Back ‘home’

It is time to write about my return to Brasil.  I have been here for a week and am just starting to get over my usual identity – cultural – confusion, a minor crisis.  After driving in the US for two months; wide open roads, huge parking lots and traffic rules (basically) followed, and shopping where more than one cart (or person) can pass down an isle at a time, and being where no one walks on the streets - even in downtown Houston, coming back to Brasil is always a shock to my system. 

This last week was an extra challenge to drive and to walk in Nova Friburgo.  Before I left the streets were already clogged with cars and people but now, after the sense of space you get in the US, I’ve felt claustrophobic.  In Brasil, everyone receives a 13th salary, an extra months wages, in November / December.  Just in time for Christmas shopping and paying year end taxes.  It is normal for there to be a lot of people on the streets in December, but it seems that this year it is extremely bad.  A byproduct of the good economy?  Whether on foot or in the car, darting and dashing to avoid those who seem to stop for no reason, talk on their cells in the middle of the sidewalk, park wherever it is convenient for them.

The election of the last mayor (Prefeito) was based on his promise to improve the transit in Friburgo.  The government changed some street directions, made a few more one-ways with parking only on one side.  More parking lots with exorbitant hourly rates, actually with 30 minute rates when you can’t do anything in less than 1 hour, have popped out and, last but not least, they hired a consulting firm – a private transit company – to find the solutions that they have not been able to find and still be re-elected.  But this last week it was abundantly clear that nothing is solving the problems.    Cars were still double and triple parked, flashers flashing because everyone knows that if you put your flashers on it is okay to park anywhere you want and block all other transit.   My 15 minutes from the house to my appointment took well over an hour – not to mentioned the drive home.   Yes, I could take the bus, the one that was stuck in the traffic right in front of me..... The one that is so full of people coming in from the countryside that there was room only to hang from the rafters .... The bus / company that is owned  by the mayor and his family? 

Yes, I could.   I am not sure though that this would help me feel better during this transition period between the US and Brasil.  I am suffering culture shock – plain and simple.

Signs of the times – 3

Home?Town

I am going to try and write what I started out to write when writing  'Home is Where the heart is'.  The thoughts that I need to put down have been in my head for weeks now, but vague, without that spark of inspiration that I sometimes get when thinking about a topic.  My intended topic was the changes I’d seen in Adrian and, as you can tell, I got majorly distracted when I started the post last week.  I will try to do better staying on topic this time around.  

Back to Adrian. 

I spent two weeks in Adrian at the end of September and it felt like a visit not a return home; these are the feelings that trigged my last post.  Even though born in Adrian, I only lived in the area for 9 years or so as a semi-adult.  Returning to my city of birth during my freshman year of high school, and leaving when Patty was 3 (Sept. ‘64 until fall of ‘73).  I don’t have many memories of these years.  My high school years were spent in a hustle of work and school; no dates, no dances, one basket ball game, no making trouble – just the years passing without note.  And immediately after high school my early married years spent in Morenci were about taking care of the babies not thinking about hometowns, belonging and other complex thoughts that I have today. 

During this time, my perception was that Adrian was a good sized city.  Only after I left and went to progressively larger cities,  Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Rio de Janeiro, did I start to see Adrian as a small town.  And now I see it as a small town that is getting even smaller.  Just to see if there were any facts to back up this change in perspective, I Googled for population history of the area (if you use Google as a verb is it capitalized?) and found that yes it is shrinking.  The population loss is not great unless you look at how a town would normally grow as families grow and multiply.  The numbers for Adrian when compared to the national averages have been pretty stagnant since the 60s. 

 

	Adrian #	Adrian %	National %
1960	20,347	10.60%	18.50%
1970	20,382	0.20%	13.30%
1980	21,276	4.40%	11.50%
1990	22,097	3.90%	9.80%
2000	21,574	−2.4%	13.20%
2010	21,133	−2.0%	9.70%

This could be from the area going from farm to industrial to.... loss of industry?  There are two universities and one junior college but after graduation the young people leave for jobs in larger cities.  Now this is all my conjecture – but what is there to hold young people and their future families?  For that matter what is there that would draw the young people back as they age and begin to retire?  This is probably the better question.Adrian would be a wonderful size town to retire in if it had a few amenities; a place to go dancing, a golf course close in, coffee shops and tea rooms to meet for breakfast.    These are a few of the things I see retired people do in other cities.

Adrian Michigan - Fall colors VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

When last in Adrian I saw a small charming town surrounded by natural beauty, the downtown empty of businesses, without even one nice restaurant but with one downtown theater (which is wonderful) and a couple of bars and a few cafes.  The outer streets are lined with fast food, with one very badly maintained shopping center on the outskirts.  When looking for entertainment or good food my sister and family drive to Tecumseh (under 9,000) or to Toledo.  Why does Tecumseh, a town half the size of Adrian, have nice restaurants and Adrian doesn’t?

One thing in Adrian that really impresses me is The old library, now a museum of local history.  The displays are interesting, the interior of the building impressive.  The only thing I can say that needs to be changed is that it needs to be bigger.  Maybe there could even be more old buildings used to expand the displays.  The manufacturing history of Adrian is interesting and I could see one of the now empty buildings housing a display telling the story of the Organs or the making of just one of the original cars.  I can see families bringing their young children to Adrian for a weekend of local history.        

Adrian Michigan - Historical Museum VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Of course that would mean more hotels, ..... a train from Ann Arbor to Toledo .... organized transit .... but then maybe Adrian would no longer be a small, sleepy little town and the families that have stayed just for those characteristics would have to find another hometown.....  And in the end it goes against my nature (that wants to fix everything) that I have to admit that the loss of work, the exodus of families is just another sign of the times in America that has no easy fix.

Signs of the times - 2

“Home is where the heart is”  and other notes

I know that I am not of the norm.  Living outside the United States, in a foreign country keeps me living outside the average lifestyle of Americans.  There are people, though, that are born, live, and will die in the same town.  Their family and friends are close.  Their lives circle around the dynamics of one community.  You could consider them the lucky ones but in these times they are also the exception not the rule.  

During the 50s and 60s and maybe even into the 70s this live-in-one-place life was still the norm.  It has slowly become the standard for families to split up, move apart, to live great distances from each other.  I was going to use my family as an example of this slow change in family dynamics, but really it also has not ever fit into the normal either.  For our family, starting in 1944 and 1946, my two oldest sister were born in two different states while my father was still in the Army.  They may correct me at any time but I am sure at least that they were not born in our ‘hometown’ of Adrian.   Then Judy and I were born in ‘48, ‘50 in Adrian, Michigan.  Then the two brothers in (or around) Kingman, Arizona and the last, the baby in Cottonwood, Arizona.  My family lived in Cottonwood and area until I was a freshman in high school then we all seemed to gravitate back to Adrian. 

When I married and had my children, my husband and I lived in Morenci, Michigan; moving all of 20 miles away and only living there for 3 years.  Then we lived in 3 cities in 3 years:  Phoenix, Virginia Beach, Dallas, and finally landed in Houston in the mid 70s.  I left there in 2003 for Brasil.  Twenty-eight years in one place, a miracle.  In a few more months, I will have been in Brasil for 9 years.

My daughter and her children still live in Houston,  my son is in Phoenix, my mother is now back in Adrian living with Candy, one of the ‘older’ sisters.  Candy is one of the lucky ones, having lived in Adrian for the past 45 years.  All her children live within a max 4 hour trip home.  I also have a sister in Virginia, one in S. Carolina, a brother in Colorado, and a brother in Prescott and a sister in the Phoenix area.  Where all of their children and grandchildren are is a list too long for me to type into one sentence.   You can start to see my dilemma for where I would call ‘home’ or to define that place as ‘where the heart is’. 

The longer I live in Brasil the more transparent the concept of HOME becomes.  Slowly, I am moving away from who I was, and what my life was when living in Houston.   Friends have died, left or lost their spouses, remarried or just moved away.  The large group that I used to meet to dance has disappeared, the ones left have gotten old..... OLDER – sorry!  Not me, of course.  This visit to Houston I have felt almost disoriented trying to fit myself back into the feelings of being HOME.  Shopping hasn’t seemed as much fun, I’m not driven to see and eat everything.... well that’s not completely true – but creative license allows me some wiggle room.  Now I find myself visiting Patty’s home versus returning home and have to conclude that this is just another sign of the times.

Signs of the times....

I have been at Patty’s for a week now.  Coming from Adrian and my sister’s household to Patty’s holds the same level of culture shock as when in Brasil Camillo and I go from the quiet and serenity of Friburgo to Rio with its chaos and confusion.   The schedule here is total craziness.  Schedules for two adults (three jobs), schedules for before school study groups and after school training activities, volley ball practice, volley ball games, Saturday tryouts for club volley, a weeknight trip to the mall to shop for a homecoming dress, and amidst it all, meals – did I mention homework assignments? Everyone is in their beds by 9 and up by five to do it all over again. 

Needless to say, I have had difficulty with the sleep schedule more than anything else because Camillo and I pretty much adhere to a bed at midnight - up at 8 type of schedule, with maybe 3 or 4 parties or dinners A YEAR mixed into the quiet pace of three sit-down meals at home, a choice of going to the gym and to the grocery store for supplies, a few hours of TV a day, and playing on the computer or reading to pass the rest of the daytime hours. If you ever wonder why you don’t hear from your kids regularly, you have to go and live in their homes for at least a few weeks, become immersed in their lives, and then you will have a complete understanding that this silence isn’t about them not loving you but is a sign of the times.

It is possible that my days when the kids were young were of similar chaos, but I don’t remember them like this.  When Pat and Marty were in high school in Houston, we lived about 3/4 of a mile from the school and they road their bikes to school – no hauling back and forth or fitting my schedule to theirs.  Okay, I might not have been the best parent, totally involved in their activities as parents seem to be today, but I got up and went to a job every day, bought groceries and cooked dinner each night, and like my daughter kept my own home and gardens cleaned. When they were on the swim team, I made their home competitions but not the away.  I thought what parents did was to provide a bed and cloths, and a place to study, good foods and quiet times and the rest was up to the kids to figure out.   The way of those times.

Yes, Marissa is a highly motivated teenager. Giving her as much support as possible is the right thing to do.   I am just saying that life today is a grueling list of things to do, and activities to get past.   Just saying, thank God there is only one teenager in this household and for one or two months a year I can step in and be a part of the chaos (and then step out again).

Proud to be an American, Part 11

The plan for the mini vacation that Camillo and I took here in the USA was a drive from Washington DC to Poughkeepsie NY,  then a three day drive up the Hudson valley, then across to Lake Erie and along the Lake to Adrian.  Pretty ambitious when you consider the miles involved.  We ended up reaching Poughkeepsie, spending one day in that area and then heading straight across Pennsylvania and into Ohio and up a few miles north into Adrian – except for one small exertion into the farmland, all by expressway.  The initial plan also included lots of fall color, a few waterfalls and the tasting of a few New York Wines.  It ended up that fall color was just beginning - not a disappointment by the way, the variation of faded greens, gold and touches of reds was beautiful -  the first planned waterfalls were closed for maintenance, the vineyards we located were closed for a special function and the other’s restaurant was only open for weekends this time of year, and I ended up with a really bad goldenrod allergy attack.  Don’t get me wrong the goldenrod that lined the highways, edged the farm fields and rimmed the forest is really beautiful, but my head locked up, gripped me, blurred my eyes – shortened my temper.   The shortened temper causing more problem then the rest, of course.  

While in the Poughkeepsie area we ate in one really good bar, Camillo ate a prime rib sandwich and a wine, and I a hamburger and a coke (designated driver).  The owners were friendly and helpful, giving us good food and instructions to a decent hotel.  The next morning it was raining but we drove up to Hyde Park to visit the home of FDR and their neighbors the Vanderbilt's.  The instead of finding a hotel for the night we backtracked and finding a freeway, headed west. 

Family home of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt:

  

   

  

Vanderbilt Mansion: