Reflexión

Okay so I know I didn't post and I didn't keep you updated or even talk to a lot of you at all, despite my overuse of the FB and I am sorry.  Sorry that I didn't keep better track of my time and my adventures.  Sorry that I didn't write all the posts I composed in my head on the colectivos and subte rides to class or wherever I was going (mostly class).  I know I don't have to apologize or explain myself but I am sorry for so much, even if it only affects my own musings and memories.

Truthfully, the first part of my trip was incredibly difficult.  I let it be and I let it cripple me to the point of paralysis.  I didn't go exploring, I didn't try new things, I didn't get to know the people or the city or even my host family, really.  I resented them and I worried about all the big happenings back home that I couldn't do a thing about, that I couldn't change.  Maybe I should have changed families, to be closer to things and find people who legitimately seemed interested in me, who didn't watch television during dinner, who didn't treat so much of our relationship in a business manner.  But I didn't and thus had to live with the consequences that came with living in Flores, the barrio of very little but Koreans who own the supermercados and Jewish folk walking to synagogue.

Of course there were the little things that made it bearable.  We lived in a beautiful house and had asada (think: Argentine type cook-out but better) often on Sundays.  There was a great pizza place a block away and an awesome artisan heladeria (ice cream) three blocks from my front door.  Todavia, it was difficult and I should have recognized that earlier and done more to change it, but I should have done a lot of things.

I wasted too much time.  I wouldn't let myself grow accustomed to life in Buenos Aires and find ways around being overwhelmed and upset for the fact that I couldn't get out of the shell I'd built around myself and my idea of what I could and couldn't do.  I got sick and homesick and sick again and it seemed like I just couldn't get better and that I was doing everything wrong.  I've tried not to think about that, but now I'm letting myself because sometimes you just have to remember the reasons for current disappointment.

But then I met Axel, the porteño who took me by surprise one Friday evening who would unexpectedly serve a very important role in the playing out of my last two months.  He entered in at just the right moment, because if it had been earlier I wouldn't have let it happen, and had it been later we wouldn't have had enough time to develop the importance that is now becoming more apparent to me.  It was right about the time that my homesickness wore off and I decided to stop wasting time, to get over the pain I wouldn't let go and to let Argentina be what it would be.

I'll never be sure that those first few weeks of knowing him had much to do with the realizations I made.  My giddiness upon arrival in Mar del Plata for my independent research freshened the air of life until I once again fell sick (a stomachache I've yet to get rid of).  But it didn't stop me completely.  When the bus drove me back into Buenos Aires I realized how much I had fallen in love with this city.  The lights of Puerto Madero reflected through the window in eyes tired of sadness, eager for adventure and determined to find it.


...


I wrote that three months ago, sitting on Granny's couch when the house had grown quiet from the hush of darkness.  I've let myself think about Argentina from time-to-time, usually against my will since the memories rushed in with the warm spring air without a bit of warning.  The sunlight reminds me of it daily.  I attribute so much of who I am to that beautiful place, but I couldn't really tell you in what ways.  Maybe it's that I'm more of a warm weather girl now.  Perhaps it's from my delighted ease at speaking Spanish, despite my need to practice my French.  I think my Argentine amante fills a large space in how my past has come to define, if only on its borders, my future.

It's all a little deeper and subtle than that, however.  It's that I knew how to get from one end of the city to the next.  I knew everything that Buenos Aires had to offer, even if I chose not to take advantage of it.  I knew that at any side cafe, I could walk in and get a cafe con leche para llevar y tres medialunas for less than $15 pesos every morning, and that my morning would always be better because of it.  I knew that the small surprises -- a protest, a street concert, a new subte acquaintance (if only by eye contact) -- would make the best memories, have the strongest impact.


I'm not done with Argentina.  Or, at least, that's what I keep telling everyone.  But I do believe that.  I know there's still much to be experienced there, much to be seen, much to be tasted, much to be felt.  I'm looking forward to going back, firstly to create new adventures, but also to see how I create them, how I tell the story, how it can and will be different.


It really is a beautiful country.  Despite its broken sidewalks, piropo-ing men, the long and bumpy colectivos, but because of its old subtes, European architecture, cafe con leche and medialunas.  It is another home now.  It takes up a piece of myself that is ready to step past the harsh days of September to find the sunlight waiting and my heart willing.