When we passed above the Atlantic Ocean, I felt complete discomfort spreading all over my body. As if I was locked in a room, and I could do nothing to escape from it. Bad thoughts rose in my mind and made me feel uncomfortable.
I fell asleep for some moment. I was sure that, in front of my closed eyes, there was the ceiling of my home. It relieved me and brought peace to my body.
But then I woke up, and when I woke up, we still were above the Atlantic. I felt sad. How far I am from home and how slow the time passes.
Suddenly I sensed a warm touch in my shoulder. When I looked up, I realized that it was an accidental touch by a woman who was kissing her lover. They kissed a couple more times afterward. I didn’t like the sound.
How do you feel? — I asked myself. I was struggling to answer, as I always struggled to do so. It was never one feeling, but a mix of feelings. It was joy and nostalgia, sadness and anger, or in rare cases — just Saudade — the magical feeling that no one can escape.
I had a book with me. It was a collection of short stories by Jorge Luis Borges. The main story was about the space that contained all other spaces. But that was not a great read; a better story was about lonely Asterion, who gained his redemption through Theseus.
I always liked mythology, but I was afraid of it, too. I recall that when I was even younger, I feared the picture of Minotaur depicted in my favorite encyclopedia. I read that book a couple of hundred times, but I always skipped the page with the bull, the man. And when I finally read Borges after all these years, my fear disappeared. I was no longer afraid, and it was now obvious that the past can easily shatter — all it needed was a different perspective.
After reading Borges, I also understood that I loved everything Latin American. I loved its literature, the magical realism, harmonic sound of its words that mesmerized. I loved Borges and Neruda, and others who were not as famous and would get forgotten soon. I loved its music, especially tango and bossa-nova, I loved Tom Jobim and his Stone Flower. I loved Brazil and Argentina. But sometimes I loved Spain, too. I loved bullfighting even though I had never seen it, and I wouldn’t like it if I saw.
I could also clearly visualize everything dirty about Latin America. Its humans that were prone to error, just like any other human on the Earth. I could see its far from ideal cultures and nations, just like any other culture or nation. And only then, I allowed myself to freely love Latin America.
For me, it was the same way to love one person — who could be one’s own self — or to love a group of people, nation, culture or humanity. When love was knocking on the door, I first accepted the flaws that existed, and only after that, I deliberately allowed myself to love. But it seemed too rational. I always preferred deciding to love, to falling in love, but who am I to talk about love. I know nothing about love.
I was in a space that contained all other spaces — I whispered to myself before the airplane reached the ground. It’s a very beautiful sentence, I said, I wish I was capable of writing something as beautiful.
The airport was big and there were many people in the queue. The chain of people looked like a long snake creating a labyrinth with her grey body.
With many people around, instead of unity and connection, I felt alienation. It took me several years to realize that the only cure for feeling connected to people was giving a sincere hug. But I was blind back then, and not much has changed since.
I was 12 years old. I wanted to be in a space that contained all other spaces. But São Paulo was a big city, a really big city, and there was no escape for me. Maybe for that reason, I am still stuck in the Atlantic.