Adventures in Reinvention

Well, it happened.

In fact, it pretty much all happened at once.

In the chasm of time since I last posted anything of note, all of the hanging bits of the move to Brazil have fallen into place. I got my RNE card (the Brazilian version of the green card). I solidified a business deal that could take me well to the next level professionally. And I suddenly felt Brazilian, really Brazilian, for the first time since I got here. And I must admit, less and less American with every passing day.

The arrival of the RNE card was as momentous as it was anti-climactic, and maybe that was the first moment I felt really Brazilian. I had trotted down to the Policia Federal before an extended business trip abroad because my Protocolo RNE was about to expire yet again and needed to be renewed for another six months. I knew the whole drill - arrive early, get on line, sign in, go to Foreigners Section area, check in at desk, sit among the scores of Bolivians, and wait my turn. But alas, when I got up to the RNE window, the woman took my Protocolo RNE (a flimsy slip of paper that you have to keep in your passport at all times, which was beginning to wear since I'd had it for a year), and said: "You don't need this anymore."

And she handed me the card. It had a picture of me from a year ago on it - back when I started the process - and was valid as of last February, when my number was issued. It is valid for the next nine years. I will be a Brazilian citizen before it expires.

My reaction was: "Oh!...OK. Thank you." And off I went.

I was happy of course, and I showed it off to Vini and to my friends over the following week or so. But as life had settled down despite the long bureaucracy of reaching this key moment in my reinvention, I'd long since become blasé about it. Eighteen months ago, this was an agoniste drama of gigantic scale in my life. Today, it is a sort of after-thought.

Then came a two-week trip abroad for work. I was in the Caribbean for most of it, and while I missed home terribly I didn't really have any low moments like in the past. Even a catastrophic failure of an external hard drive, holding all my business' vital files since 2002, didn't freak me out. I just dealt with it. All sorts of challenges far beyond what I've faced in the past -- from transportation snarls to uncooperative colleagues, and very high-stakes problems in the work itself -- didn't have much of an impact on me. (I didn't blog at all, you notice.) In the end, it was a great success.

Then I came through Washington, D.C. on my way home. I saw the whole gang. It was the longest I've been away from my old home since I moved, and it felt very different to me this time. As familiar as it was, it just wasn't home anymore. I was truly just a visitor. Just a tourist. My friends are just as dear, and their lives just as important to me. But life has really gone on without me, as it should, and there isn't much for me to add to the experience back there. Ran, in particular, seems to have completely recovered from Jeff's death and seems very much himself again. That was very gratifying to see. I remember at one point hugging him tightly, and feeling that his body had even changed. It was firmer, tighter, stronger and leaner than ever before. It was more fit and more assured. It was like his spirit -- more grounded in the moment, and more focused on what's ahead. And in a way, feeling Ran's situation made me realize that I, too, have recovered from the inevitable trauma of this huge change in my life since I moved.

My marriage has also entered a new phase, and a level of comfort, tranquility and intimacy I have never experienced with any other man in my whole life. I can't quite put my finger on what brought it about, or how it got here, beyond the clear sense that both of us wanted it this way. Both of us were ready to do what it took to get here, even if neither of us was 100% sure of the pathway here. To a large extent, both of us had to learn to surrender. And we did.

Towering, looming above all this is the city where I now live. The city that has gotten under my skin day by day, and now has enveloped me and stolen my attention, my loyalty and my very heart. I am a paulistano now. It is in my blood. I have a history here that dates back even further than my ties to Washington, and it is now burning bright. Even the moment is electric. As the whole "first world" I come from is melting down in some way or another, São Paulo is standing strong. It is the economic face of Brazil that points to the world, and by all accounts my adopted home country will emerge from the current global crisis stronger than most any other. Even the dollar has shot back up to about where it was when I began. I have been swept up in the mayoral election campaign (I'm a fervent supporter of Mayor Kassab, to the extent of even joining his campaign this week). I've taken foreign friends and colleagues on walking tours of downtown with the same pride I used to have doing the same in D.C. I even enjoy shopping here now, which I never thought I would say.

And most exciting of all, there is Alice. It is an HBO original series that plays on Sunday nights, much like the old Sex and the City, which for so many years seemed to capture my own 30-something life struggles. Alice is about a young woman from a rural northern city in Brazil who comes to São Paulo for a short, momentous visit, and ends up staying. And we follow her as she completely reinvents herself and opens up to the wonder of life on the streets and rooftops of this magical, bewildering city. It's only been a few episodes, but I'm already hooked -- as is everyone I know here who has HBO. And it's because that show is more about my life today, how I feel about myself and the place I'm at, than anything else in culture. I choked up at the end of the last episode Sunday night (I won't be a spoiler and say why), because I felt that same feeling I used to feel watching SATC almost a decade ago. I have that stirring feeling again inside me about my life.

I have my papers, my career, my marriage, and my touchstone.

What else could a guy need?