Witty Banter at Smart Parties

Another great week in old São Paulo, if only because I finally started feeling entirely myself everywhere: in the office, in the living room, on the street, at the gym, in silence, in our bed. And at some great social gatherings of every kind.

I suddenly woke up to it around 6pm on Saturday, at the feirinha on Praça Benedito Calixto with Junior. Suddenly, the pace of my social life has begun to approximate what I had in Washington, but with more. I spend lots of quality time with my husband, and yet I am also seeing lots of my friends and making new ones, while keeping up with my work priorities in a sort of Brazilian way (i.e. over coffee or drinks). I run into people I know on the streets of Jardins, and there is a kiss and a hug and small talk. I have lunch and dinner with opinion-makers and their interesting wives, husbands and friends, and get invited to meet others the next week. I meet former presidents and get asked directions by tourists. I go to the theater. I dance all night. I go out. I stay in. The bills are paid, and the weather is just one marvelous day after another.

As much as I am happy writing this, and knowing it is happening, I also have to say it is nothing like life was in Logan Circle. I think I will always see my life back then as the apex of my entire life as a single gay American man. I was at the top, as far as I'm concerned. But what I am recognizing now -- full strength -- is that there was even so much more in front of me. Many more peaks. And life here in São Paulo is quite likely only beginning, which means the peak I could arrive at here will be miles above Logan Circle in many respects. Nothing could replace those times, and no one could ever replace the people I love who are still there.

But I have really arrived here. I'm no longer this mildly cranky stranger wandering the streets of a maddening, Third World city where nothing works. I'm in my element. I'm home. Since I arrived in São Paulo, I've changed my surroundings a bit, and the city has changed me a lot more. And so has marriage, turning 40, and whatever else was tossed into the pot to make everything taste so much better.

Amen.