Siri in Isolation

Nanda and Victor 11/2014 When our romance was very fresh Oswaldo took me to meet his stepfather, Alfredo Bonino, and Nanda, Alfredo’s second wife. The year was 1978 and when Oswaldo and I had met in Ithaca N.Y, he had no idea about my family and Danish culture, just like I knew nothing about his family and roots. We drove into the NY Lower East side and parked the car in a lot on the corner of Lafayette and Great Jones. Stepping into the huge loft on 48 Great Jones was like entering an Aladdin’s cave hung with huge paintings, objects on every surface, and tall sculptures touching the ceiling.  First impression of apartment by Mary Bauermeister - one of many stunning pieces in Nanda's collection I did not know then that this event marked my entry into a very different world, where Oswaldo and I would move to Brazil and continue our life together there. Nanda and Alfredo did everything they could to make me feel comfortable, and our stay with them included a New Year’s Eve trip to a ...

When I came to Brazil in August of 1977, the hectic traffic and my lack of a working command of Portuguese stopped me from driving. I had driven in several countries, on the left side in Ireland, and even in the chaos of New York City, but I had never seen traffic like Rio de Janeiro’s. At the time Oswaldo had persistent low blood pressure and we used to joke that he only needed to drive down to the end of the congested and honk-filled Avenida Copacabana to immediately resolve the problem. So, in 1978, when people abandoned their cars to throw themselves into the Carnival festivities, I took out our borrowed WV Variant and drove all over the becalmed city streets, getting my bearings, and regaining my confidence as a driver.   I was reminded of this today, all these years later, when on the very last day of Carnival, I drove myself in scant traffic to go for a walk by myself in the nearby botanical garden. I haven’t driven a car in over a year due to a stupefying combination of two...