Anniversaries and Testimony

What is this?! A Saturday post?! Yes, indeed it is!

I’m posting today because Sunday – my usual posting day – is my anniversary with Leo. September 26^th will mark one full year of bein’ hitched. I’ve never spent my first anniversary with my husband an entire continent away because of countless injustices before, so I really can’t say how I’ll be feeling, and therefore I don’t know whether I’ll be up to the task of posting an entry.

Of course, I’m not sure what else I’ll have to do since I will not be spending my time enjoying a romantic dinner of fresh-caught local salmon with Leo and taking an amorous stroll along the beach… in the rain (it is Vancouver after all)…

So without further ado, a post about Steven Colbert.

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Steven Colbert is a great comedian. He shows us a darker, greedier, and more ignorant side of ourselves that we’d never have the grit and guts to explore if it weren’t through laughter.

Steven Colbert is fairly average when it comes to congressional testimony. But then again, he was walking a fine line between character, venue, and issue.

I didn’t find his insight into the plight of migrant farm workers to be especially enlightening or anywhere near one of his funniest pieces; it's sad when even the Swiss Federal Assembly looks like they're having more fun discussing dried meat exports. I’d wager, however, that there’s not a joke in the world that could escape the smothering weight of congressional self-righteousness.

Still, I was glad Colbert went before Congress and that numerous people tuned in who would have otherwise gone through their entire day, week, or month without a single thought about undocumented workers.

The thing that I find most disempowering and downright frustrating about the immigration issue is that white, native-born America has a tendency to go through their entire day supported by the labor of immigrants -- be it the food they eat (picked and prepared), the buildings they work in (swept and dusted), or the neighborhoods they live in (built and maintained) -- but that the source of that labor remains invisible to them. It’s part of a larger lack of mindfulness about our connections to other people and places through our consumption, but when it comes to undocumented workers, it’s a missed mental link to America’s invisible engine.

I don’t think that anti-immigrant groups or the political and media opportunists that feed off of their emotional refuse are to blame for Congress’s failure to pass an immigration bill. I wish they’d cut it out, but I don’t hold them wholly responsible. I think that the majority of the blame rests with the largely reasonable middle to whom immigrants are invisible.

Those out front holding hunger strikes for DREAMers and seeding the desert with food and water have pretty thin ranks. The rabid nutters, however, are also rather sparse. The epic battle between the two groups is over the middle’s lukewarm “I guess I kinda agree with that.”

So I’m happy that Colbert went to Capitol Hill. I don’t think that he changed minds; immigrant allies found him underwhelming, and anti-immigrant activists probably foamed at the mouth a little more than usual (why miss out on an opportunity to spit, spew, and froth, after all?).

But I think that a handful of the middle YouTubed the event, and that’s a (minute) victory in my book.

Does it mean that they’ll think about undocumented immigrants tomorrow? I sincerely doubt it. Will they become righteous avengers of the downtrodden? I would be utterly shocked. But for a few minutes immigrants weren’t totally invisible – even if those moments had to be accessed via a white, native-born American male (an ally is an ally is an ally, after all).

Maybe a few of the middle thought about immigration policy long enough that the notion became a distinct and legible inkling. Maybe a few more imagined the life of an undocumented immigrant and incorporated a whiff of the experience into their emotional lexicons. Maybe one person out there called their Congressman! Who am I kidding? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves…

So if as close as the folks in the middle got to the immigration debate on Friday was Steven Colbert and if they have a better subconscious association with the issue now because if it, well, then it’s start, and I’m not going to reject any contribution – if only in spirit and no matter how small.

I don’t expect folks who haven’t lived with the immigration question like an elephant in the marriage bed to understand it as well as I do – and, God forbid, as well as my husband does. I wouldn’t wish a brush with America’s immigration laws on anyone. Anyone. Yes, there are some people who I’d like to thoughtfully consider their own roles in what has been an exhausting, frightening, and marginalizing experience for me and my husband – namely members of Congress, the media, and those intellectually clumsy, small-penised, gun-toting, self-appointed defenders of an imaginary America who think that menacing unarmed, thirsty, tired, and terrified border crossers somehow makes them a Big Man and lets them forget their own misattributed failure to reach the American Dream.

I would like those people to consider for a moment how their actions and ideas have influenced the trajectory of my life and the lives of countless others. But I still would want to protect them from living without rights (like Leo) and without a country (like me) – with only a house of cards to keep them warm.

But for everyone else, watch Colbert. Think about it for a second... Think about us for a second… Thank you.

A Thursday Post!

I'm feelin' pretty good today, so here's a Thursday post!

And some housekeeping: it looks like there are a lot of readers in a similar exile situation. I've tried to keep up adding all of the exile blogs I can find to my blogroll, but if I've missed you, please send me a heads up at corininexile (at) gmail (dot) com. Having this community means a lot to me, and I have high hopes that we can organize ourselves a bit at some point in the near and slightly less busy future!

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Bureaucracy:

When you move to a new place, there are invariably a million little tasks that swallow up all of your spare time with lines, paperwork, phone calls and faxes. Yesterday, I tried to pick up my modem from the post office (I'm stealing internet currently, which requires that I go out on the porch to get a signal) but was told that because the name on the package is that of my landlady and because I don't have a British Columbia ID with this address on it, the package would be returned to the sender! Imagine my horror at the prospect of another month without reliable internet! I was told, however, that if I got my landlady to write a letter authorizing the pick up and if she faxed it to the post office directly along with a copy of her BC ID, I would be allowed to retrieve the modem. Seriously?! I thought I'd already left Brazil!

So imagine how terrified I was to apply for my Canadian Social Insurance Number this morning and to open a bank account (both on my to-do list). But when I got to the Service Canada office, practically the only other person there was a very chatty doorman who wanted to know all about what geographers do (I still don't know)! I got seen right away by a friendly, young guy who suggested a few nice Greek grocery stores in my neighborhood, chatted about good things to do in the city, and was similarly curious about what geographers do (I can't say, really). I was done so fast that I almost got to the bank before it opened! Opening an account was extremely easy, and the banker wanted to know all about New Year's in Rio (a dream vacation, he told me) and why I was studying geography (just the water, I promise!). He also said he was teaching me the proper way to spell "chequing account" -- "with a 'silent q.'"

I repress the urge to squeal like a teenage girl and hug every Canadian I meet.

So, what's up with the post office?!

...

The kindness of strangers:

I have pretty amazing friends and family members, but I've been lucky enough to encounter some downright incredible strangers. When we went to São Paulo to (attempt to) clear up the visa mess, Mallory and Henrique hosted us without having met us face-to-face. This week, Leo is staying with friends of a friend in Niterói -- but people who have never met him and are willing to open their home to him. My landlady made a similar leap of faith in offering me her apartment from a continent away. Time and again, folks who've never met us have gone out of their way to lend us a hand. So while fighting the good fight in immigration terms can make me feel awfully yucky about the way some people treat strangers, visitors, and newcomers, the great kindness and warm welcomes we've received help me maintain my faith in mankind.

Mid-September Blues

I have only good things to say about Vancouver and grad school. Even though these first weeks have kept me so busy I can’t get a full night of shut-eye, I am loving every second of my life here… with one very large exception.

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I miss Leo.

I’ve never felt Missing like this before. The Missing feels alive – like a cold, tentacled creature in my gut. It won’t stop turning over, latching onto my insides, pulling at them, disconnecting them and tying them in knots. Whenever the Missing goes quiet, and I think it might be sleeping, it will suddenly reach up my throat with a long arm, close off the air and fill the back of my mouth with its stale taste. It’s so large, that most days there’s no room left for food. But on other days, it’s furiously hungry, and I can’t stop feeding it thoughts of panic and uncertainty.

At no moment am I free from it; it is all-consuming and oppressive. It has attached a slender, duplicitous tentacle to the back of my brain, at the place just inside where the rounding of my skull attaches to my neck, and from there it murmurs and tugs ceaselessly.

The only thing that subdues the Missing long enough to sleep is prayer. I assume it’s because in prayer I’m speaking its same language of mysteries, the unknown beyond my corporeal efforts to plan and manage. The Missing hates rationality, and when I try to strategize, it becomes defiant – screaming doubts inside my head, throwing itself against the wall of my abdomen and jarring my body with the force of its weight. During these temper tantrums, the only thing that soothes it is a complete release of myself, is to whisper “faith. This is not forever. Patience and faith.”

…

Vows

My only issue with the Canadian consulate is that there seems to be little recognition of what it means to be a couple. Not only did I get the feeling that we were not evaluated together initially, but I’ve now been told that I cannot accompany our case from here on out because they’ve separated our cases, closed mine, and that the consulate no longer has any of my documents. I do hope that they don’t mean any of my documents since we applied with my student visa application on which he is my accompanying spouse; the reason for us going is my Master’s program; the bank account proving our financial stability is my bank account (by virtue of it being a US account); additional financial support would come from my parents; you get the idea…

I’ve said it before: the whole of a human being is not captured in a snapshot of their “paper life.” My husband is entirely unimpressive on paper, while I am no lightweight. I would argue that our flesh-and-bone lives, however, are very much reversed. He is in many ways so much more enlightened than I am – just a truly solid human being. I, on the other hand, tend to be a pain in the ass.

The fact of the matter is that almost no rich nation – evaluating the paper person – would give Leo a visa independently! But he’s not going anywhere alone; we’re a married, pledged-for-life, in-sickness-and-in-health, ‘til-death-do-us-part couple!

I keep hearing that conversation with the visa officer in my head: “I told you, I’m not concerned about you.” Do they think I could stay here without Leo? The only thing keeping me sane is that I stubbornly believe my husband will be here with me next month!

This also puts Leo in the position of having to be his own advocate, and if he has one serious deficit it is that he is a terrible advocate for himself.

A Brazilian friend once told me about some such theorist who said that North Americans have a “who do you think you are?!” attitude, which Latin Americans (and, in particular, Brazilians) rephrase as, “who do you think you’re talking to?!” If I understand this correctly, it means that, for North Americans, there are standards that apply to everyone, while Latin Americans take an exceptionalist view; some people are above the laws of the “little people.”

I am quite sure that my husband has always thought himself as among the “little people,” which means that aside from never receiving any privileges, he wholly expects to be disadvantaged. When I tell him to request the same treatment as anyone else – like, “Pumpkin, anyone can go into the consulate and ask about the status of their case” – he doesn’t view these actions as rights but rather as privileges that he cannot possibly access.

We’re also toying with the idea of moving his flight (now scheduled for the beginning of October) into late October or November. The consulate said that they would likely have the information necessary to proceed by mid-September (late September “at the latest”), but we haven’t heard anything yet. They also have yet to request a medical clearance check-up – which takes a few weeks – so it looks like almost any way we slice it, he won’t have a visa in time for his current flight. All of this has enormous fall out in our emotional, professional, and financial lives, but I’ve totally run out of ideas. I just don’t know what to do.

Getting to know Canada

So, it feels weird to have a schedule for the blog, but to explain my choice more fully: the only thing on my mind seems to be my husband and how much I miss him. Since I can only afford to call him for about 10 minutes a day (no internet and no landline where he is) and since the blog is sort of our story (although obviously from my perspective), without setting some limits for myself, I would probably spend day and night chronicling all of that missing, longing, and heartbreak. Not only would that be awful reading for you guys, but it would also be a really bad start to grad school. So, the less time I spend blogging, the more time I assume I’ll spend doing my schoolwork. But a girl still needs an outlet, right?! So, the blog must go on! …But only once a week…

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Visas

What everyone wants to know: is there visa news. All I can give you is a resounding “not really!” Nothing from the Consulate, that is. Leo is still in Rio. I am still in Vancouver. But there has been some investigation and decisions on our part.

First, my Master’s here (my supervisor, the university, the program, the setting, etc…) as well as my desire to stay in Canada for a PhD means that if (God forbid) Leo gets denied, we’ll involve a lawyer and try again. The next 6 to 7 years here plus 3 years of permitted post-degree employment is just too good to pass up in terms of building a professional foundation, waiting out the Bar, etc… So, I have absolutely no idea where the money would come from to retain legal assistance, but it seems like a solid investment – especially since we’re depleting our life savings to get this far.

The good news is that it looks unlikely that we’ll need to involve a lawyer. I met with an international student advisor at the university, and he filled me in a bit more about the Consulate’s “process:” the Consulate relies on a database that US states are responsible for updating, he said. The Type-A states update regularly and the crisis-ridden, woefully understaffed states (California, I’m looking at you) update whenever Arnold Schwarzenegger gets around to doing it personally because the entire state government has been furloughed.

Canada, the advisor told me, waits for all of the States to send in their most up-to-the-minute information because it’s wholly possible that you could have an arrest for something minor but have skipped out on your court date and impending conviction (which makes the offense rather major, actually). Canada would only see the arrest on the record, therefore, and might not know that you’re presently a fugitive from justice.

Once Arnold updates Canada that you are not, in fact, a fugitive from justice, they have a process whereby they “equivalate” (their word, I was told) the offense in the country where it was committed with what it would have been if committed in Canada. A DUI in the US isn’t “a big deal” (it really, really is, but we’ve legally ranked it quite low on the list of ways you can majorly fuck up); Canada, on the other hand, treats the offense very seriously, and it could absolutely be grounds for denial. Leo’s “driving without a license” stop, however, is actually a lesser transgression in most Canadian provinces than in Massachusetts, but we still have to wait for this database to be updated, at which point they can actually begin “equivalating.”

Be patient, was the wisdom of the international student advisor.

“And if he gets denied,” I asked, “have you seen other international students in this situation who’ve sought the help of a lawyer and ultimately persevered?”

“Absolutely,” he said, “but in this case it seems like more of a delay than a denial.”

...

The first week

I am still completely captivated by Vancouver, excited about UBC, fascinated by my classes, impressed by my classmates, and delighted by my supervisor. Once Leo gets here (I’m still talking “when,” not “if” -- will I ever learn?!), I think the only word to describe this will be “perfect.”

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Friends!

During my first week here, there were a number of orientation events. I went to basically all of them since I know very little about how to “do grad school,” which is much harder than showing up and being smart; there’s a bit of strategy required apparently.

One of the orientations was for international students. It’s weird to think of myself as an international student, but it turns out that Canada is an independent nation, so there you are.

I was having a miserable day – moping about missing Leo – and had little interest in going, but only millimeters from a breakdown at several moments, I went and forced myself to sit through a lecture about visas, permits, tickets, and a rousing discussion about Canadians:

“They hug a lot!” one student observed.

“They line up for busses,” another called out.

“Why do the green lights flash?” asked a third.

After the presentation and Q&A, we all hit the pastry-and-coffee spread. I’d promised to meet up with a fellow Geography student who is from Switzerland, but in the mad, and thoroughly un-Canadian mob of famished international students, I couldn’t catch a glimpse of her. Surly, I remarked to a girl by my side, “It’s impossible to find anyone!”

“I don’t know anyone,” she responded.

“Where are you from?” I asked, making disinterested small talk.

“Brazil,” she replied.

I could have hugged her then and there. I can’t explain why I was so excited about and absolutely disarmed by having run into one of the very few Brazilians on campus, but it was a turning point. I have since learned that her name is Tati, she’s from Rio and currently lives only a few blocks from me, and she’s an architect working on regenerative design. Tati has been a blessing. She makes me feel less “far from home,” even though home is technically the US… Moreover, we get along fabulously.

We also ran into Tom, a quirky and wonderful French applied mathematician/alpinist who I’d met one day earlier. The three of us have been meeting up on the weekends to cook, eat, and make merry. Tom has – likely against his will – been dubbed “one of the girls.” We make a great squad.

What a difference some friends make.

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On the (almost) anniversary of September 11^th

I’m not one of those “the day the world stopped turning people” – if anything the damn planet is spinning so much faster now that I’m in a state of perpetual political motion sickness.

9/11 isn’t remembered anymore as a moment of tragedy or heroism, although that was the original narrative. Now, the date has become significant in terms of global polarization, preemption, and reactionism.

But – willfully against the dominant discourse – what I choose to remember about 9/11 is compassion: a city that came together, a country that came together, and a world that supported a stunned giant, reeling – unexpectedly fragile and frightened. The “boot in the ass” song came later, as did the jingoism and militarism that shot it up the charts.

Do you remember? For a few days everyone held your gaze a little longer, spoke a little softer, lingered and listened with intent. For a while, people said “have a nice day” like a blessing, “goodbye” with genuine sadness, and “hello again!” with sincere gratitude.

Call me a pessimist, but I had an inkling that it wouldn’t last.

In the wee morning hours of September 12^th, 2001, my mom came downstairs to find me not asleep but hard at work printing, laminating, and cutting out red, white, and blue ribbons that said “have you hugged your Muslim friend today?” to pass out at my high school.

That’s how I think tragedy should always be met: countering hate with love and violence with peace – refusing to let extremists and reactionaries dominate the discussion and make us all angry and hateful. Refusing to draw that line between "us" and "them."

That struggle is an intrinsic part of my every day now – to meet the xenophobia, scapegoating, intolerance, and injustice of US immigration discourse and all of its impersonal policy fallout with something gentler and more just. To be honest, I wonder whether I’ll make it out the other side. I feel radical reactions burning away at my stomach, especially when looking at situations like ours in which the macro-politics and micro-prejudices come crushing in on wee little us as we try to make our way in the world.

I actively pray that I will still be the girl whose reply is that ribbon.

But I fear my anger, my frustration, and my desperation at my impotence.

I’m so exhausted, and it takes so much strength to turn the other cheek, so much patience to educate, and so much energy to justify even living your own beliefs... It would be so much easier to hate, to blame, to rage. I know I’m not the only one who’s getting tired. I think a lot of us are weary of responding virtuously to this paradigm of fear and othering – and that makes 9/11 is a bigger tragedy now than it ever has been.

Structure

Hello dear friends!

I have news, news, and more news (although no concrete news yet about Leo's visa). The only problem is that I have work, work, and more work, so I propose some structure to this here blog:

I will post all Sundays and some Thursdays (when there's something worth posting on Thursdays). In the event of "breaking news," obviously, I will post regardless of the day. I have to do this because if I don't make a schedule for myself, I'll horrendously mismanage my time and fail out of grad school. And you don't want that. Do you?! Of course not.

In which I get a firm talking-to from my iPod

I have been feeling very sorry for myself. Every single day this week, I have felt progressively more pessimistic, lost, and just totally dejected; what the fuck am I doing?!

It culminated in a massive cry fest yesterday morning, after which I decided to go for a walk, so I grabbed my iPod, strapped on the ol’ tennis shoes, and headed down to the shore. I walked east, toward the downtown and False Creek; I hadn’t gone that direction yet.

I followed a flight of stairs toward the seashore and found myself unexpectedly at Kits Beach and Hadden Park, looking out across the water at Stanley Park and the city. It was a warm, clear day with a brisk breeze coming off of the bay. The scene looked like a casting call for a diversity song on Sesame Street, and it seemed like everyone was out walking, jogging, picnicking, flying kites, biking, playing, sitting, tai chiing, sunbathing, or strolling along the water – seizing hungrily the sunshine, the fresh air, the dwindling days until fall and winter… none of that end-of-summer melancholy anywhere in sight! The gratitude was infectious.

And in that brief moment of appreciation, my iPod had a few choice words for me in the form of Billy Joel. I have an admittedly very silly walking mix, which includes We Didn’t Start the Fire, and in the first few bars, I felt a shift. The little raincloud that had been blotting out the sunny day everyone else seemed to be enjoying lightened a bit…

…and then blew away.

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Zhou Enlai, Bridge On The River Kwai
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California Baseball,
Starkweather homicide, Children of Thalidomide

My life isn’t unfair.

Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land,
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion

Mine are not extraordinary circumstances.

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

There may be no such thing as “unfair” or “extraordinary.”

Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

Every historical moment, period, and event has consequences for real people – strange coincidences, changed plans, disappointments, triumphs, mistaken identities, opportunities, biases, missed meetings, births, deaths, revelations…

And in my situation, all that’s happening is that I am living history… presently. Just like everyone who ever came before me. And like everyone who ever lived history presently before me, I have no idea how any of this will turn out.

Some have been vindicated, others villainized, and most passed on without securing so much as a footnote in the annals.

As much as I want to stomp and shout and throw a general tantrum, I am neither the first person nor the last to find myself at the mercy of the zeitgeist. That’s the whole of history, really. And while some people manage to live utterly mundane lives in even the most unusual, turbulent, and trying of times, others get caught in the torrents of record, either swept in by a rogue wave or else because they dared to wade a little deeper. At that point, they do their best to keep their heads above water; some swim the Olympic butterfly, some catch a buoy, some nearly drown, and some go under.

Perhaps this moment is unique, fleeting, and critical. Perhaps we are all extraordinary and singular beings. But obviously we’re neither as exceptional as we might like to be nor is this moment as significant as we think. And that’s not a terrible thing. If every nanosecond in the experience of each of the 6 billion people on this planet produced an existential earthquake and had been doing so since time immemorial, there’d be nothing left but rubble. Sometimes there’s mess and jumble; sometimes life’s like a sunny day at Kits Beach; and sometimes life is nothing more than existing without much to say one way or another. It’s been like that for everyone – forever, in both good times and bad.

This isn’t a moment of nihilism; it’s a pardon – for myself and everyone else.

Maybe it’s the Vancouver granola talking, but for the first time in a very long time, everything feels alright.

…maybe not the way I want it, but (certainly after everything that’s ever happened) maybe not like the end of the world…

Food for thought…

Leo is not very impressive on paper. I am. So for both our sakes, we should be happy that our marriage wasn’t arranged because we never would have wound up together.

The fact of the matter is that I love the man; the resumé is irrelevant. But this means that some people make assumptions about us. Following my meeting with the visa officer, I thought that perhaps he was also struggling to put our marriage into a conventional understanding of the institution, and therefore drew somewhat cynical conclusions about our intentions… in other words, I wonder whether he thought ours was a “fake marriage” and we were out to con the system. Why else would he assume that Leo wanted to sneak back into the US while I did my Master’s in Canada? That’s certainly not the behavior of a happily married couple.

My mother also had a similar thought – with a twist:

“This may be old fashioned,” she said, “but I think that if you were a man and Leo was your Brazilian wife, none of this would be a problem. That’s what’s pissing me off! Well, a lot of things are pissing me off, but they’re discriminating against you!”

I’d been so up in arms about discrimination against Leo: the “poor,” “uneducated,” “South American” “undocumented immigrant” “of color” (how’s that for a quintuple whammy?!) that it hadn’t even crossed my mind that I could also be subjected to certain double standards!

Would the outcome have been different if I were an accomplished male off to take the academic world by storm and trying to get a visa for my babelicious Brazilian arm candy? It would have undoubtedly fit into a pre-established understanding of marriage, profession, and immigration… Perhaps it wouldn’t have raised the same red flags. I don’t know.

I can’t pretend to know the visa officer; maybe he’s a staunch women’s rights activist who has been the supporting force behind his daughter’s academic progress or his wife’s high-powered career in which she outranks him in position and pay. I don’t know the guy. I’m not going to make any assumptions.

…but reflecting on the system, it certainly gave me something to think about.

The First Days...

The only good part of my whole trip was check-in. The line was a full 3 hours long thanks to the US’s own screening procedures at check in, but Jenni had arrived early and held a spot for us (we’ve been in Brazil too long). When I got to the front of the line, the woman at the desk told me to put my bags on the scale, and when each went a few kilos over, she smiled and said “I’ll pretend like those were under the limit.”

Then, she pulled up my itinerary, and her eyes just about popped out of her head.

“Who did this to you?!” she demanded, “São Paulo—Miami, Miami—Los Angeles, Los Angeles—Seattle, Seattle—Vancouver?! Are they trying to kill me?” She found me a new itinerary: São Paulo, Miami, Dallas, Vancouver – a full 7 hours less travel.

“It said your ticket couldn’t be changed,” she whispered, “but I made up an excuse.”

She also put me on a nearly empty plane for the São Paulo—Miami leg. The flight from the night before had been cancelled, so two planes were making the journey tonight, and I somehow got on the overflow one.

It made me think about how – even when someone does know you’re hurting, or doesn’t know why – they can do small things that keep your head just above water.

...

Leaving Leo in São Paulo was easily the hardest thing I’ve ever done. After goodbyes to Jenni, Mallory, and Henrique, Leo stayed by me in the line for the security checkpoint. The line had escaped its belted maze and snaked toward the food court, but it moved at a breakneck pace, so every time Leo would scoop me up for a hug, the line would rocket forward and we’d scamper to catch up. It was like running a 10K while trying to exchange goodbye kisses. I was crying and Leo was trying not to, telling me “don’t cry! I don’t want to remember you sad! I’ll feel guilty—” he corrected himself, “I’ll feel sad. There, there. That’s the face I want to remember.”

The plane ride to Miami was hellish. I basically cried myself to sleep. The worst moment was takeoff because the potential ramifications of what I was doing came crashing in on me; this could be the worst mistake of my life. Our funds are dwindling – something that didn’t worry us when we were banking on two years of me getting a handsome financial award and Leo earning Canadian dollars; now we’re down to a fraction of what we started with. One or two months of sustaining two households and me spending in developed country dollars (rent of $1000, for instance, which would be fine if Leo and I could split it) is going to wipe out our savings. If Leo’s visa is denied, and there’s a good chance of that happening, I’ll apply for permanent residency in Brazil and head back there with literally nothing in the bank and neither of us with any income. Only now am I also realizing that this will present very major problems in terms of proving that Leo has the means to sponsor me.

I don’t want to say that a flat-out denial would have been better, but it would have let us cut our losses and commit to Brazil. I don’t even want to think about what an idiot I was to assume we’d get an easy approval…

I am starting to understand the way things are: there’s always a ceiling, and if it has a crack, it’s only for me to squeeze through. Leo should “know his place,” and if I insist on being us together, I had better learn mine, too. I wanted so much to share my world with him, but it’s forbidden even though his world opens its arms wide to embrace me. I thought I could make this happen for us, but I’ve only gotten us into a more precarious situation and have reinforced his caste in his own mind.

And we were so focused on Canada that when offered the least secure option, we took it. I figured that if I didn’t go, it would be the end of our dreams right then and there. At least if I flew up here before Leo did, there still might be a possibility of him coming along later… I’m finding out that even though I’m a worst case scenario thinker, I’m also somehow stubbornly optimistic. Apparently, I haven’t learned my lesson after all of this and am just going to keep reaching until it all comes crashing down. Call me Icarus.

...

I remember my interaction with the Federal Police when I arrived in Brazil: “come back and we’ll extend your visa. You should probably also move here and stay forever.” I hear Brazilians say that someday they’ll have to close their doors like everyone else. I hope they never do; their unfailing hospitality is one of their greatest assets.

As I was going through customs to leave Brazil, there was a young Turkish kid – probably 20 – who was caught up in a marvelous row with one of the officers. I didn’t know what was going on, but when he left, I was assisted by the same woman. She’d only just taken my passport when the kid came storming back and demanded to know what the problem was:

“You wrote 37! 37 days,” he yelled, “I was here for 23. 23!” He wriggled his fingers in her face to show her “37” and “23.”

The officer sighed and took his passport again. It was evident that he spoke no Portuguese and that she spoke no English.

“Why can’t I leave?! Why won’t you let me on my flight?!” he hollered, even though she’d allowed him to do exactly that only moments before.

The officer went to another computer to check to record again and then came back to explain. In Portuguese, she told him that he had 37 days in which he could re-enter the country on this visa. If he was gone longer, the visa would expire, and he would need to apply for a new one.

He screwed up his face again to argue, but I jumped in and translated: if he wanted to come back to Brazil, he had 37 days in which to do so without needing to obtain a new visa.

“Yeah, I already knew that,” he huffed, “and I’m not coming back for like, uh, a few years!”

I translated for the officer and added that she must have a lot of patience to do this job. She nodded earnestly. The kid sauntered off, and I thought good lord, kid! She was trying to save you the effort of getting another visa! Imagine if he’d made that scene in the US! He would certainly not be allowed to leave.

The point is that Brazilians pride themselves on being welcoming and to be rude to guests is the ultimate cultural faux-pas. Sure, they drive like maniacs, will do anything to cut you in line, and have little understanding of personal space, but dammit! They know how to treat a visitor!

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Between Miami and my flight to Vancouver, I managed to keep it together, but as we flew into Vancouver and I saw the water and the mountains, I started to get weepy again. It was so beautiful and I so wanted Leo to see it with me! When we disembarked, I had a really hard time not breaking down in the airport. I don’t know if it was re-done for the Olympics, but even the airport is incredible! I had a continual commentary running through my head of the things I’d be pointing out or saying to Leo were he there with me.

I’ve wandered through these first few days in my superlative surroundings simultaneously marveling and choking up. I keep thinking “this is unbelievable! I have to show Leo x.” There’s a noodle place 1 block over and a cheap little sushi joint next to that; Leo would be gleeful! I also live next to two yoga studios, which would prompt him to say “full exhale!” In the first two days, I couldn’t even bring myself to go to the beach (a couple blocks away) because I know how much he’d love it.

Last night over the phone, he asked that I take pictures of everything, which breaks my heart – if he doesn’t get a visa, he’ll always have photos of the Pacific haven to which he was denied entrance. If he does get the visa, however, we will be in paradise. Since there’s a very real possibility that he won’t, I tried very hard not to like any of this, but it took all of 10 minutes before Vancouver had wiggled its way into my heart. I love it here. Paradise for me is measured in organic and gourmet food, Subarus, and evergreens and mountains (I’ve been sticking my nose in every pine tree I can find; I missed that smell so much!). I guess paradise for me is like Boulder, CO was about 10-15 years ago. And this little corner of Vancouver is like “Old Boulder” threw up in the Pacific Northwest (I know it’s not the Northwest in Canadian terms, but “Southwest” has such a different connotation for me).

Within a few blocks there are: several grocery stores, including an organic produce store, a butcher, and a Whole Foods (called “Capers,” which is adorable); two yoga studios; several incredible looking restaurants; an abundance of cafés, all of which advertize organic coffee (ah, but is it fair trade?); and a smattering of hip little shops. Even Mohammed’s convenience store sells veggies and high-end mineral water (which, as a water nerd, I do think is evil, but I’ve certainly never seen any in convenience stores before)!

Without Leo, all of this is bittersweet… but kind of like bittersweet chocolate: a little bitter, a little sweet, but still fucking chocolate; there’s no way not to eat it all up. With Leo here, I would be divinely – sinfully – happy; I would be with the man I love, in a place I love, and doing the work I love. Maybe mere mortals aren’t allowed to be that lucky. Maybe, like Aristophanes said, such completeness and perfection is an affront to the Gods. But if it’s possible to achieve that bliss while still in this world, I’ve found it, but it’s missing the keystone – my dear, loving husband, Leo.

...

After some exploration around my new digs, I have two thoughts about the inhabitants:

1. Canadians are Nice People. Yes, I know that this is one of those insidious stereotypes, but hear me out. “Canadians are just normal people,” say the Canadians I know. How’s that for a tautology? If you’re Canadian, you will probably think that your fellow Canadians behave normally. For example, if I were from a planet populated by sentient begonias, I wouldn’t think twice about self-aware shrubbery. You see, I’m not Canadian, so the Nice People I have encountered are exciting and remarkable – not at all Normal.

I have run into a few (what I would consider) Normal People here, but almost everyone I’ve met – from my Sikh cab driver, to Mohammed and his fellow clerk at the corner store where I found phone cards, to the man who fixed my computer, to the checker at Whole Foods – has been a Nice Person.

My cabbie waited for me for a full 15 minutes while I ran from apartment building to apartment building trying to figure out where I was supposed to be staying (that information was on my busted computer, which was not as Nice as my cabbie), then he let me use his cell phone to call my landlady in the States when I couldn’t find the key, and finally he carried my enormous bags up to my apartment – all while telling me “don’t worry! Be happy!”

Mohammed, from the convenience store, was delighted that I’d arrived only that day and wanted to know all about why I was calling Brazil. His fellow clerk was eager to discuss the emerging economies of the BRIC nations and assured me that Brazil is currently a very good investment. If I didn’t have to run and call Leo with the phone card I’d just bought, I’m quite sure they would have talked my ear off for the next hour or so.

The Whole Foods clerk, meanwhile, couldn’t believe it when I told her that I’d only just arrived (and hence, was starving) and also had a hundred questions about Brazil (the only one she didn’t ask was whether she could climb into my suitcase on my next trip; if I’d offered, she might have taken me up on it). We had a good laugh over the insane price of food at the store, as well (Whole Foods is Whole Foods everywhere, but I missed gruyere and couldn’t control myself when faced with gluten-free pasta and cookies for the first time in ages).

The man who fixed my computer – Tom – was my favorite so far. Not only did he come by after hours and right before his wife’s prenatal appointment, but he also gave me a great deal (taking pity on me for being a student) and took the time to explain everything that was wrong, how it could be fixed, and suggesting that I try this or that malware blocker, browser, and the like. He also told me that his brother and sister each endured a lengthy process to bring their Latin American partners to Canada because both had already lived in the US and were therefore facing the same scrutiny as Leo. “I married an American,” he told me, “much easier.” They’re expecting their first child in 3 months; her name will be Summer.

It’s been a struggle to pay him. “Don’t worry about it,” he told me yesterday afternoon when I asked about cash or plastic, “I trust you!” I still tried to run to an ATM before he returned my computer, but it wouldn’t take my card; I’m not sure if it’s because my bank thought it suspicious that one day I was buying lunch in Brazil and the next I was scampering around Canada or if the ATM just isn’t linked to my bank (I do know an RBC ATM at the airport worked, but I’m not sure which others do).

“I told you it’s no big deal,” he said, “I’ll swing by sometime tomorrow. Maybe 11-ish? And if you get an external hard drive, call me and I’ll come by and set up an automatic back-up for you. No charge.”

Meanwhile, I’ve also been waived across the street more times than I can count, and I’ve even had two people back out of the crosswalk so that I didn’t have to walk around them. Everyone here makes eye contact and smiles. One Nice Person assaulted me with a chipper, platonic “Good Morning!” in the street. Even the immigration folks were all chuckles and rainbows! We students arrived en masse and, together with new immigrants, had to wait a little longer to be processed, so they handed out water and granola bars and then promptly recycled the boxes. Apparently, I arrived on what they said was the busiest day of the year for them, but the smiles never wavered. Another officer came around collecting names of people who had someone waiting for them outside to notify those waiting that we would be a few extra hours. There was none of the badass attitude or the cattle car/huddled-masses-at-Ellis-Island business that you see at US customs.

2. Vancouverites are either waterproof or hiding gills. When I arrived on Monday, it was a stunningly clear day, but when I woke up on Tuesday morning, it was grey and something between a shower and a drizzle. I laughed out loud. I have never been to the infamously rainy OR, WA, BC area on anything but warm, sunny days. Now that I’d been lured in, of course, Vancouver decided to show its true face in all of its soggy, grey glory. When I went outside, I noticed a surprising number of people wandering around without any protection from the rain, dripping wet! About ½ had umbrellas or raincoats, but the rest seemed perfectly happy to run around waterlogged. It’s not like they were caught in a freak storm, either; it had been raining for a good long while by that point – at least since 8 am, when I woke up. I’m sure that the Brazilians would marvel at how the good folks of Vancouver were tempting pneumonia with such brazenly death-defying behavior.