My meeting with Fernando, my accountant, was originally scheduled for 3 p.m., but last night he asked me to move it up to 9 a.m.

It’s funny how things fall into place. I usually have a class with Elisa at this time, but on Monday she asked to move it to Friday, as if the universe were clearing the way.

The accountancy office sat on the eighth floor of a building on the corner of Avenida Presidente Vargas, one of the most important streets in Rio de Janeiro’s city centre, and Avenida Passos, just around the corner from the Central Bank building where I’ve spent more than a decade teaching classes. I must have walked past that building a million times.

The reception was a tiny space that opened onto a bigger open-plan office, rows of computers stretching back, maybe half of them staffed at that moment.

At the far end of the room was a small meeting room, where Fernando greeted me: a man in his mid to late thirties, casually dressed, warm and easy to talk to.

The meeting ran for almost two hours. We talked about his firm’s services and, more importantly, the benefits of setting up my new company, ‘Teahogui’, through them, especially knowing the first year is going to be tough.

I tried to negotiate a few more benefits, since I know it will be difficult early on, but he said this was already the most he could offer. In the end, I thought the terms and conditions were good, and I could accept them.

The meeting went well overall. Now it’s just a matter of deciding the right time to open the company. One important point that came up was name registration: in the past, having a .com was enough, but now you also have to register the trade name, or marketing name, with INPI, the Brazilian government body that handles this.

When I get home, I’ll register it myself through their online platform. I already ran a name check, and thankfully, ‘Teahogui’ wasn’t taken. I’ll probably file the registration in the next week or two.

I doubt anyone else is likely to register the name any time soon, but it’s better not to be sorry later. I’m meeting Alex on Friday to talk it through.

The meeting also made one thing clear: we’ll need to be very well organised with money, since we’ll be operating as an international intermediary. Receiving and sending funds has to be quick, easy, and efficient, which means we’ll need a third partner to handle the financial side of ‘Teahogui’.

I can see my role clearly: overall concept, running the company, and marketing. Alex would handle operations, the site, and the platforms, and a third person would take on the financial side. It’s clear as day to me, and I’m glad I’ve figured this out now rather than later.

I spent the rest of the day teaching and copying old ‘The Long Gringo’ blog posts into Descript.

The plan is to get everything up to July in there (more than 150 posts, covering the first half of the year), ready to become videos for YouTube over the next six months. If the channel does reasonably well and gets monetised, some of that money can go straight back into ‘Teahogui’.

I want all the posts copied over by the end of this weekend, so that next week I can start transcribing and editing them in batches. Slowly but steadily, things are coming together. ‘Teahogui’ is starting to take shape, and after a year of just intending to, I’m actually using Descript for video editing.

It took me a whole year to work up the courage, and now that I’ve started using the platform, it’s not the seven-headed monster I imagined it to be. It’s a shame I waited so long, because every day now brings a new, rewarding challenge and another piece of the learning curve.

It’s remarkable how often we self-sabotage, building up problems in our heads that were never really there.

In bed by 11p.m.

Thank you

Thank you for reading. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments.

Richard

Photos by Richard George Photography

The post Opening a Company | A Day With My Accountant first appeared on The Long Gringo.

It is Sunday, and Yasmin is still with me. She will head back to her mother’s this afternoon, then come stay again later in the week.

Yesterday we had lunch at a small Mexican restaurant in Praça Mauá. Normally, we eat at a simple per-kilo place near my apartment in Santo Cristo. The food there is good, honestly excellent for the price, but a per-kilo restaurant is never cosy or welcoming.

It is hard to talk at ease in a place like that, especially on a weekend, when what you really want is a bit of quiet and room to breathe.

The Mexican restaurant gave us that room. We talked, daughter to father, in a way that felt unhurried, and I think Yasmin needed it. I think she needed to say some things that had been sitting heavy in her for a while, feelings and thoughts she had not had the space to unpack.

I think it was good for both of us.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been carrying a deep, nagging sense of guilt about going no contact with Julie.

I know I needed to do it, but the guilt has been hard to sit with, at times overwhelming, and this morning it hit harder than usual. I think yesterday’s open conversation with Yasmin stirred something in me too.

I cannot fully explain it. All I know is that I woke up with such a heavy weight of guilt that I unblocked her number and sent a short message, apologising for doing it. I was not trying to open a door back to something, or to reconnect. I just needed time and space to gather my thoughts.

What I understand now, or think I understand, is that Julie, in moments of anger and frustration, does not know how to communicate without causing hurt. She does not stop to consider what the other person is feeling. It is almost as if her real goal in those moments is not to communicate at all, but to wound, to belittle, to put the other person down. Only then does the job feel finished to her.

I do not believe you have to hurt someone to feel complete, or right, or whole. You can say what you need to say, defend what you believe, without leaving a trail of damage behind you.

What I am describing, in the simplest terms, is assertiveness: standing up for your point of view and saying what you think or feel without setting out to judge, belittle, or hurt the person across from you.

This pulls a thread back to my childhood. Our father left when my brother and I were young, and separated from our mother. We stayed in contact with him for a while, until eventually he gave up on us completely.

After a lot of reflection, I can say honestly that my mother was, and still is, a narcissist, or at the very least deeply toxic. I had thought that going back to England, at her request, in her old age, might be different this time. It was not. If anything, it became clearer than I remembered.

Going back further, to when I was a child, I remember my mother beating us almost daily, with whatever she could get her hands on, and me more than my brother. The punishment was never really finished without at least two, three, sometimes four slaps across the face.

One memory stands out clearly. We were all packed into my grandfather’s car, ready to leave for a family holiday in Tenby, Wales, with my grandparents along. We were still outside our house in Wollaston, in the West Midlands.

I cannot remember what I said or did to set her off, but she hit me across the face, not once, several times. It was obvious even then that she was not going to stop until she felt she had hit me enough.

It was so clear, so plainly wrong, that my grandmother, her own mother, told her to stop and said out loud how disgusted she was by what she was watching: a mother who needed to punish her child by slapping his face over and over, who would not feel the punishment complete until she had delivered enough of them.

What I am trying to say, and maybe not saying it well, is that some level of discipline is normal. As parents we have to set boundaries, because children without limits grow into adults who cannot function.

I have never hit my daughters, or their mothers. But then and now are different times, and even by the standards of then, what my mother did went far past discipline.

Maybe slapping a child was seen as ordinary once. But what my mother did, pushing punishment to that exaggerated, repeated extreme, was not discipline. It was cruelty.

That kind of cruelty, that need to go further than necessary, says less about the child being punished and more about the person doing the punishing: their insecurity, their need to hurt someone else past the point of reason. I recognised a smaller version of that same pattern in Julie.

If I was not dancing to her tune, the knives would come out, the slurs, the belittling, sometimes loud, sometimes quiet and covert, but aggression all the same. Left unchecked, it grows like an untreated cancer, and it will take your self-esteem, your sanity, and your sense of worth with it.

What I am saying is that I saw pieces of my mother in Julie, and that is why I had to go no contact. Nobody talks enough about the part that comes after that decision: the guilt that floods in once the door is closed.

I believe people who behave this way need to hurt others to feel strong, so they never have to look inward. Looking inward would only remind them of their own emptiness, their own low self-esteem, maybe even self-loathing.

Still, the guilt and grief of going no contact became too much to carry, so I cleared my conscience, unblocked her, and apologised, not for her sake, but for mine. We have to keep looking inward, not outward at everyone else.

In bed by 10 p.m.

Thank you

Thank you for reading. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments.

Richard

Photos by Richard George Photography

The post Blue Skies, Buried Guilt | A Sunday in Santo Cristo first appeared on The Long Gringo.

It’s Thursday, and we’re approaching a long weekend.

Everybody is beginning to slow down with classes, though journaling and video editing are going full steam ahead. In six days, it will be my 60th birthday, and I’m feeling mixed emotions.

The most obvious feeling is wondering where the time has gone. Looking back, it’s as if I’m remembering, reminiscing, analysing, and trying to understand somebody else’s life rather than my own.

What little I remember from my childhood is a complicated mother and an even fainter trace of my father, more absence than presence, spending more time away from our home than in it, more in other people’s houses, or out in the street and at work.

The relationship I had with my grandparents on my mother’s side, especially with my grandmother, my mother’s mother, was something else. What a woman she was.

Probably the most important woman in my life, so far.

It was strange that, the last time I was in England, my mother tried more than once to put my grandmother down, to damage the image I had of her, even though she knew how deeply I admired her. Each time she tried, it was so obvious, so transparent, that I simply listened and said nothing.

Many times in life, when you see somebody trying to manipulate or even gaslight you, and it’s so obvious, it’s better to watch, to observe, and say nothing, rather than confront them or demand an explanation.

Later, when I moved to London, I found a job on my first day, knowing I didn’t have the money to go back to Birmingham or rent a place. I lived on the streets for at least a month, sometimes in a homeless hostel, sometimes rough, before I finally found and rented a place of my own.

And then, finally, coming to Brazil to chase a dream, a country that has been my home for almost 40 years.

It’s been a rollercoaster of disappointments and deceptions, but also of many happy, memorable moments. Along the way came two daughters, a school, and thousands upon thousands of experiences. Some good, some not so good, but it all tied to the path I chose.

It all feels like it happened to someone else, especially when I think about London. What a time that was. There was a lot of suffering and insecurity, but it was also a special phase of my life. In a way, I was happy; I didn’t realise it. I was almost oblivious to how special that time was while I was living it.

Now it seems that everything that happened then, and after, and coming to Brazil, is like an embroidered tapestry, filling in the holes, the loose ends, the lines and the spaces with the thread of my life and my experiences, stitched onto a canvas already drawn.

I first came to Brazil, to São Paulo, where I lived on two separate occasions, divided only by before and after meeting Cibele, before settling in Rio: a bachelor’s life after Cibele, then meeting Nalva and creating the English school in Copacabana.

How crazy is all of this!

Nalva is a reincarnation and a younger version of my mother. What I’ve learned from my relationship with Nalva is that the one good thing to come out of all the stress, suffering and loss has been Yasmin.

The school I had, The Right Way English School, was loved by everyone, even though it was never financially successful. It helped pay my way and my dependents’ for 20 years, but it never reached its full potential.

Some of that was probably down to me, my own circumstances, my limitations, and some down to the place: Copacabana, Brazil. Running a business in Brazil isn’t easy, especially in Rio. I’ve always considered Rio one of the hardest cities in the country to run a business in, given the economic, social, and political problems.

I honestly believe that nothing really grows solidly and healthily in Brazil, not yet, and if it does, it’s temporary. Draw too much attention to yourself, achieve too much success, and the government, or somebody else, will find a way to cut you down to size.

Even large, traditional companies are either in serious trouble, have already gone under, or are going under. And here I am today, with a blog that few people read and a YouTube channel that even fewer watch.

Yasmin turned 18 last year, so both my daughters are now adults.

From an 80–90% standpoint, I think I’ve done my part as a father. Yasmin still needs some guidance, and I’m here for her; if Jessica needs it too, she knows where to find me.

I’m still paying rent, and I’m a man without a home of my own. My mother transferred her house into a trust fund in my name. It’s clear she did it not out of love, but out of spite towards my brother.

The truth is, inheriting property is too easy, and having property rights is too convenient. It’s not quite the same as having built it yourself, and that’s a shame I sometimes feel, one I still haven’t fully made peace with.

If I’d stayed in England, it would clearly have been easier for me to get a place of my own, and that’s always the mental tug-of-war I feel between acceptance and the shame of questioning myself.

We are always winging it, and here I am, arriving at 60, still winging it, just as I have in all my other lives, as I mentioned before.

In bed by 10 p.m.

Thank you

Thank you for reading. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments.

Richard

Photos by Richard George Photography

The post Turning 60 in Rio | Family, Loss and Home first appeared on The Long Gringo.

It’s Monday, the first day of December, and this year has flown by, taking time, and a piece of my life, with it.

I’m feeling slow today. My body aches and creaks, probably from all the exercise over the weekend, though I suspect the 0% beer isn’t entirely blameless either. Even at a fraction of the calories of the real thing, it still gets me.

On Saturday and Sunday I put away five or six long necks, and by today I could feel it, psychologically and physically, especially the morning after.

Switching from normal beer to 0% seemed like the answer: all the ritual of drinking, none of the drunk, and minimal side effects. To an extent, that’s true. I don’t get drunk. But I still feel slow and swollen, same as with any beer, especially after a few.

And today I’m certainly feeling it. My thinking isn’t as sharp as a Monday morning deserves, and physically I’m a step behind myself.

I got through everything on my list, but my body wasn’t exactly flexible about it. Don’t get me wrong, today has been productive, especially in the second half, once the weekend finally started wearing off.

This morning the gluten from all that golden liquid was still working its way through my system, and I spent the day making frequent trips to the toilet, releasing, I hope, most of what the weekend left behind.

The scales don’t lie. On Friday I was 95.5 kilos. This morning, almost 98, purely from the weekend, and I hadn’t even eaten excessively.

I had a lovely lunch at Nalva’s with Yasmin on Saturday, and on Sunday I kept it simple and cooked for myself. So it wasn’t the food. Which brings me to the real point.

“No half-arsing it”!

I think it’s an American expression, but the idea is universal: don’t do anything by half. And it’s exactly where I went wrong with 0% beer.

I thought switching to alcohol-free would let me dodge the downsides of drinking, and to a limited extent it has. I don’t get drunk, though I still get a little dizzy sometimes. It has fewer calories than regular beer, and I bloat less than I do with the real thing.

But it’s not 100% perfect. I still feel dizzy at times. I’m still swollen. And the day after, I still feel rough. Which means, basically, I’ve just found a more sophisticated way to half-arse it.

The real truth is simple: if I don’t want the effects of drinking beer, I have to stop drinking it. No beer. It’s not rocket science. There’s no escape, no excuse, no clever workaround.

The same truth applies to almost anything negative in your life. There’s no in-between, no halfway. It either is or it isn’t.

When HIV appeared in the late 80s, one of the anti-AIDS campaigns in England didn’t lean on condoms. It leaned on abstinence, full stop. AZT didn’t exist yet. It was a new disease that terrified the world, and the only guaranteed way to avoid infection through a normal sexual relationship was not to have sex.

No half-arsing it!

The same goes for pregnancy. If you don’t want to run that risk, don’t take it, because after the tears, the regret, and the arguing over whose fault it was, the fault was always yours.

The same goes for life and everything we choose in it. There’s no half-arsing it. Either you commit fully, whatever it is: a relationship, a business, your work, a project, or you don’t do it at all. Sit in the middle, and you’ll eventually pay for it. Life always collects. That’s one of its hardest rules.

The real problem is that most of us don’t want to see what we’re actually doing. Being honest with ourselves takes a kind of humility most of us would rather avoid, so we look the other way instead of doing what we know, at some level, we should.

In bed by 10 p.m.

Thank you

Thank you for reading. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments.

Richard

Photos by Richard George Photography

The post No Half-Arsing It | A Rio Monday, a 0% Beer Hangover, and the Rule That Runs Through Everything first appeared on The Long Gringo.

It’s Friday, and it’s pissing down. It’s been raining all week, with more forecast over the weekend and right through next week.

We’re in the middle of the carioca summer, when it should be in the late 30s to mid-40s and boiling. It isn’t. Every grey day stuck in the low 20s is one less day of Rio’s infernal summer heat.

Yesterday I spoke to a pupil whose family just sold their flat in Recreio and bought a bigger one in Barra da Tijuca, the next neighbourhood over, inside a condominium with the works: swimming pool, gym, supermarket, tennis courts, the lot.

The move from a normal residential building to an enclosed condominium is really about their 2-year-old son, who gets to use the facilities and play with other kids somewhere safe.

This is the first time I’ve lived in a condominium in my 30-plus years in Brazil, and so far, it’s good.

It has its advantages and its disadvantages, but for a young family, the conveniences and infrastructure make it very good. I live on the 4th floor, looking inwards onto the condominium’s courtyard, where everything happens, rather than outwards to the street.

Being on the 4th floor, with the flat positioned almost exactly in the middle of the building, I can see everything that happens: the courtyard, the pool, who’s heading to the gym, who’s coming and going, the mini market, the five aside football court right below me, who’s playing volleyball or foot volley on the beach, and the sand volleyball court on the other side of the courtyard. Not much gets past me.

But this is not the real point.

Back to Victor, who bought that new apartment with his wife, Marcela. Because of the nature of my work, and maybe just who I am, I’ve come to know a lot of people over the years, so friends, pupils and others often ask if I know someone, or somewhere, whether it’s a place to eat or somebody who can do a particular job.

Victor and Marcela need the floor of their new apartment retiled, and probably plenty of other work done, before they move in rather than while it’s being refurbished.

Victor asked if I knew a tiler, a tradesman. In England, I do. Here, no. I’d already put him onto a painter I knew from when I was dating Katia in Copacabana.

I know Elizier from the condominium where I live. I always thought he was just a carpenter, but I ran into him today by chance at the local per kilo restaurant, and he told me he and his team can handle everything to do with refurbishing a house or flat, tiling included.

I quickly arranged to send Elizier’s number to Victor, and Victor’s to Elizier, straight after lunch.

So what is the point of all this?

As many times before, I get a real buzz from helping people or putting people together, connecting someone who needs something with someone who can give it, basically resolving problems just by knowing the right person.

I really like doing this. In the past, I’ve thought about opening an agency, maybe even a digital one, to bring together people with a problem and the people who can solve it.

Maybe I should actually do it, or maybe it belongs inside ‘Teahogui’, since ‘Teahogui’ is already a digital agency for teachers, professors, guides and hosts. Why not other professionals too?

Food for thought!

All I know is that I enjoyed helping them both: Victor, who needed work done on his new flat, and Elizier, who can do it with his team. If the two of them end up working together, even better. Either way, it’s all good.

I just felt good doing this!

Be kind and be happy. If you cannot be happy, still be kind, but never be naïve.

In bed by 10 p.m.

Thanks for reading. Do you get a kick out of connecting people who need each other, too? Tell me in the comments, and while you’re here, explore my other posts.

Richard

Photos by Richard George Photography

The post Rain, Rio and the Buzz of Connecting People first appeared on The Long Gringo.

It is Friday, exactly one week since my tooth extraction, and today I take the last of the medicine.

Carnival has filled Rio’s streets, but my week has been much quieter than the city around me. From last Friday to this Friday, it’s been carnival, and I have worked and stayed home more than anything else.

I went out once or twice to walk around the surrounding neighbourhoods. Street parades passed through the area, and crowds of people were revelling in the streets, joining the processions or making their way to and from them.

With only a few classes on Thursday after Carnival, I have had more time to focus on my blog and YouTube channel.

My mornings have been reserved for exercise, swimming and some skipping. My early-morning routine has changed a little, replacing skipping with swimming, which is both good and bad.

The change is good because swimming is excellent exercise, and this is probably the first time in my life that I have done it regularly. I swam reasonably well at school as a child, but that was 40, almost 50, years ago.

Since then, in my adult life, I have swum occasionally in the sea or in a pool, but never regularly or seriously; now, for the first time, I am, and I’m enjoying it.

The bad part is that swimming is replacing skipping.

Sometimes I manage both, but it is difficult. It is a reminder that our time, energy and resources are limited. We cannot do everything to the fullest, so choosing one thing often means giving up another, at least for a while.

I love skipping, and I’m reasonably good at it. In some ways, I think it is more effective than swimming. However, while I am living in this condominium, it makes sense to make the most of the swimming pool while I’m still here.

At weekends, I can usually fit in both: skipping first, exercise next, then swimming to cool off. But the precise routine matters less than continuing to move. They are all good for me, especially at my dinosaur age.

Most men my age have given up or do far less than I do, so if we commit ourselves daily, we are already profiting.

The intensity depends on our mood, condition, and how we feel each day, but at least we are doing something. Perhaps this is what life is really about: doing something, especially something that helps us improve, directly or indirectly. What matters is not finding the perfect activity or path, but continuing to act.

Whatever we do will bring obstacles, problems, and setbacks, but they’re part of the game and the process, and ultimately test whether we pass. If we pass the test, we move to the next level. If we don’t, we stay where we are until we find a way through. Otherwise, we keep hitting the same brick wall until we learn to improve, adapt and overcome it.

We supposedly learn through mistakes or suffering, and mistakes often bring some form of pain. If we are wise, we eventually become better people.

Life is brutal, and whatever we choose will be hard in one way or another. Every path brings consequences and some form of suffering, directly or indirectly. In the end, it is a question of acceptance, getting your shit together and facing reality as it is.

Be kind and be happy. If you cannot be happy, still be kind, but never be naïve.

After a quiet week of recovery, work, exercise and reflection, I was in bed by 10 p.m.

Thank you for reading. Have you ever had to set aside one good habit to make room for another? Share your thoughts in the comments, and please explore my other posts.

Richard

Photos by Richard George Photography

The post Swimming, Skipping and the Choices We Make first appeared on The Long Gringo.

It is Sunday. I have been in my new flat for two weeks now, and in all that time, I have not seen Yasmin once.

She was going to visit that first weekend, but for some reason it never happened. We had not really spoken since, and last weekend I felt a little upset, or more accurately, disappointed with her. She sent me a message that said only, “Hello, is everything OK?”

No reference to my position as her father. Obviously, I am not just anyone in her life, and she did it on purpose to provoke me. I did not reply; I just let it be. Thinking about it, I used that same phrase when I broke up with Julie: “let it be”. More specifically, we were messaging, and I wrote, “Julie, let me be, please”.

It’s a powerful word, even though it’s short, and I don’t fully know what it means. Is it to stay away? Give me space! Am I not happy? I am not happy with you! This isn’t for me! What went wrong? What went wrong with us? Don’t say anything, because if you do, it will only make it worse!

Since my breakup with Julie, I feel like I’ve put myself into voluntary isolation. I’ve only been able to live alone for the last couple of weeks. Still, really, since our breakup at the beginning of July, I’ve been in a kind of emotional isolation, a numbness, waiting to enter physical isolation to complete this new phase.

I have consciously cut myself off from almost everyone.

The only people I still have contact with are Yasmin, Nalva, and Jessica, the most important people in my life. Even then, to a certain extent, they are no more than my pupils- people I have to stay in touch with to make a living.

This phase of my life was not a conscious decision; it just happened. Now that I see it clearly, I am embracing it. Julie has a lot to do with this. She touched me in ways no woman has in a long time. Even with her shortcomings, which I didn’t always agree with, and my own recurring flaws, what we had was amazingly special, and I am profoundly grateful for that short time with her.

My isolation and introspection are helping me come to terms with my past, my shame, and my repeated mistakes, the flaws in my nature that I need to face, treat, and finally understand.

I am getting older, like everyone else, but I hope it is not too late to repair myself and become a better version of myself that the people I love can still benefit from before it is too late.

Obviously, I am talking about the people around me who, in their own way, love me, care for me, and want the best for me, just as I want the best for them.

Sometimes we do not really know how important we are in other people’s lives until it is too late. Everything is so pushed, forced, and rushed! Nowadays, it is almost impossible to know what is true and what isn’t, what really matters and what doesn’t.

My trip to England opened up a can of worms. I was once in the car with Julie, and in my frustration with the situation, I said to her, “I am living in a toxic situation with my mother, and I have a girlfriend I can’t have an intimate relationship with”.

It was extremely frank, hard, and maybe a little insensitive, but true. These last few days, I have reread my journals from that time. They confirm how toxic the situation with my mother really was. As soon as she discovered I was going out with a woman, it became clear to me that she turned jealous, manipulative, and toxic.

And my beautiful little perfect woman, Julie. I was living with my mother, and she was living with her parents.

We had arranged to travel away for a weekend, but it never happened. It was not meant to be. In psychology, they say a woman will initiate and lead the way when she wants to get physical with the man she likes. Julie never did this, and it still plays on my mind, hurting a little.

I understand she was not ready for it. It was not the right time, or something was wrong. I asked her many times, but she always froze, deflected, or couldn’t really explain.

Obviously, I was doing something wrong too, and I apologise to her for that. Sex was never the be-all and end-all for me. What mattered more was the emotional intimacy, understanding each other well enough to build something good together, and sadly, that never happened.

I know she has her own problems, and she found it difficult to open up to me. Later in our relationship, as we tried to go deeper, it became clear that my inability to give her what she needed made it even harder for her to trust me.

I wanted her to trust me, but she could never quite find it in herself. I am not talking about trust around other women, though she tried to insinuate there was a third person who never actually existed. The trust I wanted from her was simpler: for me to feel confident enough to confide in her, and for us to confide in each other. But that never quite happened. It almost did, just not in the way I would have liked.

Sometimes I regret coming back to Brazil so quickly, maybe so abruptly, but on the other hand, it was necessary in the name of self-preservation and self-renewal. Now I’m in a voluntary, induced isolation, trying to know myself and who I really am.

In bed by 10 p.m.

Thank you for reading. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments.

Richard

Photos by Richard George Photography

The post Let It Be, Let Me Be | Voluntary Isolation first appeared on The Long Gringo.

We’re back home in Rio after three days in Paraty, the historic town about 200 km down the coast. It wasn’t quite what we’d expected, with so much rain.

Even so, we got to see a little of the town, and more importantly, Julie did too. We took a speedboat trip around the bay, visited some beaches and islands, and generally relaxed together, with a few good evenings in the bars and restaurants downtown.

It’s much hotter in Rio than almost anywhere else in Brazil, or so it feels. Sometimes I think Rio must be the hottest place in the whole country, which is probably not entirely true. I once spent a week’s holiday in Porto Seguro, in southern Bahia state, more than 1,000 kilometres north of Rio and much closer to the equator.

In theory, the closer you get to the equator, the hotter it should be. But when I flew back from Bahia and landed in Rio, the moment the cabin crew opened the door and we stepped off the plane, the heat hit us like a brick wall.

Rio was clearly hotter than Porto Seguro!

Parts of Brazil’s interior, including the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, are scorching. They’re home to the Pantanal, the vast wetland that’s legendary in Brazil and around the world as one of the most biodiverse, and hottest, places on Earth.

Further north, the Amazon rainforest straddles the equator itself, so it’s hot there too. From the Tropic of Capricorn all the way up to the equator, around 95% of Brazil is hot, and in some places, Rio included, it’s ridiculously hot, especially in summer.

In the morning I worked on the computer and uploaded a video to YouTube, which pleased me no end. I helped Julie with some housework, and together we unpacked and got everything back in order after the trip.

We headed out for lunch at our local per-kilo restaurant, and once again, Julie was impressed with the food.

Afterwards we took the VLT tram and then the metro down to the South Zone, specifically Leblon. I thought it was about time she saw one of the most exclusive neighbourhoods in Rio, if not all of Brazil.

We got off the metro at Praça da Paz in Ipanema, meaning to walk along the beachfront. It was hot today, too hot for Julie. The sun beat down on us with barely a cloud to soften it.

Along the beachfront promenade we walked in the direction of Leblon and São Conrado. At the far end of Leblon rises a mountain and the Vidigal favela, separating Leblon from São Conrado.

Avenida Niemeyer is the road that winds around and through that mountain, connecting the two neighbourhoods, clinging to the cliffside as it climbs.

Near the start of the avenue there’s a viewpoint with parking and a few kiosks where tourists and locals sit, eat and drink while looking out over both Leblon and Ipanema beaches. It’s a good spot to relax, take photos, and grab a bite.

We bought a beer at the first kiosk and found a table with a lovely view over the rocks and the beaches below. The big umbrellas gave some shade, but the sun still found its way through, and we were slowly roasting, Julie especially.

It was too much, so we moved on, heading into Leblon proper to make the most of the shade from the buildings.

Avenida Ataulfo da Paiva is Leblon’s high street and main shopping strip, just as Rua Visconde de Pirajá is Ipanema’s, both lined with some of the best boutiques and labels in Rio. Every so often as we walked, Julie stopped to look in shop windows or duck inside.

We stopped at Talho Capixaba, the well-known café that was once a favourite of Rio’s rich and famous. I’m not sure it still holds that reputation, but it was as busy as ever, and we sat down for two large coffees.

I wanted Julie to see Talho since she works as a barista, and I thought the experience would be useful for her, a chance to broaden her sense of the trade.

The coffee was very good. Not the best we’ve had together in Brazil so far, but very good all the same. We didn’t linger, and soon continued our walk towards Ipanema.

After about fifty metres we turned down a side street, and I remembered a famous cake shop nearby called Kurt, which I’d visited once before. I wanted Julie to see it too.

Inside, the shop was immaculate: the cakes, the Brazilian snacks, the décor, all perfectly arranged. Even the staff looked the part, hair pulled back, uniforms spotless, just the right amount of makeup on the women behind the counter.

What struck me was the owner, a woman well into her nineties, sitting outside and watching everyone who came in. The shop was already full, so she came in herself to serve us.

We hadn’t planned on having anything since we’d just had coffee at Talho, but her warmth won us over, and we ended up ordering more coffee and sharing a slice of cake.

Julie chose a lemon curd puff pastry. We sat outside under an old tree beside the street, drinking good coffee and eating an excellent lemon curd tart, in one of the best cake shops in Rio, in one of its best neighbourhoods, on a perfect day.

How good is that? We paid, and before leaving, I went back in to thank the owner for such a warm welcome.

Further down the street, I remembered that the old Odeon cinema is now a Decathlon store (you actually take an escalator down to get in, rather than up). We ended up buying trainers for us both, my treat, and an 8kg kettlebell, Julie’s treat for me. I’d always wanted a kettlebell to train with, and now I finally have one.

Continuing down towards Ipanema, we made one last, unplanned stop that turned out to matter just as much. Just off the main street is one of Rio’s most famous and traditional chopperias, Bracarense, a true carioca institution in Leblon and across the city.

A chopperia is a bar that specialises in chopp, Brazil’s light, cold draft beer, a bit like lager, still fermenting when it’s served.

I used to go to Bracarense twenty or thirty years ago, back when I had a lot of friends in Ipanema. We’d spend the day at the beach there and often stop by Bracarense on the way home.

When we arrived, there was a row of high bar tables and stools along the pavement by the kerb. The bar itself now has a glass conservatory you pass through to reach the main counter.

Bracarense was buzzing as always, every table inside full, people eating, talking and, above all, drinking chopp, brought round by an army of quick, soldier-like waiters in white, precise and unhurried, making sure your glass was never empty.

We chose to stay outside at one of the high tables. We ordered two chopps, enjoyed them, then ordered two more, and then two more again, until more than an hour and a half had passed and we’d lost count of how many we’d had.

I ordered a saideira for us both (the last two chopps, plus the bill). I wasn’t drunk, chopp isn’t strong, it’s a fairly light beer, but I was tired and ready to head home and relax. Julie, on the other hand, was in great spirits.

We crossed to the other side of the street and waited at the bus stop, and almost immediately a bus heading all the way home pulled up. It was Friday evening in the South Zone, so traffic through Leblon, Ipanema and Copacabana was heavy. The metro would, in theory, have been faster, but I didn’t have the energy for the crowds.

We got on the bus and, luckily, found two good seats. The air conditioning was working, so it wasn’t too bad after all. Within the hour we were home, and I was completely worn out.

In bed by 9 p.m.

Thank you for reading. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments.

Richard

Photos by Richard George Photography

The post Heat, Coffee, Cake and Chopp in Leblon first appeared on The Long Gringo.

Today is Tuesday, and it’s been a productive day. I journaled twice, worked on four separate videos, and got through my daily classes as always.

I have never felt so productive with video work. The truth is, I have only been doing it since October of last year, but even in that short time my output has grown enormously.

My journaling has come just as far. What used to take an hour or more to write now takes about half that time, and more importantly, the quality has improved. My writing, my vocabulary, and the whole way I put words on paper have come a long way since I started journaling.

Today is also the first day in almost two weeks that I have not been coughing constantly. Exercise has been on hold because of it, but I think tomorrow I will ease back in, starting with skipping and kettlebells, and swimming too if I am really back to normal.

Beyond the classes that have been part of my life for so long, my priorities right now are exercise, writing and journaling, and blogging and video creation.

Looking back, since I began each of these disciplines separately and independently of one another, it gives me real pleasure to see how much I have improved and evolved in each. The few people who have had contact with this new work of mine have acknowledged its relevance and worth, and that means something.

I have said before that external validation is not the final goal, and I still believe that. But when someone chooses, unprompted, to tell you your work is good, it is a quiet confirmation that you, I, or anyone else is on the right path.

Money isn’t the be-all and end-all either. It is welcome, and it certainly helps you keep going, but what matters even more is knowing for yourself that your work and your craft are good and relevant.

Think of how many painters, writers, and other talented people were never recognised in their own time, only later, and sometimes only after they had already died.

That does not change who they were or what they made. They were still talented, still creative, maybe even ahead of their time. What changed was time itself, and everything that shifts along with it: circumstances, situations, people, time again.

Thinking about it this way, time can work for us or against us, depending on where we stand and what we expect from it. One more piece fits in: truth, an important factor that lives alongside everything else in our lives. Truth is the fundamental, final partner of time.

Truth does not always appear when we want it to. It can be staring us in the face while we remain blind to it, not because we are careless, but because we are not ready yet, or because we do not yet have the tools to receive and fully understand it.

But given enough time and the real journey we follow, truth eventually finds its way to us. Not always as we expect, but what we once couldn’t understand simply reflects our capacity to understand at that moment. Over time, it becomes clearer as we prepare.

My whole life in Brazil, my daughters, past relationships, and more recently Julie, have shown me that, over time, who I am matters more than anything else, not for others, but for me, for you, for my well-being and yours, and for the well-being of those who truly love me and you.

Even though the skills I have picked up have not brought much monetary reward so far, I am certain they have made me better, not just for myself, but for the people who matter to me, in this short life I get to live on this crazy, complicated planet.

Be kind and be happy. If you cannot be happy, still be kind, but never be naïve.

In bed by 10 p.m.

Thank you for reading. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments.

Richard

Photos by Richard George Photography

The post A Productive Tuesday | Notes on Time, Truth, and Doing the Work first appeared on The Long Gringo.

It is the middle of the week, and I’m about to give an experimental class to a prospective new pupil.

Marcela, an ex-pupil of mine, referred Thiago to me. Marcela had to stop her classes in January because she’d just had Raphael, her premature newborn. Fortunately, both mother and baby were fine. I also teach Victor, Marcela’s husband and Raphael’s father, whom I’ve known for more than 15 years.

Thiago works in IT project management in São Paulo, like Victor, Marcela, and my other pupil, Fabio. Before the pandemic, they all worked entirely in person, going into the office every day. When lockdown hit, companies had to adapt fast. Now, more than two years on, most have settled into a hybrid system: three days in the office and two at home, or vice versa.

Supposedly, working from home makes employees, and more importantly, companies, around 30% more productive. And we all know productivity is one of today’s business buzzwords.

Back when I ran the school, I was dead against online classes. I couldn’t see it working. How wrong I was. These days, the idea of a physical school that people travel to daily or weekly seems almost unimaginable.

The whole dynamic of teaching has changed. On a human level, people still want to meet, talk and study face to face. But in practical terms, online is the future, or perhaps more interestingly, a hybrid model: mostly online, with the occasional in-person class or forum thrown in.

We talk a lot about how the internet has changed our lives, particularly retail. I saw it clearly on my last trip to England. I call it the Amazon effect. But it’s not just retail: the internet now touches every area of our lives, and the pandemic was the catalyst that catapulted it into every corner of daily life.

I scheduled the class with Thiago for midday. At five to, I sent him the link, and we began. It went very well. He’s a married man in his early 40s, an IT project manager living in a middle-class area of Rio, with a six-year-old autistic son.

To me, he’s a typical qualified IT professional who’s just had reality hit him in the face: the job market, his place in it, and the importance of English on the global stage.

He has invested heavily in himself: in his field, his career, his specialisation. But somewhere along the way, he either forgot his English or never took it seriously enough. Now that the job market is no longer geographical, borders are falling just like the Berlin Wall.

He’s a small fish in a much bigger sea, and if you don’t get strong quickly, you get eaten. Right now, for non-native speakers, English is the real superpower. If you don’t speak English, you won’t survive. You’ll be eaten alive, bones, nails and all, the way pigs devour a body.

Traditionally, historically and socially, Brazil is Portuguese-speaking, surrounded by Spanish-speaking neighbours, which makes it something of a cultural island. Oddly, French was long more popular than English among the Brazilian middle class.

One thing that’s been obvious to me since I’ve been in Brazil: the English schools have long marketed the language as difficult and sophisticated, something that takes years of dedication. That’s not true. It’s more of a sales pitch.

For minimum fluency in English, you only need between 1500 and 2000 words. Portuguese, by comparison, is a Latin-based language and far more sophisticated: to reach the same level of fluency, you’d need to know between 3500 and 4000 Portuguese words.

What makes English a little different, or trickier, is that it never stops mutating. It’s an animal that absorbs new words from other languages every year, a language in constant evolution, a monster that never stops growing. You only need around 2000 words for minimum fluency, but the full vocabulary runs to half a million words and keeps expanding every year.

For Brazilians, English has long been seen as a difficult, unattainable language from another planet. But English is easy. What makes it difficult, beyond what I’ve already mentioned, are the exceptions to the rules- the opposite of what you find in Latin-based languages like Portuguese, Italian or French.

In a Latin-based language, you can follow the rules blindly, and you won’t go far wrong. In English, you follow a rule, but somewhere along the way there’s an exception waiting to trip you up if you don’t remember it.

That said, the first thing I tell my pupils is that English is easy. It’s not a monster with seven heads, and if my brother can speak it, it has to be easy.

The experimental class with Thiago went very well. He liked it, and we agreed to start classes and to put a bit more money in my bank account. I get real pleasure from helping people reach their goals. Getting paid for it makes it that much sweeter.

Be kind and be happy. If you cannot be happy, still be kind, but never be naïve.

In bed by 10.30 p.m.

Thank you for reading. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments.

Richard

Photos by Richard George Photography

The post Small Fish, Big Sea | Why English Is the Real Superpower first appeared on The Long Gringo.