I Rio

From so many little corners of land to be born into, I was thrown to chance in the midst of the wealthy mistress and the maid, mothers of the favela dweller with a belly shriveled by wind. In the midst of this whole world, I sprouted up in Rio de Janeiro. My family is almost gypsy-like, I've had more zip codes than I have years of life, I've lived in so many houses that I don't even remember anymore. Not for any modern reason – lack of a roof over my head, the need to wear a uniform or a suit. It's that in this globe so full of haste and with border lines previously unimaginable, the present is separated from us very easily: business talks fast and there is here without much effort. But the main cause I choose to blame can be none other than the Carioca spirit – and this attitude of mine, I know, has a Carioca touch. If we never stop in a city, it was either because of the desire for horns blaring in front of the waves, or the hope for calm on the potholed dirt roads.

Things of our time: we are forcibly assembled pieces of different puzzles. Identity is fragmented and fluid – it evaporates. In the same river, twice? Never. And I, zigzagging through the curves of the state, as it had to be, grew up seemingly rootless, a strange miscellany of the places I passed through. The accent, interspersed with the expected hiss and a strange presence of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, is in fact naturally from Rio de Janeiro, a child of different interiors. Cruel doubts plagued my childhood, like "adedanha" or "adedonha" – curiously, Word corrected both – "joelho" or "italianinho". And look, as if geography weren't enough, we're in an age of information at the touch of a nanotechnological finger: from an iPad, it's easy to discover the Melanesian production system, exchange ideas with someone in North Africa capable of refuting news, watch a Barça game in real time, learn how to make nachos, Google Andy Warhol's work and compare it to Oiticica's, or count the bricks of the Great Wall of China. The world, so unequal and diverse, is almost one. How to have an origin?

I remember back then, when I lived in Maricá, my recently retired father would take me to the state capital. Being a latecomer, I was lucky that he and my mother were from a generation with their feet firmly on the ground – Seu Evandro, the most Carioca (Rio de Janeiro native) of all Ceará natives; Dona Regina, eternally from Quintino, a childhood friend of Galinho (a famous Brazilian TV personality). At least once a month, he would take his old [by the way, falling apart] blue Passat and insist on showing me that city repeatedly: my soul would sing, I would see Rio de Janeiro. Between arms pointed towards the Balança-Mas-Não-Cai building or the Petrobrás building, in his usual itinerary, nothing could be more magical than feeding the pigeons in Cinelândia. Nothing – in life, nothing will be.

I cried at Salgado Filho Airport in Méier. I was rocked to sleep in Engenho Novo, specifically on Rua Vaz de Toledo. I ran around in diapers in Cabo Frio, along Praia do Forte beach. I learned to fly kites and play soccer in Maricá, near Boqueirão. I had my first kiss in a traditionally preserved Hi-Fi bar in Resende. In Angra dos Reis, between yachts and fishmongers, I realized that the glorification of inequality didn't fit within me. I truly understood the concept of friendship in São Gonçalo, eating X-Tudo sandwiches at Pracinha Zé Garoto. Today, I'm learning to be responsible, from Barreto to UFF in Niterói. I've grown up, I no longer feed the pigeons. Unfinished, perhaps tomorrow Paris or Bangladesh – but the foundations are truly Carioca, bro.

If before, on holiday outings to the Lagoa Naval Club with my cousins, my chest would fill with air, perhaps because of the trees, certainly because of the happiness, today I swell it when I take a train to the stars. Under each bridge, in a UPP operation in the tourist-driven favela, in the faces of Wellingtons and Sandros, I find it strange that Christ looks so far, so far away: with arms so open, is he protecting someone? I see a Rock city that has been redefined or is meaningless.

However, there is no more irrefutable fact in any pole or tropic: the city, a purgatory of chaos, is also one of beauty – if God exists, he must have rested on the seventh day over here, the true Garden of Eden.

Aesthetic beauty, when I look outwards: the arches of Lapa and the retired razors of the rogues. Any wave merely contemplative in the Lakes Region. Unparalleled Ipanema girls. An island a day to explore in Angra. A parade at the Sapucaí at least once in a lifetime. A cobblestone pavement in Paraty, to stumble upon, intoxicated by stills and Jazz. Sugar mills in ruins in guava-eating lands. Otherworldly contemporary art at the MAC. The beauty I don't know, but belong to. In short, from Leme to Pontal, there's nothing like it in the world.

Above all, there is poetic-affective beauty when I look inward: Maracanã, the stadium of tears from the 50s and my first greeting to the Flamengo fans. Carnival: sometimes a toothless, smiling mouth, sometimes a release of pent-up emotion, a democracy of happiness – even so, Rio de Janeiro remains beautiful. Rua do Ouvidor, the street of so many Machado de Assis verses. To the city-squares, with their two streets: there is no ugliness, only an inattentive gaze. Something I don't have: even disliking red lights, even the sultry heat in the traffic jam on Avenida Brasil, shaking the landscape, becomes a picture for an optimistic gaze. Saquarema with the taste of New Year's champagne, of instant noodles, of the salty sea, of card games. Feira dos Paraíbas and the first time with blood sisters. Any neurotic funk beat and memories of the 90s with my foster sister, of heart and soul: in that place, in that location, her gaze was beautiful. The cool weather of Penedo with the taste of Casa do Chocolate, Finnish ice cream, and family—a social cell and a window to the spirit. The beauty lies in the tangible experience of chatting with Drummond (even if in statue form), bumping into Chico running in Leblon, seeing oneself in an episode of Maneco to the sounds of Vinícius and Tom.

With all due respect to Heraclitus, as time passes, I take my steps, I change, and this place changes too, but it doesn't leave me, it doesn't leave – I'd even say it doesn't leave anyone. Because Rio is here, the water runs through us. In truth, it's not we who live on a land, it's a land that lives on us. And if I am me, I am more me because I am Rio de Janeiro. May the new technological times serve not to create tribes of the self, but may they bring the Carioca closer to home, may the world be more Rio. Let them laugh!