Why Am I Here?

Painting by Cris Koester, Rio de Janeiro

Why am I here? The answers to this question are amorphous, changing like the clouds I’ve seen tumble over the mountains around us as fast as an avalanche. Sometimes my answers feel weather-blown.

What is consistent, though, is how this question gets in my face at the most difficult times. I’m scared or uncomfortable.

For instance, when the manager in a small-town hotel starts pointing at the watermelon I picked up at the buffet and speaking gruffly. In spite of my gradually improving Portuguese, I can’t remember the word to ask him to speak slower. In his frustration, he speaks faster. And louder. (Of course, he apologized later to my girlfriend, M, and me, saying the slice was rotten).

Or, I’m walking on the farm where M’s aunt lives. The air thickens as we walk uphill. Breathing is harder than downhill. A half-hour earlier, I’d seen my first toucan up close. M’s aunt keeps mentioning snakes. M says she likes to exaggerate. Still, I can’t help wondering what lives in the jungle-thick forests that look so different from Western New York. My heart seems to skip out of place. What if I faint here?

Or, I’m on the bus winding around the peaks of Petropolis outside Rio. Windows fog as it rains. We speed through a curve. I’m teetering over the mountain’s edge.

In these frightful situations—I first ask myself, when can I visit home again? Then, Why I am here?

Shortly after my first visit to Brazil, a sentiment from a well-known writer resonated (my best guesses are Emerson or Orwell or Conrad but I haven’t been able to find the source again). He said being unable to speak the language of another country is like returning to childhood.

Why I am here?

The easy answer is easy. I’m in love with M. And she was born in Brazil. The more complicated answer includes the fact that M moved to the U.S. at 10 years old, and has spent as much time there as Brazil, including more than a year in my hometown of Rochester. So, why aren’t we in the U.S.?

Once the pandemic induced meteoric home prices, I couldn’t make a competitive offer. After three years waiting to qualify for a mortgage loan as a self-employed freelancer, this staggered me. Rents were going up, too. Both of us work from home as writers and editors, and it was difficult to find an apartment with enough space.

By 2021, I started driving for Lyft in addition to my editorial work, but I knew from visiting Brazil a few times that the lower cost of living outside the U.S. could allow me to take fewer assignments with more time to complete them. It leads to the reasons that most readily surface—slowing down and writing more.

M and I met a barista in Paraty, the small town, where we started staying in July. The barista is originally from Sao Paulo, a city a population two times bigger than New York City. He said many people come to this small beach town with a similar aim.

“Everyone’s trying to disconnect in some way,” Jean said.

M calls it quality of life. In Paraty, we lived in a condo a few months with a pool almost entirely to ourselves. M loves living swimming and the nearby ocean. It’s familiar to growing up around her father’s summer beach house on Brazil’s coast. She believes people who live by the water expand their mindsets.

I hope so. I have moments when I feel like I really know exactly why I’m here.

In addition to toucan spottings, I’ve seen birds so blue and yellow it looks like their feathers have been laquered. The mountains outside my bedroom window look like the greenest brunch of broccoli.

Being surrounded by nature slows me down. I want a healthier relationship with myself. And those around me. I’ve been shedding some of the status-consciousness and material dependence I’ve absorbed. I focused to much on what I couldn’t have. Being here also forces me to see some of the problems of the hometown I love—segregation, poverty, police brutality—through a wider lens.

Growth comes with a cost, though. I spent Christmas away from Rochester for the first time in my life. I miss my family. I missed my grandfather’s 100th birthday party. I miss friends. I miss going to Bills games. I miss wings.

Still, I breathe. I reflect. I write.

I ask why. Sometimes I have an answer. Sometimes I have other questions.