Entre o som e o sentir

Tem um pedaço de mim

que aprendeu teu nome cantando
num refrão que eu nem entendia direito
mas sentia tudo

Era só som,
era só vento atravessando a língua
mas ficou
ficou aqui dentro

E hoje quando eu falo
não é só palavra
é saudade antes de acontecer
é vontade de chegar sem saber

Brasil,
você começou como música
e virou caminho

E eu sigo
entre o que eu sou
e o que eu tô virando aí contigo

Living a Magazine Life in a Newspaper World

If you took a snapshot of my life at any given moment, it might read like a chaotic news story.

A sudden move. A job left behind. A new direction that doesn’t seem to connect to the last one. From the outside, it can look unstable, even risky. Like something went wrong, like the pieces don’t quite fit.

That’s the nature of a newspaper story. It captures a moment. It simplifies it. It packages it quickly so it can be understood right away.

And in that format, my life doesn’t always make sense.

But a life isn’t meant to be understood in headlines.

Some lives are more like magazines.

A magazine isn’t about a single moment. It’s about a collection. A theme that unfolds over time. You don’t understand it by looking at one page. You understand it by stepping back and seeing how everything connects, even when the individual pieces seem unrelated.

That’s the kind of life I’ve lived.

There were times when I moved quickly, when I made decisions that didn’t follow a traditional path. If something didn’t fit, I didn’t force it. I changed direction. I reset. I trusted that there was something ahead that aligned more closely with who I was becoming.

In a newspaper version of my life, those moments might look like instability.

In the magazine version, they’re chapters.

Over time, something else becomes visible. A throughline. Not in the specific jobs or places, but in the way I’ve moved through the world. A willingness to adapt. A curiosity about what’s next. A refusal to stay in something just because it’s expected.

It doesn’t always look neat in the moment. But it starts to make sense when you zoom out.

And maybe the most meaningful part of that realization isn’t even mine.

It’s seeing how the people around me have started to understand it too.

There were times when I don’t think my life made sense to my father. The choices I made didn’t follow a path he recognized. It probably looked uncertain, maybe even concerning. Like a series of disconnected decisions without a clear destination.

But time has a way of revealing patterns.

Now, at 86, he’s been able to see enough of the full picture to understand who I am in a different way. Not through isolated moments, but through the accumulation of them. Through the consistency that exists beneath the change.

And that’s a gift.

Not just because he understands, but because he’s still here to see it. To be part of that recognition. To share in a version of the story that couldn’t be told years ago.

Living a magazine life means accepting that you won’t always be understood in real time.

It means trusting that meaning doesn’t always show up in the moment, that some lives require distance before they make sense.

In a world that prefers clean headlines and quick conclusions, that can feel uncomfortable.

But for those of us who live this way, the story was never meant to be told in a single article.

It was always meant to be read over time.

What Changed When I Started Talking to Brazilians Every Day

I didn’t expect this part.

When I started posting videos on TikTok and doing live streams, basically talking in real time with people as they watched and commented, I thought it would be about language. Practice, repetition, getting better over time. And that’s part of it, sure.

My Portuguese has changed. It’s faster now. Looser. I don’t stop every second to think about what I’m going to say. I don’t translate in my head the same way I used to. Sometimes I just start talking and trust that it’s going to come out close enough.

But that’s not the biggest shift.

What really changed is how I relate to people.

When you talk to Brazilians every day, especially people living in the United States and people back in Brazil, you start to notice patterns. The way people react. The way they joke with you. The way they correct you without making it feel heavy. There’s a rhythm to it that you only pick up by being in it consistently.

In the beginning, I felt like I had to get everything right. Pronunciation, grammar, timing. I would catch myself mid-sentence and slow down or stop. Now I don’t think about it the same way. I still care, but I’m not stuck on it. If I mess up, I keep going. Most of the time, that’s when people lean in more, not less.

There’s also something else I didn’t expect.

You start to feel like you’re part of something. Not Brazilian, obviously. But not completely outside of it either. Somewhere in between. And after a while, that space stops feeling uncomfortable and starts feeling normal.

It’s changed how I think about communication in general. Not just Portuguese. Even in English, I’m more aware of tone, rhythm, and how much of what we say isn’t really about the words.

Learning a language isn’t just about reaching a point. Fluency, confidence, something you arrive at. It’s more like staying in motion.

And honestly, that’s why I love living in that in-between space. That’s where learning never ends.

Language Lives in the Space Between Us

My first language-learning experience coincided with a moment of personal awakening. Growing up in small-town America in the 1980s wasn’t easy, especially as I began to understand myself in ways I didn’t yet have words for. Everything felt narrow, predefined. But that began to change one winter morning in 1984, when a new student arrived in my homeroom.

I’ll call him Kenichi, for the sake of privacy. He was the first person from another country I had ever met. His father, a Japanese military officer, had been assigned to the United States, and Kenichi was suddenly part of our quiet, predictable school.

The teacher introduced him as “the new kid from the other side of the world,” and something about that phrase lit up my imagination. As our eyes met, there was a moment of recognition, curiosity meeting curiosity. He smiled, and I smiled back, both of us aware that something new had just entered our lives.

While most of the class quickly returned to their routines, I couldn’t stop paying attention. Kenichi looked, sounded, and carried himself differently from anyone I had ever known. But more than that, he represented possibility. A door had opened.

At that point in my life, I felt isolated and disconnected. School had become repetitive, almost colorless. But Kenichi brought contrast. He was like a spark in a room that had long been dim. I didn’t fully understand what I was feeling, but I knew I wanted to be near it, to understand it.

When I saw him sitting alone at lunch, I made my way over. We didn’t say much that first day. Words failed us. But there was something else happening, something quieter. We exchanged glances, small laughs, shared confusion. It was awkward, but it was alive.

That afternoon, as I waited for my bus, he approached me and, in broken English, invited me to his house. I followed.

He lived nearby. When we arrived, he offered me ramen, and I quickly realized that our friendship would revolve around something simple and profound: naming the world together. He would point to objects, and I would say their names in English. He would repeat them, carefully, like he was assembling pieces of a puzzle.

That became our ritual. After school, we would walk through his home as if it were a map waiting to be labeled. He would speak in Japanese, I would respond in English, and somewhere in between, meaning would take shape. It wasn’t just about vocabulary. It was about building bridges, one word at a time.

Sometimes he played music for me. Sometimes we just sat and listened, letting sound fill the space where language still fell short. Other times, we would experiment with describing things we couldn’t easily name, trying to capture feelings, colors, or ideas with the limited tools we had. It felt like exploring an entirely new universe, guided only by curiosity.

Our friendship grew in that space of shared discovery. What started as simple exchanges of words became something deeper: a realization that language wasn’t just about communication. It was about connection, identity, and the ability to step into someone else’s world.

Over time, Kenichi’s English improved rapidly. The school noticed. Teachers were impressed. But what stood out to me was not just how quickly he learned, but how he learned. He wasn’t waiting to be taught. He was actively engaging, experimenting, absorbing everything around him. He was teaching himself, and I just happened to be part of his environment.

That realization stayed with me.

At the end of the school year, his father was reassigned, and Kenichi returned to Okinawa. Just like that, he was gone. But the impact he left behind was lasting.

He showed me that learning a language isn’t about memorization or perfection. It’s about immersion, curiosity, and the courage to connect despite not having all the words.

Years later, as I studied French, then Spanish, then Portuguese, I carried that lesson with me. Every time someone asks how I learned so quickly or so deeply, I think back to that winter in 1984 and to a friendship built not on fluency, but on the willingness to explore.

Kenichi didn’t just introduce me to another language. He showed me a different way of learning, and in doing so, opened a path I would follow for the rest of my life.

In That Room, Everyone Had a Story

The room was always full.

Rows of computers stretched from wall to wall, each one humming softly. The screens flickered with exercises, dialogues, and instructions that felt simple on the surface but carried weight for the people sitting there.

Some leaned forward, focused. Others hesitated before typing, translating in their heads before committing to a word. A few would glance around, not for answers, but for reassurance.

At the front, we moved between screens, checking progress, answering questions, helping when we could. But most of what mattered was happening quietly. It was in the pauses. In the effort. In the decision to keep going.

No one was there by accident.

Every person in that room had crossed something to get there. A border. A body of water. A line they could not uncross.

That is origin to this poem I wrote in July 2004.

---

All are welcome here
By Brian Schwarz

The ones who come from far away
And them, who cross the water near
All are welcome here

Those whose families plucked them to
And them, crossing the river in fear
All are welcome here

On flights of freedom or walks through hell
Or in the beds of trucks, shedding tears
All are welcome here

Though their equality’s feigned or just
Whether the law chides them or cheers
All are welcome here

---

Looking back, the room itself fades.

What stays are the people.

And the quiet understanding that starting over is never simple, but it is always human.

What My Mother Was Really Searching For

My mother spent her retirement chasing the past.

She would travel to Utah to work in the Family History Library, digging through records with a level of focus that felt almost obsessive. At first, it seemed simple. She wanted to understand her Scottish roots. She talked about visiting towns, churches, even imagining the possibility of finding a family castle.

But it did not stop there.

Her research began to uncover something much more complicated. Our family’s story was not just about heritage. It was tied to the broader history of the Americas. Migration. Power. Systems that shaped entire populations.

I remember asking her why she was so driven to keep going.

She would always answer the same way. “Because.”

At the time, I thought she was racing against time. She had survived cancer and understood how fragile life could be. I assumed she wanted to leave something behind.

But I was wrong.

“I’m doing it for me,” she told me once.

That stayed with me.

As I watched her work, I realized she was not searching for answers in the way I expected. She was not trying to explain history or judge it. She simply wanted to know how far back the story could go.

For her, it was not about conclusions. It was about discovery.

Now, as I spend my time connecting with people across cultures and languages, I see that same instinct in myself. The desire to understand where people come from, how stories move across borders, and how identity is shaped over time.

Maybe we are not trying to solve the past.

Maybe we are just trying to understand our place inside it.

How I Accidentally Fell Into Brazilian TikTok

I didn’t plan this.

At some point, without really thinking about it, I opened TikTok and started speaking in Portuguese. Not perfectly, not like a teacher, but like someone genuinely trying to connect. And something unexpected happened.

Brazil answered.

What started as a few videos turned into conversations. Then live streams. Then real connections with people across Brazil and Brazilians living all over the world. I wasn’t studying Portuguese in a classroom. I was living it, one interaction at a time.

It reminded me of how I learned Spanish years ago, not through rules and textbooks, but through immersion, music, and relationships. Brazilian TikTok became that same kind of environment. Fast, emotional, and real.

Music played a big role. Songs like Evidências were no longer just songs. They became shared experiences. When I posted videos with bilingual captions, something clicked. I was not just understanding the language. I was helping connect two worlds.

And somewhere along the way, this stopped being about learning a language.

It became about culture. About identity. About how people from different places find each other and build something meaningful, even through a screen.

Now I find myself talking to Brazil almost every day. Learning, listening, laughing, sometimes struggling to find the right words, but always moving forward.

I did not plan this journey.

But somehow, I ended up exactly where I needed to be.

If you want to follow this journey in real time, you can find me on TikTok at @obrianbrasil. That’s where I share daily conversations, live streams, and moments from my experience connecting with Brazil through language, music, and culture. Come say hello and be part of the conversation.

I Was Never Lost I Was Just Early

I recently went back and read one of the first posts I ever wrote on Tongue Twisted Traveler. The title was “Stagnant and confused,” and at the time, that’s exactly how I felt.

I wrote, “I’m having trouble picking a program,” and that line stayed with me. It wasn’t just about school. It was about direction. I felt pulled in too many directions but could not choose one path.

It was 2002. I was in my early thirties.

I had recently quit my job in journalism and was thinking about transitioning full-time into adult learning.

At the time, I was working in the language lab at Miami Dade College and had just been hired as a First-Year Experience coordinator. At the same time, I was applying to graduate school, trying to decide what direction my life should take.

I said, “everything I want to study relates to my other interests in some way.” That was the truth. Language, culture, global systems, communication. They were all connected, but I did not yet understand how.

Each day felt different. “On Monday I start leaning toward the study of linguistics.” Then, “on Tuesday I think I will study international relations.” By Wednesday, I was overwhelmed, thinking maybe I should “become a translator and just live my life through the experiences of others.”

Looking back, I was not confused. I was early.

I did not need to choose one path because my path was always going to be the intersection of all of them. Today, I live that reality. Through language, through conversation, through culture, I connect with people across borders in real time.

What once felt like indecision was actually curiosity without a container.

Now I have one.

And it looks a lot like everything I was searching for back then.