Grey Skies

Wow, I haven't blogged in a very long time.  Well, since my last blog, I've come home from my beloved Buenos Aires.  Life has become a mundane cycle of work, eat, sleep, repeat as I try to catch up on all my bills.    These last couple months have been difficult, I live from paycheque to paycheque, ever grateful that I work for a deli that saves me from being hungry most of the time.  But I see this as a lesson, a learning curve.  I realize now that I can have nothing, and still maintain a semblance of happiness.

Spiritually I have changed.  My view on life and what is really important is radically different from what it was before my time in Palermo Soho. And so, although I know that a five week trip was not the best choice for a woman of my means, I believe it was a trip I couldn't afford not to take.

I was going through my things the other day, and found my little notebook that I used to jot down notes from the dance classes I took while I was there. I had forgotten that I had begun writing a journal entry.  It is unfinished, but gives a bit of a glimpse of how I was feeling the evening I was writing it:

"It's Tuesday evening.  After having spent the day walking around Centro and Retiro, I'm lying in bed at 8pm, staring out the window.  We had arrived to find that our entire area was out of power.  Restaurants, houses, street lights.  And we knew that a storm was brewing.  All day the air sat on our shoulders like a wet towel, damp and heavy.  The sky was bright, but still a shade of grey I had never experienced in Vancouver, the grey city.  We knew there was no point in going out again, because in a matter of minutes we'd be stuck in a rainstorm so thick we'd be soaked to our bones in a matter of minutes. So all that was left to do was call it an early night and hope that the storm will have passed by the morning, and that the glorious Argentinian sun would be on our backs again.

But I can't sleep.  I've gotten so accustomed to the youthful portena lifestyle- disco nap in the afternoon, dinner at 11pm, then dancing until the sun rises.  Going to bed at 8pm just does not agree with my body anymore.

So I lie in bed staring out the window.  Watching streaks of lightening light up the sky.  Feeling the rumble of  thunder shake our little apartment.  Listening to the rain.  Buckets and buckets of rain.

I went on this trip hoping Buenos Aires would change me.  Nearly three weeks in,  I believe it already has.  But not in the way I had imagined.  I feel like Eliza Doolittle, not able to fit in at home, not able to fit in here.

I'm still a typical Vancouverite.  The rain does not scare me, only the thought of being stranded where I am. I say "lo siento" and "gracias" more often then most people here are comfortable with.  And although I am slowly learning Spanish, language is still a huge barrior.

But I am no longer a typical Vancouverite.  I smile and talk to strangers.  I've developed the confident and slow swagger of a young Buenos Aries woman..."

There are days I long for Buenos Aires with the sadness of a jilted lover.  I will go back again.