Oh I forgot to mention in previous posts that a couple of weeks ago I lost my greencard!! Ive been through all my possessions (2 whole bags of stuff), searched the house, the couch, behind the radiators. Morgan, was a total hero and dug through two weeks of maggoty, steaming old garbage with me, while she was stoned and therefore extra tweaked out. We were both gagging. I love her FOREVER for that (and really that’s just the beginning of what a true friend she is). I haven’t been able to locate it anywhere so I guess it fell out on a bus or the street and at this point its just never going to be found.

This has changed everything. Since I cant afford the replacement fee of $450 and there’s a 6 months wait for that tiny piece of plastic, I am now grounded until I get full citizenship, which Im still also months away from qualifying for. I was really depressed about it for a while, feeling STUCK here in the US. But then I realised in a way its a gift, that is now focussing me in one direction. I kept flying out of the country and risking not being allowed to re-enter for spending too much time abroad. Some times I even felt, to hell with it, I need to move on, move to a new country now. But Im not quite ready for that yet. This is still in a way my home, its filled with friends and family and I want to be able to have the choice to come back and visit from time to time, without the hellish restrictions. So. I sit and wait until November and then go through the whole application process which takes a few more months.

Still, every day, I keep thinking of Brazil. My love was born there, but he’s now in Guatemala living on the side of the most beautiful lake, where I would love to be, also in a state of limbo. Each of us dealing with this impossible distance between us, furthered by the lack of technology out there, figuring out how to handle our crazy intense connection that neither of us have experience on how to deal with before… a connection that illogically seems to create more obstacles than pathways. We’re not officially together any more, but in every way our hearts are still with each other and with each other only which is a huge frustration at times. But it won’t budge. Despite the reality of the situation, Brazil has really gotten into my head, so much so I started learning Portuguese a few weeks ago in preparation for something I dont know will ever happen, only feel, and its going really well. For a while I was afraid of going to Brazil to live, feeling isolated, unable to understand and be understood. But now its a destination I keep dreaming of. For some reason, even though everything seems to be shuffled up and impossible between us, there is a calmness at the bottom of it, right at the core of me, that knows that everything somehow is going to work itsself out, regardless of whether we are still together. Its the same voice that lead me to learn Brazilian Portuguese. I’m supposed to move there some day, I just know this. I didnt even really bother to learn Spanish, just enough really to get about and eat, so this is something important somehow. I’m putting real love into learning it which I’ve never done with any other languages.

Brazilian Portuguese is a really tricky language, very beautiful, very sensual, but its like speaking in cursive. Every word shortens and blends into the next with no definite sounds. Depending on the sound of the next word, the one before had a different sounding ending and may or may not shorten. The sounds are hard to make sometimes when you have to speak so fast, and that is how they speak. I get tongue-tied. It makes it very difficult to hear and distinguish separate words at a beginner level. But hearing myself speak it in sentences, sounding actually quite ok, its really encouraging. I know I can do this. I have a LOT of time on my hands, and God only knows how many years until each of us finds our way out of this seemingly never-ending desert of self-discovery until we can, possibly, handle our crazy intense relationship again, without the crazy.

Its a beautiful day in Pittsburgh. I’ve always loved the summer here. In a few weeks though, I hope to be somewhere else, somewhere I’m happy to wait out the long and non-guaranteed Citizenship process. Winters are really long and tough in Pittsburgh.