1: From Amsterdam, after Brazil

Dear Friends,

First, I promise my next email won't be so long: there's a lot to cover here since it's been about a month of journeying already. Sorry!

Anyhow, much of this email was actually finished around November 6th, back in São Paulo. For whatever reason, I couldn’t figure out Google Groups, and had scheduled to wrap this up and send on November 9th. Except that then Donald Trump won the election. The least appropriate thing I could think of to do was to sent a mass email about my traipsing about the world. Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what happened and why it made me so personally upset. I realized that I’ve embraced the project of Liberal America, and that Trump’s election undermines the assumptions I had made about the future of that project and the progress of history. And that my not being there to fight for and contribute to this project feels a little bit like an abandonment. 

On a personal level, though, I need to go. I need to go and meet people and dream bigger and look for more roots. I need to be quiet and listen, to read and reflect and write (to you). I need space and time to roam and grow, and I didn’t have that in NY. For now, I’ll stay in the threshold, remaining neither here (wherever here is) nor there (wherever that is). I’ll spend the next few months physically untethered, but bound with love to you, who are my peoples. I may not have a country that I call home, but I definitely have a tribe. Thank you for coming along on the trip :-)

Now for a quick-ish recap of the last month: 

The period from October 10th to October 14th was a whirlwind of final goodbyes, packing, and at-one-ing (Yom Kippur, the day of Atonement [at-one-ment], was on the 12-13th). On the night of the 14th, I hopped on a plane towards the second continent of my journey through funemployment: South America, AKA: Home. I arrived on the morning of the 15th, in time to celebrate my little brother’s 18th birthday with the family and take a long nap. From the 16th until the 23rd, the period which coincided with the Jewish Feast of Booths, a celebration of harvests, transitions, and thresholds (among other things), I tried to recover from not sleeping much for the previous month and encountered the beastly head of that old foe: the need to do shit. I was impressed at how quickly my ego looked at me, snuggling under my childhood blanket of primary colors, and started tearing into me: “You’re not doing anything. Useless. Why aren’t you doing anything? You said you wanted to write, and you’ve been here what, 3 days, and you haven’t written a single word! If you keep this up, you won’t have anything to show at the end of this trip, and then you’ll still be lost, and have no purpose, and have wasted your time and your money and you’ll never have a job and you’ll smell bad and end up in a hippie commune weaving ugly-ass hats out of palm fronds, and what will your mother say then?” [Mom, this is NOT a reflection on you. It was just a good punch line. Love you!]

Thankfully, I’ve been meditating for long enough that I don’t always listen to the crap that runs around my head, so I managed to both give myself permission to chill the fuck out and set a date to start writing. I’ll spare you the details of the writing process, at least for now, except to say that, in the past 3 weeks, I’ve started three separate project ideas before landing on something that feels doable and appropriate, and then arriving in Europe and feeling like what I actually want is to surrender to the trip, at least right now. Womp

Succot (the afore-mentioned feast of booths) ended (as it always does) with Simchat Torah, which I read translated in a book as The Feast of Rejoicing with the Law. I spent this 2-and-a-half-day holiday with my Orthodox uncle and his lovely family, trying to follow their mumbled Hebrew, dancing, and watching men drink. It was rather fun, and kicked off the process of actually switching gears into travel-mode, the one characterized by curiosity, openness, and a freedom to follow the flow of things. This process was fully actualized on the 27th, when I flew to the marvel-filled city of Rio de Janeiro. There, surrounded by giant stones covered with moss and dark-green trees, watching the surf so white I decided I need sunglasses (acquired!), it finally hit: I’m free, and there’s nowhere else I need to be.

The feeling came and went as I returned to São Paulo, to a routine and then to a full (social) calendar. And now I’ve left São Paulo and find myself in the Voendelpark in Amsterdam, sitting outside watching the wind and the Fall and occasionally also the people passing by, having finished my tea and writing the last bit of this email. I got here yesterday, after forgetting my cell phone in the car, running through the São Paulo airport to fulfill a likely-fictitious set of immigration requirements, sitting through a two-hour delay, and consequently missing my connection. I was stressed throughout the running, but as my father reminded me: shit will happen. What matters is how I (we) react to it. 

May we have the strength to change what we must, patience toward that which we cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.

With love,

Rafa

PS: I had a couple pictures to send, but I seem to be unable to get them off my phone right now (no internet for the phone, it's weird, I don't know). I'll send them along tomorrow or with the next email.

PPS: My next destination is Norway. If you're there or know people who are, let me know!