Every day on this blog I am going to write about someone I know,
either a person I’ve just met whose life has a contemporary interest,
or a friend who has taught me something about myself or life around
me. Two years ago I published I Am Everyone I Meet which focused on
the spontaneity of encountering strangers and recognizing our common
attributes.
#1
I met Andre Bronzoni on the elevator of the Barrington Plaza in
Brentwood, California. He was riding up with his pretty, dark haired
girlfriend to her apartment with a view.
“Are you Brazilian?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, his English good. “I am a student at UCLA.” His
accent was rhythmic, unlike our staccato American speech. He spoke
easily.
“I’m looking for a tutor to teach me Portuguese,” I said immediately.
“Will you teach me?”
“Yes,” he said. “We must talk about it. Give me your phone number.”
He said, “your phone,” as if the two words were a melodious long
word—“yourphone”—which is exotic to American ears.
I gave it to him, not expecting to hear from him. But I did. He
called, a few days later, and we agreed to meet. From our first class,
I began to listen to his Portuguese closely, watching his lips move
differently from mine, because of where he grew up. I had never
thought that our lips move differently because of where we live in the
world, but they do. It’s true of people everywhere—Arabia, Russia,
China, Chile. Their lips and mouths make little movements that only
they do effortlessly. Once you think of it, it’s obvious. Imagine
someone from Scotland speaking Japanese and moving his mouth as he
does when he speaks Scottish.
There were several sounds I felt at once I would never learn—the “sao”
which must not be pronounced as ‘ow” and the rolling “r’s” which use
the tip of the tongue. I think American tongues like to lie flat when
we speak.
I had no idea how our learning a language would throw both him and me
into a literary intimacy. It is like translating a poem from one
language to another and getting insight both into the native language
and into the language you are learning. I began to learn about English
because of how he spoke, and about Portuguese because of how
falteringly yet with improvement, I spoke. And we became aware of our
personalities and our cultural differences.
He is a young dynamo, already having mastered being a chef in Brazil
and Miami, as well as finishing a B.A. in the U.S. and doing further
studies in marketing at UCLA. He cares about his future—thinking about
and building its security carries him along like a steam. He has a
certain joy of living that matches his good looks, but that can be
shadowed by his fear of insecurity.
I am 47 years older than he, but more comfortable with being
insecure. He wants and needs a good job to propel him into success. I
have a measured success that allows me to judge how he is appraising
his own future.
Everything about him is intelligent, even his slouchy dress and
unkempt hair. I embarrassed him once by telling him that he had
dandruff, which he denied but got rid of. He is philosophical,
energetic and like a wide-open eye ready to take in the world.
Not only am I learning Portuguese from him, I am reminded every visit
how serious and delightful being young is. He knows as little of his
future as I know of mine. In a few years I will have changed vastly,
age accelerating after 70, and he will mature but have many years to
live.
He makes me feel optimism because of who he is. Does every young
person in the world have his spirit and his shocking future that can
not be shaped yet? Probably, somewhere deep inside them. But he is the
embodiment of the individuality of youth, and I am that of old age.
He worries about his future. I believe in it. There is no doubt that
a far more dramatic and satisfying world than he imagines has already
gripped him. The fingers of my life are loosening and will, before too
long, start to let me go. I will find out about something even more
important than living.
But to participate in this world with a stranger and not a stranger,
with another person whose life force I can feel as he speaks
Portuguese so beautifully, is a gift of the moment.
James P. White
