feeling it, feeling like i belong....

when did it happen, when was the moment or series of moments that lead to how I feel now? Feeling like I belong, feeling in love, in love with porto alegre and with life, feeling more than I think I've ever felt in my life. I had planned on keeping a daily journal while I was here to record and doucment my transitions from outsider, stranger, to adjusting, familiarizing, to belonging. But of course as all of the best laid plans of mice and men....life is what happens while we're buisy making other plans. And I have been living. I have been living here more than I had back at "home." If you can call a bed to crash on, or a room in your parents house-where you only visit on holidays- a home.

Perhaps it feels more like home because I can walk around the block to get groceries every day or every other day; I can go around the block to the cinema to see a film alone on occassion, I have had my pants mended at the alterior two blocks down; I like the little cafe down on Republica; I can sit infront of the tv knitting, or read with the radio on; I hang my clothes out to dry on the line; I can take a walk in my park and always be sure to find someone to talk to, whether it be a friend, classmate, aquaintance or stranger. Maybe it is because I have been accepted on many levels as someone that does belong and is welcome. Maybe it is because I go out two, three, four times a week, because I can go out on a tuesday night with my buddies. Maybe it is because I am emotionaly wrapped up in Brasil.

Whatever it is I don't want to leave this place, nor these peopel because I feel like I belong here. I have an attatchment to this place like I've never felt to any other place before. Life makes sence here, poeple love to do the thinks I love to do here. They go to the park on sunny days with friends or family, or they go hoping to find/make a friend. They go to sit and watch life walk by. They go out with their friends, they welcome more friends, the live in the streets, talking to their friends all night.

There is something about the chimarrão too. Everyone drinks the chimarrão, you see them with their cuia and thermos. The young, the teen, the punks, the hippies, the traditional Gaúchos, the young lovers, the old couple, the mother and daughter, the father and son, the group of friends on the lawn, the group of old cronies on the bench, the family on lawn chairs, the old ladies with their hand knitted thermos covering, the middle aged men with their leather carryig case, the young child with here mini cuia. Just as there is a type of cuia for everyone, there is a place in the park for everyone. The punks hang out by the gand monument, a sea of black as you enter. The hippies selling their wares hang out by the european garden, the lovers are in the fountain garden. The dogs are on the south west lawn. There are elderly men playing games in the culteral hall, there are futbol teams on the field, people shopping in the brique, kids in the amusment park. Every weekend is a holiday fesival with clowns, baloons, cotton candy, bubbles, toys, trinkets, rides, games and fun. There is sure to be a show, event, parade, demonstation.

I can say I want to come back, but will I really ever have the chance to come back? I know as way leads on to way I may never be able to make it back to this place. And just like the proverbial paths, even if I should find myself here again someday it will not be the same. It will be a different time with different people, and I will be different.