This one is for all my expat friends who left something behind to build anew ❤️

Reentering one of childhood homes after 15 years flooded my whole being. Having these spaces that hold our stories is something most of us take for granted, until we realize they are gone.

My life brought me back home at a very strange time and in a very strange way. My dad had passed away in France, and I was tasked with bringing his remains to Rio. So I went on a trip I would not have taken for several more years, maybe even for another decade, or ever. The minute I got off that plane, I felt the familiar yet forgotten humid air outside. And inside, I felt what can only be described by the Californian in me, as earthquake weather.

On that trip, I was hugged by many long-lost friends and family. I was kissed by the waves of Prainha. And as old wounds opened, I was held by the places I could only remember in memories that felt like dreams. In those cathartic days, I felt so so much. I reckoned with accepting that I had to lose my dad to find this. But mostly, I felt deep sadness for how much time I had lost. And for the months that followed, all I could think about was timing. Why now? Why did I not come back sooner?

Timing can be magical, and timing can be soul-crushing. We want to control timing and wait for the right time, but I may have never found the time to come back while this home still exists if things didn’t happen the way they did.

From having no plans to ever go back, I am now on my third visit within a year to this last-standing Carioca kitchen of my childhood. Here and with The Rio Kitchen I grieve the time I lost by trying to make up for it. And once the earth stopped quaking, that sadness turned into gratitude, and instead of resenting it, I found a new trust in divine timing. In the end, it is in those uncomfortable moments that call on us to relinquish control, that we just might see life and our relationships unfold in a much more beautiful way than we had planned.