I forgot about Brazil.
I was so concerned with everything else that I didn't even think about my trip here. I didn't think about packing, about what I'd do when I got here, who would I see, where would I go, in what order. I just didn't think. And now I'm here, I only have a few days left, and despite all this time I've had to think about Brazil, I still don't know what to think.
I have a love/hate relationship with the country. I'm like Dr. Daruwalla in John Irving's A Son of the Circus, who keeps going back to India. I don't have circus midgets to come back to, but I do feel like when I'm here I don't know who I am. I'm not really Brazilian, with that obsessive extraversion, that cunning, that intolerance, that pride and arrogance, that mega frantic yet snail-slow pace of things. But I'm not really Canadian either. I'm not anything, and I don't even know what to say when people ask me where I'm living now. I usually say nowhere, that I'm in between places, that I don't quite know when I'll be back in Canada.
I am the epitome of lost.
But all that is too philosophical. Moving on to more concrete topics, about which there exists no doubt:
1) Overnight flights are crap. Especially when you're sitting on the last row where the seats don't lean back.
2) Boarding a plane containing an entire winning soccer team is crap.
3) No matter how crap and exotic your favourite childhood foods were, you will always love them.
4) Family is wonderfully weird and complicated.
And then there's that Africa trip date approaching. I've started taking Lariam and I'm having crap side effects. The crazy dreams are cool, but the nausea and crippling anxiety are really not cool at all. I may drop some dough on Malarone, or just say fuck it all to malaria prophylaxis. What do you think?
I have a love/hate relationship with the country. I'm like Dr. Daruwalla in John Irving's A Son of the Circus, who keeps going back to India. I don't have circus midgets to come back to, but I do feel like when I'm here I don't know who I am. I'm not really Brazilian, with that obsessive extraversion, that cunning, that intolerance, that pride and arrogance, that mega frantic yet snail-slow pace of things. But I'm not really Canadian either. I'm not anything, and I don't even know what to say when people ask me where I'm living now. I usually say nowhere, that I'm in between places, that I don't quite know when I'll be back in Canada.
I am the epitome of lost.
But all that is too philosophical. Moving on to more concrete topics, about which there exists no doubt:
1) Overnight flights are crap. Especially when you're sitting on the last row where the seats don't lean back.
2) Boarding a plane containing an entire winning soccer team is crap.
3) No matter how crap and exotic your favourite childhood foods were, you will always love them.
4) Family is wonderfully weird and complicated.
And then there's that Africa trip date approaching. I've started taking Lariam and I'm having crap side effects. The crazy dreams are cool, but the nausea and crippling anxiety are really not cool at all. I may drop some dough on Malarone, or just say fuck it all to malaria prophylaxis. What do you think?
Your blog is mega o'clock. I think maybe if I didn't have to compose all my posts in slightly distracting surroundings I could equal it, but that ain't gonna happen.
ReplyDeleteMoving away from mutual appreciation, yes, overnight flights are crap, I hate enforced darkness as well.
Take the drugs, maybe not Lariam though cos it is indeed scary shit. I just do not understand why everyone in malarial areas thinks the prophylaxis is a waste of time. It's not, it helps stop you getting malaria. Is doxy no good? I might write about this whole business later.
dude, i don't want to be like you when you were taking doxy in ecuador. i'm already allergic to UV rays, plus the stuff causes yeast infections and nausea.
ReplyDelete