documents and he asked me to confirm it all before wishing me a good trip.
Â
Officially, Fernando was my father and legal guardian. When my mother fell pregnant to my real father, an American, she disappeared from his life, and when I was born in New Mexico she phoned her ex-husband Fernando, who lived to the north in the state of Colorado, six hours away by car.
In those days he didnât live in Lakewood, but in Aurora, another Denver suburb. He drove down and registered me the next day as his daughter, in Albuquerque. He told my mother to take care of herself. Then he drove back. They had been divorced for four years and he possibly knew her well enough that she didnât have to explain anything:
That she didnât want any ties to her daughterâs real father.
That she didnât want her daughter to grow up without a fatherâs name on her birth certificate.
That she didnât dare ask anyone else.
That sometimes life was a bit complicated.
I have no idea what happened between the two of them after that. All the information I have is that later that same year, 1988, Fernando went to Albuquerque to spend Christmas with me and my mother. He stayed in the adobe house, which only had two rooms â mine and my motherâs.
Maybe he slept on the living room couch.
The highways are an adventure in December in this part of the world. Fernando was on the road for much more than the usual six hours between cities on Interstate 25. There was snow and ice on the road.
He left behind Trinidad, former residence of Bat Masterson and, in those days, the world sex change capital thanks to the operations conducted by the famous Dr. Stanley Biber. He passed a sign saying WELCOME TO NEW MEXICO LAND OF ENCHANTMENT and in his rear-view mirror saw a sign saying WELCOME TO COLORFUL COLORADO, with the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the west.
I donât know if, when he arrived in Albuquerque, I was in my room dreaming pint-sized dreams, dreams that were the size of my life, that fit easily through the bars of the crib. I donât know if he and my mother embraced with the force of how deeply they missed one another, or thought they missed one another, or needed to miss one another because missing often keeps you company. I donât know if he went to bed with her, or if she just made some soup or tea and they sat in front of the Christmas tree to sip the soup or tea and then she helped him spread some sheets and a blanket over the living room couch.
The following year he didnât go to Albuquerque at Christmas. And two years later my mother and I returned to Brazil. It was supposed to be for good.
In her case, it was.
Â
A curious phenomenon happens when you have been away from home for too long. Your idea of what home is â a city, a country â slowly fades like a colorful image exposed to the sun on a daily basis. But you donât quickly acquire another image to put in its place. Try: act like, dress like, speak like the people around you. Use the slang, go to the âinâ places, make an effort to understand the political spaces. Try not to be surprised every time you see people selling second-hand furniture and clothes and books from their garages (the sign on the street corner announces: garage sale), or the supermarkets offering tons of pumpkins in October and tolls for sculpting them, or corn mazes. Pretend that none of it is new to you.
Do it all, act like.
I met Brazilian immigrants who tried to forget they were Brazilian. They got themselves American partners, American childÂren, American jobs, and stored the Portuguese language in some hard-to-access place in their throats and only took pride in their origins when someone spoke praisingly of samba or capoeira (the latter too, in its origin, the martial art of the displaced, of the expatriated, of those torn from their homes). Or the Gracie brothersâ Brazilian jujitsu. Apart from these things, Brazil was crap.
Â
Officially, Fernando was my father and legal guardian. When my mother fell pregnant to my real father, an American, she disappeared from his life, and when I was born in New Mexico she phoned her ex-husband Fernando, who lived to the north in the state of Colorado, six hours away by car.
In those days he didnât live in Lakewood, but in Aurora, another Denver suburb. He drove down and registered me the next day as his daughter, in Albuquerque. He told my mother to take care of herself. Then he drove back. They had been divorced for four years and he possibly knew her well enough that she didnât have to explain anything:
That she didnât want any ties to her daughterâs real father.
That she didnât want her daughter to grow up without a fatherâs name on her birth certificate.
That she didnât dare ask anyone else.
That sometimes life was a bit complicated.
I have no idea what happened between the two of them after that. All the information I have is that later that same year, 1988, Fernando went to Albuquerque to spend Christmas with me and my mother. He stayed in the adobe house, which only had two rooms â mine and my motherâs.
Maybe he slept on the living room couch.
The highways are an adventure in December in this part of the world. Fernando was on the road for much more than the usual six hours between cities on Interstate 25. There was snow and ice on the road.
He left behind Trinidad, former residence of Bat Masterson and, in those days, the world sex change capital thanks to the operations conducted by the famous Dr. Stanley Biber. He passed a sign saying WELCOME TO NEW MEXICO LAND OF ENCHANTMENT and in his rear-view mirror saw a sign saying WELCOME TO COLORFUL COLORADO, with the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the west.
I donât know if, when he arrived in Albuquerque, I was in my room dreaming pint-sized dreams, dreams that were the size of my life, that fit easily through the bars of the crib. I donât know if he and my mother embraced with the force of how deeply they missed one another, or thought they missed one another, or needed to miss one another because missing often keeps you company. I donât know if he went to bed with her, or if she just made some soup or tea and they sat in front of the Christmas tree to sip the soup or tea and then she helped him spread some sheets and a blanket over the living room couch.
The following year he didnât go to Albuquerque at Christmas. And two years later my mother and I returned to Brazil. It was supposed to be for good.
In her case, it was.
Â
A curious phenomenon happens when you have been away from home for too long. Your idea of what home is â a city, a country â slowly fades like a colorful image exposed to the sun on a daily basis. But you donât quickly acquire another image to put in its place. Try: act like, dress like, speak like the people around you. Use the slang, go to the âinâ places, make an effort to understand the political spaces. Try not to be surprised every time you see people selling second-hand furniture and clothes and books from their garages (the sign on the street corner announces: garage sale), or the supermarkets offering tons of pumpkins in October and tolls for sculpting them, or corn mazes. Pretend that none of it is new to you.
Do it all, act like.
I met Brazilian immigrants who tried to forget they were Brazilian. They got themselves American partners, American childÂren, American jobs, and stored the Portuguese language in some hard-to-access place in their throats and only took pride in their origins when someone spoke praisingly of samba or capoeira (the latter too, in its origin, the martial art of the displaced, of the expatriated, of those torn from their homes). Or the Gracie brothersâ Brazilian jujitsu. Apart from these things, Brazil was crap.
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