Freebird

My brothers and I grew up in a very non-Brazilian household. We ate hotdogs and sloppy joes, watched Mork and Mindi and the Sound of Music; we listened to Rick Dees’ American Top 40 and played Atari and Pong. We went camping in the summer, made snowmen in the winter, and raked pine needles all year round.

And of course, we spoke English—a necessary decision on Mom’s part, as she struggled to adapt to American life while managing a household, husband, and three children. She taught us a few easy phrases in Portuguese—Durma bem! (Sleep well!) Até amanhã! (See you tomorrow!)—but for the rest, it was English, inside the home and out.

During those years, o universo brasileiro was mostly limited to letters, photos, and phone calls. The letters, written in a bulky, heavy script on crinkled tissue paper, came in envelopes with yellow-and-green striped borders. The photos of Mom’s family—properly posed, well-dressed, and smiling warmly—often featured my grandmother (minha avó), whose hair was always a dark chocolate brown, no matter her age.

Incoming phone calls came spontaneously, at holidays and odd hours, while outbound calls were made at economically sensible times monitored closely by my father. Sometimes Mom would bring the phone to my ear to partake of my relatives’ parroty chatter. But for the most part, it sounded to me like just so much tropical noise. Minha avó may as well have been an aviary.

"Parrotphrase" by Andrea Bonifacio

As I grew up, those calls often made me feel uncomfortable: Locked out by language limitations, I couldn’t take part in the conversations, but neither could I sit and listen for very long before the accompanying emotional effusiveness overwhelmed me (Brazilians gush easily, and frequently with tears). There were times when the volume and speed of their syllables and the intense saudade on both ends of the line made me want to leave the room.

Over the years, Mom communicated with her clan via Vovó (the familiar form of grandmother, like “Granny” or “Grandma”) and Tia Dinha. Dinha, my mother’s only sister, is fun-loving, joyful, a little ditzy, and not at all intellectual. When my mother and I visited Brazil during my grade school years, I spent a lot of time giggling with her, and at her facial expressions, exuberance, and sometimes silly antics. I found her caring, affectionate, and highly entertaining, even if I didn’t understand a word she said.

Tia Dinha 2009

About two years ago, Tia Dinha began asking for me to send her some art to hang in her apartment in Brazil. For many weeks, Mom repeated this request to me, but I did nothing about it. I thought it was sweet, but at the time, I honestly felt I couldn’t be bothered, at least not bothered to respond quickly. I had all these other responsibilities–you know, a life–to deal with first.

Aside from just being busy, I found a number of unanswered questions to deal with around this request: Which painting did she want? What color and size? What about the medium—collage, glossolalia, watercolor? What about the theme or subject matter? I impatiently pitched each question at my mother, but she each time bunted back the same simple, pride-pricking answer: It didn’t matter. Tia had no opinion on my art at all–she just wanted a painting made by her niece. This was annoying–and a little insulting.

With all my excuses, it was easy to keep saying “later.” It’s only family, it’s just a hobby, she doesn’t care all that much what I send, she’s not going anywhere anyway, and I have more important things to do… But now I see there was something more: Over time, I had gotten used to holding the emotional handset away from my ear. I learned to practice a certain amount of long-distance-call moderation with both my culture and my family, and had gotten used to it. But what can I say? Estou aprendendo português, estou aprendendo o amor de Deus, e também o amor do Brazil. This language is making me fall in love with Brazil; it’s a tool of the Divine in the hand of the Carpenter. It is pulling the parrots back to my ear and the people into my heart whether I like it or not. And how could I know what I might miss if I continued to resist?

So I repented, pushed pride aside, and, just to spite my sense of self-importance, took the opposite tack: I decided to use this cross-cultural comission as an opportunity to improve; to re-learn generosity and un-learn self-indulgence; and to begin closing those long-distance gaps.

With this decision, it quickly became foreign language pop quiz time. Having exhausted my mother’s ideas for How Do You Send a Painting to Aunt Dinha, I exercised the little Portuguese I’d learned so far and contacted my cousin in Brazil. The emails may as well have been written in crayon.

"Dear Cousin" by Andrea Bonifacio

Meu primo is not an artist, but with his youth, and the time he’s able to spend visiting Tia at her apartment, it seemed right to make him my muse for this project. He patiently paddled through my addled acentos and quaky questions about colors, styles, and other details, and helped me to narrow down my options.

In the end, I created two new paintings, with watercolor, collage, markers, glossolalia and Pentecost references. Click here to see them.

After a couple of weeks’ travel under stars and over seas, they made it safely to Christmastown, Brazil. My aunt is delighted with them. I am happy to see my paintings on her wall, and a little startled to realize how far they have come from Astoria, Queens.

Tia Dinha's Ap-art-ment

Once I received this photo, the idea came to me:

Go to Brazil, and get into this picture.

And further: Get into this apartment and into this family. Continue changing the image you have of them in you heart, and how you fit in among them. Let their strangeness become familiar and their rough spots comfortable; learn from their mistakes and revel in their joyful appeal. Speak their language and listen to them speak yours, whether English, Portuguese, or parrot. And keep your heart open as you go.

“Ao cumprir-se o dia de Pentecostes, estavam todos reunidos no mesmo lugar.”
–Atos 2:1 / Acts 2:1

When that day arrives… we’ll be all together, in one place.

—

© Andrea Bonifacio and Sondo Saudade 2009-2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Andrea Bonifacio and Sondo Saudade with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Video content courtesy of cloud74buster at youtube.com.