Rain In Paradise

The photo essay explores a relationship shaped by uncertainty, distance, and bureaucracy. Through photographs made in Brazil, it reflects on the search for hope within a temporary period of closeness.

I’m sitting in my friend’s studio in Chinatown. The window is open, the rain pours down outside. The typical, heavy smell of a wet New York creeps in beside me. It should really be summer by now, but we skipped spring this year. New York follows its own rules.

My body is heavy. Tired, even though I sleep nine hours every night. Bought myself another cup of coffee around the corner from Elizabeth Street Garden. I sat on a small black metal chair, looking at the green trees that felt misplaced among the brick buildings. My thoughts drifted back to Brazil where I swam in a warm, greenish sea and sat on the back of his motorcycle while he guided us through the streets of São Paulo. 

Now I’m sitting here on a black office chair, looking at the photographs I took. I stare at them, move them around, and pair them up in different ways until I think it makes sense. I’ve been working on it for two days. I am obsessed. 

We carried uncertainty through three seasons. Could he stay, or would he have to leave. Waiting for a decision we had no control over. Until it finally came. No. Four days later, I got a text while I was at work: “Have you seen the list of the 75 countries under the visa freeze?” Brazil is on that list. We said goodbye. Conversations moved to the phone. Two faces looking at a screen.

I arrived in Brazil two months later. As the plane dipped below the clouds, the first palm trees appeared in the small window. I was far away from winter in New York. I left my seat, walked through the airport until I saw a familiar stranger with a camera in his hand. He took a photograph of me as I got closer. 

We didn’t escape the fights and misunderstandings, but I could smell his perfume again. I looked at the details of his face that my screen had blurred. He touched my leg every time we stopped at a traffic light. We drank iced tea with lemon juice on the beach in Rio. We held hands with our toes.

Now, I’m back in New York, longing for the smell of sunscreen. I take the photographs out of the print box and look at them in my apartment, where I now live alone. I think of the photograph he took of me in the airport. I wonder if he also had a feeling it could be the last time we saw each other.