I wrote the disappearing landscapes many years ago, around December, in English, when visiting Brasil and Belo Horizonte, my first hometown. The version in Portuguese and the new title came later, when I was asked to write an autobiography and the words seemed appropriate to explain who I was, in themes, tensions and paradoxes. They continue to move me deeply today, but I still prefer the hidden connotations of the English language, as the Portuguese text seems a bit opaque and literal…
Who inherits life in the world and how the inheritance is passed on in movement, physically, topographically and emotionally, it seems, are questions and themes that continue to pop up, are they not?
Belo Horizonte, the town where you can watch the mountains and the beautiful horizons disappear, modeled after Washington D.C, and referred in history as the first “modern city” in the country. The empire and slavery are just abolished, at least on paper, and the new governing republicans want to bring modernity, scientific thinking, logic and strategic rational planning to the former colony… this back in the late 1800s.
The place’s topography contributes to its choice as location for the building of a planned new state capital and the site offers enough to supply, administer and manage the ever growing commercial interests in coffee towards the north and south, and cattle towards the west. The nearby old capital of Ouro Preto, squeezed in between even higher mountains, no longer lures the traffic and export of the alchemic gold that successfully funded distant English and European pockets and thought, for quite a while. Yet soon, new precious metals are found - high grade iron ore and manganese for steel, and for the construction of modern skyscraping architecture, crystals, lithium, titanium and nickel for automobiles and cellphones?…
“Originally designed with an area of 8 square miles (20 square km), Belo Horizonte is now many times that size, having surpassed a target population of 200,000 people by 1925.”
Today the city houses more than 6 million people, in all possible and impossible territorial situations.
In no time at all, the movement towards extraction and expansion pushes the ones dispossessed away from the center, towards the peripheries in the surrounding foothills, perceived as non-occupied “free land”, away from the noisily productive and expensive, already spoken for commercial core…
As the center inevitably becomes a non-manageable nightmare, the rich also begin to move and occupy/purchase and perch themselves way up, away and above the poverty lines of the established neighborhoods, closer to the (imagined) unimpeded views of sunrises and sunsets, and closer to nature, of course.
Around the turn of the century, the Republic encourages a new wave of European immigrants to displace and replace recently freed African slaves and native indigenous labor. It is a move towards a new era, modernity, a clear break from the colonial past verbiages… one of my German grandfathers and his young musician German bride moves to the new city, where they then raise a large family. So this story, like all stories, remains deeply personal.
In my university training in linguistics, I learned not to be afraid to immerse myself into completely strange realities, trying to create structure and meaning out of strict comparisons to unknown language forms. Much like the early christian missionaries from Europe and from the US did in Africa and in Brasil, with their teachings and eventual bible translations…
Later on, I learned to challenge myself in poetry workshops to translate a poem from a language I had never heard and had no idea existed, to one of my known languages! This kind of training also comes naturally, I think, from recognizing yourself as an immigrant… doomed to be forever searching for new and old images of home, and radically and continuously redefining them.
Piecing this writing feels like discovering bits and pieces of what I thought I knew, only to find wonderfully disconcerting newness…
Migration, foreign people and languages are good for the soul! ^_^
The ^_^ emoji comes from a Japanese site I found in the internet, and points to harmony & happiness, in a smile.
A friend asked me if the photos were mine. Yes, they are, unless credit is specifically given to another author. Authorship is a funny business for me, but credit ought to be given where it belongs…creative commons and open source as the best movements towards it.
Autobiography
It is hot, it is December.
The top of the mountains,
expansive views of sunrise, lightning, thunder,
rain and sunsets
belong to the poor.
Unstable steep flimsy mud and metal structures
Arabian Moorish Mediterranean houses perched over Latin space
and Brazilian time
Shadow boxes stacked up in Christmas sheer reflected squares of yellow lights blink on and off
I must find out. I ride through twisting paved rocky landscapes, through wealthy new jogging cappuccino neighborhoods. The top of the mountains shimmer in full light green. I have climbed further up than I had imagined. Caged inside one of the structures made for the rich, Way above the imaginary two dollars a day mountain line circumscription for the dwellings of the poor, further down, quite high up, but not this high. Virgin mountains of my childhood, anonymous place that belonged to no one.
Here, my father and I trained the black and white hunting dogs. I learned to shoot quail, jolt of twelve gauge against twelve year old shoulder.
Here I was told for the first time, I was not ready for masculine games. I learned to go to my room when I cried. Here I learned the love of father, the taste of open prairie and the hunt. Once a year, around this time I learned to gather moss and mountain evergreens, wild rosemary for the scents of nativity, imaginary scenes of snow, obligatory surgical cotton spread across the branches, twisted twigs painted gold for the wondrous occasion.
Here I learned the love of mother, the mysteries of the soul. Here I learned one needed to please and soothe her with the gifts of evermoss, fresh flowers, please him with the gifts of the hunt and with food. Outside, the heat and the light of high summer. Inside I pretended to live elsewhere.
Mary and Joseph and the child - perfect terracotta figurines lovingly kept year after year Each about three inches high, Joseph with deep brown reddish hair and a dark beard. Mary in blue and the baby, I do not remember the baby. Oh, yes, the baby was loved! I do remember the three kings, one white in gold and blue, one very black and beautiful and the third one, all three of them bearing gifts.
Once again, I visit this land of disappearing landscapes. Skyscrapers, sky yellow light blue white, horizons in circle the rich penthouses, dream of urban architects and engineers. The crystal rocks long gone, some sit atop my desk, kept in spite of it all -- a talisman in story-telling.
As I breathe softly against this sun set behind dark gray puffy clouds - not rain for certain - this is high summer still. Rain will not come until Tom Jobim declares it is the ides of March and Grandmother tells me it is time for the floods of Saint Joseph. Land of disappearing landscapes, mountains made out of iron one must constantly vigilate, or else they may dissolve and melt into S.U.V.'s, Cherokees, fancy walls, countertops, handcuffs and chunky jewelry. Slowly, the disappearing blue green of the crystal mountains, the moss of my childhood. The evergreens we gathered for Christmas now endangered Mobile domed transparent roofs protect domesticated rare plants the wilderness of rosemary gives way to exotic cultivated rarities of palms, ficus, root bound children, dogs named Teddy, Disneyland t-shirts, Florida vacations. Rich tai-chi ballet learned women root bound a top penthouses, entrenched in these mountains of concrete, root bound rich penthouse vegetation in the clouds. Center eroding from inside all sides and underneath,
The houses of the poor, further down, profusion of white daisies, tall orange tithonias and sugar cane* swaying on and off blink of yellow lights.
Autobiografia Dezembro e faz calor nas montanhas As visões do amanhecer, relâmpagos, trovoadas, chuva e o entardecer são dos pobres. Arábicas, mouras, mediterrâneas estruturas instáveis de barro metal penduradas no espaço latino do tempo brasileiro. Brilho natalino caixinhas de sombra empilhadas quadradinhas de luz amarela piscam pisca pisca E preciso saber. Viajo paisagens tortuosas nas vizinhanças ricas dos corredores e bebedores de cappuccino até o topo das montanhas brilho verde claro iluminadas no enjaulado das construções dos ricos bem acima da linha imaginária de dois reais por dia circunscrição das moradias dos pobres, mais abaixo, bem acima, mas não tão acima. Montanhas virgens da minha infância lugar anônimo que pertencia a ninguém aqui meu pai e eu treinamos os cães de caça aqui aprendi a atirar em codorna empurrão de uma doze contra o ombro da mesma idade aqui aprendi que não estava preparada para os jogos masculinos aqui aprendi a me esconder em meu quarto enquanto chorava aqui aprendi do amor de pai do gôsto do campo aberto e da caça Uma vez por ano por volta de agora aprendi a catar musgo e pinheiro montanhes, alecrim selvagem para os cheiros da natividade, galhos pintados de ouro para a festa Aqui aprendi do amor de mãe dos misterios da alma. Que era preciso agradar e acalmar a ela com os presentes do musgo, das flores frescas, agradar a êle com os presentes da caça e da comida. Lá fora o calor e a luz do alto verão cá dentro eu pretendia viver em outro lugar Maria, José e a criança – perfeição de figurinhas de barro guardadas com carinho ano apos ano cada uma de dez centimetros, José de cabelos marrom vermelho e barba preta Maria de azul e a criança... Ah, sim, a criança era querida! Me lembro dos três reis, um branco de ouro no azul, outro bem preto e lindo e o terceiro, todos três trazendo presentes. Mais uma vez visito essa terra das paisagens desaparecendo Arranha céus, céu leve de amarelo branco azul horizonte circundante das coberturas ricas, sonho de arquitetos e engenheiros. As rochas de cristal faz tempo sumidas algumas delas na escrivaninha, guardadas apesar – talismã na contação da estoria Enquanto respiro com cuidado esse sol que se esconde por detras de nuvens roliça cinza – a chuva não vem – alto verão ainda A chuva não vem até que Tom Jobim declare que são os ides de março e a avozinha me diz do tempo certo para as inundações de São José. Terra das paisagens desaparecendo montanhas de ferro carentes de vigilância pois se dissolvem e se fundem em S.U.Vs Cherokees, paredes de aço, tábuas de cozinha, algemas e jóias bojudas Devagarinho, o desaparecendo verde azul das montanhas de cristal, o musgo da minha infancia, ameaçados os pinheiros catados pro natal Tetos transparentes em domo protegem plantas raras e domesticadas o selvagem do alecrim abrindo alas as preciosidades cultivadas de palmeiras, ficus, crianças enraizadas, cachorros com nome de Teddy, camisetas da Disneylandia, férias na Florida. Mulheres ricas bailando tai chi em coberturas escravizadas dentro de montanhas de concreto, vegetação rica presa pendurada nas nuvens Erosão do centro cerne pelos lados e por debaixo as casas dos pobres, profusão de margaridas brancas, titonias alaranjadas cana de acúcar balançando pisca pisca de luz amarela.