A life update and a newsletter update

I'm moving to Brazil!

Ipanema Beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Hi readers,

After nine beautiful years in Brooklyn, I am shrinking my life into two suitcases and moving to Rio de Janeiro in June.

To be sure, this feels like something one might do in their twenties rather than in the middle of their career. I’m 42 now; I have unexplained lower back pain. My hangovers last three days. I have a small dog who requires an ungodly amount of paperwork to migrate to South America. Moving to a beach city in Brazil with only my clothes and 6-year-old Maltipoo was not on my Bingo card for this decade.

I won’t be writing a Lena Dunham-style “Why I’m Leaving New York” essay about why, because my reasons are pretty simple: My partner and I were an immigrant and a journalist in a country that is increasingly hostile to both. He moved back to his hometown, Rio de Janeiro, in December, and I’m joining him there in June. It’s a romantic decision, in part, but also one that’s best for me right now as it becomes impossible to support myself in New York as a freelancer. I love Rio; its vibrance and sweatiness and soul remind me of New Orleans, except it’s nestled between the sea and mountains¹ and is genuinely, shockingly beautiful. And the U.S. dollar, at least for now, stretches a lot further in Brazil than it does in the U.S., so I can afford a much better quality of life there than I can in Brooklyn.

This move also tracks for me in terms of the past few decades of my life: I spent ten years in D.C. and then left when Trump was elected the first time; I spent nearly ten years in New York and am now exiting after Trump’s second election. Brazil has successfully imprisoned its own right-wing aspiring autocrat and is moving in the right direction lately, but should a Bolsonaro scion take power again there in ten years, perhaps I’ll flee again to somewhere even further. The South Pole? A life fleeing fascist regimes by the decade would at least make for great semi-autobiographical novel material.

As for Nightcap, I have great news: It’s not only continuing apace but expanding! I’m writing this post today rather than closer to the actual move on June 1 because we’re coming up on the two-year anniversary of Nightcap this week—my newsletter is a toddler!!!—and I have a couple announcements about it. One, I’ve lowered the monthly and annual subscription price a bit for you guys to accommodate everyone’s subscription fatigue and to acknowledge the rising prices of everything else in this country under Trumponomics, in hopes that folks who regularly enjoy reading this newsletter and find it informative and stirring might be moved to support it. I will keep writing Nightcap for as long as I have enough paid subscribers to make it worth the time and effort, and as always, I am deeply grateful to each and every one of Nightcap’s patrons.

Secondly, in addition to my regular writings, I’ll be adding a new section at the bottom just for paid subscribers that will be more of a personal account of moving to Brazil. I’ll write about attempting to learn Portuguese and to culturally assimilate, post photos and stories of adventures in and around Rio, share the challenges and triumphs of starting over in a strange place with no friends (yet), and just generally enjoy having a freestyle, non-politics section of the newsletter. I hope you’ll come along for the ride!

xx,

Laura

ps. If you know someone in Rio whom you think I should know, please consider introducing us!

1. There has been some debate, apparently, as to whether Brazil’s mountains are actual mountains. They’ve always looked like mountains to me, and Bernardo triumphantly texted me this study the other day confirming that they are indeed very old mountains.