(S)Winging It

I start this post with not a topic in mind, but a feeling. As I write, I'm not sure where I'm going exactly, but I'll just take a swing at it. Or maybe I'll just wing it.

It's my third year in Viçosa now and sometimes people are so surprised to still see me here. I myself surprise myself when I pause to think - what am I still doing here? I think I've been winging it for the last few years, taking it one step at a time and walking through the open door. That being said, I still have my moments where I'm not sure what I am doing here. I didn't expect this 9 month trip to turn into a third year, but here I am. When I get too lost in the thoughts of the future, when people ask me - so after you finish your Master's, what are you going to do? - when I just don't know, I like to pause and feel my pulse. It's a simple gesture that brings me back to the present moment, a moment that doesn't involve anyone but me, myself and my pulse. This pulse can go anywhere and as long as it goes, I am also going to go. I have my moments where I want to stop pedaling, where it feels like it would just be easier to stop pedaling, but then it wouldn't be as easy to feel my pulse would it?

Swing, batter batter, I may be winging it, but I'm still up to bat! Maybe after all is said and done, my greatest talent will be making terrible wordplay posts. If I got you to smile, I've at least done something with this keyboard.

Shitty First Drafts

I am reading a book recommended by my Auntie Kathy called Bird by Bird, Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Author Anne Lamott has been keeping me company on my return to Brazil, making me chuckle, even laugh out loud with her insights. Speaking of which, Lamott discusses how every writer's first draft is shitty. But the beautiful thing is that nobody needs to see it. We just need to write out our ideas and get them down on paper, no matter how ugly or shitty it may look. Great, I agree, but what about in life? Does this work in the same way? Can we write a second draft? A final?

I have come to find that I pretty much do everything wrong the first time. You know, like putting the car into reverse instead of first gear when I was first learning shift...on the freeway...three times. Or, bringing a new activity to my class and half-way into the lesson, seeing it not working. Or, saying things without thinking that really offend good friends. Or giving too much attention to a guy who could care less. Oh the list goes on! So, do we get a second draft? Can we scratch that out of our memory? We can't really, but we do get chances to do things again. If we can be a little easier on ourselves, a little more lighthearted about it all, we can shake off those first drafts and try a second time. If I can remember that life isn't about only me, but that I make up a piece of this Life game, it's a bit easier to try getting on the freeway again. It's easier to stand in front of a class again. It's much easier to be humbled and ask for an apology from a friend. And it's darn refreshing to open your heart to another lucky boy.

All this being said, we are all writing first and second drafts, all the time. Rather than in writing, we also expose these drafts to everyone around us, leaving us in quite a vulnerable place. So I say, be easy on your colleague, neighbor, friend, brother, lover, and help them make that second draft better. Encourage them to keep improving their drafts over and over. That is, we could all help each other be better-versions-of-ourselves day in and day out. Who's in? 

How Do You Take Your Coffee?

Most cultures that I can think of have a coffee culture. And every culture interacting with another's coffee is quite the comedy act of facial expressions, from pleasant surprise to masked looks of horror. Or, for example, my mother had a coughing fit after tasting Spain's coffee as she sips on a half-coffee, half-milk combination regrettably dismissing her lactose intolerance.

In my case, it was the pleasant complimentary coffee-shot offered after lunching in a Brazilian restaurant. A fan of anything free, I gladly accepted unaware of the sugar bomb about to hit my tastebuds. Yes, Brazilians take their coffee black with tons of sugar in it.

After spending almost two years of my precious 20's in Brazil, I must remark on how appreciative I am to have experienced how they take their coffee (described above), how they address one another (tudo bem?), how many types of dances other than samba they have (I lost count), how many baths they take a day (usually more than one), and how they feel about their government (no comment).

I had learned some of their cultural traditions by a repetitive practice of identifying through difference. They do it this way and we do it that way. They as Brazilians typically eat a larger lunch, we Americans typically eat a larger dinner. They eat rice and beans at lunch and we eat sandwiches or salads. They are relaxed about timeliness, we are punctual. They value time-off, we value overtime. Now these were ways of identifying a group of people in order to try and begin to chip away my understanding of what it is to BE Brazilian.

But what happens when you meet a Brazilian that doesn't take sugar in her coffee, that doesn't eat rice and beans everyday, that is very punctual and that is a workaholic? Now, there we start to get confused again of Brazilian identity. I would argue that these moments of confusion are more important than understanding the "typical" Brazilian. Perhaps that is obvious, but I feel that each time I learned a friend had atypical Brazilian practices (from my topical understanding), I learned more about the human condition than anything. That is, how quick we are to categorize, and how quick those categorize can be broken down! So, in fact, the question "How do you take your coffee?" is a rather personal, defining moment. Tom Hanks says so himself:

And in the end, I must admit, I rather enjoy that coffee-flavored sugar bomb after a nice full lunch of rice, beans, meat and salad. Thank you Brazil, for ever so politely introducing me to new ways of doing things and ultimately expanding my horizons. 

Feeding Your Auto Pilot

Coming back to my hometown after another school year in Brazil, I started to notice how automatic some things are. For example, arriving to my grandpa's house, albeit 45 minutes away, I could have sworn that I just blinked my eyes. Or playing soccer with my brother, I noticed how the motions to trap and kick a ball were automatic. Playing the piano came back with more difficulty but after some searching I was playing the same tunes I learned back when I was taking lessons. Finally, the one that surprised me most, as someone very interested in languages, I turned on the radio to the Southern California Spanish radio and found myself singing the songs automatically in Spanish. This is big because I thought I had replaced all of my Spanish vocabulary with Portuguese, having lived in Brazil for a majority of the past two years. I was in awe at these examples of muscle memory, just by being back in the context and cuing the activity, my muscles responded.

Of course, all of my readers have experienced this, even if it was just writing, but it got me to thinking about what things we are training our body and mind to do. How important it is to input good stuff! By setting a good foundation, we can then trust our muscle memory to perform accordingly in the future. What actions do you want to be habitual or natural? Positivity, helpfulness, humility, honesty, chastity. You pick, but you need to start and continue to form that muscle memory.

As I was out to lunch with my grandpa who will turn 100 in a few days, I realize that he himself has been practicing this for quite some time. Some information he repeats enough so that his brain muscle responds when needed. Not saying anything bad about anyone is also a practice; going to daily mass is a practice. These things he wanted to do, and at some point he must have decided to begin these practices. Of course, he would say that these things are only by God's grace! Indeed we can all learn a bit from focusing on how we would like to form our muscle memory. Thanks, Grandpa, for an excellent example in how to feed our auto-pilot.