Don’t know when I’ll be back again

There is an electricity to every arrival in one’s hometown, and a bittersweetness about leaving yet again, that I have noticed in almost everyone who became immigrants as young adults or older and who have the choice of going back without fear. Whether the place where one grew up is dreaded or missed, it seems it is impossible not to meet it with a sense of recognition that unrealistically longs to not be betrayed by the passage of time.

Rio de Janeiro’s international airport is known as Galeão, but it’s officially and aptly named in homage of Tom Jobim, one of Brazil’s musical giants. It is likely difficult for even the most cynical carioca to arrive there by plane and not be reminded of his bossa nova, our souls singing as we see our city from above, its sea and endless beaches, the open-armed Redeemer embracing Guanabara Bay. Morrendo de saudades.

After arrival, the experience typically turns into a sobering reminder of less poetic realities. The inaugural taxi ride is permeated by the stench of sewage discharge, the motorway leading towards the city center surrounded by thoroughly perforated soundproofing walls–a grim testament to pervasive gun violence. The bullet holes in many Unter den Linden landmarks and the World War II bombs regularly discovered at construction sites remind Berlin’s residents of its dark past. In Brazil, the worthlessness of lives is a vivid part of the present.

In every conversation, whether overheard or joined, the sibilant carioca accents seem to be engaged in either fighting or flirting, as if there were no emotional options between love or hate. The subject of most informal talks is almost certainly people: storytelling, cautionary tales, or open panels on any aspect of the choices or appearance of an usually absent someone, where judgment is passed freely and with shocking self-importance.

There is an urgency in stocking up on brands of doce de leite and tapioca we cannot find in Europe, in eating delicacies that don’t make it across the ocean, in rigorously enjoying the privilege of warm sunny weather, white sandy beaches and fresh coconut water every single day. It is a relief to recognize the rocky horizons of Copacabana, our coastline dotted by little islands, which I seek and miss in every Mediterranean seaside city I visit, their infinite blue, albeit beautiful, too undisturbed. It is fun to challenge the moodiness of our Atlantic tides, which are never as peaceful as one might hope, and emerge mostly victorious, and sometimes mildly humiliated, moist sand hidden in every crevice of my body as the waves swept me off my feet and dragged me along its rhythm.

Reconciling the reasons why I chose a new beginning in Berlin with the all that I love and miss in Rio is the hardest aspect of the hellos and goodbyes I doomed myself to regularly say. Every embrace, the warm and sweet smell of each of the people that have carried me in their hearts for a lifetime, is an experience of absolute communion and absolute sorrow.