Rosane

So i've written bits and pieces about this kid, but i think at this point she deserves a full post, at least.

i met rosane last sunday. it was really random that we met at all. i met this guy thiago at the party and he convinced me to stick around. he brought me down to this post-party at a reggae bar,
where i was perpetually on the verge of leaving.

Rosane doesn't go out much. she doesn't smoke, or drink, or even curse much. she hangs out with lots of people, but only considers three people in her life to be true friends. Sunday night she went to the beach to surf with a few classmates (note, not friends), and they convinced her to swing by olinda on their way back. she normally never even goes to olinda, less to bars.

As she walked by about 20 feet away, we saw each other. i thought she was cute, but didn't really have the balls to make a move. apparently neither did she, so instead she asked her friend to go talk to me.

we hit it off, but only got to hang out for about a half hour before she left. The next day i called her up and was blown away by the phone call. she offered to take the bus in the middle of the night to see me (not the safest idea) and suggested dropping school and work for a few days so we could get a motel to check out a local beach. needless to say, i'm not used to this kind of attention. according to shaun's friend roberta, this kind of behavior is apparently not unusual for the local girls.

according to rosane, this kind of behavior was very unusual for her. she's not accustomed to making this much effort for people she barely knows, nor does she normally open up to people she's known for so little time.

she says that she likes galegos, guys with blond hair and blue eyes. but she seems to have been especially stricken by me. she keeps asking me to stay and be her boyfriend. she offered to move to rio so we could be closer together. she cried today while we listened to a Ben Harper song - She's only happy in the sun, which turned out to be surprisingly appropriate for the moment (it was fun trying to translate for her).

it's killing me. i barely know this girl. i feel like i'd be crazy to rearrange my life for her, but we get along together really well. i like her alot and she seems to REALLY like me, which i mean is kinda unusual for me. usually when i pursue girls, i either get nothing or a good friend out of it. that's what i've got, lots of old crushes turned good friends. my list of "one's that got away" is much longer than my list of past girlfriends.


so now i'm in the midst of a conflict. she seems pretty crushed on me. i can either allow myself to crush back, or i need to be careful not to lead her on. have i been leading her on? am i leading her on? has she been leading me on? maybe she's just on the rebound. she met me 3 days after breaking up with her boyfriend of over two years (she said that in brazil when people break up, it's usually long after things go sour; only when there's nothing left. still, the guy left her a lipstick message on her mirror one morning when she was out with me. did i mention he's a cop?).

i left recife this morning. she just wrote me saying...well, all sorts of intimate things i feel would be innappropriate to post here, but among them were the phrases "i didn't go with you to the airport so you wouldn't see me cry," "i need you," and "if you find a way to be with me, i'm here."

I can't shake the feeling that i might be letting something really good pass by for poor reasons.

I told her i had to go back to são paulo to earn money so i could travel more.

i have a little journal in which i jot down my thoughts. i track the ideas by number, not date, to keep it from turning into a diary. one of the entries in my journal expands on a value judgement i made about myself. i used to think that having a strong relationship with a woman was the most important thing in the world to me, but in traveling i've learned that i'm just not ready to settle down right now; i cherish my freedom. after this experience with rosane though, i've learned that the freedom is a huge tradeoff, completely sacrificing any possibilty for a relationship of the kind i used to pray for.

maybe my values haven't changed as much as i'd thought.

in my journal, i called myself a traveler, which i thought sounded free. rosane called me a nomad, which i think sounds lonelier. her assessment might be closer to the mark than mine.