Order and Progress

The words that stretch across the starry sky of Brazil's flag mean "Order and Progress" and come from the French philosopher Auguste Comte's positivist motto: "Love as a principle and order as the base; progress as the goal." Soon I will be hurtling through a starry night sky towards the country that waves this flag.

"Order and Progress" 

Tomorrow I begin my journey. Flying all night, I will reach Brazilian air space by Thursday morning. I will land first in São Paulo, one of the world's most populated cities. I will not have a chance to explore this great city, though, as I will remain in the airport to catch another plane to São Luís in the northeastern state of Maranhão. After meeting up with my phD advisor and having a little lunch, we will board a boat that will take us to a smaller island called Alcântara. Thursday night, far from the Colorado Rocky mountains, I will sleep near enough to the Atlantic ocean to hear the sound of waves.

Packing bright colors

Packing good books

For many years, I have dreamed of seeing this country. It is almost surreal to be packing my things, mentally preparing to arrive in a place I started believing only existed in books and songs. I imagine Brazil to be a place in which history and future intersect; standing in one place, one is able to see yesterday and tomorrow all around.

The only book I've written so far: my passport

It has been almost ten years since I last ventured outside of US borders. Since my last adventure abroad, I have lived in three different US states, earned 2 postsecondary degrees, tried my hand in the nonprofit and the corporate world, and married my soul mate.

I am older and perhaps even a little wiser, which means that traveling seems to present itself in a different light now; I feel I can comprehend with much more clarity what Italian writer Cesare Pavese meant when he said "Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things: air, sleep, dreams, sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it." I am more aware that traveling is a "brutality" but I am also more aware that it is a privilege and a precious gift to encounter the things I imagine reveal the eternal...

Another change is that I am not traveling merely as a tourist, but as an academic, participating in conferences and working with research groups on potential articles and books (and of course, on my dissertation). So while I will be encountering Brazil for my first time, I will need to know a good deal of things about it already (such as the language). I am terribly excited and terribly nervous.

I will not know until I get there how much access I will have to the blogosphere, but I hope to be able to provide at least one update while there. Wish me luck!.. and until next time, keep those petticoats a-rustling!