I like to be here when I can...”*
It's bittersweet to come home because I feel like a great adventure has come to an end. But perhaps it's not so. Perhaps a greater adventure is to live life with dignity, courage, and authenticity. Many issues expect me at home, from a personal level to total national chaos. There's much work to be done. After an uneventful flight, I land on JFK. The immigration officer peruses my passport and says, with a smile, "you're a world traveler!"
"Not exactly, not yet," I answer, humbled by the thought of my friend Anush, who really is a globetrotter.
Through the app Find Friends my son JeanLuc finds me waiting for my luggage. He has grown in my absence, his beard has thickened and he looks more mature overall. I hug him, smell his scent, listen to his heartbeat -- resting my cheek on the best place of the Puniverse, as I used to say when he was tiny. We meet my daughter Katrina in the car, and she's driving and that's good, because she's not into hugging. She does make an exception for birthday and Christmas, though, sweet thing that she is.
In the car, we share stories of the last two months, but not much, since I don't want to repeat everything I want to say when we're finally all together.
After three hours or so I'm home, seeing the rest of the family, which includes four new pets! It's when I hug my oldest son Marcelo, though, that I break down and start to cry because I'm so happy to be home and I've missed them all so much! Knowing his mother as he does, he has a surprise for me, which is a huge map on the wall, where we have fun placing color-coordinated thumbtacks on the places we've been.
During my time away I didn't allow myself to be homesick, because that would only take away from my experience abroad, but being around them all is like heaven -- or maybe heaven is just another word for home.
Key Takeaways:
1) An internship reveals as much about ourselves as the path we're contemplating taking. Sometimes a job is more glamorous from a distance than in the thick of it. Interning at the company of one's choice allows for an inside look at the day-to-day business. What did I learn at The Gioi? I learned that editing is hard, not only for me but for everyone. It takes work, and it's not always fun, but if making a messy paragraph shine appeals to you, then the time sitting and staring at a computer screen is worth it. However, -- and here's the takeaway -- now I know that I can do it. I can write and I can edit. Maybe that's not as surprising to anyone as it is to myself. I don't like to write all the time, and I don't like to edit always, but the work satisfies in me a deep need for connection and self-expression. I could say that I write to understand, and I edit to be understood. Or something like it.
Working at The Gioi showed me that the final product on a magazine shines because of hours of intense, laborious and boring work the staff is willing to put into a piece. Editing is work done both alone and in collaboration with a team. I worked alone at my desk, but I was just one of the many hands those texts passed through before becoming ready for print. Although separated, we had the same goal; make a text as good as possible.
2) The pros of living alone. I think everyone should live alone at least once in their lifetime. If not completely alone, with busy roommates. I did not live alone before getting married and starting a family of my own. I wish I had. By living alone you learn to become self-reliant. If you fail, you deal with the consequences, and the next day you do better. If you leave your bed unmade or a carton of milk outside the fridge, when you come home it's there, just the way you left it, or, in the case of milk, spoiled as a consequence of your negligence. No judgment from anyone, but no helping hand either, so it functions like a straight look in the mirror when we contemplate ourselves and all our shortcomings. Being so, living alone teaches humility, self-reliance, and confidence.
Another great thing about living alone is that you have a better chance of following your plans without being derailed. If you decide to sleep instead of reading or watch a movie instead of sleeping, that's up to you, and if you regret your choice the next day, that's also your problem, and you know you can't peg it on anyone around.
A subtler aspect of living alone is that you learn to manage your emotions, as there aren't people around to distract you from your feelings. Nobody makes you mad, for example, you get mad all by yourself, with thoughts you choose to have. That, I believe, is always the case, but when you're alone that becomes undeniably clear. You must rely on yourself as a source of wisdom, comfort, inspiration, entertainment and anything else you need.
3) Perspective. We have to leave sometimes. Leave a relationship, leave a house, leave a job, a country... in other to see it better. If by diving into something we take a closer look, by moving away from a situation, we see it in an entirely different angle. While in Southeast Asia, I didn't hear about Trump's latest tweets. It wasn't news, it just didn't matter for them what the POTUS said, did, or said he did or didn't do. It was so refreshing! I also learned that most people in that part of the world are not as scared of North Korea as they are of the United States. Well, considering our mutual history, can we really blame them? This same bird's-eye view I can apply to enlighten aspects of my personal life.
4) Traveling is an art, and, as with watercolor, writing or pottery, the more you practice the better you get at it. There are many kinds of travelers, and internship, work, or studying abroad have its own implications, but overall, leaving home reveals your identity as a traveler. What places are you attracted to, what do you want to see, what do you want to do? Do you travel to escape, to rest, or to learn? Do you find a cozy place and make yourself comfortable as you watch the natives from a peephole? Or do you mix with the locals, learn a new language and try new things?
I admire the latter, but I'm not an extrovert, so I don't throw myself into a new situation. I also don't hide from the wonderful opportunity to see new things, meet new people, eat different foods and do different things. Whenever I travel, though, I realize that I need to do so more often. Since traveling, by definition, is a state of transition, I want to learn to move more gracefully from one point on the planet to another. That's the art in it, the dance in the storm, so to speak. And as in every art, if you do just what you plan, what's the art in that? More important than following through some preconceived idea, is to be present in the moment.
5) So, there's the saying that "if you cut too many corners, you end up going in circles". Another reminder says that when you cut a corner, you end up with two more. In Brazil, we say that, by trying to avoid taking one step, we take two. That relates to my attempts at cutting costs. No matter how much one plans, when traveling there are always spur-of-the-moment decisions -- or there should be if you're living in the moment -- and cutting costs is an important practice if you're on a budget, but not every dime saved makes sense. Sometimes it's okay to take a cab, even when there are buses available. Sometimes it's okay to go to a restaurant, even when you can cook at home or get an inexpensive meal on the street.
6) Skin Shedding. Closely related to this new perspective, is the shedding of skin, the throwing out -- or letting go -- of what is no longer working for you. I got sunburnt in Phu Quoc Island, which led to probably the worst itch I ever had and later, to skin shedding. Although the process was far from pleasant, it symbolized a very special time in my life, when I'm letting go of much that I thought was part of my identity. I'm renewing myself. The process is both painful and beautiful. You cry for the skin to which you were once so attached which now brings you more discomfort than anything else. So you let it go. Then one day you look at your shoulder and see that the new skin is clear, healthy, and beautiful. You've been born again!
7) Completely different, but just as good. By the time you travel alone, be it for an internship, to study abroad or any other reason, you're probably over the age of eighteen and might have developed a philosophy of your own. But as you immerse yourself in another culture you realize that other people do things differently, sometimes exactly the opposite of what you think is right. That's a great opportunity to develop some humility. Yes, your philosophy is great, but mostly for yourself. If people in a different part of the world do things differently it's either because it's the only viable way in that environment or because it's working for them. And here's the takeaway: study different angles of your own idea. Learn, expand your views, enlarge thine soul.
8) Think Abundance. I have spoken extensively about it while talking about what I call scarcity mentality. This experience was a great way to immerse myself in a culture that prides itself on making do with less. It is a fact that in the United States there is too much waste, and better management of resources is something that we must learn, but sometimes that scarcity mentality can become a way of life, part of the culture and it stops making sense. To think abundantly is to understand that resources are always available, but if you go to the ocean with a spoon, that's how much water you'll get. Saving is good and must be encouraged, but shouldn't be the modus operandi. A better goal, in my opinion, is to do the best you can with what you have.
9) Order and Progress. It's pretty clear that basic organization leads to better planning and better execution. Traveling through Southeast Asia constantly reminded me of that. Some schools teach this but it must be reinforced by the culture, with social expectations and policies in public places. Brazil, for example, dwells in chaos. The culture deals with that aspect of its people, reinforcing it with cliches like "o jeitinho brasileiro", (the Brazilian way), which allows for creative loopholes in every sphere of society. Other cultures, such as the Japanese and Chinese, pride themselves in cleanliness and order. Good fruits come from such values. And that's what this trip reminded me to do; better observe organization in my own life.
10) I've always believed that people should leave their country of origin and live in another place for at least a year. This experience only reinforced that belief. I can't think of anything else -- except, maybe, parenting -- that changes one's perspective as much as immersing into another culture. Everything you know and take for granted, like the language spoken around you, the food, the currency, social values, all that changes but you, at first, remain the same. It's like taking a piece from one puzzle and mixing it up with pieces from another puzzle. At first, there's no place for that piece in that society and you feel extra and useless. Little by little you learn to assess your surroundings and learn new things. Learning happens when we modify ourselves. Without change, there is no learning. And this learning reshapes you, so soon you find that you do fit into that society. People count on your presence, on your input, and on your contribution. You don't stop being who you are, you just enlarge your worldview to accommodate new perspectives.
"It's all worth it if the soul is not small", wrote Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa. However, the soul, like the body, needs food for growth. Traveling, reading, experiencing life in all its colors, shapes, and sounds, broaden our existence and deepen our understanding and therefore must be highly encouraged. I'm proud of Mount Holyoke College -- and immensely thankful -- for the college's efforts to provide students with experiences of this kind.
