It is simply not possible for 24 hours to hold so much happiness. And I still have an hour left for writing in my first 24 in Rio. If I had just come back for this one day the trip would definitely have been worth it. And I have 18 more days to go. Otimo! Even in the Newark Airport the Brasileiro vibe was thick in the air as I chatted with other women standing in line to get our tickets checked uselessly yet again. Americans would have been annoyed with a dash of indignation; Brasileiras were amused, with a hint of the benevolent tolerance shown toward harmlessly clueless children. I chatted with a flight attendant as we waited to board, Sam-Joe who lives in Rio, and during the flight he kept dashing back from 1st class with glasses of the good wine and an ice cream sundae.
When I arrived in Rio my bags did too and Taxi-Paulo was waiting with his unparalleled smile and a way-cool new beard. The weather has turned warm here after 2 weeks of frigid cold (in Rio terms this means temperatures in the 50’s. It’s winter here the equivalent of our February) and yesterday was mid-70s and sunny. The traffic was benign, and we caught ourselves up in portu-glish as I marveled at the sameness of Rio. Cristo was still on top of his mountain apparently unchanged by having been elected one of the 7 wonders of the modern world. The boy jugglers were there on top of the trashcan, one on the other’s shoulders juggling blind-folded at the traffic light by Rio Sul Shopping. And there were people swimming at the beach in Urca (even though it’s winter) as we drove past on the way to my old place at Roberto’s.
TaxiPaulo dropped me off, promising to pick me up at Trapiche at midnight and I moved back in. I caught up with Roberto over lunch at Garota da Urca that involved the smallest of choppes (draft beer) that immediately made me long for a nap. Romulo called, confirming that my cellphone number still worked after my 2-and-a-half month absence. Muito bom! Luiz Simas (who is in Rio, not New York) called and we set up a rehearsal for the piece I’m playing in his concert the 24th. I slept briefly, woke disoriented in the dark, but luckily it was only 7:00 PM (it’s winter here so the days are short, and the sky is a paler, but still lovely blue). I caught a cab to Trapiche chatting in portugues with the cab driver all the way. When I apologized for my poor use of past tense, he encouraged me to live in the moment, so agora eu falo portugues pra o momentinho. (Yes, I did make that joke in portuges in the cab.)
I walked into Trapche a bit early to meet Romulo (the sax-playing leader of my regional, Agua no Feijao), and, amazing, he was chatting with Joel! Joel Nascimento, my beloved bandolim teacher and a 70-year-old much-revered hot-shot player in Rio, had been the guest artist at Trapiche on my last night in Rio at the end of May. An incredible coincidence then. And now here he was again on my first day back in Rio- the trickster spirits had clearly lined up a block-buster of a welcome. Neither one of us was expecting the other, so it was a grand surprise and he said he had missed me too, just as I had sorely missed my weekly lessons and long chats with him.
And the night continued to get even better. Marcilio Lopes- my stand-partner from Bandao and crack bandolimist- was there to play too! It seems Luiz Barcelos- the wunderkind bandolimist who usually plays Trapiche- had to miss, and someone in the band called Joel and someone else called Marcilio to substitute, so they were both there. And not only that, but, as the evening wore on, Reco do Bandolim from Brasilia arrived with most of his band and they all played; and Marco Cesar- who directs a bandolim orchestra in Recife- was in town for a frevo gig at Canacao and he played and we chatted and he’s going to send me bandolim orchestra music. and Sergio Prata- head of the Instituto Jacob do Bandolim- was there as well and sat in on cavaquinho. Eduardo Neves- the group leader who plays tenor sax and flute- blew his brains out, exchanged math puzzles with Romulo, invited me to sit-in any time; Rui Alvim played his so-sweet-you-could-die clarinet. A kid from choro school was sitting in for the absent Jaime on cavaquinho; Anderson rocked on pandeiro.
Jovino Santos Neto, who played with Hermeto and now often with my NYC friend Richard Boukas, walked in in the middle of the first set and sat at the bar. He “happened” (o ye trickster fates) to be in town to record with Eduardo. This just a day after I was talking to Boukas about getting their duo up to play at RWU. He introduced himself to Joel by credentials- he was Hermeto’s keyboard player for many years- as Joel and I were chatting after the first set, and I chimed in with, yes & he’s a friend of mine too, which broke the formality, and I saw them in animated discussion later in the evening.
My friends Jorge (plays pandeiro in Agua no Feijao) and Miriam arrived after an hour or so, and we all sat with Romulo at a table practically in front of the band soaking it all in. Taxi-Paulo came early and got into the math-puzzle thing with Eduardo, his longtime friend, and Romulo; and the band played late, until 1:00 AM instead of the usual midnight, because it was all just too good to end. And did I mention that Trapiche was packed? At separate points in the evening Romulo and Taxi-Paulo both commented that it felt like a holiday there, each paused and said, it’s the return-of-Marilynn holiday. All I can say is it was unbelievable. At the end of the night Romulo confirmed that I do have a lesson with Joel on Thursday at 2:00. And when I said goodnight to Joel, he said to me in English, I love you. I hugged him and marveled at how lucky I am. As I repeated over and over all evening eu estou muito feliz estar aqui.
Waking this morning, in need of coffee and remembering that I had not visited the grocery yet, I stumbled into the kitchen to find Roberto grating manioc root. I asked plaintively if there was coffee and he said yes but there was no bread. So he put on water for coffee, grated and squeezed the liquid out of the manioc in a teatowel- all the time joking that he was returning to his Indian roots- put it in the frying pan without adding a thing, shaped and flattened it into a pancake & voila- a delicious crisp-yet-bendable tortilla that we filled with farmer cheese and had with coffee and fresh papaya. That was when I looked at the clock and counted my 23 hours of blessings that I have now written down & am sending to you. No pictures yet- except some blurry ones of the band which are of no interest to anyone but me. But it all will come. Everything will come; everything is possible. Porque nao?– eu estou no Rio.
Beijinhos pra voces!
m
