All rights reserved. I've always been black. The surprising news that there was a place where I wasn't, necessarily, or at least didn't have to be, was imparted to me one hot summer's afternoon in Rio de Janeiro on the beach at Ipanema. It was a special moment in my life, a time when suddenly I felt free as a bird and open to all sorts of new possibilities.
Some people deal with burnout by changing jobs or houses or wives or buying a red convertible.
I'd gone to an extreme, literally, by running off to the bottom of the world. My base was Buenos Aires, where I'd installed my family in a nice suburban house with a pool. My new job involved traveling essentially nonstop among the major cities of the continent. I lived mostly in hotel rooms, in airport departure lounges, and on the fleet of aging jets that airlines like Varig and Lan Chile and AeroPeru sent hurtling through the sky. I tried not to fly on planes that were older than I was.