The true spirit of Carnaval

A little background first. I'm a biologist. I got my Ph.D. studying birds on the far northern Alaskan tundra for six years, and later got a job studying endangered species of all kinds - the glamour animals like elephants, whales, and grizzly bears, and also the less famous ones like Malayan sun bears and tree kangaroos. However, the whole time I was in grad school, I was playing music on the side, and I needed it - for sanity, for balance. I played 3-string Hungarian bowed bass, Turkish zurna, American cowboy tunes, Macedonian tambura. I attempted to learn Turkish, Hungarian and Bulgarian (failed at all three, though I can still say "A mouse ran up your ass!" in Hungarian.)

Slowly the biology job got dull. I was stuck in the lab all by myself with no one to talk to. I was stuck in the lab all by myself with no one to talk to. I was stuck in the lab all by myself for seven years with no one to talk to. Am I repeating myself? Suddenly one day I found samba - literally, one day, I heard drums.... That was that. Not too soon after I decided to quit my biology job and go to Brazil to study music for a while. I'd just seen my sister almost die, and recover, and then almost die again, and the entire time she was going through all that, I'd been stuck in the lab by myself with no one to talk to. Enough with the lab work. You only live once.

There's a term for what I did: Leaving Science. I was Leaving Science, and once you step off the science train, you can never get back on.

You have to understand here that I was good. I was really good at what I did. (Think of it like, it wasn't just any old Ph.D., it was a really shiny, glittery, sparkly Ph.D. It was a Grupo Especial Ph.D.) So to walk away was pretty dumb.

Two years later I'd had the most extraordinary adventure of my life and I found my way back to the United States. I found a stunning band that I wanted to play with: the Lions of Batucada, based in Portland, Oregon. I came to Portland for a summer, and then a spring, and then another summer, and stayed, and stayed. So, Portland turns out to be a hopping town! Next thing I knew I was in 5 fantastic bands and surrounded by excellent musicians and living in a series of lovely, happy houses full of musicians and painters and velvety-furred dogs.

To my surprise I landed a job teaching biology at a local university. I hadn't thought I'd be competitive again for a biology job, but apparently they didn't mind the rather odd-looking two-year gap on my CV. Apparently they didn't mind that I was also a musician! Cool! Maybe there is a chance for me yet! I got the job, and it went STUNNINGLY well. Turned out I LOVE science, it was just the nonstop lab work that had been killing me. Turned out I LOVE teaching. Turned out I am really good at it. Turned out teaching is a HORRIFIC amount of work, too, so horrific it kind of killed me. But I love it and love my students.

This fall I had to make a tricky decision. My school was about to advertise for a permanent position, a tenure-track job. Should I apply? Do I want to turn this into a permanent thing? I could stay in Portland then. Maybe I could even buy a house. Settle down. Really be there for my students, and my bands, and my fellow faculty; really stay in Portland year-round and dig in and be part of it, instead of constantly zipping around. (which has been getting rather tiring just btw). My colleagues at the department were strongly urging me to apply, telling me they wanted me to stay... students coming into my office constantly asking if I would please apply for the job and please stay. Everyone saying, stay, stay, stay, please apply! Pleeeeeeez!

The only negative was... If I applied, and if I got the job, I'd likely have to stop doing these musical trips. The school's academic schedule clashes with all four of the major annual musical events that are part of my life: Carnaval, Bloco X (Germany), California Brazil Camp and Notting Hill (London).

The economic collapse, or the "world crisis" as the Brazilians call it, changed the playing field. Colleges and universities across the country saw their endowments lose half their value... and with it, half their operating budget. Across the nation most colleges instituted strict hiring freezes and pay cuts. Desperation penny-pinching measures right down to counting the pencils and removing half the light bulbs from every office. It was clearly now or never; either apply for this job while it was available, get on the science train and STAY on it this time, or risk not getting a job at all. Flitting around the world is fun and all while the money lasts; but eventually you need to put food on the table.

I decided to apply, but I knew I needed one last visit to Brazil. To wrap things up; to say goodbye to my friends; maybe to parade with an escola, at last. So I decided to end my temporary job by the act of taking spring semester off, so that I could come to Brazil one last time.

I left the temporary job and applied for the permanent one. I was selected as one of the top 3 candidates (out of over 50, I forget the exact number) to interview. I slaved over the research and teaching statements, slammed through the sun bear and elephant manuscripts to beef up my CV, did days upon days of interviews (WITH SWINE FLU! DURING FINALS! It was an epic week), talked with the dean and provost, did a great job talk (if I do say so myself!). It all went beautifully. Want to see my job talk? It is so lovely! It is all about sea turtles and whales! It is great! I knew I had done well. But I also knew it wasn't a sure thing. In this job market, nothing is a sure thing, because, no matter how awesome you might be, the other candidates might be even awesomer, right? And in academia, when they're hiring people for a permanent tenure-track position, it's not just your general level of awesomeness that matters but also little tiny specifics, how well you "fit" with the other faculty and the culture and the extremely specific needs of the department. Maybe the school needs someone who can teach botany, but you only know animals. Maybe they want someone who doesn't need a very expensive lab, but your research requires an expensive genetic sequencer. Maybe it's a Catholic school... and you're not Catholic... which is not supposed to matter, technically, but, you know how things are. Maybe they want a nice young post-doc fresh out of grad school who will just stay put on campus, doin' that campus thing, just staying put and doing their job, trusty and steady, for 40 years... not a middle-aged crazy lady with only a few good years left in her, and a proven habit of flitting off to Brazil one out of every six semesters (one out of six semesters is practically like zero semesters, right? If you round down) And, uh, missing all the pre-semester faculty meetings to go to California Brazil Camp, and, um, la la la, missing graduation to go to Bloco X. These are just purely hypothetical examples, of course.

Anyway, I applied for the job, ended my temporary position, cleared out my office in December, put my stuff in storage, and headed off to my last trip to Brazil, waiting to hear whether I had the job in the fall or not.

So anyway, it was the eve of Carnaval, Thursday night, and I'm reading the email, which is actually a totally sweet, very kind and nice email, and I'm realizing: Oops, I didn't get the job after all... nope, it went to somebody else (as you have gathered by now) a much younger person who was that elusive "better fit" with 40 years of service ahead of her. and only then did I realize how much I'd been assuming that I'd get it. And then it hit me: Whoa! I am homeless and jobless! In the worst economy in a century! In the worst job market for biology teachers in at least fifty years.

And then a second thing hit me: I am probably going to have to leave Portland. And the Lions, and Rio Con Brio, and Samba Gata, and Axe Dide. All my Portland friends. Pauline and Jay and Brian and Tanya and Christina and Hans, and, and, I couldn't even think of the correct names, I was getting so upset to think of leaving them all. My whole Portland life. The big blue room in the big house that I was going to move into. The little garden I was going to plant. Dammit, I am sick of being a nomad... Apparently I was really, secretly, deep in my heart, really looking forward to putting down roots because I was suddenly BUMMED about having to move again. Other tragic losses kept flitting into my mind - oh my god, the elephants!! I'll have to leave my elephants at the Oregon Zoo! And oh my god my STUDENTS that I had such plans for working with next year. My uber-cool students; I'll never get to see what they do next. They won't coming running into my office with elaborately color-coded spreadsheets of data and post-its flying all over. And the beautiful classes that I'd taken such trouble designing and that were just..about... perfect, now to be shelved and likely never used again.

And then a more urgent concern hit me: I have NO JOB. I am SCREWED.

I was supposed to go out to Lapa with a friend - with Brian actually - but (ironically) was so upset at the thought of leaving him all my other Portland buddies that I did not actually get around to going out to see him. See? It's already started!!!

I finally fell asleep.

The next morning, Friday morning, the key to the city of Rio de Janeiro was ceremonially handed over to the Rei Momo, aka King Momo - really the old greek god Momus, the masked god of satire. He takes over the world for the weekend of Carnaval and turns everything upsidedown. Chaos reigns, till Ash Wednesday when he has to give the key back.

I woke up a few hours later thinking: I have NO JOB. I am FREE. I am not screwed, I am FREE.

Something will work out. I'll cobble something together. I'll study birds in Alaska again, I'll teach bird anatomy at the Audubon Society, I'll do international consulting, I'll go straight to Thailand and study elephants there, I'll FINALLY WRITE MY SAMBA BOOK... I'll be broke, I'll be nomadic, but I've got a couple of great safety nets (in Seattle and Boston, respectively), and I'll be free. Eventually I will cobble something together, and I will be able to return to Brazil again... maybe I will work with sea turtles, or teach English (hey, I have always wanted to do that!), apply for a Fulbright...hey, maybe the Max Planck Institute! and Bloco X, and California Brazil Camp, and Notting Hill. And Brazil.

I got out of bed. Ben showed up asking "Carmelitas?" Yeah, Carmelitas! The grand old bloco of Santa Teresa! Parading today at 2pm, one of hundreds of Carnaval blocos parading this weekend, the weekend of Carnaval. I put on my tiara and Ben put on his silly cape made out of a Brazilian flag (we decided he was "Super-Cara") Dandara showed up. Andre was coming too. Andrezza sent me a text inviting me to a different bloco ("Concentra mas Nao Sai" - "it gathers but it doesn't go" - this is the bloco that never quite gets around to actually parading anywhere). I will play with Monobloco tonight. Tomorrow the escolas start and I will parade with Imperio Serrano and Cubango. All of the entire last year has rolled to this one point, this weekend, this day: the day of the escola parades. Think of all of that work and effort and hoping and dreaming, an entire year's work, for one little day, one moment. Then you just toss it all away, you toss it and you just walk away. That's Carnaval. I adjusted my tiara and we headed out the door.