past lives

and the beautiful details of the current one 🍋🍊🍋🍊🍋

I dedicate this text to all the people who, for whatever reason, find themselves caught between cultures. As a foreigner to your home country, you experience countless forms of ‘home’, of nostalgia, and the mixed feelings that are part of that. Every day I’m reminded that all the places I lived in, exist within me, somewhere. And one of the most latent forms for sensing it is through food. What food takes you back to a past life?

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Whenever I visit Brazil, the place I grew up in, I crave the very mundane details of my previous life there. During the weeks I am there, I indulge: I visit street markets, and I eat at nostalgic restaurants. I wait in line and sit in traffic. I complain about the weather. I eat coxinhas and pasteis, and have cold beers in small glasses at crowded bars. I see new and old friends. I notice new buildings, “this neighborhood has changed so much”- I tell everyone.

I was there in January, and I soaked up as much as I could, because I already know, that once I’m gone, those fresh memories keep me grounded, and to be very frank, they make me feel like I still belong.

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On the way back home to San Francisco, I watched past lives on the plane and sobbed my eyes out next to a stranger.

I’ve had my fair share of “past lives” moments. Naturally, it’s what happens when you move to another place, and distance starts to unfold, and unfold…

But during these years living abroad, my experience resembles more “everything, everywhere all at once”: in my brain, I experience all of my past and current lives at the same time.

It happens like this: little things trigger big memories. Sometimes it is food, sometimes discreet habits. Sometimes it is the clouds in the sky, sometimes songs. When I speak Spanish at the Latin American market; when I’m preparing Brazilian tapiocas in the afternoon; when I say sentences half in Spanish, half in Portuguese.

I’m back in California now, living through the last weeks of winter.

Every morning after I wake up, I warm up some water and prepare myself a mate. It’s my morning ritual, it’s what dictates the beginning of my day. I pour water and sip as I write down my dreams and other existential questions, waiting for the caffeine to wake me up.

The winter season in California gives life to the most beautiful citrus fruits: juice oranges, mandarins, and grapefruits.

I couldn’t resist and made myself a citrus mate, specifically, a grapefruit mate. To do this, I carve out the flesh of the grapefruit, and put the yerba inside the fruit, using it both as a cup and to add flavor to the mate - something a lot of purists condemn. But I have been doing it at least once a week since.

Mate de pomelo is a typical summer treat in Argentina, and just the idea of it immediately takes me to very hot summer afternoons by the pool.

But I’m in San Francisco, and it’s winter here, and it’s been raining all day long. So I sit by the window, contemplate the weather, and find joy in that moment, witnessing my universes colliding.

my past lives, my current life.

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Citrus Mate “Recipe”

Ingredients:

• A large citrus: grapefruit, red pomelo, or oro blanco work very well

• Yerba mate (if you live in SF, you can find yerba in most Latin markets in the Mission, or Bernal Height Cutlery)

• A bombilla

• Warm water (or cold water with a dash of lemon juice)

Step-by-step

Cut a slice of top layer of the citrus, about 2cm from the top, until you see the flesh. With a knife, carefully remove the interior of the flesh, and save it for later use. At this step, be careful to not cut through the bottom of the fruit.

Fill about 8o% of the interior of the fruit with yerba. If you fill it up to the top there won’t be enough space for water, and it might overflow.

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For my birthday week, I wanted to share a little bit of what goes on inside the mind of a fellow Pisces. I hope this week you find time to dream a little bit, cook some good food, and enjoy life as it is.

Photo credits: Zaira Asis