France and being disappointed by the hamburgers. I understood the desire for something known, but I didn't want to spend this trip looking for an imitation of home. The food Mariana's mother made was already comfort food. I just hadn't grown up with it. After that first lunch, I went upstairs and took a nap in Mariana's old room. There was no pressure to turn the afternoon into anything. For a while, I could simply rest in the place they had made for me. While I slept, Laio and Mariana ran errands. When I woke, the house still had the same unhurried pace. Nothing had accelerated while I was gone. Nothing had been waiting for me to catch up. Afterward, I spent some time with Laio and her dad watching the local news. I expected Brazilian politics or regional stories that would remind me I was far from home. Instead, the coverage kept returning to American politics. I had flown all the way to Brazil and was still hearing about Trump. At one point, Mariana's dad brought out a toy gun that shot small gelatin balls and joked that it was like the guns they had in Rio. I don't remember his exact words. I remember the casualness of the joke, and how different it felt in that living room from the associations I had brought with me. Later we walked through downtown Sorocaba and a park. We wandered and talked without trying to accomplish much. ## 4. One song at a time ### Little Paul's That night, we went to Little Paul's Bar for live music and dancing. I was excited. I was also aware that I didn't have much of a dance history. For years I had called myself someone who didn't dance. The longer I said it, the less often I asked whether I actually wanted to. I had made inexperience sound like self-knowledge. Little Paul's looked as though it might once have been a machine shop or auto garage. It was a large concrete room with high ceilings and a garage door at the entrance. Posters, instruments, art, and stickers covered the walls. I didn't know its history, but I liked the way it seemed to have accumulated over time. We got drinks. I drank Cerveja Original, which became my regular beer in Brazil. The label and the word ORIGINAL grew familiar. Traveling takes away so many small defaults that finding one again can be surprisingly comforting. I liked having a simple choice that belonged to the place I was in. Out back, we stepped down into a concrete courtyard. The band was setting up on one side, with open space in front of it. Plastic tables and chairs lined the edges, and old cars sat around the perimeter. More people arrived. The space filled gradually, then the band began. ### Counting the beat There were three musicians. An accordion player, a drummer, and a guitarist who sang. I later learned the name zabumba for the kind of large bass drum carrying the beat. That night, I mostly knew I could feel where the pulse was. Mariana taught me a simple beginner step for forró. We moved to one side, brought the feet together, moved again, and tapped. Then we reversed direction. She held my hands and counted aloud. Written down, it sounds easy. Trying to do it while connected to another person, without stepping on her feet, was plenty to keep me occupied. Mariana stayed patient through my mistakes. I imagined it couldn't be especially exciting for someone with her ability to move at my level, but she seemed happy that I was willing to try. For a while, I tracked everything consciously. Feet, direction, timing, the distance between us. I was trying to manage the fact that I was an American learning a Brazilian dance in a room full of people who seemed to know exactly what they were doing. Then the music and her counting began to line up in my body. I didn't suddenly become good. I just needed less effort to stay with it. My shoulders dropped. I watched my feet less and listened more. ### The edge of the pool It reminded me of a trip to New Orleans a little over a year earlier. I remembered walking down Frenchmen Street with music spilling from doorways. Horns, drums, voices. There was so much happening, and I kept myself at the edge of it. Live music often felt that way to me. I could appreciate it while remaining separate from it, like looking into an aquarium. I was close enough to see what was happening, but I wasn't in the same element. In New Orleans, a friend with us stepped into the space in front of the band and danced. She didn't seem to need a reason beyond wanting to move. Watching her, I wondered why I was still standing where I was. The image I kept coming back to was a swimming pool. As a kid, if my friends were in the water laughing, I wanted to be in there with them. As an adult, I could stand at the edge of something enjoyable and explain that it wasn't really my thing. Sometimes that was an honest preference. Sometimes it was a way to protect myself from being seen trying. New Orleans hadn't taught me dance steps. It had made me less certain about the identity I used to avoid them. Now, at Little Paul's, Mariana was helping me through the beginning I had so often declined. The room helped too. Dancing seemed to be a normal part of being there. People paired up for a song, then separated when it ended. The floor would mostly empty before the next song began and people found partners again. From where I stood, the invitation seemed manageable. A yes could mean one song. A no didn't have to mean anything larger. We could share a few minutes and separate when the music stopped. I had imagined stepping onto a dance floor as submitting myself for judgment. The ordinary limits of one song made it easier to attempt. I wanted to become comfortable asking someone to join me. That gave learning Portuguese an immediate purpose. I didn't need fluency to begin. I needed enough to introduce myself and ask for a dance. ### Rafael, Amanda, and João During the set, Mariana's brother Rafael arrived with Amanda, his girlfriend at the time, and his son João. Rafael had a belly laugh that carried over the music. If he was at a party, you could hear where he was. Amanda seemed quieter, and João was shy at first. I introduced myself in the Portuguese I had. "Eu sou Dominic... muito prazer." Rafael and Amanda seemed pleased by the effort. João didn't understand me. After I tried a couple of times, Rafael helped explain. It brought back the embarrassment of speaking Spanish in Honduras and seeing a face go blank. As a native speaker, I had sometimes failed to understand someone who was close to saying what they meant. I hadn't always known how to fill the gap. Being on the other side made that gap feel much larger. I wasn't offended by João. He was a child trying to understand an unfamiliar accent. Later, with Rafael translating, we found something he wanted to talk about. Animals and dinosaurs. Then the facts and questions came out. The shyness I thought I had seen gave way to enthusiasm. He had plenty to say once we found a subject that interested him. ### Enough structure to move As the night went on, I watched more experienced dancers. They turned and changed direction smoothly enough to look rehearsed. Mariana danced with men she hadn't known before, and it was easier to see her ability when she was with someone who could respond at her level. Watching them felt like hearing a language spoken fluently. I could recognize the ease even when I didn't understand how they produced it. Everyone seemed to share enough of the dance to improvise together. The rhythm and basic movement gave them something dependable. Within that, there was room for variation. I liked that balance. My best days also have things I can count on. Waking at a regular time, going to the gym, eating around familiar hours. Those habits give me enough shape that I don't have to invent the whole day. But if every part is decided, there isn't much room to respond to anything new. I had spent years using routine to keep work reliable. Watching the dance made me think about what else a routine could make possible. Laio told me he didn't particularly like dancing, but he did it because Mariana loved it. At one point, he and I talked about taking turns with her so she could keep going. Music, singing, dancing, ice cream. Her joy in those things was immediate and easy to see. We were already there. We could help her enjoy the night. By the end, I still wouldn't have said I knew forró. But I had stopped spending the evening deciding whether I belonged on the floor. I wanted to come back able to ask, in Portuguese, for one song. ## 5. A reservoir afternoon ### The sandals The morning after forró, we had breakfast and drove to Represa de Itupararanga, a reservoir outside the city. Before we left, Mariana's mom asked where my sandals were. I didn't understand at first. We used a translation app until the message became clear. I was bringing sandals. I have never liked them. The looseness, the strap between my toes, the constant flip-flap that makes my feet feel like they're wearing percussion instruments. I'd usually rather be barefoot. If I need shoes, I like thin barefoot shoes that let me feel the ground. None of that made much difference to an insistent mother trying to look after me across a language barrier. I took the sandals. Then I carried them for most of the day and barely wore them. When we got back, she seemed understandably confused. Why bring them if I wasn't going to use them? I had no satisfying answer, only a sheepish grin and the awareness that she had been right to insist anyway. We crossed a narrow, one-lane dam and arrived at grounds with something of a summer-camp feel. Mariana knew someone there, and the groundskeeper let us in even though it was a weekday. We unloaded the paddleboards and carried them toward the water. At that point, I went fully barefoot. The ground was hot. The path included rough dirt and sharp rocks near the shore. Carrying a board down it was uncomfortable, partly through my own stubbornness. Every few steps I had to pay attention to where I put my feet. I had been reading *Born to Run* by Christopher McDougall and thinking about sensation and feedback. Being barefoot made the ground harder to ignore. That was part of the appeal, even when it hurt. After getting a board to the water, I went back for one for Mariana. I hadn't asked whether she wanted it. She didn't. So I carried it back up again. A complete extra trip, over ground I already knew was unpleasant, because I had decided to be helpful without checking what would help. Mariana stayed under the trees. She had music, snacks, and shade, and seemed entirely content. I liked watching someone enjoy a day without needing to do the activity I had assumed the day was for. Before Laio and I went out, we put on sunscreen. His skin is lighter and he burns easily, so I helped with his back. I rushed and missed areas. We wouldn't discover how much I had missed until later. ### On the water Once we were paddling, the day became simple. Clear sky, bright sun, calm water. Along the shore, the jungle was so dense that it looked like a wall. Green packed tightly enough that I couldn't see into it. It grew right to the waterline, as though the reservoir had been carved from something ready to reclaim the space. Laio and I didn't talk much. We moved and looked around. The quiet water gave me time to take in the edges of the place. In the quiet, I started remembering family trips to lakes. Almanor, Havasu, Tulloch. Boats, towing ropes, long days in the sun. One memory stood out sharply, jumping from a cliff with my older sister Michaela. The brief decision at the edge, then the drop and the shock of the water. I remembered tubing while my dad and his friend Skip tried to throw us off. The raft would whip around a turn until we lost our grip. Hitting the water fast made it feel solid. Water went up my nose and into the back of my throat. It was violent and joyful at once. What struck me was how those memories had survived my teenage habit of wishing I were somewhere else. With family, I wanted to be with friends. With friends, I sometimes wanted to be alone. Wherever I was, my mind could produce a better alternative. The moments I remembered most clearly were the ones strong enough to interrupt that argument. I had been too involved in what was happening to keep imagining another place. Paddling beside Laio, I noticed that feeling while it was happening. There was nowhere else I wanted to be. I didn't have to persuade myself of it. ### Back on shore When we returned, Amanda and João were there. João wanted to get on a board immediately. We insisted on a life vest, and he looked to Amanda. She gave a small signal of agreement, and he accepted it. Amanda was dating his father. I didn't know all the details of their family life, but I could see the trust in that exchange. She could hold a boundary without making it a struggle. João looked to her to confirm what was safe. Laio took him onto the water. João's excitement was unembarrassed. At his age I often hid how thrilled I was, as though obvious enjoyment made me naive. He wasn't worried about that. The rest of us sat in the shade with snacks and drinks. Eventually all five of us stood in the shallow water near shore, talking in a mixture of Portuguese and English. No one seemed concerned that every sentence be understood perfectly. I was getting used to that kind of participation. I couldn't follow everything, but missing words didn't automatically put me outside the group. I could stay, listen, and let the parts I understood be enough for a while. After the reservoir, we ran errands and stopped at Mariana's mom's clothing shop. I generally treat clothes as practical. Cover myself, look decent, don't spend much time thinking about it. Mariana paid more attention. Throughout the trip, she wore colors and combinations that seemed natural on her and that I would never have chosen for myself. I hadn't planned to buy anything, but I wanted to thank her mother. She had fed me, hosted me, and tried to protect my feet from my own decisions. Buying something from her shop felt like one way to express gratitude without relying on translation. I asked Mariana to help choose a shirt. She narrowed it to two. One was dark blue with bright orange pineapples. The other was blue with palm-tree silhouettes. Neither looked like my usual clothes. She couldn't decide. I bought both. I didn't ask the price first. In that moment, thanking her mom mattered more to me than choosing carefully between shirts. I wore them often afterward and liked how I felt in them. Being somewhere new made it easier to try something I might have dismissed at home. ### Elton's barbecue That evening we went to Elton's house for a barbecue. I had met him the night before and remembered his enthusiasm for very cold beer. Canela de pedreiro. The mason's shin. He used the phrase for a beer so cold that pale frost formed on the glass, like concrete dust on someone's leg. Beer came first, then the grill, then people. Elton paid attention to the food and the timing, and made it easy to settle in. A barbecue gave everyone somewhere to be without demanding much more of them than showing up. That was something I was beginning to appreciate about the gatherings I entered. Someone's effort made it possible for everyone else to relax. The grill needed attention, but the guests didn't need to keep inventing a reason to stay. There was food, company, and enough time for the night to find its own pace. Someone told a story about a previous party when people had set beer cans on Elton's car. Beer spilled, and the next morning he drove to work with cans still stuck to the roof. It sounded like people got very comfortable at his house. I talked more with Amanda. She told me about difficult years, confusion, and taking a step back to gain perspective. Her English was fluent. I kept noticing how much of other people's lives I could hear because they had learned my language. It was easy to receive that help without fully noticing the effort behind it. Later, everyone gathered to sing. Someone handed me the music choices, and I picked songs I thought people would know. "Under the Bridge" by Red Hot Chili Peppers. Sublime. Eventually "Bohemian Rhapsody," which feels like cheating because it turns almost any group into a choir. I love the moment when a song starts and the room changes. Conversations stop. People recognize it, join in, and sing louder than they expected to. We walked home afterward. Later that night, Laio's sunburn became obvious. My sunscreen application had left something like a continent of red across his back. It looked like modern art. We laughed, and I apologized, knowing that neither would make the burn go away. When I got into bed, I felt as though I'd been carried through a day made of care. Some of it had been easy to receive. Some had arrived as instructions about sandals. Much of it had become ordinary before I stopped to notice it. I fell asleep tired and grateful, surprised by how quickly Brazil had begun to feel like a place where I could belong. ## 6. Uba-chuva ### Four in the car The morning we left Sorocaba, we ate breakfast, packed, and thanked Mariana's parents. They had made room for me so naturally that leaving felt less like checking out of somewhere and more like stepping away from a routine I had briefly joined. Before leaving town, we picked up Livia, one of Mariana's longtime friends. She brought a backpacking-style pack with her clothes and essentials. Our car had already required careful packing. Now we had another person and another bag. Laio joked that Mariana and Livia were basically twins. Their ease together made the comparison understandable. They talked in Portuguese, laughed, went quiet, and resumed without needing to explain where they had left off. At one point they shared strawberries dipped in condensed milk. Later they ate the condensed milk straight. Livia didn't speak English, and my Portuguese was basic. We used a translation app, sometimes with Laio helping. There was a delay between us, but she came across as warm and steady even when our exchanges were brief. With Mariana and Livia talking in the back, Laio and I settled into a conversation in front. One of the things I value about Laio is how long he stays with an idea. He asks a question, listens to the answer, and follows whatever part seems to matter to me. I don't feel rushed to get to a point before his attention moves elsewhere. I told him about playing *The Last of Us Part II* on Grounded difficulty. The scarcity changed the game for me. Without enough ammunition or room for mistakes, I spent more time hiding, listening, and waiting. I paid attention to decisions I might otherwise have rushed through. Laio told me about playing pirated games as a child in Brazil, including an English copy of *Mario 64*. He and his brother had taught themselves enough English to progress. Games had been expensive and hard to get, he explained, so they played the ones they had repeatedly and learned them thoroughly. Having fewer options had kept us with a game long enough to discover more of it. It reminded me of how Laio listened. He stayed with a conversation long enough for there to be more to hear. ### Down through the rain For a while, the road passed through dry, almost arid stretches. Then the clouds thickened, we climbed, and the vegetation became denser. Rain began. Laio told me we were going to Ubatuba. He called it Uba-chuva, a joke about how much it rained there. Soon we were descending steep switchbacks through rainforest, with limited visibility and water coming down harder. He also told me about the Cemitério de Calotas, the graveyard of hubcaps. He explained that drivers rode their brakes down the mountain, overheated them, and lost hubcaps along the way. I could see the hubcaps. There were clusters along the roadside, enough that the name made sense without further explanation. By the bottom, the surroundings had changed completely. Ubatuba reminded me of a small California surf town, but wetter and less polished. Painted signs, casual storefronts, sand working its way onto sidewalks. The familiarity made it easy to like, while the rainforest and humidity kept it from feeling like home. We met the rest of the weekend group at a restaurant. I introduced myself in Portuguese, received smiles, and was relieved when almost everyone switched to English. Daniel had a playful energy that fit easily with Laio's. Natalia seemed warm and observant. Carol was kind and direct, someone who listened closely. Raphael was quieter. One of the first things I learned about him was that he played enough FIFA for his friends to call him Rafifa. These were first impressions. I would learn more once we had time together. ### Groceries and an offer After lunch, we bought supplies for the Airbnb. The car was already full, with Livia's pack wedged between her and Mariana in the back. Groceries went on the floor and onto our laps. At one point I had nowhere reasonable to put my feet. The house was surrounded by dense green on a hillside. Different structures held bedrooms and kitchens. There was an outdoor bar, stone paths, and a freshwater pool fed by stream water. Rain had darkened the wood and stone, and the grass looked especially bright. It was Friday, and most of the group still had remote work to finish. Laio, Mariana, Livia, and I went to the beach. A couple of days earlier, Laio had received an offer connected to returning to the United States for work. We had talked about it, though I mostly listened. It was his decision, with consequences for a life I knew only partly. On the beach, he and Mariana talked through what it would mean. The opportunity mattered professionally, but taking it would also mean time apart. Mariana's work was in Brazil. An opportunity for one of them would require adjustment from both. I appreciated that they didn't pretend the choice was simple. I knew how easily work could become the answer before other questions were fully asked. Here, I was watching two people try to account for ambition and their relationship at the same time. ### A conversation with Livia While they talked, I had time alone with Livia. We passed my phone back and forth, speaking into the translation app and waiting for each response. It felt like exchanging letters on a beach. There was little room for quick overlap or for clarifying a thought as I said it. Every turn took time. Each reply took effort. We were both still there, still passing the phone back, still trying to understand. She told me she had recently divorced. She described trying for a long time to make the relationship work, then recognizing that the future she had imagined no longer fit the life she was living. Letting go could be painful even when continuing no longer made sense. A marriage contains plans and routines, but also expectations about who you will become and what later will look like. Listening to Livia, I understood more of what it could mean to grieve a future that never fully happened. The loss she described was real even though the people involved were still alive. I admired her willingness to face it and try to move forward. We walked back toward the house. I was glad we had taken the time to talk, even in a form slow enough that I might once have avoided it. ## 7. Catching alligators ### They already knew The next morning, I stepped out of my room and saw the green mountainside, the pool below, and the ocean beyond it in the haze. I had arrived only the day before, and we would leave the next day. Nothing had time to become routine. I heard conversation and dishes from the other side of the building. When I walked around, people were gathered at a long bench-style table. I found an opening and sat down. Someone offered coffee. Before I answered, another person said that I didn't drink it. Laio had told them. I hadn't needed to explain myself. A small fact about me had traveled ahead and been remembered. Natalia offered milk instead. I rarely drink milk at home, but I drank it most mornings on that trip. I liked accepting something people had offered. Coffee was different. I already knew I didn't enjoy it and didn't want to force myself through it out of politeness. That seemed like a useful distinction. I could be willing to try things without acting as though having preferences was rude. The people at the table made both easy. Laio and Mariana were still asleep. Everyone there was connected through them, but the gathering didn't require their active management. Some of the friends had once seen each other almost daily, then moved into different cities and lives. They seemed comfortable finding their way back into conversation. I was benefiting from relationships Laio and Mariana had already built, even before they joined the table. Eventually people drifted off to change. We packed beers and snacks into a cooler, took a speaker, and headed for the beach. ### Across the river Branches arched above the road. Pavement gave way to dirt and sand, and we parked in a clearing in the brush. A narrow path carried us through vegetation toward what we expected would be the beach. Instead, it opened onto a river. We could see the ocean beyond it, but first we had to cross. Someone stepped in to test the depth. Within a few strides, the water was near waist height. We raised bags and coolers above the water and waded in. Livia held her backpack high, but at one point she misjudged her footing and dipped lower than expected. The base of her pack went into the river. There was a brief collective gasp, then laughter. It got wet, and we kept going. We settled on a small sandy rise with some tree cover. Towels went down, and the speaker rested against a trunk. Mariana wanted music. She wasn't particular about every choice, but silence wasn't the plan. A few times she handed the selection to me. When people nodded, sang, or danced to something I chose, I felt a small pleasure in having contributed to the mood. I didn't need to dominate a conversation to make my presence felt. I could offer a song and see what it made possible between us. ### Staying for the answer Natalia asked what I did with my time now that I wasn't working full-time. That's a harder question than what I do for work. Engineer gives most people a category they recognize. Writing a blog produces more questions. What do I write about? Why? How do I publish it? Do I sell ads? Then there are the other things. Drumming, learning, trying to make deliberate choices about the life I now have time to live. An occupation is a short answer. Describing what matters to me takes longer. The people asking stayed for it. They listened and followed up. I caught myself wondering whether I deserved that curiosity. It was an odd response to being treated well, but a familiar one. I had spent periods of my life feeling peripheral to conversations. Here, people wanted to understand me, and part of me was surprised they would bother. Being able to keep talking without feeling I needed to justify their attention was restorative. Later Carol spoke about mindfulness. She described noticing thoughts without immediately becoming absorbed in them and creating room between a reaction and what she did next. She sounded like someone talking about a practice she had used, with the clarity that comes from working through something herself. Everyone listened. Friends who had known her for years asked questions and followed her explanation. I was interested in what she said, but also in the way the group responded. Knowing someone for a long time can make it easy to assume we already understand them. We keep versions of friends from earlier years, and those versions can become outdated without our noticing. I had done something similar much faster. I had filed Carol away as part of Laio's group before learning much about her. Now she was speaking about something she cared about, and my first impression was already insufficient. It made me wonder how often I overlook changes in people close to me because I don't ask a question whose answer I haven't heard before. ### In the waves Eventually I ran into the ocean and threw my shoulder into the whitewater. Once I was deep enough, I began bodysurfing. Laio called out, "Tá pegando jacaré?" He later explained the expression for bodysurfing. Catching alligators. "Yes," I told him. "Exactly." I love the timing of it. A wave is coming whether or not I'm ready. I can watch, position myself, and move at the right moment. Frantic effort doesn't help if I misread it. That afternoon, conversation felt similarly easy. I wasn't trying to force a topic or earn someone's interest. Curiosity appeared, and I could respond. It made me aware of times when I had worked much harder for less connection. Later, it was just Laio, Daniel, and me staying with the water. We developed a routine. Beer on the beach, ocean for waves, river to float and filter the beer out, then back to the sand. Repeat. My breathing slowed. I felt my body relax in a way that made me aware of how much tension I normally carried. Laio and Daniel told me about a night they had met in Amsterdam. A bar and long conversations had become one of their favorite memories. The story wasn't elaborate. Its importance seemed to come from how good it had felt to be together. They had a mischievous energy that reminded me of my childhood friend James. We could encourage each other into questionable ideas with very little discussion. Once, James and I longboarded downhill holding a parachute between us like a sail. Another time, we wandered through the Bolsa Chica wetlands with airsoft guns and attracted a police helicopter. I remember the white spotlight finding us near a stormwater canal. We froze. The voice over the loudspeaker told us to stop shooting at birds and go home, then the helicopter flew away. We had expected something much worse. Relief broke into laughter. I remembered how unselfconscious I could be with a friend like that. Embarrassment had less power when we were already willing to look ridiculous together. At some point that afternoon with Laio and Daniel, I said I was living one of my favorite memories right then. Laio looked surprised. He paused, then agreed. I was glad I had said it while we were still there. People say you can't appreciate something until it's gone. I don't think that's true. Loss can force appreciation, but attention can create it while there is still time to tell the people sharing the moment. ### Picanha As the sun lowered, we crossed the river and returned to the house. Laio lit the charcoal grill and started cooking picanha. He salted the meat, tended it, and mixed drinks. He seemed comfortable there, doing something he knew well for people he cared about. I didn't feel a need to take over or prove that I could contribute in the same way. I could accept what he wanted to give us. He handed me a caipirinha. I lay on an outdoor bed near the bar, a thin mattress over uneven slats that occasionally let someone sink between them and interrupted the conversation with laughter. When the steak was ready, Laio cut pieces straight from it and we ate them with our fingers. Just salt, charcoal, and meat. It was some of the best steak I'd had. I ate too much. Music continued after dark. When "Evidências" by Chitãozinho & Xororó came on, people responded with the familiarity of a song nearly everyone seemed to know. Mariana and Laio stood up to dance. I picked up her phone and recorded them. Seeing the scene through the screen changed how I noticed it. The framing was crooked, the movement shaky, and laughter mixed with the song. It already looked like something I would want to revisit. I was preserving a doorway back, and I wanted them to have it too. The full moon lit the pool and the ocean beyond. People moved into smaller conversations, danced, and told stories. I didn't want the night to end. There was nothing else I needed it to become. ## 8. Tides, calls, and cobblestones ### Sunday Natalia and Daniel left the next morning. The goodbye was quick, and I wanted more time with them. Nothing particular needed to happen. Another ordinary hour would have been enough. I didn't know when we would meet again. I trusted that we might, but that didn't remove the sadness of watching the group begin to separate. The rest of us drove to a beach bar and parked in a tight space beside a knee-high fence. I could see that once Laio finished parking, I wouldn't be able to open my door. I could have asked to get out first. Instead, I waited and climbed through the window. Laio was confused. Why hadn't I just asked him to stop earlier? I said I thought climbing out would be funny. It was. Part of me hadn't wanted to interrupt him, which was familiar. But I also liked allowing a small inconvenience to be amusing without correcting it immediately. I spend plenty of time finding the efficient way through things. That morning, the awkward way made us laugh. The bar sat on the sand, with tables, lawn chairs, and umbrellas close together. Compared with the broad Southern California beaches I knew, this one felt compact. The jungle, people, and water were all nearby. Raphael watched the F1 race while the rest of us talked, drank beer, and ate snacks. Live music appeared again. By then, hearing music around us had started to feel ordinary. I left the table and called my parents while walking along the shore. I call my dad every Sunday. There was a brief temptation to skip because I was away, but I wanted to keep that space in the week. The call had an unusually good setting. Warm sand, salt air, ocean in the background. I told him I was enjoying myself and described the beaches and weather. Parts reminded me of Hawaii, where my family had gone every other year for decades. That gave us something familiar to connect it to. What I couldn't explain was the full significance of being there. I could share details, but the experience was still forming in me. I felt a little frustrated by the distance between what I was living and what I could say about it. Still, the call didn't need to contain everything. That's part of why I value having it regularly. We don't have to decide whether something is important enough to deserve a conversation. The conversation already has a place, and whatever matters can find its way into it. I returned to the table feeling steadier. Being immersed in the trip didn't require letting the rest of my life disappear. ### One more swim We could see ferries carrying people to nearby islands. There were plenty of things we could have done, and I was content where we were. Eventually Carol and Raphael left. Laio asked if the four of us who remained wanted to swim. The beach dropped away quickly. A few steps could take us from shallow water to chest depth. We bodysurfed and talked between sets. Mariana and Livia got out when they'd had enough. Laio and I stayed longer, and I asked how he and Mariana had met. They had crossed paths while studying chemical engineering. They noticed each other, but the relationship didn't begin with immediate certainty. They got to know each other later, around a celebration. He also told me more about Mariana's path after her degree. She hadn't gone directly into a conventional engineering career. She had experimented and eventually moved into modeling and acting. I liked hearing how ordinary the beginning of their relationship had been. I have sometimes expected that the right person would be obvious quickly. Their story gave me a reason to question that. Whatever I could see between them now had taken time to develop. A first impression couldn't have held all of it. ### Paraty We returned to the Airbnb, packed, and drove north to Paraty. The day remained on us in damp clothes, salt, and sand stuck to our legs. I felt the particular fatigue that comes after hours at the beach, happy and a little emptied out. Along the road, we passed structures crossing overhead. Livia explained that they allowed monkeys and other wildlife to cross. I liked noticing something built into a road for lives other than the people driving on it. Our next Airbnb was a smaller house on a larger property, something like a casita. We dropped our bags and went into Paraty's historic center. Painted buildings and old facades lined uneven cobblestone streets. Growing up on the West Coast had given me a different idea of what counted as old. Restaurant tables stood in the pedestrian streets. We wandered until somewhere looked good, then ate outside. Vendors sold carved whistles that sounded like birds. The calls came from different directions as we walked. At first I found them disorienting. Later they became part of how I recognized the town, a sound I expected to hear around the next corner. The mattress at the house was another memorable feature, for less flattering reasons. It looked thick and comfortable on its raised frame. Then I lay down and discovered how little it gave. The appearance had made a promise the mattress had no intention of keeping. The next morning, I felt rested enough. When the others tried the mattress, they reacted the same way. Confusion, disbelief, laughter. A good day can contain a hard mattress. ### The yellow boat Laio had arranged a boat the night before. At the dock, it was impossible to miss. Yellow hull, yellow accents, and yellow starfish pillows. It looked cheerful enough to make the choice feel right before we stepped aboard. The skipper took us to three beaches accessible by water, with dense jungle behind them. We passed small islands, some with rocks whitened by birds and others with houses perched above the shore. We brought a cooler with beer and snacks and spent four or five hours moving among the beaches. Swim, sit, talk, go quiet. We snorkeled a little and wandered a little. I napped. Other people napped. At times the stillness made me uneasy. I was used to having something to respond to. Once there was nothing to do, I could feel the urge to create an activity simply to stop noticing the absence of one. Then the urge passed. We could share the afternoon without continually entertaining one another. On one beach, a house stood almost on the sand. The skipper told us that an American had built it, left it in a Brazilian's care, and eventually left the house to that person when he died. I remember hearing it while looking at that house, one more way the place became particular to us. I took photographs on the boat and came away with some I liked. While photographing Laio, I noticed his eyes more clearly than I had before. Light green, especially bright in the reflected light. Photography sometimes gets described as a way of stepping out of an experience. It can be that. But it can also change how closely I look. Making decisions about focus and framing makes me notice things I would otherwise pass over. Laio's eyes had been there the whole trip. It took trying to photograph him for me to pay that kind of attention. After the boat, we ate a quick lunch, rested at the house, and went back into town. ### Lupita has standards Walking Paraty at night meant music, restaurant conversations, and those birdlike whistles. Light fell unevenly across the stones. I couldn't disappear completely into conversation because every few steps required a small adjustment. Watch my foot, shift my weight, step around the uneven place. At dinner, street dogs moved among the tables. One chose ours and stayed. Her name was Lupita. She was persistent and delightfully chubby. Livia offered her something light, maybe lettuce or another small scrap. Lupita declined. I cut a few pieces from my steak and offered those. She accepted immediately. Lupita had standards, and no apparent concern about making them clear. Later, Mariana and Livia wanted a treat, so we stopped at a convenience store called Open Store. The name made me laugh. It was unusually direct in English. Outside, a band played forró and people danced in the street. There was no special occasion I could see. Mariana danced while eating her treat, smiling and completely at ease. It reminded me of Laio behind the grill. Each seemed especially recognizable when doing something they loved without hesitation. I know what it feels like to participate while another part of me watches critically from the outside. I can be in a room and still devote much of my attention to how I look in it. Mariana seemed free of that argument in this moment. She was dancing, eating something she enjoyed, and letting both pleasures be obvious. Watching her, I wondered where I looked that natural. I wanted more of whatever let me stop evaluating myself long enough to enjoy being there. ## 9. Into Minas ### A dream for breakfast On our second morning in Paraty, Livia was awake before Laio and Mariana. She had gone for a walk and brought back a pastry, which she handed to me. I asked what it was called. Um sonho. A dream. It was soft and sweet, something like a doughnut, and so good that the name seemed accurate. Livia didn't need English to understand my reaction. My face and the noises I made did most of the explaining. We were leaving that morning, and by then packing the car had become my job. No one assigned it. I kept treating the trunk as an engineering puzzle until everyone else let me have it. The groceries were the difficult part. We had a milk-crate-style container whose lattice was beginning to break. It was awkwardly shaped and more fragile than a crate ought to be. Every time I found a clean arrangement, the groceries threatened to complicate it. I experimented with load order, pressure, which bags could compress, and what needed to stay accessible. By Paraty, I could picture the arrangement before I started. After days of trying to loosen my grip on plans, I was still very pleased to have a system for the trunk. Once everyone was up, Laio explained where we were going. We would leave the coast for Minas Gerais and Serranos, where Mariana had been born. We would meet relatives and spend time around the family land. It sounded like a few hours in the car. It took most of the day. ### Asking someone Around noon, we stopped in Caxambu to eat at a recommended restaurant. The town had narrow streets, hills, and older facades that I liked even under gray skies and light rain. Laio mentioned its mineral waters, in a joking way that left me remembering something about magical mountain fountains. We parked and walked to the restaurant. Closed. Tuesday. I immediately wanted to take out my phone and search for another option. I could already imagine comparing ratings while everyone waited. Mariana and Livia walked over to two women smoking under an awning and asked where to eat. The women recommended a self-serve buffet that charged by weight and gave us directions. That was the whole solution. Laio said a local would know more about where to eat than Yelp. People standing nearby could help us, and I had reached for a screen first. Part of my hesitation about asking strangers is the assumption that I'm inconveniencing them. Yet when someone asks me for a recommendation at home, I'm usually happy to give one. I allow myself a willingness that I don't always grant other people in advance. The restaurant had long counters of meats, beans, rice, stews, and vegetables, including dishes I couldn't name. I took small portions of whatever looked good. I liked almost all of it. Some of the food had a deep charcoal flavor. Trays sat over hot water, kept warm by a practical arrangement that looked as though it had been doing its job for a long time. I also liked the payment system. Each person received a plastic card with a barcode. Drinks, dessert, and extras went onto the card, and we paid at the end. I'd seen similar arrangements at highway stops with several vendors. A small design decision made a busy shared space easier to use. I couldn't help noticing those things. I was reconsidering what efficiency was for, but I hadn't lost my enjoyment of something that worked. The soda arrived cold, without ice unless I asked. At checkout came another phrase I was beginning to recognize. Débito ou crédito? Then we were back in the car. ### The road to Serranos The terrain became more agricultural and steep. Cattle stood on slopes that didn't look comfortable to stand on, as if the angle were of no concern to them. Then I started noticing termite mounds. Entire fields were dotted with them. Clay-colored forms appeared wherever there was grass, numerous enough to change the way the land looked. I kept pointing them out. Everyone else seemed less impressed, and Laio found my fascination funny. They were ordinary there. I had never seen fields like that and couldn't stop looking. I also learned a word I enjoyed, cupim. I heard it used for termites and for the hump cut of beef. I liked encountering the same word in the landscape and at the barbecue. By the time we reached Serranos, we were headed to Rancho Macota, Mariana's uncle's property. A road wound past ponds and small structures toward his house at the top of a hill. The place served several purposes. It was a home, restaurant, event venue, activity space, and somewhere guests could stay. Her uncle had built much of it over years. Mariana told me her grandfather's land had been divided among his children after he died. Some had sold their portions. Her uncle had kept his and developed it. From what I understood, the earlier uses included cattle and timber, with eucalyptus among the planted trees. That history changed how I looked at the property. He had stayed with one place long enough to keep adding to it. I was used to thinking about how easily I could leave a home. Here was a place full of things that existed because someone had kept returning to the work of making it his own. There was a dock shaped like a guitar, stocked ponds, a cinder-block maze, a stage, cabins, and custom wooden furniture. He milled wood himself. Even the restaurant benches, with their umbrellas, felt particular to the person who had made them. One cabin had a tree trunk worked into its construction, with branches crossing the wall line. It looked as though the building had made room for the tree. Mariana's uncle was soft-spoken. When asked about the property, he seemed proud to explain it. I liked being somewhere that held so much visible evidence of one person's continued work. Laio and Mariana were considering the property for their wedding. Knowing that gave the visit another kind of significance. That night we met her uncle, his wife, and their son, and ate barbecue. Her uncle cooked meat while his wife prepared the sides near a traditional brick outdoor stove. Most of the conversation was in Portuguese. Laio translated some, and I tried the translation feature through my AirPods. It lagged and missed things, but when it worked, it helped me follow more of what was happening. A young boy was absorbed in driving a plastic toy car instead of eating dinner. Mariana's aunt threatened to give his food to the frogs. He didn't seem intimidated. He kept driving. I found the whole exchange much funnier than I could explain. ### The road to the waterfall The next morning, we decided to visit a waterfall. Rain was forecast and had already been coming and going. The road began normally, then became gravel, then dirt, then uphill dirt in the rain. We were in a car without four-wheel drive. The road was narrow, with drop-offs, and passing other vehicles meant slowing down and making careful space. At one point the car fishtailed slightly. It was enough to make traction feel like something we needed to keep earning. We discussed turning back. A school bus came the other way, and Laio asked the driver how much unpaved road remained. The answer made it sound as though we were close to better conditions. That was optimistic. Much of what followed was still rough and unpaved. We talked about the possibility of getting stuck. Mariana's uncle had a 4x4 truck that could help recover us if needed, which made continuing feel more manageable. I had enough experience with poor traction to think controlled momentum would matter on the hills. I said so to Laio. He remained focused and calm, and I watched the road edges as he drove. The situation concentrated several kinds of uncertainty I usually try to avoid. I wasn't driving. I hadn't chosen the destination. I didn't know the road. Taking over would have been one way to feel more in control, but feeling more in control wouldn't necessarily have helped. I needed to stay alert, offer what I knew, and let Laio drive. My unease didn't automatically make me the person who should be in charge. Mariana and Livia were talking in the back as though it were an ordinary commute. When I looked back, I noticed they weren't wearing seat belts and asked them to buckle up. After translation, the response was that there were no police there. I said I wasn't worried about police. I was worried about gravity. The belts went on. ### Puppies in the fog We reached a restaurant near the top. It looked like a house and had only one other group eating. The dining area felt like a covered balcony, with thin glass panes between us and the weather. Rain struck the roof, and mist touched my skin. Clouds hid most of the mountain view. The waterfall was still visible, and the rain had made it powerful. People there told us the region was usually drier than what we were experiencing. We had arrived during a wet stretch, and it had changed the drive and the view. After lunch, we noticed a dog moving in and out of the restaurant area. Following it led us to a mother dog with a litter of newborn puppies nearby. We were told they had been born the day before. There may have been ten, in different colors. We spent time with puppies in mountain fog. That part of the day required very little interpretation. Afterward, one of Mariana's relatives showed us a berry farm. There were blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries. He explained that they kept bees for pollination. ### Twenty minutes alone Later, we met one of Mariana's family friends. I don't remember his name. I remember that he wore a cowboy hat, owned land, and made charcoal. He and Mariana had arranged to catch up while she was in town. We stopped at a gas station restaurant, and before going in, I asked Laio if I could take a break in the car. He said yes. I stayed there for about twenty minutes, resting and clearing my head. The previous days had involved almost constant company. I wasn't driving or making plans, and even enjoyable experiences had begun to tire me. At home, I spend most of my time alone. I value social contact, but I need solitude to recover from it. I hadn't stopped needing that simply because I was grateful to be included. This hadn't been my favorite day. I enjoyed parts of it, and I was glad to have gone, but waterfalls, farms, and meeting someone else's old friend weren't exactly how I would have chosen to spend those hours. I wanted to be honest about that without turning it into a complaint against the people sharing their lives with me. Following their plans still left room to ask for something to change. That afternoon, twenty minutes in the car gave me enough space to return without resenting the gathering. Without the break, I might have mistaken exhaustion for a judgment about the people or the whole day. I could take care of my need for solitude and still be glad I'd come. Eventually I went inside. The conversation was mostly between Mariana and her friend in Portuguese. He was curious about me, and I about him, so we exchanged a few questions. Mostly I listened. I didn't need Laio to translate every word or the conversation to become mine. Then Livia complimented the man's cowboy hat. Almost immediately, he removed it and put it on her head. He gave it to her as though liking it were enough reason to have it. She lit up. I was struck by how little negotiation the gesture required. He had something she enjoyed, and he wanted her to enjoy it. ### Leaving Serranos Back at the cabin, we ordered pizza and played Mario Party. I was very happy. I don't think Livia had played before. We switched the game to Portuguese so she could follow more easily. I knew the rules and controls well enough that I didn't need the English. It felt good to make the adjustment in that direction for once. No one was especially competitive. I don't think we even finished. The game gave us something to do together, and that was enough. The next morning, everyone packed their bags and I packed the car. We were nearly ready to leave when Mariana remembered something at the house. Driving up, we found another car blocking the way. While we worked out how to get it moved, Mariana saw her uncle's dirt bike beside the road. She was wearing a dress. She lifted it, kick-started the bike, and rode uphill, shouting "woo woo woo" with a huge grin. She had grown up riding dirt bikes and had scars from crashes. I was seeing another part of her that hadn't needed to appear until that moment. She came back smiling, climbed into the car, and we carried on. We stopped to see relatives and family friends on the way out. Brief visits, greetings, conversations, then another stop. Later we went to the top of Serranos, where the church stood on the hill. It was December, and Christmas music played. Near sunset, I sat with my back against a tree and looked out. Red mud, green grass, blue sky showing through breaks in the clouds. Cattle on uneven land. Stone walls and roads that zigzagged across the town and farms. I took photographs in Minas, but some of the moments I most wanted to keep weren't things a photograph would explain. Needing to sit alone in the car. Hearing the joke about the frogs. Watching the hat change heads. Being surprised by Mariana on the dirt bike. The view from the church was beautiful. So were parts of the days when I hadn't been looking for a view at all. ## 10. Order inside the rush ### Southbound Leaving Serranos made the end of the trip feel closer. Until then, each departure had led to somewhere new. Now we were heading back to São Paulo and, eventually, the airport. For a long stretch, traffic on the other side of the highway stood still. Trucks formed lines that continued far down the road. Some drivers had climbed out and stood beside their vehicles. We kept moving south while the northbound lanes remained stopped. It was easy to appreciate our luck from the moving side of the road. I knew my reaction might have been less generous if we had been in the other lanes. When I'm delayed, I tend to look at other cars as people in my way. My own trip feels like the purpose of the road, and theirs becomes interference. Seeing the standstill from outside made that thought look as selfish as it was. I didn't know why those drivers were traveling or what the delay would cost them. Some might have had reasons to hurry far more serious than mine. I was on a trip with friends. Most of the time, nothing terrible happened if I arrived late. We made it back to Laio's house that night and slept there. The next morning, we needed to return the rental car and take Livia to the bus station. She was visibly upset. Later, Laio explained that her mother had called about one of their dogs, who was seriously unwell and unable to get up to go outside. It was distressing to hear, even secondhand. I understood why she wanted to get home. All four of us returned the rental car, took an Uber to the subway, and traveled toward the bus terminal. Around us, people moved through an ordinary weekday. I was still figuring out where to stand and when to follow; most of them seemed to know exactly what came next. ### The rapper On the train, a man began freestyle rapping in Portuguese. I couldn't understand the words, but I enjoyed the cadence. He sounded relaxed and practiced. Later I learned that some of the rap had been about people in the carriage, including me. Apparently my big arms made me look scary. That made me laugh. It also made me think about how I had responded to him. I had deliberately avoided eye contact. Part of it was habit. When someone performs for money or approaches with a hand out, I often try to remain uninvolved. If I acknowledge them, I worry they might ask something directly, and then I'll have to say no. Looking away seems easier. But I had liked what he was doing. Avoiding awkwardness meant concealing even that small response. Livia smiled, acknowledged him, and gave him money. He commented on her tattoos and guessed she was vegetarian. He was right. They had an ordinary interaction while I worked to prevent one. What bothered me afterward was how little I would have needed to do. I could have smiled or nodded. Enjoying a performance didn't require either ignoring the performer or agreeing to anything he might ask. There was room for a simple acknowledgment, and I hadn't used it. At the bus station, we stayed with Livia until she had her ticket and knew which bus to take. We had spent about a week together, sharing car rides, beaches, meals, and the slow back-and-forth of translation. I was glad she had come with us. When we said goodbye, I hugged her and kissed her cheek. I wanted the warmth to be clear even if my Portuguese wasn't. I was still thinking about the rapper and how easily I let the possibility of getting a moment wrong keep me from participating at all. Many of the people I met had been willing to communicate with me without waiting for ideal conditions. Words, gestures, tone, a phone when needed. They tried, and enough meaning usually got through. I could make the same effort. I wanted Livia to know I had enjoyed being with her and would miss her. That was worth a little clumsiness. ### An unglamorous problem After she left, we walked around and stopped for lunch. Mariana noticed I wasn't eating much. I told them I had been constipated. I suspected the amount of meat and rice I'd been eating, with less fiber than usual, had contributed. Whatever the cause, I was uncomfortable, and admitting it felt mildly humiliating. Laio and Mariana responded practically. Mariana suggested foods, made teas, and checked on me. Papaya, which had appeared at breakfast throughout the trip, acquired a new purpose in our conversations. Their attention reminded me of my mother looking after me when I was sick. No ceremony, no need to make the situation dignified. I was uncomfortable, and they wanted to help. It was easier once I had said something. Before that, the problem had been something private to manage while trying to act normal. Afterward, I was still constipated, but less alone with it. ### Rush hour We took the subway back that afternoon. At one transfer, a crowd moved rapidly from the train toward the stairs and the next platform. At first it looked almost like a stampede. On the escalator, Laio explained that people standing still should stay to the right so others could pass on the left. At the platform, people formed queues beside the doors, leaving space between them. He described what would happen when the train arrived. Some people near the front wanted seats and would step aside if those were taken. If we were willing to stand, we could move forward. Then I watched it happen. People boarded, seats filled, some waited, and others advanced. The process moved quickly without needing a discussion each time. What had looked chaotic became more understandable when I could see the agreements inside it. People made room, waited, passed, and moved at the appropriate moment. I thought again of the highway on the drive back. Other people weren't simply in the way. Our ability to use the same space depended on responding to one another. At the station near Laio's house, heavy rain made an Uber more appealing than walking. By the time we got home, the evening had the usual vague possibilities. Maybe a movie. Maybe cooking. Maybe going out. We walked to the grocery store, bought food, and Laio made pasta. By the time we'd eaten and cleaned up, the day was nearly over. Grocery store, pasta, rain, home. I had spent so many ordinary evenings by myself that doing those things with Laio and Mariana was part of what made the trip different. I wanted time inside their lives, and this was some of that time. ### Good news and bad news The next morning, Mariana asked whether I felt better. I didn't yet. She and Laio continued looking after me, and we carried on with the day. At some point we played Mario Party. I don't remember who won or what happened in the game. I remember a relaxed room, wandering conversation, and no one taking it very seriously. Eventually I went to the bathroom. When I returned, I told Laio I had good news and bad news. The good news was that the constipation was over. The bad news was that I had clogged his toilet. There wasn't a dignified version of the announcement available. We laughed and moved on. Later, Mariana wanted to sing. Laio picked up his guitar, and she and I sang along. We forgot lyrics, restarted songs, and laughed when things fell apart. There was nothing polished about it. I liked how little that seemed to matter to them. I enjoy singing, but I often hesitate because I don't sound the way I want to. If I wouldn't want to share the result, I can start feeling as though I shouldn't make the attempt. That leaves me in a ridiculous position. I want to sound better, but I avoid the practice because I don't sound better already. With Laio and Mariana, I could forget the words, start over, and keep singing. ### Before the drums That night, Mariana dressed to go out. I asked where we were going, and Laio said he didn't really know. She was in charge of the plan. We arrived somewhere that looked like a concrete slab with an awning over part of it, a small booth or trailer serving beer, and brewing equipment nearby. I couldn't place it in a tidy category. People had gathered, and there was room for music. Before the larger event began, Laio and Mariana danced to "Um Sonho" by Nação Zumbi. I recorded them again, this time for myself. The earlier video in Ubatuba had been on Mariana's phone. By then, watching them dance carried more meaning for me because I knew something about the difficulty they were facing. Laio's offer was to go to Texas for work. He would leave the day after I left Brazil. The plans had come together quickly, with little time for either of them to get used to the change. Mariana had been thinking this might be her last Carnival before becoming a mother. It represented a kind of freedom she wanted to enjoy, and Laio would miss it. That hope sat beside the value of his work opportunity. Neither made the other disappear. I had seen some of the tension. Now I watched them hold each other and lean close to speak while they danced. I had sometimes imagined a good relationship as one in which the rightness would be obvious and the decisions would follow from it. Their situation asked more of them. A worthwhile opportunity could still hurt. Caring about each other didn't make the timing convenient. Watching them dance, I could see affection continuing inside a difficulty it hadn't resolved. That felt like a more believable thing to hope for. Then more people began arriving in elaborate clothes. We learned that a samba band would rehearse there for Carnival. Once the drums started, the evening changed. Percussion filled the space with a pressure I could feel in my body. Rhythm layered over rhythm, and people moved with it. We drank beer and danced. The band played for hours, and the crowd thinned slowly as the night continued. ### All the way to security The next day, we went to Laio's aunt's house for a barbecue. I met his grandmother, parents, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. Food came from the grill while people moved among conversations and rooms. Eventually we had to leave. We went back for my suitcase and drove to the airport. I expected a curbside drop-off. Instead, Laio parked, and both he and Mariana came inside with me. I recognized the gesture immediately. At the beginning, Laio had made time to meet me inside. Now they were making time to stay while I left. I hugged them and tried to tell them how much the trip had meant. Then I joined the security line. As it moved, I kept looking back. They were still there. My bag was with me. I knew where I was going. They stayed past usefulness, giving the goodbye time and giving me room to feel how much I would miss the people still standing there. After passing security, I turned once more and gave them a large wave. Then I walked toward the gate. Of all the things I had seen in Brazil, that image remained especially clear. Two people standing a little longer because I was still there to see them. ## 11. What I'm bringing home ### On my own again Once I turned toward the gate, the change was immediate. I was making my own way again. For two weeks, I had been moving with other people. Someone drove, someone translated, someone cooked, someone usually knew what came next. I had grown used to being included in decisions without having to generate every one of them. Now I had a couple of hours before my flight and needed something to eat. The first restaurant had no seats, so I went back to a café I had passed. At the counter, I saw coxinha and ordered two. They weren't the best I'd eaten on the trip. They were still good. At this point I'm fairly convinced there is no bad coxinha, only good coxinha in varying degrees of excellence. It was a small, satisfying decision to make on my own. I knew something I liked that I hadn't known before coming. On the overnight flight, I barely slept. Freedom and loneliness arrived together. Both were familiar. I ordinarily spend much of my life alone, making my own choices, and in one sense I was returning to something comfortable. But I could feel the shared momentum of the trip ending. There was no next meal appearing, no new person to meet because someone had arranged it, no drive whose destination would be explained along the way. I kept wondering what to do now. It felt like reaching the end of an escalator. For a while, movement had happened without my having to produce all of it. Then the steps flattened and I needed to walk. I landed in Chicago while it was still dark. After the tram toward the parking shuttle, I stepped outside into December cold. The first hard blast of winter air reclaimed me. I was back in the Midwest, and the distance from Brazil suddenly felt physical. I knew I wanted to return. I wanted more time with those people and enough time in the country for some of the unfamiliarity to wear off. I wanted to stay for months, long enough for being there to feel like ordinary life. After coming home, I began learning Portuguese and making plans for a longer return. ### What changed My life did not look radically different afterward. I still lived in the Midwest, spent a great deal of time alone, and had many of the same routines and responsibilities. The habits I had noticed in Brazil came home with me too. I still wanted to optimize things. I still hesitated before asking for help. What I trusted most was the quieter loss of an old excuse. I could still say I wasn't a dancing person, but now I had the memory of dancing. I could assume asking for help would burden someone, but I also remembered how willingly people had helped. The old stories hadn't disappeared. They had become less convincing. The people who welcomed me didn't seem to require a version of me that never needed anything. They translated, made space, and cared when I was uncomfortable. Some of that took effort. They chose to make it. I want to get better at allowing that choice. Receiving care doesn't have to become an urgent problem of repayment. I can be grateful and still let the gift remain a gift. I also want to ask more directly for what I need. The twenty-minute break in the car mattered alongside all the times I joined in. Following someone else's plans still left me responsible for saying when I needed something different. ### A rhythm worth keeping I came home wanting more shared life, but I didn't come home wanting to abandon structure. The trip had plenty of structure. Breakfast happened. Meals gave us reasons to gather. I kept my Sunday call. The trip felt spontaneous to me because I was a guest. Laio and Mariana were making plans and doing work I didn't always see. My freedom to follow depended in part on their willingness to arrange things. For years, my routines had made me dependable at work. I still valued that ability. I also wanted habits that made time with people easier, that gave writing and music somewhere to happen, and that left room for an afternoon whose value I couldn't measure ahead of time. Forró stayed useful as an image. A shared beat reduced the uncertainty enough for people to move freely together. The point of learning the steps was that eventually I could dance. I don't need every part of life to become an achievement before it earns space. Singing can be enjoyable while I'm still learning. Speaking Portuguese can connect me to someone before I speak it well. A gathering can be worth having without an occasion important enough to justify it. I can't bring home the exact beach afternoon or reproduce the moment when a room began singing together. I can notice what helped those moments happen. People stayed long enough to get past introductions. Someone made food. Someone offered a song. Someone asked a question and waited for the answer. I can do those things. I can also respond when someone offers them to me. I want to return to Brazil. I want better Portuguese and more time with the people who made room for me. I also want the life between trips to contain more of what I valued there. More willingness to begin. More music. More time together that doesn't need to accomplish anything else. I want to build a life here that remembers what I learned there.