THE GREAT BAY

by LETÍCIA' SILVA (Brazil)

Making a local connection Brazil

I used to travel to Baía Formosa when I was a little, around 5 to 9 years old. I spent my whole childhood vacation traveling to this beach. Although time passed by, I remember now every single detail about this little province. I always got there by car with my family - and by that time my mom, with her beautiful black curly hair, was energetically singing “Você não soube me amar” by Blitz band. It was a classic, and I can still hear her voice. “Sing with me, honey” she always said - and by this time we were all laughing. So, seeing through my little innocent kid eyes, being in that place was just like buying new school supplies or singing alone at home pretending to be in a video clip. It was happy and sunny - and my cousins were also there. We played castles in the sand, volleyball, surfing, bury ourselves in the sand and lotsa other little adventures that often left us grounded. I spent a great lifetime at Baía Formosa, and now I can see that the name of the beach is just so appropriate - it’s a really beautiful bay. The sun was rising when me and my cousins went to the rudimentary kitchen, got some cookwares and went every single place in the beach house we used to stay, singing something as “good morning” and beating the metals so adults would wake up and drive us to the beach. It was just a familiar cozy place to be when you are a child. So the sun was always there, with fragmented clouds and a neutral blue color through the sky. I remember it perfectly when we went so deep inside the ocean that we got stuck between the rocks. The sea was rough and the waves were huge, or maybe I was too little. Anyway, I got scared. So my mom dived into the sea and got us back to the sand. We cried. I have joyful, dangerous, happy memories at this bay that just reinvent themselves when I put them out of my mind through words so a new listener will hear. Now, my look back to this place has changed. I’m changed. Baía Formosa has changed. I went there recently driving my own car. I listened to “Você não soube me amar” and I got speechless. Time flies. Almost 10 years have already gone. On the road, it was raining. And the more I drove on the road, the more my eyes filled with tears. Suddenly I didn't know if it were my tears or the rain that touched the windshield. I stayed at a cozy hostel. Seems like home. I got up early the next day, and it was a sunny one. Perfect time to wear my swimsuit, get some reading and a tan. I went to the central beach, all alone but in some way accompanied by my memories. The great Gatsby was on. “And so we went on, boats against the current, driven incessantly into the past”. I smiled at the book, saw native black people walking around with their families and remembered the past. I’m thankful for my memories. On that day I decided to walk just like the families I saw. I went somewhere else. I was surrounded by simple straw houses, where children ran in the middle of the mud road. Mothers, women and wives with clothes by the buckets to wash by a nearby river. The children were smiling in the air, as if that was the most genuine moment they had ever lived. And maybe it was. There was something going on in the eyes of those children. The little province had now a world surfing champion that used to live on those mud roads - Ítalo Ferreira. There was hope. And even if hope itself was not enough, it was the beginning. Children could be whoever they wanted to be. And they still can. At that point, in an epiphany, I realized I wasn’t a kid anymore. I had grown while the bay also grew, and I was warmed by the sun and the possibilities that life was offering and which would become memories some day.