reefed in Recife

I'm sitting at the moment in a dark (because the bulb is apparently dead), quiet professor's study in Recife. Tomorrow mid day I will travel on to Aracaju for a long layover and some crab and then finally in the wee hours I will fly back to Salvador. It is becoming more uncertain whether I'll land back in Mama America on the 26th or 27th or what depending on my weird ticket, but somehow it will be fine. Recife gave me space to think and look at myself and Brazil and such. Though too much and too little space. I'm possibly in love with a wonderful man and I have no idea when I'll see him again but I will see him for several days starting tomorrow. You know there is a short story by Vonnegut called Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. You should read it if you haven't. I know that I will let myself be sucked into the rising tide of Chicago again. But this time I will get a much better apartment. And it will probably be in Ukrainian Village. And I will set up shop in this lovely apartment in this chique neighborhood and focus on my studies and plan my ambitious career and imagine how I will come up with something good and useful and insightful for people by the lamplight as the Chicago snow falls outside my window like a spectre and I will imagine the wonderful man in Salvador as he plays capoeira in the summer heat and kisses some other beautiful woman under the sweat of carnival as I sweat under the lamplight from the thought of it and pour myself some wine and the academic musings will turn into poetry on my computer screen as they always do and I will think about love and whether sitting here under the lamplight slaving away for some unseen goal is worth it when I could be holding you right now. Tangibility, friends. It is the difference between dreaming and having. Oh Brazil, thank you for letting me have. Though now I can think ahead how it will feed my dreams. And so the cycle goes. Why is it so rare to have both, and maybe my melancholy will turn into something stronger and I won't feel stuck in some cyclical poetic musing in which love is tragic but the dragon....Cimorene will fly off on his back, I mean maybe some unexpected bizarre fairytale will still come true in my life. I'll lower my hair or weave gold or simply become an empowered heroine. Nevertheless, we're always looking for some expected ending before anything has a chance to happen because we're so damn afraid to turn the page----