It was all a ruse!

24 March

And so with little fanfare and much haste, I head for home.

This was decided last Wednesday, in Belo Horizonte, when it was clear that my attempts at a Brazilian internship weren't going to work out; even the teaching internship I could get at Grupo Galpão is not really what Joan and Ronlin want for me. So I am a month short of completing the project, but there is no more point in spending time and money in Brazil; I need to go home and work.

Right now I'm killing time at Garulhos airport in São Paulo; I fly to Houston tonight and to San Francisco tomorrow morning. I'll spend the night in SF with Lindsey B. Jones and drive up to Humboldt in a rental on Wednesday. (All this was left off the blog, by the way, so that I can surprise Leila, who's not expecting to see me for another month. I hope she likes surprises.)

Joan did think that a maskmaking project would be good for the internship, but she wants me to train with a master, to get mentorship and feedback. I'm really turned on by this possibility, especially the possibility of learning to carve wood and work with leather. There is a former Dell'Arte student in Sweden who trained with Sartori who's a good bet; there's also a maskmaker in Mexico City that we have a promising connection with. He's apparently a Commedia master, but knows some of the Mexican traditions as well; this is the possibility that I'm most turned on by, as my brief stay in Mexico in January proved that my work there is not done.

My work in Brazil is not done, either, and that is a matter that I will have to sleep many nights on. The Cavalo Marinho is something I want to dig much deeper into, which dovetails nicely with my interest in Maracatu and Coco. But how and when am I going to get back to Recife? Juliana and Alicio will be in Pernambuco in December, at the height of the Cavalo Marinho season, and I suppose it is possible I could come then and finish my internship doing field research. That would be a kick... but I do want to learn the leather work. I dunno.

I want to come back to LUME and work with masks. I think they want me back. When? Some unnamed date in the future. And now I have some other good friends in Campinas, the students that I lived with, who were heartbroken when I told them I was leaving.

It's weird being the honored guest; it's weird being fed and housed and made to feel like I'm the one doing the favor. They were honored by my presence and took pride in doing things for me, driving me around, introducing me to their friends, to their neighbors, to the cooks at the restaurants we ate at, to the bands we heard at Casa São Jorge.... I kept telling them that I was the lucky one, here, but they didn't seem to believe me. This sends my Protestant Guilt reflex absolutely haywire. (If you're not familiar with Protestant Guilt, it's related to the Protestant Work Ethic. It kicks in when you're afraid you're not working hard enough.)

Anyway, for now there is plenty of work on the table. I need to finish the Carnaval paper and the south American Explorers article. I need to come up with a piece for Ferdinand. And I've restarted work on my failed thesis project, which I hope to produce somewhere next winter. And of course there are plenty of masks I can make now....

Home again, home again. Jiggety jig.

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26 March

Writing from a Denny's in Santa Rosa....

I spent the night in San Francisco with good friend and clown Lindsey B. Jones, who was not her usual drinking-buddy self last night; she's got a cold, and I was pretty beat myself. So we were out cold at 10:15. But it's nice to see her, and to know that her face means I am close to home.

So this is the last post from the road for this blog. I'll keep it going, because I feel like it's potential as a writing tool is largely untapped. I admit I've been lazy and a little afraid about writing publicly like this; it's hard to get into a groove, or even to know what the groove should be.

So I'll keep working that out.

Thanks for listening.