spine and spin

Yesterday I cried at a dance performance for the first time. It was a rose wrapped in drapes and a little prince tip-toeing on top of a ball, magic sparkling from the muscles, dancers who seemed to be carved brutally yet so gentle, as gentle as passion can be, the unbelievable strength of a body in love floating through a story. From the balcony of the theater, I felt my eyes expanding vision to another form of explosion. I wanted to dance too. My secret dream is the circus. I keep secrets in the same place as I hold fears, and I try not to understand too much of what I am afraid of. But I’ve always wanted to dance. A tap dancer, to be more precise, if I could ever be reborn.  I am more influenced than I would like to be. I absorb too much of the impact of what is visible to the eyes, essential or not – I want to reproduce what I feel in any way available. I want to dance too. I still want to. So many times unsuccessfully I tried to recognize my body in movement, tried to catch my arms in a better position and understand how my knees work. When I pass by any glass building in New York City, I absolutely hate the way I am standing so crooked. I spent most of my wonders in hopes for a new construction of a spine. How I wish I had a better posture… for that I often think my body was not designed for melody. I hold rhythm in my throat, I try to convince myself I’m only for words and sound and tongue, not ever for the waves and muscles and balance. Can one be happy staying still?  I wish I could be more than what I speak. I wish my body could talk too.

Face-time and time to face it

I was on Facetime with a friend trying to convince her to move to New York. I very often do this. With more than one friend. I actually did it to all of them at this point. Is it because I miss them? Not really. I mean, I do miss them, but it is not the reason I engage in the cheap marketing pitch I have ready for when they complain about their lives. Is it because I truly think this city can be for everyone? Absolutely not. I’ve learned it the hard way. I’ve many friends who came here for a while, whether it was to visit or for one of those life drive tests you give yourself in your crisis, and left hating it, or not hating but, with the certainty they would never settle around. I thought it had something to do with my feelings for them, but frankly, no. This time, on that facetime, I realized I’m trying to convince myself. I’m telling it to myself. Not because I keep looking at myself during video calls, well, maybe this was deeper than just analyzing my pimples on screens. I noticed I am the one who needs to hear the twenty reasons why New York is holding your dream in a box ready for you. An old box full of rats, yes, but your dreams are there. Fucking cliché but that’s really the only moment when I romanticize it as to it believe in it – when I’m repeating to myself “oh yeah absolutely, you have to move to New York.” To hear myself listing the reasons why someone should stay here is the only moment I connect with statements and not questions about being an immigrant. It has been years since I’ve been stoked about this city, but somehow I deny every single opportunity to move out. Recently, I took a break and went to Portugal “before this city drives me crazy” as if I wasn’t already, “because I need to see new people” as if I have ever seen the same face on my block. I hated how soft yet strong the feeling was when I came back. I was still at JFK and I remember telling my heart “hey, we’re at the airport, this is not home, chill the fuck out, sweetie.” I can, though, disconnect very easily from New York. I look forward to saying goodbye. The problem is, coming back is inevitable. And it has to be because there is no other way. New York needs to be inevitable. 

I’m not biking this year (again)

Every time I say I don’t know how to ride a bike it is like suddenly there’s a stage light focused on me, that will follow me wherever I go for the next five minutes I’ll spend explaining the reasons why I’m not getting on a citibike. New year, same shit. Every time I say I’m also not interested in learning something new at such an old age. Yes, I am 24. No, I’m not old for everything. Yes, I am still young. But not to have scratches on my knee or to put myself deliberately, purposely, in situations of failure. Dude, if I wanna feel like a failure, I just have to look at my bank account after spending three hours on tiktok. Plus, I do not need to wear a helmet. My head is watermelon shaped and everyone knows we, the watermelon society, cannot and will not wrap anything around it. But back to the biking thing, people seem to be so much more bothered than I am about the fact I will never get ass cramps and stories about how the other day a truck almost ran over me. Of course, there were moments in my life where I wished I knew how to sit on two moving wheels, like when I was in Amsterdam, for example – I almost created a new kind of oppression in those ten days I spent there. Obviously, I walked everywhere I went and my friend, who has lived immersed in the bike tribe for years now, was surprisingly the most supportive person about my great lack of mobility. Maybe I was getting a second wind, when you’re surrounded by a certain environment everything different from it seems better. I mean, as a New Yorker I will never appreciate a slow-paced walker, but, in another environment, I think it’s amazing to just… walk by in no rush. My decision of not riding a bike this year, like all the other years before this one, comes also from the realization of the verbal sentence I use. Never in my life have I said, “I want to know how to ride a bike.” It’s always “I wish I knew.” Meaning that, I wish it happened before when I cared less, when I had less attachment to my spine and knees, more courage to give myself a chance to fall. I hate New Year’s resolutions (since 2020 – I’ve learned my lesson, thank you very much) and I didn’t think too much about what I want for this year. But definitely, though, I hope to be giving more shits about what I want to know rather than the things I wish I knew.

My electric kettle and other boiling observations

Today, the electric kettle I bought (because I saw one in the house of my first employers) broke. I was eighteen and fascinated by the way they unscrewed the bubbling water to serve the-worst-coffee-you-can-drink. I would think, “only Brazilian beans will come to my house.” From that day on I wanted so much my hot water to be boiled in modernity in seconds, I wanted a decline on the curve of my graph of domestic disaster, I wanted the possibility of silent explosion, with a blue button that changes from blue to gray and turn itself off when ready. Six years ago, I decided that on my next paycheck, I would buy an electric kettle. When that Friday came, I remember browsing the online list around with my eyes wide open. Hoping to find the prettiest kettle my money could buy. For no more than seventeen US dollars, my white kettle arrived well-packed with accents that light up blue and gray. The kettle moved with me to every nook and corner that I’ve ever fled to call home, to every house I prepared, molded, the ones that I ran away again, to all kitchens I shared, even the ones I didn't clean, the ones that needed extermination … It was packed in all the boxes I filled when I gave up, every time I had to rebuild the concept of home. It remained on top of all the marble-counters that I spilled coffee drops throughout these 6 years. I remember I tried to start drinking hot tea during quarantine, but really I’m a fan of iced tea, which made my kettle useful for everything but tea. It boiled my water for coffee and rice and pasta and dumplings and anything else you needed of water in the state-of-little-bubbles. An electric kettle turns itself off and for all these years I didn't get used to the button dropping in a little noise: “click” it would go. And whenever I did “click” I thought, “click,” dammit, that's it, it's over! It knew its boiling point and “click!” the button moves. Just one sudden yet soft noise – it falls, as if I've never pressed it. It goes “click,” as if I've never made my own “click” to put it up. The kettle says “click” as if to say, “I know when it’s time to stop.” People say that when I laugh, I make a kettle sound. Secretly, I think to myself that this person mustn’t have an electric one. Because mine goes “click” and I certainly don't laugh like “click-click-click.” Honestly, it  would actually be great, imagine! Laughing with such precision, laughing like someone who announces the right end for a choice, a decision, a phase, that boiled for long enough. My kettle died in the worst way: it lost its energy. Burned, it burned like every technology’s fate. After all, for seventeen dollars, I should’ve known better if I wanted it to last as long as I would, too, or until I developed an emotional technology to understand life’s boiling points. I was also half dead and burned out when she died. As a person who always found a very interesting life in things and objects, now that I have to think about how to discard an electronic teapot that lost its technology it feels like planning (as dramatic as it sounds) a funeral of a part of me. Mind you, this is not a letter of repudiation to the traditional iron kettle (the one that never leaves the top of that-one-piece stove) we are also very good friends,  from time to time, we even gossip about our old-look issues. This is  a type of farewell letter to my many observations that were only possible because of this magic kettle. A letter that bids farewell to the 18 years old me, who bought her very first home appliance.  As I write, I started to think about it all. I just checked through the window to see if the kettle was still there in the recyclable garbage bin. It looks sad and very unprepared for this type of environment. My kettle was always positioned with so much love in the many homes I've had. Probably when I finish writing and go out to start my day without its “click,” I'll rescue it. Not to accumulate, I'm not that type of person, but maybe for a photoshoot because nothing is more tech than this. Maybe for one more conversation - because nothing is more “me.”

The marvelous feeling of hating someone on a small island

What if I accidentally take the same train as someone from my past? Someone that I don’t like anymore? Wait, I’m trying to sound normal. What if there is someone I hate? Because yes, the hate I have towards some people is beyond any poetry solutions I find to face life. And yes, anger is the fuel I feel towards one or 47 of the people I like to pretend are insignificant to the course of planet earth. At this point, you know I’m not scared of sounding like a motherfucker. I share my real and raw experiences with you, and they’re not always beautiful. Today, I’m going to talk about the days I can’t let go of negative thoughts. It gives me the chills when I remember that even though I cut people from my circle, they are still living in the same city as me. A city that feels tiny and tight. An island surrounded by unpleasant meetings. How many ‘you-gotta-be-kidding’ moments do you need to build a city where everyone keeps their eyes away from familiar faces? Do any other immigrants feel like that? Let's get a drink. Here’s the truth, more often than I wish, I hope they will soon leave New York and never come back. As long as this whole teenage-type-of-hate gives me good laughs over the bar table, though, I’m not letting go of these primitive feelings. I do laugh about how much I hate some people with the people I love. There is so much written about unconditional love, forgiveness, good vibes, incense, meditation, positive thoughts… but we need to talk about the pleasure of letting a few drips of childish poison out of our tongues. Not that they are right. But they exist. It’s impossible for me to imagine someone whose mind is not sometimes welcoming this type of feeling. I wonder if other immigrant communities have as much drama and as many fights as Brazilians have. You won’t believe the number of stories I have heard and how they are always so weirdly connected. You’re only one (drama or) person away from another brawl. It’s a whole family tree of misunderstandings, ex-partners, ruined parties, ruined jobs, and ruined friendships. The main reason, at least my main reason, is because of how needy we are for connection. In the past, I saw myself being friends with people I would never be friends with back in my town. We had nothing in common, we barely shared laughs, yet we were always there trying to find (or make) a strong bond. It took me a while to find my place and my heart in the community. Lots of tears, disappointments, and fear. Fear of solitude, fear of not being able to have freedom to be who I am. But finally, after 6 years, I understand who my family is here. And I’m incredibly lucky. Here I am feeling like I own this one wagon I choose every day to go to work, wishing I will never cross paths with them. Random fact that I want to share: in this wagon there’s always the same posters, one of them is “smelling the wind” a poem by Audre Lorde, who by the way I have only got to know better because of the many times I read it while turning my neck. There you go, I found a reason to connect the fact with what I’m saying: sometimes we do have to turn our necks away to figure out new possibilities of expression in other people. I question myself if I’m evil or why the fuck I have this type of thoughts as randomly as standing in line to get coffee. My coffee, from my coffee shop, my block, my neighborhood. What type of complex is this? What type of childhood trauma makes me think that mentally marking territory is going to push the most terrible coincidences away? I guess somehow, I’m still hurt. It’s ok. I’m now googling a way to own a train wagon. I’ll be fine.

Another goodbye to Brazil and a letter to us

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Sometimes I feel like you have scars and I have open wounds. Although scars are sensitive and can sometimes hurt when it’s cold, after a while it won’t bother you if you touch it. Now, every single time you poke an open wound, it will burn. It seems obvious, I know, and what’s even more obvious is that one day it will all heal: but it’s hard to believe it when the answers are as tough (and simple) as “give it time.” I know you don’t mean to poke my wounds. I also don’t mean to freeze your scars when I turn my heat off. We are so different. It’s silly to think we would ever be going to share the same coping process. So, we decide to take the road, and we let the wind decide where to put the past uncontrollable moments of our performance together. We decide to rehearse better ways to say what’s needed. I sleep in your chest. You interlace your legs with mine. As two immigrants we share a world of inconvenient thoughts and wishes, fears and dreams, waters and flakes, hard-swallows, and soft-drinks. Then you feel like my band-aid – and honestly maybe you are – protecting me from looking at it every day and keeping other things from getting inside. And indeed, I feel safe from the outside infections when you’re there measuring the spot for perfect coverage. I look deeply into your sharp eyes, so focused, so brown, so kind, making sure not to blink when it’s time to try your way in this fight one more time. It’s not like you’re losing a battle, the opposite, I feel like you’re so close to finding the right stitches that it makes me wonder if I would ever be able to do this alone and for myself. You tell me you think the same. We wonder where we would be if not together, and the answer is always the best laugh: “we suck as divorced people. It’s just not for us.” We’ve come so far, my love. This trip is the result of everything we fought for. Our battles and victories now are making sense, and the universe seems to be acting accordingly for the first time. Here, in Bahia, Brazil, where we decided to immerse ourselves in our flaws, will be where we leave the best part of us to rest in harmony. We have tightened our love throughout the knots connecting its cities and built our own magical medicine with salty kisses. We are holding off the trust issues and saying yes, for the third time to ourselves, for the first time to our protectors up-somewhere-in-the-sky, in hopes that our hands and mouths and words are guiding us back home. Whether it is New York City, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro or Bahia, our home is where we’re together… always. 

Not-so-lonely heart and that’s a problem

This is the first time I talk about my forbidden love. I’ve never thought, not in my entire life, that I was going to fall so ardently and quickly. I think about that embrace and the way my legs seem to know the way to happiness and the way my ears guess every future sound coming and in my blurry projections of certainty there is no such thing as life without it. My love is a balcony on a busy street with as many trees as there are building construction. A bike racing with the birds up and down the concrete hills. My forbidden love is far, far away from the water. I was asked if this is what really bothers me in this whole insanity. No. My answer was no. I choose to rest my head in a New York City’s cheap silk pillowcase, so my dreams won’t mess with my waves, but no. It doesn’t bother me being far away from the water as for now. In joy, I’m jumping through the beginning of a very bloody-dry secret relationship. One that will wake me up winded and dehydrate me to hate and make me question every single geographic choice I have ever made in my life. In every corner of passion, I’m ready to meet myself. There I am dressing well and expecting to make this the brightest day of the year, hoping to find the littlest excuse to run away to pay the rent of promises to cross and occupy the loud unknown property of destiny. I’m in love, and it’s about the way everyone else seems to be feeling the same. About the interlacing of my movements with the way the flowers express hunger. The melancholic beauty in the drawings of a human-made cloudy sky, covering universes’ decision to shine. To come forward with the risk of a forbidden love, is to change the course of not only my self-analysis, but the way I face my future. I can’t yet tell the world exactly where I want to be if I can’t look in a mirror and force my lips to say that, the truth is I have no idea. If I decide to set fire to my birth roots and burn down what I built because of it, I will have to learn how to turn ashes into gold. I can barely light a match precisely. At least in this whole madness, I got to create new soundtracks for reflection. My bossa nova heart and soul knows (and tries) to convince me I wasn’t made for the sand-less, water-less love, and every time I think about the sun kissing the tip of my nose in January, I get butterflies in my stomach. When I’m licking my dreamy salty lips, I know for sure I found my place on earth– but then l set foot on JFK and all of it is gone. Suddenly, it goes live in my brain: Chamber of Reflection by Mac Demarco. It’s time for nothing. “Go girl, give us inertia!” I swear somewhere in this body we are screaming this. I’m fucked. I have lived, loved, and felt the difference between Rio de Janeiro and New York. This is a letter, statement, confession, call it what you want, announcement: I’m cheating on both of them with São Paulo and I have no idea how to stop this affair. 

The bracelet and the ring

I never learned how to ride a bike. Or whatever roller-something. No scooters. Nothing. I grew up having only my feet as a source of locomotion. I was never really interested in those things; I care much more about the possibilities of breaking a bone. For countless times at school and at home, people tried to teach me how to have at least some sense of motion, but learning right and left seemed to be an impossible conundrum. Although I started to speak at 8 months old, according to my mom, and by the age of 5 I would write with both hands, I could never, never look at a narrow space and know if I fit. For all of those reasons, I never believed that I would drive a car in my life, which made me secretly deeply sad because one of the things I love the most is to be inside a car listening to music and singing at the top of my lungs against the wind. It wasn’t until three months ago, that I stopped accepting the fact I’d never be able to do this by myself, controlling my path on the road. I gave all the fucks possible to all the odds against my dream and enrolled in driving lessons. “Never for a moment I will think about failing” that was the only promise I made to myself. It had nothing to do with hope or positivity. My stubbornness level ten and pride guide me throughout the streets of Brooklyn and its endless stop signs. Then came the universe blowing me forward, giving me all the answers in little things like my instructor’s name, which is the same as my mom’s favorite gypsy-spirit-to-pray-to. My road test was scheduled for July 7: 07/07 double my lucky number. There I am, paying attention to all the mirrors, my bracelet (that means the right) and my ring (meaning the left), the crazy (assuming they’re always insane helps me) behind me and ignoring the honks for me. Every time I drove, it felt like a hug to my inner child, who would sit on a bench while everyone raced with their bikes. Felt like a high five to the little and frustrated girl trying to learn geographic coordinates. When I finally felt safe behind the wheels, I decided I would take myself for a ride around the place I was born: Rio de Janeiro. And so, I did everything possible to finally listen to my dear Jonas Brothers’ playlist at top volume off to nowhere alongside the beaches. On the plane, I was wishing I could drive all the way. I couldn’t stop dreaming and thinking about the day I’d get the car. Finally, it has come. This morning, I picked up the car and drove for the first time in my home country. Me, the girl who could never figure out how to use her body properly in her surroundings. With my knees full of scars and my own ways of figuring out directions, I stepped on the gas to leave behind a huge, painful chapter of my life. I can do this now. In tears of happiness, I’m sitting in the car -parked, of course- writing this to tell the world that I made it: I made it.

A book and a pigeon walk into a bar

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I couldn’t open the window in the first apartment I’ve lived in New York. Everyone close to me is tired of this sentence— not only them, I also wrote about it in my first poetry book that actually feels like a  published diary. Apart from all the good that comes with having your work out there, I can’t help but feel very weird and uncomfortable about people’s imageries of my life. I don’t regret sharing it to the world, but I would definitely do it slightly differently if I knew I was actually going to have readers. I’m not exactly sure how, in fact, I’m giving myself the opportunity to rethink all about it. It’s currently out of stock, and I’m working on the second edition, to make it “more me” even though what scares me the most is that it is already “so me.” Anyway, you can tell things are a bit confused here inside this mind. I  often think about the windows I couldn’t open and that tiny apartment only a couple of blocks from Central Park. Sometimes I imagine myself visiting eighteen-year-old me, trying to find the trick to a not-so-cold or not-so-hot shower, waking up to the noise of the eighty (not exaggerating, I actually counted them many times) pigeons that lived right outside my window. Which was obviously the reason why I couldn’t open any of them. The only time I did, one got inside, and I’m still traumatized. It took me a while to start writing about it and how much impact that apartment and what I’ve experienced there had in my life. I have realized that the same way I feel about my first book is how I feel about my first apartment. It’s like publishing “yoü (and all the other stuff hurting me too)” is that day I opened the window just to try, except this time it’s hundreds of pigeons flying around me and eating my belongings, my feelings, my little world. Except that I can’t call the super to fly it out of there because in my life, I’m ‘it’. I need to learn how to deal with the things I open for the need of fresh air, for expression, to keep breathing. I’ve been thinking.

Hammock in the park

I started to run. And this isn’t fiction. Everything in this column is based on real facts or almost that. But mainly that. But with a little drama to spice it up. But, because I’m Brazilian, and at this point you know that. So, you know as well that I’m pushing the story for no reason, but maybe -just maybe- because I’m ashamed of being healthy. I KNOW!!!!! OK!!!!!! I am. Enough with the buts. Not with the butts -please God, understand this if you’re reading out loud I have absolutely no emotional stability to lose my already-little butt. You see I grew up emo. I was an only-wear-black teenager. Cried to Simple Plan. Welcomed people into my life in tears. Didn’t care about having a butt: I wore low-rise jeans. With a belt. And now I’m running. Worse: in the morning. I became what I feared the most, which is the person who is making bad sugar-free coffee in leggings. I don’t really know how this happened and don’t have ways to defend myself. I’ve been trying to keep sadness alive while putting ice on my potato of the leg (that’s howwe say calf in Portuguese) playing Green Day on my ears. Talking about green days, I didn’t quit smoking. That’d be suicide. Being healthy’s got limits. I can assure you that running in New York City is an experience beyond what one expects. Every day. Funny to see the weird life and animals and people passing by in a blur. Shaky buildings. Funny how I sometimes think the city was supposed to be seen like this. The other day I was running in the park and saw people hanging hammocks between trees. I remember slowing down. I thought this was a better shaky and blurry way to see our surroundings. I might be getting a hammock. Sounds emo but make it outdoor-ish. That’s my big new conundrum. I’m running out of ideas to stop myself from running. Got it? Running out— ok. Let me stop the bad jokes. The new me hopes you’ll be finding this month’s chronicle well. I didn’t mean to make it sound like that bad e-mail from your boss you read and think “this is unreal.” I’ll give you a couple of days. Thirty to be more specific. See you then.

Bench thoughts and a piece of cake

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I so-very-promised myself I wouldn’t write about it. I didn’t want to sound redundant or empty or cheesy. But some thoughts grow stronger than me every morning when I see Brooklyn blossoming cold. Every time I arrive in Manhattan to dance with the sun kissing every single person wearing a mask correctly. The truth is, it was only when New Yorkers’ faces were covered that I realized they actually smile. I mean, we do. Because I’m part of this. It feels good. Even when New York is an everyday appointment you can’t miss. It feels good. Now more than ever: I’m fully vaccinated sitting on a bench and watching urban life finds its way into a country-side hug. With a smile on my face underneath a two thousand and twenty fashion. Happy against the wind but immediately worried as the trees are not going to protect me from having a sunburn on half my face. I know we are supposed to wear sunscreen all year long, but aren’t we all over it, and over the fact we will never do this? How bad can my face look and who’s going to see it. That’s some heavy depressive shit. Well, I’m murmuring to myself about something way more serious in between some sips of bad coffee: where are our fellows free hugs employers in Union Square? The universe’s answer is my burned tongue. It hurts even more when it’s an americano. I get my phone and the screen is full of notifications saying the same thing: New York has finally legalized marijuana!!!! And my friends are immediately thinking of me. I wonder what type of reputation I built. Not that I care. After all, I’m fully vaccinated sitting on a bench and watching urban life find its new way out. Yay. Not really. Because scrolling down social media when you’re Brazilian it's a whole other level of pain. I knew the risks of ruining my day when I picked up the phone. So as much as I feel part of this coming-back-journey it’s not the first time I see life after death. I’m an immigrant. I die every time my burned tongue rolls differently to find my place out there. I die every time I sneeze in protest against the horrible flowers they have in the Upper East Side. I see life every time I get home, and it smells like it is indeed home. I see life after my tongue enrolls smoothly in another culture’s mouth. I see life after someone says “saúde” instead of “bless you” when I sneeze. You see, it’s amazing to touch hope. I thank the signs around the city. These little-big things do make me happy, don’t get me wrong. Thumbs up for New Yorkers, plus we can do this, etc. But my wound is way deeper. I feel like my heart squeezes the same way I do with my legs in the movie theater so people can pass by, every time I ask myself where the fuck is the life after death where I come from. When is my country going to be kissed by the sun? I feel eternally divided, as if my life is the result of a fight between two brothers for the last piece of their grandma’s cake. Except that the cake will dramatically fall on the floor and no one will get to enjoy it. All that because, there is no such thing as celebration of the new normal for those whose hearts belong in two places at once. And I have no idea how to finish this, but I should probably take a walk. I’ve been sitting for a long time. 

The First Report Of a Time Travel | Chronicles Of The Young Immigrant Women

nalu romano

I was in the car with a friend (who I want to kiss) talking about what’s left to write about New York. Not that there will be an end: if there’s a city in which good stories are living in every single corner or just across the street, this is the one. The car was loaded with my moving to what will be home number six. I had to stop writing to count how many apartments I clogged the bathtub with my forever-weak hair. I can’t believe it. I’ve been here for five years, how the hell did I manage to move so many times? It was when we stopped at Freedom st -how cheesy poetic this is- that I started to think about my old addresses and its street’s names. Two different Lexington Avenues. The greek 38th street in Queens. Three different neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Train number 6, the famous green line. The Astoria bound. The if-you-sleep-you’ll-end-up-at-the-beach blue line. Jay-Z’s line. M train only for delayed days. The next-year-is-going-to-close-but-not-really L train, which was where I wrote most of the poems from my first book. I got a liberty letter in a place three blocks from Central Park. Confronted what it means to be an adult inside the only apartment I’ve lived in with a balcony. Felt lucky. Moved in with friends I’ll never speak with ever again. Felt prayerless yet hopeful. Then I said so many goodbyes in Bogart Street. Met love by Flushing Avenue, moved with her to a funky street in front of a secret party-place we never got invited to. Painted walls with never-picked-before colors with the help of love. Didn’t write any memories there. All of a sudden, within a blink of an eye, there was me waiting for the rain to fall, on my way to eight minutes from McCarren park and exactly fifteen minutes from my wedding venue. Love and I had a dream in common of living around there, but just one of us is accomplishing it. Now I don’t even know how many streets are in between our letter codes. Here I am writing from apartment number six. Hello! Today when I was choosing the right soundtrack to open the very few boxes with what’s left of me, I noticed I created a tradition unintentionally: I have a playlist with the name of every street I've lived in. With the songs I used to hear on my ways home and on my beds starring the ceilings and exploding kitchens and receiving awards in the showers and interlacing my body in people’s bodies and others “and.” Which means I can visit my rooms anytime. Which means I made all of my homes eternal. Which means I somewhat invented my personal time machine. Which hurts but feels so good. Pretending now is the only way through. Which means.

Back To The Mushroom Kingdom | Chronicles Of The Young Immigrant Women

nalu romano

In ten days I’ll be returning to New York. In ten days my life will restart. I kinda feel in a Mario game: never played, heard about, know maybe a rule or two about winning this thing but definitely have no clue how to jump without falling. Anyways I have decided to write about it with my own conceptions. In 10 days I’ll be back to the Mushroom Kingdom. Though I love mushrooms enough not to crush them… This time I’ll have to learn how to smash-the-fuck-out-of what’s in front of me no matter the taste or how much I wish I could use them in a happy-recipe. The best part about facing this chapter as a video game is the illusion I’m in control of everything. Worst part is the time I waste “jokesying” terrible situations and inventing words such as “jokesying.” I could’ve just said I’m wasting time finding comic relief but then it wouldn’t be me (or this column). Recap: the strategy is to keep thinking Mario but no time to save a princess. She’s been doing fine without me, thank you. Mario journey this time is to keep on walking. Which makes me wonder if I’ll ever be a stable player in my life as an immigrant. No wonder why Mario has a latino name. A guy going through places he’s never been before (otherwise he wouldn’t need help to see the way), among with friends from different nationalities and races and shapes: definitely not stable. Mario, I feel you. In ten days I’ll get home to pack up and leave one more time. Robotic steps towards the end of a phase. Collecting special effects to defend myself. Getting stronger as I learn the tricks not to die over and over again as I live. No ring in my finger nor rings to stop me: a basic outfit (yet super original and trendy) comfortable enough to all seasons coming. Does Mario have a soundtrack? Because I’m going mute this time. Dramatically and unapologetically in silence. It’s fun to think life is giving me one more chance to restart the game. I’ll lose, though. Because we always do. But the Mushroom Kingdom will never close its doors for the bad players. That’s why I love it there. See you in ten days, New York.

Burritonization Of The Brain | Chronicles Of The Young Immigrant Women

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Maybe I should try a tradition to begin this, since the following is a rotten process of a communication-dogma I-invented-dunno-why. This is edited: actually that past sentence was the last I wrote. Here I go. Dear Lord of the bilinguals (and plus), send some help to your daughter who has been living in three languages for years but has been trying-to-speak-only-one for the past four months. Is this about losing my English or my Spanish? No, it’s not. Because there was me saying thank you to the security guard in Copacabana. There I was, not remembering certain words in Portuguese and by consequence there was everyone around evil-laughing at my face. Or when I spoke for an hour using a word in Spanish that I could swear existed in my native language. Here’s the shit this is about: my feelings are on a strike against my confusion. By themselves they chose which language to be in and I did go with the flow. But not anymore. I have now decided it is my job to organize them. So we’re in a crisis. And I’m losing. Because I have absolutely no control. I’m puta at the fact I sometimes don’t feel satisfied with the way I'm telling a story, not angry. Puta. Got it? To me, people me irritando are not ironically querida, they’re sweetie. Tendeu? And sweetie-pie I do not have munchies, I have larica. I’m not smoking weed. I’m smoking um fininho. Um baseado. Um dois. By the way I’m going to take this opportunity to beg the United Statians: learn how to call marijuana correctly. Please call it “based on.” Call it “the little thin”. Call it “a two”. As I was saying, this is about me mixing everything in an attempt to put things in order. During this journey it seems like I have a million different ways of feeling and seeing my own life and emotions. I’m not meanwhile. I’m not por enquanto. I’m mientras. I’m not falling in love again. I’m not enamorada. I’m fudida. You see? I feel like the ingredients of my emotional-recipe are not matching. Basically my brain is now a burrito. I hate burrito. Never understood the concept. Why cheese on top of beans rolled in a dough? Please, why!!!!!!!!! Important to mention: I deeply respect it culturally. That being written, I just figured out one thing, there’s a mission I need to accomplish in the next couple of thoughts: respecting the burrito process of my brain. Which means being at peace with the Union Of Feelings who are now enjoying a latino meal. Maybe that’s a good start. It’s lunch time for these tired workers inside me. From now on I’m embracing (or trying to) the burritoning-revolution of myself. I love when I figure things out mientras escrevendo. Y nada más. 

Indie and Immigrant: a Testimony | Chronicles Of The Young Immigrant Women

Nalu Romano

Through the course of this I’ll be assuming you know who Lana Del Rey is. In case you haven’t been blessed by her religion yet, I sincerely suggest you’ll take a moment of your day to listen to the word of God. We both know you’ll do anything to escape your duties, or hell, or both, that’s most likely why you’re still reading my column – just do it. By the way, if you do read me, please let me know somehow. Doesn’t have to be a big feedback, an airplane banner will do. I feel alone here. I feel alone writing in english. I bet Lana Del Rey never felt alone in a language. Most likely because she invented it. And also because words seem to be dancing out of her mouth whenever she speaks. Although that’s very poetic it isn’t why I’m talking about her. Regardless of her sexy yet immaculate existence, what intrigues me the most about Lana is that she is a New Yorker, better said as Brooklyn Baby, who’s absolutely in love with California and will never leave somewhere else again. Imagine the guts (and butt) a woman has to have to actually trade public transportation for rented scooters. Imagine being happy everyday with this decision. Imagine your genetics were practically made out of the Brooklyn Bridge material yet you only write about San Francisco, like, what in the actual fuc*? Magically, she found her artistic place when she started to sign her love for the beach and palm trees and mustangs and west coast’s beers, all very tragically romantic. As tragic as should be every romance you have happening too far away from your mom. Now imagine living on the fault of your mom and San Andreas at the same time. Basically she’s living every immigrant’s dream: to be making money out of the drama that is being away from home but loving it. Lana Del Rey is not an immigrant nor should be treated as one – is the property in which she talks about the state she loves and lives, even though that shi* isn’t that magic at all, that blows my mind. I simply love the way she brings the lifestyle surrounding her to topic whenever she has a chance. I’m a New Yorker all the way and will never understand the perks of breathing fresh air. I love that tiny-and-soon-sinking piece of land. For two months I've been in Rio de Janeiro, writing about who I am when I’m here. Always Lana-Del-Reying my feelings for New York. Brothers and sisters, tragic is the only way possible to describe what it is to be geographically in love. Blessed be Rey. May the lord don’t open any more faults. Amen.

I’m Busy Inside of a Cat’s Belly | Chronicles Of The Young Immigrant Women

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When I was younger (five minutes ago) I thought life couldn’t go on without me. My naive egoic head is leading me towards madness ever since I came to Rio de Janeiro to stay a couple of months. Living in New York City is by far the weirdest challenge for a young adult who believes they’re the center of the universe: everyone there hopes for the same. Being young means trying to control everything around you, especially for this generation as there isn’t a lot of reference. You see, teenaging already sucks, but for us it sucked differently, because we suffered digitally in jeans-to-jeans outfits. Our future looks tree-less, water-less and intelligence-less but hey! at least society understood that low waist jeans were the biggest cultural mistake ever. Which kinda gives me hope. Taking back the control of this narrative, having roots in a country rather than the one I chose to live in, teaches me everyday that peace of mind is never an option. I pretty much think they will be no such thing as being fulfilled for an immigrant. I get really mad when life happens without me. By life I mean things I know. And by things I know I mean whatever I could care about. People die when I’m not present. Buildings are sold. Avenues disappear. Babies are born. Babies grow and they won’t recognize me. New memes are replacing me in my group of friends. My group of friends are not even the same. These friends have new friends and I don’t like them. How dare the people I love are living their lives without me? How come the city that I was born in doesn’t need my bus ticket? How come the city that I chose to live in is not missing my presence in the subway? Isn’t it terrible having to let go of knowing and participating always? Having to choose where you’re losing? Being an immigrant is not like an incomplete puzzle. It’s being the lost piece under the carpet and getting eaten by a cat who will run away in the middle of the night and come back three years later as if nothing happened. Now that I’m older I no longer think life shouldn’t go on without me. I’m sure it cannot. Dear world, you can only spin when I want to. Thank you very much.

New-New York City | Chronicles Of The Young Immigrant Women

Another day walking in the empty and new New York city. I know all corners of Gramercy and the face of every worker in my favorite-bad-deli, just as they know my type of Tuesday bagel. I never really asked their names and I wonder if knowing it would’ve made my chest feel any better when I passed by their closed doors– I don't think so. No apocalyptical movie could guess how sad Manhattan would look like without certain stores and faces. I wandered through the avenues in no rush and there was absolutely no one bumping me. No one to send to hell. In the platform, there was no tourists looking down&up&right&left -all at the same time- to send to hell. There was no me, not a single angry-me, realizing that the hell was being in this station during rush hour. Because the only me standing there was the one surprised that, the hell itself is an empty train smelling like Clorox during rush hour. I didn't know it was possible to feel sad about good sanitation. To me, the scariest part of my life almost-post Corona, is realizing how much I loved the messy, ugly, city of the not-yet-stars. Lonely hearts are now behind masks (as they should) and the fact that I can't tell who's happy and who's sad is taking away from me the magic of my rides home; where I could create many stories just by looking around. Stories that I would write later on during my Tuesday break at my favorite-bad-deli. Thinking that I might never experience again the exact city I chose to live in, is bittersweet. However, I've no doubts the city is improving and that New Yorkers can and will adapt wonderfully to the distance–– by finding new reasons to send people to hell. Corona is silent but its consequences are yelling at me every time I walk out there. I usually yell back. But there's no one to be mad at. This is a type of yell back: a mediocre chronicle that should've been typed in a keyboard full of crumbs of the most horrible bagel in Gramercy. Though I'm ending it in hopes that I'll find a way to read through the masks.

For The Boy I Used to Babysit, Reuben | Chronicles Of The Young Immigrant Women

I never thought about taking care of kids until I moved to New York and caught myself searching for a job that would help me pay for college, at eighteen years old. Most latina women and immigrants are working inside family houses, in different positions. Not always the experience with the parents is the best, for numerous reasons, but I’ve heard lovely stories about their relationship with the kids. As expected, every family in Manhattan is different, meaning you can get to experience literally a world of cultural shocks. You’ll see a lot of kids on the island, growing with aspects of their nanny’s background. I personally love it. Although every story is as peculiar as you can imagine, one thing they have in common: dealing with kids have brought love, light and the company lacking in their life abroad. Many we hear about negative and abusive stories–– which are definitely worth sharing as these workers deserve the voice and rights denied more often than expected, but today I’ll share my connection with this little boy who changed me forever. I hope to hear more narratives of this kind. This is a letter I wrote him the day I left, many years after watching his legs, mind and heart grow bigger and bigger (so did mine)…

“I say I love you every Monday, every Wednesday and every Thursday. And when I say I love you, I say it at least thirty times in all languages I know. I do this to make sure you will remember it on Tuesdays, Fridays, weekends and holidays. Not only this–– I wanna make sure you know that, when you say you love me the whole universe; that lives between your arms; inside your chest; and up your ticklish belly; I love you back all of it and maybe more. Actually, definitely much more. Sometimes I wonder if this isn’t too much for someone who doesn’t reach the bookshelf yet. Then you smile and I feel foolish for thinking there will ever be a love you can't understand.  If only you, Reuben, could reach and hug everyone’s legs in the world, the way you hug mine everyday when I open the door... what a giant piece of peanut butter and jelly sandwich the world wouldn’t be! Can you imagine a world where everybody sings Sesame Street as their national anthem? I bet Elmo wouldn’t build any wall. Besides (there it goes, a word you love) how great wouldn’t the world be, if our biggest fear was a big blue furry monster who eats cookies? I wish the world was made out of your little hands drawing a picture. Reuby, you are the best thing I’ve ever heard saying avocado and hating potatoes. With you and the million rocks you pick on the floor to wash and take care of, I’ve learned so much about choosing which ugly things we will turn into something beautiful. Ruby Buby, you always have so much to say about anything alive... and sometimes your little head, that I love to smell after the five thirty shower, sometimes this head, can’t even follow all of this you need to express. To see you trying is my favorite thing to watch. I want you to know you woke up the best part of me. The part that can still pretend we are nothing but butterflies, flying through the lobby as fast as we can, so we can catch the elevator first, to have a chance to press the button ourselves, because that is independency–– pressing the button ourselves even though it’s always going to the same place, is independency too. This reminds me of how good it is to, at least pretend we have some control over things. I like to think imaginations like yours will save future souls and trees. Rub-bub, when you look at me through your goggles before swimming lessons, and you wish me a good time watching you swim, then adds “be safe!” I know it’s because you want me to wish and tell you the same. This is my every-thursday-reminder that, if we wanna hear something we must say it first. Bubs, I love you one of the best loves I’ve ever felt. The one that’s proud of your scissoring skills, even when along with peeled crayons and million pieces of paper all over the floor. My dear boy, I don’t even think you should be around the many insane things I’ll write throughout my life. However, whenever I try to describe a pure feeling, I need to make sure a part of my love for you is going to be present. I speak my heart out now, because you are a huge part of it. Reuben, I love you and I wish I could write this thirty times. Even though I  think this phrase hasn’t been very original lately, I do need to have this written. It’s to make sure that when the time comes for you to reach the bookshelf, you can read this one yourself. Then you’ll know how much you still are important to me. And to everyone that ever gets the luck of being around you. If you are reading this now: hello, Reuben! Or I should say: Oi, Reuben! I love you every single day.”

I Know a Woman Who Was Born Twice In a City She Wasn't Born In | Chronicles Of The Young Immigrant Women

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The year is 1935 and a ship just anchored in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Three Italian ladies in their dirty dresses and tight shoes are setting foot in their new life. They're 21, 15 and 12 years old respectively. Their parents found a spot for them to escape the war and I still don't know the reason why the family didn't come together. Later on, and Freud will explain it better than I, this had a tremendous impact in the way my dad was raised. "Italy invaded Ethiopia!" they heard an Italian man scream in melancholic excitement, as they walked down the ramp. The girls were tired of hearing about Mussolini, the sound of his name reminded hunger and fear so they decided not to hear any more news about their land. Besides the pain of being an immigrant in the land of Getúlio Vargas, the girls grew up to be happy, funky and free. Don't ask me how they ended up marrying military men, I'm trying hard not to mention Freud again. Long-short story, the fifteen year old girl became my dad's mom and then my grandma. I didn't have the chance to meet her or hear her stories or complain about the back problems my dad and I got from her. The rumors are that she wrote poetry. So did my dad. I guess writing is the only good thing running in my Italian blood, because unfortunately all the health problems I have came from that ship. I'm glad having disproportionate boobs and back pain is not the only thing we had in common. Grandma died young in a breast reduction surgery. My mom decided to reveal this little secret when I decided I would do one myself. By the way, my mom didn't get along with my dad's family and for that I don't know a lot. In a way is good–– I can create my own version of the story, like I did in the first paragraph. When I was little I was secretly obsessed with my dead grandma, I had a doll that looked like an old lady and I gave it her name. I'd sleep with it every night until my dad died too. My grandma's older sister, a very talented artist, also died very young. My siblings and I shared the room where we hung the crying Italian Pierrot she painted and dedicated to her sisters. My mom always thought it was too much of a sad picture to be in our wall, yet she never took it down. My grandma's youngest sister is the closest to us. She was the one who embraced the Brazilian culture the most. Yet, she didn't give up on her two Italian last names like her sisters did. Her cucina is no mama mia! It's still Rome, but during carnival. She comfortably lives in Copacabana and refuses to move out. Never tell sad stories and curses like the true carioca that she is. Whenever she talks about her sisters, it's always to make them look like the best women in the world. She was like my dad's second mom and "loved him more than her own son" in his words. Burying my dad was extremely hard for her, it's been 11 years and still every time we talk about him, she cries with a smile. My siblings and I don't see her as much as we would like to. I remember the first Christmas we spent together after a while; the same night we figured she lost some hearing; she bursted into tears while looking at my sister's face. Aunt grandma couldn't stop screaming while measuring her nose and eyebrows. It's because my sister was basically born from my dad's spit, all of my mom's work doesn't even show. I miss that night, even the part when we spent 25 minutes at the door waiting for her to come open, as she couldn't hear the knock or our desperate calls. Just because (or specially because) of her excitement when she finally let us in, like that was our first attempt. I haven't seen her in a long time. The last time we talked was on facetime, when my aunt (my dad's sister) died. "I keep burying everyone!" she said and chuckled. Two weeks ago I learned that she contracted the COVID. Italy's collapsing and my first thought is: "she will died with the country she was born in." Immediately I decided to write this and use my thought as the title of this chronicle, in an attempt to get rid of the guilt I was feeling for not being there. But here I am, happy to be editing the last paragraph right now. It's with relief that I delete my goodbye words as she is strongly recovering. I can end this saying she got sick with the country she was born in, but in 1935, Rio de Janeiro gave her the magical power of living. It will be really hard to take Ilse Romano out of Copacabana.

Ode to The Time I Was Right About Our Existence | Chronicles Of The Young Immigrant Women

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When I was a little girl, I used to say my dream job was to be retired. I remember my Mom said it was impossible because this isn't a career or something that you go to college for. My Dad didn't say anything. Because he was already dead. It would be really weird if I had a memory of him saying anything about it. Anyways, I had arguments and I could convince anyone that this was my real vocation. "You don't know what you're talking about, my Grandpa is." Boom. They're done.  But with time I've realized I needed a better and more stable plan for my future.

By the age of 13 I decided I was going to be a millionaire. Because in my head there were only two things I was capable of doing: nothing and destroying society. Yes, I was a very happy teenager, thank you very much. Everything changed that night when all of my friends were smoking pot and Lucas told me to give it a try. I've realized I didn't need that much money to be happy. I basically just needed a few bucks and a garden. And if you're thinking that I have changed my mind about that: you're completely right.

I have no skills for gardening. However, by looking for people that do have skills and a garden, I've gained one more ability: networking. Throughout my childhood I always did art. That funny little artsy kid that will paint your wall and draw you as a dinosaur with three eyes then give a TED Talk about it, was me. I was either impersonating people or grabbing my siblings by the hair to make them my puppets. But acting, singing, playing guitar and especially writing, wasn't a plan for me, I thought they were just part of my story.

I don't remember the exact moment I decided to accept that being an artist was the only thing I could do, but I remember clearly that people would try to convince me to go back to plan A: retirement. Deciding to live my life as an artist I was also giving up on plan B: having a paycheck. To make things a little easier for myself, I decided to immigrate. Why not? Like it wasn't difficult enough to make it in my own language and culture.

For a long time in New York, I could only put in practice the plan C: smoking weed. I did everything but the plan D: to live as an artist. Gladly, I've realized in the very first few months that I would be an artist regardless of how my life goes. I had to agree with myself from the past: it's a part of me. At length, I don't have any plans. And that's not because of a beautiful realization; though I have lots of them; and you should know plan C became a lifestyle; it's because of… the pandemic. Hell yeah, I know you thought you were finally reading a 2020 chronicle that didn't mention the quarantine. The truth is, I'm only writing this to say the entire world is doing exactly what I thought my future could be. Right now, we are learning how we are supposed to be doing absolutely nothing, society is being destroyed by us, all we can think about is getting high and suddenly everyone thinks they can live a life as an artist. I was right this whole time.