We would go to Brazil because then she would have that. It could never be hung over my head. I would make sacrifices. She would see the graffiti and litter-covered city again through new American-pampered eyes and then we would turn back. Sure, it would be an adventure for me, but that was secondary. I needed her to get this out of her system. It would probably take a year.
And then some time passed. Next month will mark two years. Still no end in sight.
Not that Brazil isn't making a case for us to leave. Word from back home is the Zika virus has even the snowed-in in a panic. The economy continues its dig toward the Earth's core. The upcoming Olympics are poised to be a national embarrassment. The historic drought from last year is under control, but at the cost of record-setting rainfall and floods. The poor are getting poorer. Times are tough.
Crime is up. A group and I went around the table earlier this week naming our scariest moment in Brazil. I've got a handful of friends that have had guns in their faces, but none were at this dinner and the stories came off pretty tame. We said our goodbyes and went home.
I got a message from one a half hour later. He and his fiancee witnessed a shooting break out on the way home. An argument between some guys escalated to about eight shots fired. The men turned and ran in their direction. My friends hid in the shadows. Someone limped by their hiding spot, pistol in hand.
I'm diligent with Dani on minimizing our risks. The routes that we walk are short and populated. Cabs take us everywhere after dark. There are dozens of city-sized chunks in this megalopolis I know I will never step foot in.
Yet, you can only prepare so much. The unknown has its way of always outdoing itself. And so sitting at a stoplight the other night and seeing a man pop up at the open window of the car in front of us, then hold onto their door as they tried to drive away, puts its hooks in you pretty deep. No one wins when your wife says she's going out for a walk during daylight hours and you argue with her.
One prediction Dani and I have always felt pretty certain of is this will be our only time in Sao Paulo. Her family lives here, but their longterm plans don't and neither of us can see ourselves putting up with all the bullshit as we get older. That being said, the one-and-done approach makes you appreciate the place so much more. Like college, you know you're on the clock and this particular version of you will never live again.
Mix that in with a comfortable daily schedule, a growing list of drop dead restaurants and a historic exchange rate and its easy to accept all the other problems as collateral damage. When I moved here I only really knew Dani, but now I look around our occasional for-no-reason barbecues and see 50-some friends. Restaurants like Le Jazz and EMA torture me daily. The weather is warm. There's the social currency that's often yielded just from being a gringo. And there's a real magic in going out with a group, grabbing the check off a table covered in bottles and paying the whole US $30 yourself.
I can't imagine the tidy little life I could have chose.
The update is we're doing just fine. I'm still working. Still writing a ton. I run about three 5Ks a week. I may finally pull off a tan. Carnaval is about to start. I found a place that sells Cherry Coke. There's Ben and Jerry's here too. Until we're the ones hiding in those shadows, waiting for death to walk past, I don't see us buying those final plane tickets anytime soon.
An older couple in my church in Virginia used to live in Sao Paulo in the 1960s. They ask me for updates whenever I'm back in town. The Sao Paulo they describe was very different from what I see now, but one statement the lady always underlines holds true: "You cry when you get there and you cry when you leave."
I did and I will.
