The invitation was for 8pm. Smug about my understanding of local customs, I arrived at 9. I waited around for another half hour for the hostess to emerge from her bath and for the additional 18 guests to show up.
Dinner of “Asado,” barbecued beef, with bread, wine and salads started at 10:45. Abundance of entertaining conversation on the part of Dolly’s theater, writers etc long-time friends.

I sat next to beautiful Nora, the massage therapist. I’ve enjoyed 3 of her looong, sooooothing and very affordable massages. She uses cherry pit oil. I left the massages relaxed and smelling like a lollipop.

Exercising in the park

Different park

Families enjoy a sunny Saturday

Joy on the merrygoround

Buenos Aires is a home for me. I plan to return both to work and to further the rich friendships I’m enjoying. Feeling some sadness about leaving tomorrow mixed with excited anticipation of the next chapter. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude.

A Ceibo tree with guest parrot. Parrots are pests here. Like pigeons. They even peck stuff up off the ground.

Jacaranda

Spring in the park where I go for walks.

Music in the "subte"

My internal weather has been varied too. I’m reframing “anxiety” to “charged.” I haven’t been sleeping well and I spend hours in the night and early morning feeling energy in my body, “charged.” This corner where I’ve been staying, is very noisy, and this neighborhood, Palermo Viejo, is alive! at night. I’m sharing it all with many millions of people, cars, dogs. Also plants and birds. Sometimes my system longs for quiet little Ashland and the ease and comfort of the known.

My friend Ronnie and I had coffee with a retired man I met last year who lives in different cities for 2-6 months. The main draw is tango. He also enjoys the challenge of living in a place he doesn’t know and whose language he doesn’t speak. When I saw him in Dec 2008, he was on his way to Istanbul where there’s a hot tango scene and a mix of cultures. He’s back in Buenos Aires for 2 months before traveling to Bangkok for the next stint. He has lived, worked and done family in Oregon too.
“Do you get lonely?” I ask.
“Never. No, never lonely”
He acknowledges with a nod of the head the challenges he welcomes which come mostly from not being able to communicate in the language of the country.

I met a friend of Dolly’s who’s just back from 10 years of living on the road in Brazil. Homeless by choice in the remote areas of Brazil but homed now he’s in the city of his youth and of his family. He’s handy, mostly quiet and very self-contained. He likes being unencumbered.

I’m thankful for the tools I carry with me. I’ve used them to pull myself not so much out of the funks but of the fear that the tension/agitation/charge/tiredness will be a permanent state. I dance my NIA workout in the morning. I sit with reverent gratitude for the Buddhist teachings I’ve learned. I tap my latest tool, EFT, and I carry on.

Hearing back from friends also helps me find myself –a familiar self- again.

I am restored having completed my first presentation in Spanish with ease and tremendous enjoyment. Ready for more!

When my attention wanders. . .

This room was a chapel at one time. Now it’s part of Institute Oral Modelo.

Argentines have a relationship to Rule of Law that I don’t fully comprehend. I’m not sure who does. It’s not like Kabul where I saw total disrespect or ignoring of rule of law. Here there is pretense that Rule of Law exists and matters. After all, the British were here, their descendents are still definitely here. The Spanish Church had its turn too.
The headline when I arrived was about congress considering an offer to the executive of more unchecked power. More and more.
How will that affect citizens? They don’t seem to let laws curb their driving, their dogs, their treatment of each other.
Some laws impact. This year there is no daylight savings. When I was here last year, part of the country had 1 hour of daylight savings, another had 2. Per declaration of the President.

I sit in a white plastic balcony chair on the 11th floor of an apartment building that intrudes on the lives of neighbors below who water their patio plants, hang laundry. I ponder Rule of Law.
Who governs this person Selene? A queen? A dictator? A Benevolent Wise Woman? A Petulant Child? A democratically considered parliament? Special Interests? What laws run this being? Who set them up? What does it take to enact, to review and revise or eliminate laws? What are the consequences for following the laws, for breaking them?

Time to walk to the park. It’s a sunny Spring day.