Carnaval In My Own Skin

I've been told several times, I will never look like a Brazilian. Now, if someone is trying to be nice, s/he may say, "You could pass for someone from the south where there is a more European look." That being said, as soon as I open my mouth it's a dead give away. I'm okay with that. I completely understand. In fact, I embrace it when I get the occasional looks. I am at a point in my life where I have finally become completely comfortable in my own skin- whatever color it is, and however many freckles I have. No, I haven't counted. It's a good feeling after plenty of years trying to imitate others, as we do in our teenage years, and then plenty of years trying to be unique, as we do in those crazy college years.

Now, I have lived for one month in Brazil feeling free in my own skin, scars and stripes includes. And then, I go to Carnaval in Rio where costumes abound and the normal standards are lifted for the entire week. That means, plenty of party and no work. I heard many people joke, the idea is not necessary to enjoy Carnaval, but to survive. The alternative life that we enter for the crazy week has been a topic of discussion for centuries. Bakhtin gives some  commentary on these two lives of a person in the Middle Ages:

It could be said (with certain reservations, of course) that a person of the Middle Ages lived, as it were, two lives: one that was the official life, monolithically serious and gloomy, subjugated to a strict hierarchical order, full of terror, dogmatism, reverence and piety; the other was the life of the carnival square, free and unrestricted, full of ambivalent laughter, blasphemy, the profanation of everything sacred, full of debasing and obscenities, familiar contact with everyone and everything. Both these lives were legitimate, but separated by strict temporal boundaries. (Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics, p.129-30)

Costumes abound! 

That temporal boundary lies in a week of Carnaval activities, which reigns true in many parts of the world to this day. We seek that escape from the official world and all its boundaries, restrictions, rules and regulations. We seek escape to the point of putting on another skin in the form of costume, iniebriating ourselves and acting out of character. Fun, to say the least. As much or as little as you want, you can alter yourself during this temporal boundary. Put on a costume and act as a buffoon. Have a drink, kiss someone! I, myself, put on a hat and called it a day. And then, I enjoyed the show- indeed one of the best spectator sports around.

Carnaval in my own skin is not the ideal Carnaval for everyone. But I survived.