Veintitres

'The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.'

(Little Gidding -- I can't quite get enough!)

I arrived alone in Buenos Aires in March, curious about the year of experience that lay ahead inviting me to approach and aprovechar.

Now, in December, I march away precisely as I came -- alone and curious about experiences to come.

My foreign friends turned porteña familia have trickled in and out of this experience. As las fiestas approach, those friends have been dropping away with increasing intensity. I have found that relationships created abroad accentuate time's fleeting temperament. Time has deep, sloping valleys and steep, quick ascents. Here in Buenos Aires I have cemented some of the most profound and dynamic relationships of my life; together, through friendship, we have been thrust to exalted heights.

I am one of the last lingering foreigners I know, savoring fleeting moments with my first and last friend -- perhaps my most absorbing relationship yet -- inhaling the fragrance, enshrining the feel. Buenos Aires was my first friend, and appropriately, she is my last. I will tiptoe out of this experience just as I entered it, barely making a ripple, filled with an eager curiosity for the future to come.

I have been inhaling Buenos Aires' perfume for 10 months and I am finally at the very top of my breath. No more can I take in -- I have reached capacity, saturated with the sweetly scented, life-sustaining oxygen of experience. On Friday morning (sí Dios quiere...) I will emerge into South Florida's crisp December air and I will exhale, breathing novelty into my familiar and almost-forgotten home.

In the meantime, I am still in Buenos Aires -- more or less alone -- pirouetting in the pause between inhale and exhale, peeking curiously and expectant at the novel set of future circumstances promising possibility. I have several times in my life found myself twirling in these pauses between breaths. I embrace and agradecer these peaceful bouts of time -- they allow me ample moments to reflect, refresh and renew.

As I reflect on my time in Buenos Aires I recognize that the pieces of experience I will carry on into Life are the lessons of Love. Curiously enough, it took a circumstantial move of thousands of kilometers, away from the thick quilt of love from family and friends enveloping me in USAmerica, to learn the true lesson of Love: how to give and receive it. I have loved to the point of despair and discomfort: a city, a country, a continent, a world; strangers, acquaintances, new friends, old friends -- all of whom are, at the end, family.

I will spare details -- for they are too many and would be impossible to share judiciously -- and emphasize: the lessons of Love acquired here have been sometimes uncomfortable and always illuminating. For, truly loving a person, a city, a country and a world -- despite discomfort and despair incited -- renders me consumed with hope. It is a hope contained within me, here and now, as I dance at the top of my breath. And, it is hope I will forever suspire -- acquired by loving in Buenos Aires.

Twenty two

Ten months in and 10 days remain -- presently I am facing aft, watching in my wake as Argentine experiences crystallize into memories. 'The end is where we start from.' Do you remember when I quoted TS Eliot, reader-friend, 10 months ago, upon my unexpected arrival in Buenos Aires? 'What we call the beginning is often the end / And to make and end is to make a beginning.'

And here I am at the end, making a beginning. But before I lurch into the promise of the future, I turn my back to possibility and offer merited reverence to the past and path that guided me here, to this point:

I've done quite a bit since I arrived in March: My inconsistently zealous effort towards outstanding Rotary ambassadorial scholar-ness, a lackluster and ironically perfect consummation of my academic career, maintaining iGen's forward propulsion at doggy-paddle pace, always accompanied by gluttonous and indiscriminate feasting on South American culture (art, music, food, nightlife, travels, people, et cetera et cetera into infinity).

Despite all this 'doing,' my most consistent and committed action of the past 10 months was actually the act of observation. On the streets, in the classroom, in social circles -- I was more observer than participant. Curiously, despite my extroversion, extreme circumstantial novelty relegates me to the perimeter to perceive before I proceed towards engagement.

Months of keen Argentine observation leave me astute and alert, devouring situational details, determined to detect patterns. And, with next-to-near-no-obligation these days, I find myself captivated, irresistibly fascinated, by a tricky situation presently unwrapping in my beloved Buenos Aires (and for the first time, thanks to acquired observational acumen, I am able to wrap my mind around the complexity of some of Buenos Aires' and Argentina's most pressing social challenges):

Last week as a consequence of judge ordered evictions in already abysmal villas in southwest Buenos Aires, hundreds of families -- mostly immigrants of indigenous descent from Perú, Bolivia and Paraguay -- began illegally occupying an ill-maintained public park. Incensed neighbors -- the legal residents of Villa Soldati -- of the coincidentally and aptly named Parque Indoamericano subsequently organized and confronted the squatters. The ensuing squabbles between residents and squatters -- with initially intermittent and now sustained police involvement -- have resulted in 4 innocent civilian deaths (lamentably including a baby) and a veritable quilombo of 'pobres contra pobres'.

Now, the rest of the city and country holds its breath, eagerly monitoring the situation, hoping for the safety of our neighbors -- all of them -- waiting for the city and national governments to agree upon a solution -- if one even exists at all.

While we collectively wait for inevitable developments and hopeful solutions, I, as an individual, pull pieces of past experience into the present to inform my observations. Like I mentioned, I find this situation terribly intriguing. You see, particularly my reader-friend-of-the-USA-caliber, there's some things you need to know about Argentina in order to glimpse full-scale what is at present unfolding: Argentina is an incredibly human-rights oriented society -- this as a consequence of the unimaginably devastating abuses committed during the military dictatorship of the late-1970s/early-1980s. Argentina has gone so far as to incorporate into its Constitution (the highest law of the land) all 12 major international human rights treaty. (Perspective: the USA has signed 3.)

In addition to being extraordinarily pro-human rights as a society and on the books, in the 1990s, Argentina pioneered an astonishingly liberal immigration policy -- going so far as to designate the right to migrate 'essential and inalienable to all persons and the Republic of Argentina shall guarantee it based on principles of equality and universality.'

Reader-friends! That. Is. Huge. Argentina, so far as I know, is the only country -- in a world preferring to build walls rather than bridges -- that recognizes a right to migrate. Huge, I tell you! Via a one-of-a-kind law, Argentina provides a fairly easy path to legal residence for immigrants, and offers free access to health care, education and social services.

It sounds too good to be true! And, of course, in practice, sadly, it is. The revolutionary immigration law has not been accompanied by effective and much-needed regulations (which would serve to 'clarify, reconcile, or expand provisions of the law; the lack of regulations impedes the full implementation of the law's human rights goals.' I am such a huge dork, I actually did some legal research for this post -- I'll spare you the proper Bluebook citations! Jaja! No more legal ogling -- promise!) Suffice it to say, the current situation sitting cumbersome in southwest Buenos Aires, is arguably related to this pioneering practice of liberal immigration policy...

Another interesting, probably over-simplified, observation: Argentine society seems to, more or less, have a consistent idea of the role of government -- to provide safety, services, solutions. (This is leaps and bounds more progressive than the USA, I believe, where we engage in an exhausting and ceaseless battle of big government v. small government v. liberal v. conservative v. blah v. blah, et cetera et cetera into infinity.) While tension in the southwest mounts, the rest of the city waits -- almost too patiently -- for the city and national governments to come up with a solution. And not only an isolated solution to this particular situation, but hopefully one that will address the fact that all over the city, slum-city villas are being built atop villas, ostensibly related to the influx of immigrants.

An ex-city leader elegantly opined: 'La migración no sólo es inevitable, sino que puede ser una bendición para lograr el desarrollo integral. Les abrimos falsamente los brazos si no somos capaces de acompañar nuestra apertura con políticas que orienten y ordenen esa inmigración.' ('Migration is not only inevitable, but can be a blessing to achieve integral development. We falsely open our arms if we are not capable of accompanying our openness with policies that orient and order that immigration.')

Yes. Precisely what he said.

And now I return to TS Eliot's elegant stylings: 'We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.' I began organizing my thoughts for this writing as the sun set last night, and now, writing these words, I sit overlooking Abasto's rooftops lighting up with the rising sun. I began at an end, and now, I end at a beginning -- at the bow of the present, observing the possibility and promise of a new day of Argentine experience (and then there were 9...).

21

Ohhhhhhola amigo-reader!

Como estás? Todo bien? I hope so! : )

All is very well -- thank you -- down here at coordinates 34°36′12″S 58°22′54″W. T-minus 27 days until operation Natalie-reintegration-into-USAmerica is in full effect -- which is simultaneously thrilling and chilling. Te cuento, I am very excited to return home after tanto tiempo, armed with my latest array of Buenos Aires/Argentina/South American-influenced quirks.

Re the here and now -- I went to Uruguay last weekend and it was divine!

Here are some visual aids:

Colonia del Sacramento -- tiny, charming riverside port, a 1 hour ferry away from Buenos Aires:







And then we went to Montevideo, Uruguay's sleepy capital city -- delicious, scenic and tranquil:







And then, off to some fun with the sol y mar in Punta del Diablo -- a hardly developed fishing town on the Atlantic coast, just creeping towards the Brasilian border:

2 to the zero

Buenos Aires and I have arrived at a point in our relationship where we can openly opine about one another without fear of tearing at the fabric of our friendship. I love her enough to hate her. In fact, the things I love most about her, when untempered, are the very things I hate her for.

Take, for example, her energy: On Friday night I opted against a night out with friends and fun in favor of a night in with myself and movies. I drifted to sleep just after watching the final scenes of Jodorowsky's 'El Topo' (gracias for the indirect rec, Arturito!) only to be startled awake just before 6 am – alarmed by an explosive uproar that jumped into my bedroom from the street 4 floors below. I peeked over my balcony and saw, illuminated by dawn's glow, a frenzied mass of gentlemen enthusiastically engaging in body-to-body combat. (I assume the boys had been thrown out of one of the bars that line the block around the corner from my departamento.) Unsettled by the zealous display of savagery, I retreated from the damp morning air and back into bed. The barks from the bodies below continued for – I kid you not, friend reader – 30 minutes more.

Boys will be chicos. I have seen many a fight in my day; this fight was not particularly remarkable save for the ostensible fervor demonstrated by the chicos. What struck me was the herd's manic energy – that I gleaned despite the separating 4 floors of humid air. Obvio, the quarrel was testosterone-fueled, and, set afire by a flame of passion – that unfettered Argentine energy.

This energy I saw manifest in a more friendly form 2 weeks ago, at the Dave Matthews Band concert at Luna Park. I had already seen Dave and co. perform several times in South Florida, so I was curious to see how the Argentine DMB experience would compare. In the Sur de la Florida, his concerts tend to look and feel like a weekend-long pseudo reunion for anyone who attended high school in Palm Beach County between 1990 and 2005: a few hours sprawled out on the lawn of Cruzan amphitheater accompanied by old friends, Dave et al's expert jam sessions, always preceded by hours of the unique-to-USAmerica-cultural-phenomenon, the tailgate. The vibe – siempre chill.

I was blown away by the DMB experience in Argentina – the vibe was pure energy, raw and fanatical. Buenos Aires worships rock music almost as much as she worships fútbol. And, man oh man, did Buenos Aires show up at Luna Park prepared to exalt. The porteño crowd's electric veneration converted DMB from a South Floridian relax-fest to an all-out-Argentine-jump-around-dance-party-ROCK-OUT. It was unexpected and epic. Check it, I found this clip on YouTube, filmed by someone sitting in the bleachers behind us (my friends and I were about 3 feet in front of the stage, directly in front of Tim Reynolds – the guitarist in the red t-shirt – frolicking with the best and rest of 'em... if you've got 14:59 minutos to spare you should watch it all, reader-friend!! I want you to experience the magic too!!):



The same apasionado energy that overtook us in the sea of sincere rock aficionados at the DMB show is, I believe, the same energy I observed from above, fueling the swarm of savages on Saturday morning. The difference, however – the former is a constructive display of BA's energy. The latter is nothing short of destructive – and stirs in me a toxic sense of disgust, a hate that hurts.

Buenos Aires, your energy is infectious in the best and worst ways possible.

I once read the following quote (paraphrased): 'A country is great when it has more dreams of its future than of its past.' This idea has stuck with me over the years and I've applied it in a variety of contexts. As I explore my friendship with Buenos Aires, the literal meaning of the quote once again resonates with me; I notice that Buenos Aires tends to glorify her past, revere her raices and curse her present circumstances. Yet rarely do I find evidence of her hope for an improved future.

Buenos Aires, don't you see? – your energy, if correctly channeled, could guide you to a future of prosperity. Instead, your energy – in the true form of a tragic flaw – locks you in the throes of greatness, leaves you paralyzed in the amber of the present (KV allusion!) looking only to the distant past to nourish your pride.

Buenos Aires, please don't be insulted by my weighty criticism. I tell you because I love you. I love you enough to hate you sometimes, love you enough to expect you to be your best – which is nothing short of great.

‘I would rather be ashes

than dust!

I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze

than it should be stifled by dry rot.

I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow,

than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.

I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time.’ ––Jack London

Diec i nue ve

Bueno, quite a bit of time has passed since I last paid proper homage to the reason that I am here right now:

Anoche I had the great pleasure of sharing Rotary greatness, friendship and a fine meal with the Rotary Club of Puerto Madero.

Following the meal I stood up to give my usual address – infused with some of my latest and greatest Sudamericano exploits – and, in a moment of divinely-inspired impromptu-elocution, concluded my charla with: 'Cada día me levanto y agradezco a Dios y a Rotary.' ('Everyday I wake up and thank God and Rotary.')

My life in Buenos Aires has become so familiar and real that it has paradoxically become surreal. I am awed by some of the 'plight' that, daily, I face (e.g. 'Should I go to the Phoenix concert in Sao Paulo or Buenos Aires?'). (Seriously. Thank you, Rotary.)

I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (!!!) Here I find my life; gracias a Rotary--a life that is both beautifully surreal and absolutely real.

I digress.

Because

this post isn't about me.

It's about Rotary:

Rotary is truly great. At the Rotary Club de Puerto Madero reunion I sat beside – quite possibly – the most knowledgeable Rotarian in my Rotary family--a literal fountainhead of Rotary knowledge. And as she shared with me a bounty of Rotary-related information, I was stirred by a tickle of greatness – a sense that I, by good fortune, am a part of something truly great:

Rotary Minute: What is Rotary? from Rotary International on Vimeo.

Rotary is universally great. I feel confident with said proclamation because I have observed greatness in every Rotary club I have visited, from practically Antarctica, to practically the equator, and, obviamente, the plethora of clubs I have visited in District 4890 (Buenos Aires) and District 6930 (south/central Florida).

Words and photographs are wholly inadequate when attempting to convey greatness, but alas, I continue my meek attempt:

Nahuel Huapi Rotary Club in Bariloche, Argentina ('practically Antarctica'):

Rotary Club of Cusco, Peru ('practically the equator'):

Rotaract Club of Cusco, Peru (more of that 'practically the equator'):

My host Rotary Club in District 4890, the Rotary Club of Monserrat (D. 4890):




Ambassadorial scholars at the District 4890 Annual Conference (más D. 4890):

Participating in the 10th Annual Rotary-sponsored 'ENCUENTRO DE ORIENTACION VOCACIONAL' for high school students in Buenos Aires (y un poquito más de D. 4890):


And, Rotary in Pucón, Chile:



... And, if my words and photos aren't convincing enough of Rotary's greatness... bueno, then, I challenge you to find out for yourself.

Cheers and cariños desde BsAs,
NKC

XVII

Eight months later and I've finally acquired something that looks and feels like expatriate street credibility. This declaration is based on encounters I've had of late with study-abroad-types and fresh-off-the-plane-ex-pats; they kindly offer me deference that I hardly deserve. What do I really know? I'm just Natalie, here in Buenos Aires, living my life.

Last week I submitted – after weeks of very hard work spent orchestrating – my masterpiece of a Fulbright application (and by 'masterpiece' I mean the very best I could do – I am not at all suggesting that I believe the application will be endorsed). Perchance the totality of the Fulbright circumstances err in my favor, I'll be off to Peru in late-2011 for another year of ex-pat living. And, irrespective of the unfolding of my Fulbright grant, Christina and I are planning on returning to Buenos Aires in mid-2011 to breathe some South American life into iNspired Generation/Generación iNspirada (more on iGen in a forthcoming blog entry). (No te preocupa, Mom, I'll be hanging around your house during the early-2011 interim!)

I share with you these plans (lest us not forget this year's great lesson, 'Man plans. God laughs.'), RF, because I am meta-aware of my propensity for what appears to be wanderlust...

However, I assure you, this is not wanderlust. This is my life.

I've been super into all-things-related-to-the-Internet ever since, at the impressionable age of 12 (year 1997), my friend Jaimie showcased to me her America Online account (dial-up Internet days, obvio). I've taken this affinity for virtual communication with me from Jaimie's Palm Beach County abode, to my life in the college bubble in Gainesville, Florida (Facebook entered the picture right around this time. and. I. have. never. been. the. same. since.), to law school in Miami. And, of course, I brought my love with me to Buenos Aires. Thus, durante my 8 month stint as an ex-pat, I've done a phenomenal job of maintaining wide-open my virtual connections (thankfully, nowadays, I've got a high-speed connection to maintain my global connections).

One question that is ordinarily directed to me – via GMail or Facebook or Skype – from the latitudes directly to the north (the US of A, obvio) is, 'Wow! Argentina! You must be having so much fun.' And, of course, I would be lying if I did not respond in the affirmative. Sure, I have fun here, but it's no more or less fun than the fun I had in Miami and Gainesville and the PBC.

Fun is fun is diversión es diversión. Sure, there is novelty in the foreign, but as I have said, novelty wears and is replaced with the familiar. And let's not forget, cada ciudad tiene su buena y su mala. And, above all, I came to Buenos Aires with my ordinary self – my buena and my mala – to live my life.

It doesn't matter where in the world any of us are; we're still within ourselves, within our self-constructed worlds. I am Natalie, I am Natalie, soy Natalie, soy Natalie. It doesn't matter where you find me, – the PBC, Gasinesville, Miami, Buenos Aires, Peru, the Internet – I am always my ordinary and unique self, living my ordinary and unique life.

Anywho, this long ramble was inspired and precipitated by the profound brilliance of Ralph Waldo Emerson's words in his concise, must-read of an essay, 'Self-Reliance.' (Shout out to Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar Tom Mendez for the recommendation/borderline duress. Yeehaw, Tom!). I am sharing those excerpts from the essay that particularly touched me, here and now (forthcoming).

I also feel compelled to share Ralph's brilliance because it's not the first time I've come across these ideas. Mom, you were right, – as always. I don't need to travel to find myself. (But I'm still going to Peru if I win the Fulbright!!!)

I do ask, however, that you please trust me. My desire to travel the world is not misdirected wanderlust. (It is a part of the masterpiece of a life I am orchestrating for myself.)

Oh yea, and please listen to this awesome song while you read the forthcoming Emerson erudition. It's almost as brilliant as Ralph. (Almost.)

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros "Home" from Edward Sharpe on Vimeo.

Now, preparate for greatness:

'....The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still, and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not like an interloper or a valet.

I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things....

Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.

3. But the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind? Our houses are built with foreign taste; our shelves are garnished with foreign ornaments; our opinions, our tastes, our faculties, lean, and follow the Past and the Distant.

The soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. It was in his own mind that the artist sought his model. It was an application of his own thought to the thing to be done and the conditions to be observed. And why need we copy the Doric or the Gothic model? Beauty, convenience, grandeur of thought, and quaint expression are as near to us as to any....

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation... That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakspeare?

Every great man is a unique.'

10 + 6

Reader-friend ! ! ! ! ! !

Hi.

¿Cómo andas?

What’s up in your world?

Here’s what’s up in world of Natalie: Classes at la UBA arrancaron de nuevo (began anew); I'm applying for a Fulbright research grant (I’m nervous! Insecure! Filled with doubt! Charging ahead nonetheless...); coaxing, with Christina, iNspired Generation, away from organizational infancy – towards awkward, uncomfortable and hopeful adolescence (please pay no mind to the content of the sitio web, as much of it is defunct… we're in the process of creating a new virtual forum where all of your wildest dreams and goals will self-actualize!); feasting on BAire’s cultural fare (my appetite never ceases – I’m ravenous!); laying foundations for new friendships; adding all sorts of opulence to existing relationships; battling bouts of hardcore Miami/familia nostalgia; attempting to stave off BAire’s usual trickery, as she woos me with her sky and art and people.

I am so full – I feel I might explode. Sometimes I enter a state of abundance-paralysis – I burst with life’s wealth and I don’t know what to do with myself!

That’s my world, reader-friend – bursting to the point of mental paralysis.

You have a world too, revered reader-friend... And I am curious, what is it like in your world??

My fabulous friend from Belo Horizonte, Brasil – Luiza – is always challenging me on various topics: i.e., of late, my strangely manic and habitual need to befriend Everyone. In. The. World. Thank you, Luiza, for directing a flashlight on this peculiar behavior! I now recognize that I do it, almost unknowingly, because I am bursting with curiosity about what it’s like to be in other people’s worlds. Curiosity to the point of intrusion, quizás...

Luiza also likes to challenge me to rethink my USAmerican national identity. Gracias a Luiza, nowadays when people ask where I am from, I no longer say Miami (merits Latin American street cred, obvio); I now declare – usually with apologetic pride – los Estados Unidos (reppin' mi país). USAmerica is undeniably a part of my world, much more so than I previously realized, when I constructed my identity from within my national borders. It’s a funny little paradox – I never felt quite so USAmerican until I decided to venture beyond the USAmerican frontera. Within my país, I always identified with my culture – Cuban (exilio Cuban, that is, the lingering remnants of 1950s Cuba…).

I find that my identity – who I aspire to be in my world, and how I am perceived and related to by others from within their worlds – changes with my circumstances. Here in Argentina, I am a foreigner (with USAmerican nationality), but familiar and similar given the Latin culture that created me (the Latin warmth that pulses through my body), a law student (not quite as respectable in Sudamerica as in the USA, because it’s an undergraduate ‘carrera’ here), a Rotary scholar (yeehaw Rotary!) on the cusp of graduation (thrilling! Terrifying!), standing on my tip-toes to peek beyond the horizon – towards the future that I will ostensibly create.

Identity forms only a slice of our undeniably distinct individual worlds – circumstances and beliefs and histories and cultures coalesce, too, to yield billions of unique worlds, all around this planet. And then we interact and mingle and connect and organize and aggregate. In so doing we are creating new worlds, in addition to the subjective world called Life that we as individuals fervently weave together. These additional worlds of congregated worlds exist beyond us – relationships, friendships, industries, organizations, corporations, institutions, cities, and nations... These worlds are abundant and ubiquitous.

The worlds beyond ourselves, composed of coalescing individual worlds, have identities that are just as – if not more – dynamic than the identities that we create for ourselves as individuals. And, given how individually complex we are it’s no wonder I am mentally numbed when confronted by the complexity of the aggregated worlds I encounter on the day-to-day.

You, reader-friend, may notice that I tend to fall in love with cities much as most of us tend to fall in love with people. (This is a literary technique called – as most of you recall from 8^th grade Language Arts – personification. Jaja.) I personify Buenos Aires because I genuinely believe cities are a lot like people. Cities – like people – have unique characteristics and mannerisms, distinct smells and flavors, are associated with particular sensations, emit and draw energy; cities, like people, have souls; cities, like people, are malleable and dynamic. And, cities, composed of people, relationships, organizations, corporations, industries – of many individuals’ worlds and coalescing worlds – are, thus, themselves, necessarily complex worlds.

(I guess I'm a sucker for complexity...)

With time, I have come to recognize just how dynamic the identity/world of a city can be and is. All protracted relationships (with peoples and cities alike) are like this: seasons change, light shifts, circumstances come and go. With persistent relationships we come to see familiar places and people through new perspectives.

E.g., After 7 months of porteña living, I more or less know Buenos Aires and I recognize just how dynamic she is. Her repeated behaviors have shed their novelty – her swoon-inducing azure techo, her never-ending banquet of art and cultural fare(/fairs), her baffling and disheartening social issues. These days I relate to her differently – she has a distinct feeling now, as winter recedes and the lingering effects of the season remain glaring: trees are bare, the sky is capricious, we're all bundled up, a few layers removed from the air that hasn't been warm in several moons.

As I walk the streets these days, I notice that Buenos Aires no longer surges into me and stirs me as she once did. She's no longer able to overtake me because now, I possess her – she is a part of me. Buenos Aires is now a piece of my identity, and thus, necessarily, (probably more like, obvio) forms a great part of my world.

Are you still there, reader-friend? (Big ups to Mom, Dad and Melissa – I know you guys are still with me!!) Thanks for sticking with me on this circuitous trip through my world. I did my best to weave this piece together – to make it cohesive... And if it looks to you more like a patchwork quilt than the tightly strung duvet I intended it to be, consider this me, offering you – should your curiosity permit – the opportunity to intrude on my complex and mind-numbingly beautiful world.

To ease your eyes away from the black and white of my words and back into the color of your world, check out some beautiful worlds I've intruded upon recently: