SOOTHED BY NATURE
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...