Crossing the River by Amy Ragsdale Page B

fate or the pursuit of achievement?
    Fate had nothing to do with my family’s worldview. My father,raised on Horatio Alger and existentialism, and my mother, an early feminist, passed down the belief that I could create my own future. I was in control—though they were the first to acknowledge that my educational privilege and middle-class finances had everything to do with my greater chances for success. As a result, I have forged ahead on the theory that if I just work hard enough, things I hope for will happen; there are no forces greater than myself. That’s a lot of pressure. I watch middle-class Americans furiously striving as though the power is all theirs, if only they put in another night or weekend at the office, squeeze in another hour at the gym. But now, I wonder, when it comes to happiness as opposed to “success,” whether we might be better off in the end, have less existential angst, if we found a balance between fate and self-determination. Perhaps rather than “resigning” ourselves to our circumstances, we could “relax” into our situations, stop pushing so hard—for what? We could find a few friends to hang out with and sing, rock our hips, blow a few whistles—just for the hell of it. Just to say, Hi, I’m alive ! And I’m thankful for that.
    In Penedo, there was a lot that was alive. If you thought something might be crawling on you, something probably was. One’s connection to life in general is much closer in tropical places, where critters ooze out of the pores, and the houses aren’t quite so sealed and screened as ours at home. The trick in a tropical place seems to be how to keep the outside out.
    It took a few weeks before I began to notice the ants.
    â€œPeter?” I queried, staring at the white tile wall above the kitchen sink. “Can you see where they’re coming from?”
    He was lost in thought at his computer at the dining table.
    â€œ Hmmm ?”
    â€œThese tiny ants. They just seem to materialize out of nowhere.” I perused the white caulking, which was now dotted black and in motion, snagged a dishtowel, wet it, and gave a few unlucky ants a cursory swipe, knowing that really it would make no difference.
    The next morning, I made what had become our standard breakfast—fried bananas, sliced mangoes, scrambled eggs, and fried bread (toasters seemed not to exist). I packed the kids out the front doorfor school: first Molly, anxious not to be late, and fifteen minutes later Skyler, pleading, “Do I have to go?” This, too, had become standard. Shortly afterward, Aniete arrived, disappeared downstairs into her washroom, and reappeared in her “work clothes,” tight pedal-pusher jeans and a fitted T-shirt.
    I had settled onto the bench by the back window, cup of coffee and Portuguese dictionary in hand, for my morning language drill, when I heard a high-pitched whistle. I looked out and, to my delight, saw something like a hybrid of a koala and a lemur in miniature, deftly running along the barbed wire fence that separated our long strip of yard from the neighbor’s. It had a flat nose, tufts of white hair sprouting around small, circular ears, and a long, ringed tail.
    â€œAniete, o que é? ” I called out, pointing. “What’s that?”
    She walked over from the kitchen sink, wiping her hands on her pants.
    â€œ Um sanguin ,” she stated matter-of-factly.
    â€œ Um quê? ” It would be months before I could sling around that special nasal ng that gives Portuguese its resonance. “ Sahngweeng? ” I said, trying to make my nose buzz. Aniete smiled ever so slightly.
    This sanguin had all the amazing agility and manual dexterity of the squirrel-like monkey that it is. It scampered up the barbed wire fence to the neighbor’s papaya tree, shinnied up the trunk, and gutted the pendulous fruit from the bottom up. Its six-inch body eventually