staring back
2:02am, buenos aires. me, again. always me, always the scenery around me changing and me sitting there, in my chair, 2am. i know now why some people become addicted to traveling, can’t sit still. a year ago i was probably sitting in front of a computer, just the same, the monitor with its soft inviting glow. but the computer was in philadelphia, and now the same screen is staring back but at a different me. buenos-aires david.
for me it’s the little things, make me appreciate being here and not anywhere else, like tonight’s thunderstorm, rain flooding the streets, my feet soaked through, holes in the bottom of the shoes i bought here in may 2002, more than a year old and still more or less in one piece.
here in buenos aires it is winter, that’s the first thing i can’t get over. in my old northamerican life it is summer: dan is going to the beach, my dad is out taking pictures of butterflies, anna is at summer camp with a bunch of kids. meanwhile, every morning i run from my warm shower through my freezing apartment to my little heater, huddling over it in the 6am darkness of the shortest days, trying to get warm before i put on my happily ironed clothes and plod through the dark to the subway, to work.
on the way to the subway i will nod to the cop still on the corner, pass four sex hotels and one cabaret with a neon sign that says “cafe/bar” and also four separate argentines cleaning their little piece of sidewalk with a hose and a broom. just like every other morning i will say ‘buen día’ to the nice woman opening her little corner store, nod to the bolivian woman setting up her boxes of fruits and vegetables to sell from the sidewalk, and marvel at the huge hunks of cow being hauled in to the supermarket down the street. i will avoid looking at the two people who sleep on the sidewalk (though i peek and they are already awake, drinking mate), avoid the group of deaf people who ask for change every day, and try to catch a glimpse of today’s newspaper headlines. i will take sidewalk fliers from two separate people trying to get me to sell them gold or my rolex. there will be an old lady plodding down the stairs to the subway platform, but i will slide deftly past her, slip my subway card into the turnstile, arrive in time to see my train just pulling away and swear that the next day i will not spend so much time warming myself on the heater so i will be on time for work.
in buenos aires in winter it rains all the time. in a week i have seen the sun once, i swear to you just once. it was this morning, before it clouded over and rained again. and, although it is not the warm sun i would be enjoying back up north, and neither is it as comforting as the snow i missed during the northamerican winter, i do like the rain. i like it exactly because it is not the summer sun nor the winter snow: because it is totally new to me, like every day in this crazy city. i am 2am, wet and cold, buenos-aires happy.
for me it’s the little things, make me appreciate being here and not anywhere else, like tonight’s thunderstorm, rain flooding the streets, my feet soaked through, holes in the bottom of the shoes i bought here in may 2002, more than a year old and still more or less in one piece.
here in buenos aires it is winter, that’s the first thing i can’t get over. in my old northamerican life it is summer: dan is going to the beach, my dad is out taking pictures of butterflies, anna is at summer camp with a bunch of kids. meanwhile, every morning i run from my warm shower through my freezing apartment to my little heater, huddling over it in the 6am darkness of the shortest days, trying to get warm before i put on my happily ironed clothes and plod through the dark to the subway, to work.
on the way to the subway i will nod to the cop still on the corner, pass four sex hotels and one cabaret with a neon sign that says “cafe/bar” and also four separate argentines cleaning their little piece of sidewalk with a hose and a broom. just like every other morning i will say ‘buen día’ to the nice woman opening her little corner store, nod to the bolivian woman setting up her boxes of fruits and vegetables to sell from the sidewalk, and marvel at the huge hunks of cow being hauled in to the supermarket down the street. i will avoid looking at the two people who sleep on the sidewalk (though i peek and they are already awake, drinking mate), avoid the group of deaf people who ask for change every day, and try to catch a glimpse of today’s newspaper headlines. i will take sidewalk fliers from two separate people trying to get me to sell them gold or my rolex. there will be an old lady plodding down the stairs to the subway platform, but i will slide deftly past her, slip my subway card into the turnstile, arrive in time to see my train just pulling away and swear that the next day i will not spend so much time warming myself on the heater so i will be on time for work.
in buenos aires in winter it rains all the time. in a week i have seen the sun once, i swear to you just once. it was this morning, before it clouded over and rained again. and, although it is not the warm sun i would be enjoying back up north, and neither is it as comforting as the snow i missed during the northamerican winter, i do like the rain. i like it exactly because it is not the summer sun nor the winter snow: because it is totally new to me, like every day in this crazy city. i am 2am, wet and cold, buenos-aires happy.
previously there was Hourglass
afterwards you have i will (not) resist
Anyway. correcting myself is like i was never wrong. right? [submitted on 11 Jul 03]