When It Finally Becomes Home.

It’s a funny thing, the definition of home:

Home

[hohm]  noun, adjective, adverb, verb, homed, hom·ing.

noun

1.    a house, apartment, or other shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family, or household.

2.      An environment offering security and happiness.

3.      A valued place regarded as a refuge or place of origin.

Four weeks ago:

I find myself on the side of the road, alone, and miserably lost. My eyes are leaking, hazy in the fresh spring sunlight and I complain, out loud, that I wished I had sunglasses. Or a map, for God’s sake. I realize how crazy I look, talking to myself, mumbling curse words to the cracked sidewalk and massive buildings of Buenos Aires. I continue talking, convincing myself it’s the only way I will refrain from actually going crazy. I start to hum some Bob Dylan “Blowin’ in the wind” and consciously decide to stop mentally bitching and enjoy the walk, into oblivion and into a direction that I have no idea whether is toward home or not.

I just spent my last 15 pesos on a museum full of modern art, full of color, scribbling names of brilliant artists into my journal and jotting down my favorite pieces. A taxi or a coffee at this point is off limits without money, so I continue walking.

“I want to go alone,” I had told my roommate earlier in the day, freeing her from following me through the museum, waiting impatiently for me to find myself. “I need to get out by myself and go spend some time with some art.” Which, in reality, translated to: I feel lonely today, and I’m looking for something—anything to remind me of my Mama’s laugh, my baby cousin’s chubby hands, or the smell of my little blue truck. Mountains. My bed. Home.

This was the first time I really allowed myself to feel homesick. Although hesitant, I finally felt that knot in my stomach that many of my friends had explained to me before. You’re fine, Bryanna. You’re being dramatic. You’re in the coolest city in the world and you’re in a museum full of brilliance and magic. Isn’t this what you wanted? This is what you wanted, this is exactly what you wanted.

And so I walked, humming and talking to myself, muttering things unintelligible, letting myself go a little crazy. For the first time since arriving in beautiful Buenos Aires, I cried. Tears of sadness and tears of loneliness; the undeniable tears that come with change, that sting our face and remind us that we’re human. The tears that reminded me that, no, I am not untouchable.

Two weeks ago

I lie down on the flat ground, the salted clay beneath me molds to my body and I breathe out, loudly. There are miles of flat ground on all sides of me and I see a silhouette of someone else in the far distance. I stare up at the first stars I’ve seen in almost two months, and remember what our guide told us two days before. 

“Try to be where you are.”

So I lay there, and decide this is a prime time for soul searching. For finding myself. 

But for whatever reason, the only place I can be is with my new group of inspiring friends back at the campfire, belly laughing at inappropriate “I’ve-never-ever” jokes and speaking about our passions. The campfire where we all sat, dirty from the weekend in the mountains and in our smoky sweatpants, getting to know new people, the people I’ve “known” for almost two months, but only scratching the surface of their worlds tonight. The campfire where no one was bragging or complaining, just sharing stories and s’mores, and a whole lotta love.

While I lay there on top of the salty earth, in a silent galaxy of being alone, I feel so surrounded.  I close my eyes, a smile across my face at the thought of finally feeling like I belong.

This weekend

I sit on the curb at 3 am two blocks from my apartment, waiting for Alexis to catch the bus home. This has become a ritual of ours, so much so that we have a new friend across the street who works at the kiosco with whom we chat with in bad Spanish and has caught Alexis, more than once, dancing to await the arrival of the infamous 64.

We both sit there telling eachother yet another story of ours, and discussing the night we just had. It was just a casual Saturday night filled with spicy Mexican food (IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND IN BUENOS AIRES), new girlfriends, a spontaneous costume party, and too many laughs in between.

Her feisty, booming voice rings familiar in my ear. “I am just thinkin’ ‘bout that dulce de leche Imma have right when I get home. It’s on my list of things to eat.”

We laugh.

Our conversation and laughing pains tonight remind me of the night before, when four of us sat in the top of Starbucks, avoiding the crazy nightlife of Buenos Aires (we were exhausted from the 6 hours of dancing the night before) just talking. We quickly progressed (as close friends always seem to) into the deepest parts of ourselves, even bringing tears to the surface and latching together, closer as friends.

We spoke of family, of regret, of home. We skipped the clubs that night and decided to just hang out in a couple of unpopular night hubs—Starbucks and La continental empanadas.  And soon after, we found ourselves full of empanadas, singing and dancing in the street to music in Spanish, careless of the looks we were getting from our bystanders. We were falling deeper in love with the city, and we didn’t even know it.

These are the moments, I thought, that I'll never be able to truly capture with words.  

And later that night, in bed, I found myself crying for the second time in Buenos Aires.

Not because I missed home, but because I’d found it. 

Dear Tennyson, no one said it better.

From a tattered book with ripped pages, I turned to Tennyson's Ulysses:

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
  Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
  Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
  That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
  Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 
  Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
  For always roaming with a hungry heart
  Much have I seen and known; cities of men
  And manners, climates, councils, governments, 
  Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
  And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
  Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
  I am a part of all that I have met;
  Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
  Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
  For ever and for ever when I move.

When a narrative isn't adequate, write a poem.

 Small Face

      

Her eyes are slanted inward,

Into her smile of slanted teeth.

You’re crazy, she giggles

In high pitched Spanish, black

Hair hugging a round face creased

with sorrow and experience.

She hugs me from the side, nuzzles

that small face into my breast, beaming

over the barrier of language. That

small face wished more than twice,

more than anything, all her might,

to die in that very moment, life

kicking her around, to the ground,

all over the world. Her voice soars

when she talks about her home,

home in Paraguay, with her five

hijos and a husband who sent

her to work, to make chump change

so they don’t lose the farm. Simple

clothes as gifts hug her body, barely

buying a dress for the boda of her oldest,

she says she’ll just rent it, she doesn’t

know how to shop. Liquid doesnt escape

her ducts without optimistic

inspiration and a smile: “it’s over,

so it’s okay now. Don’t cry.” Fermina

has never seen the city. Terrified

of transport, she grips our arms, fingernails,

out in the big mundo, full of the mujeres

who shoved a knife to her chest

and took her wedding ring and money,

savings lost. She cried when we invited 

her to the tango show, mostly friendless 

here in this lonely city, tourists trekking, 

stomping, parading over

her small face.

 Her homemade empanadas bake

and make the whole house smell

like love, like salt and a dash of pain.

We are the first people, she says, 

to listen to her story.

Fermina, you’re a lover and I’m a runner,

Running to forget about people like you—real

people who feel this life with every pore, every speck

of struggle, sanity, while I run away

from the smile across your face, filled

with more love than I could give if I wished hard

on our stars, shared. Fermina,

teach me to care like you do, drowning

in humanity, swallowing reality

breathing busy but grinning anyways,

giving always, giving me chills,

pouring into me real life, Waking me

from this dream.

Why We Still Have Girls' Nights

"We made a deal ages ago. Men, babies--doesn't matter. We're soulmates." -Sex and the City 

                                    ~                        ~                        ~

The most frustrating thing for a writer is, of course, not being able to write.

If you’re a writer of any sort, you know exactly what I’m talking about: the unsettling pit in your stomach when you have too much to say, but no way to say it. The angst you feel about every situation because, really, you should be at home writing, but you physically cannot force your brain to put your thoughts into coherent sentences. You lose hair. Your nails are bitten down to the nubs. You sleep too much because your sleep is mediocre and full of stressful tossing and turning, just in case your next idea comes to you in a dream. You make all situations melodramatic because—hey, that’s what writers do anyways—and maybe missing the bus because you needed Starbucks coffee in a foreign country was worthy of writing about. Or maybe not.

So, after about six days of miserable writer’s block, I have discovered a new cure.

Beer.

And chocolate.

And boy-talk.

But mostly, all of the above—with your girlfriends.

Well, maybe not a cure. But at least a bit of alleviation of the pain that is writer’s block.

But really, what can’t a good girls’ night cure?

Last night, me and four of the coolest chicks in Buenos Aires stumbled into a little German pub in a trendy little area of the city called Las Canitas, a mere six blocks from my apartment.

“God,” I groaned, desperately confused at the menu, trudging, inept in the world of Spanish once again. “What I wouldn’t give for a good wheat beer.”

Emma, with her hood on, eyebrow piercing, rubber smile and fluency in Spanish, said, “There’s a whole list right there.” And pointed to the area on the menu where I could pay 33 pesos (or approximately 8 USD) for a good, blurry wheat beer that would be the savior to my taste buds for the night.

I giddily ordered the wheat beer, while the girls got other various overpriced drinks, and we began to talk.

And then I remembered why I love my girlfriends so much.

I remembered that it doesn’t matter your geographical location; girl time is always necessary.

Last night, writer’s block and all, I sat drinking wheat beer in a bar, in the southern hemisphere of our massive, crazy world for three hours with a feisty black girl, a wannabe (and actually) hipster to the core, a sweet badass, and a laidback health nut who are all worlds different than I am. And no surprise at all: we had one of the best, most inappropriate, funniest, inspirational conversations ever. We laughed. We talked about serious things, funny things, family things. We analyzed the difficulties of life, of traveling, of our new city. We talked about boys. We, cliché as ever, bonded.

It was beautiful.

Later that night, after three hours of gawking with the girls at sexy guys across the pub, being hit on by two men who were clearly over the hill about ten years ago, and a pot of incredible chocolate fondue,  we walked Nena, (the sweet badass) to the bus stop. We stood, full of beer and chocolate, frozen from the Buenos Aires wind at 2 am together without complaining, and laughed as Nena missed the bus because we were beso-ing each other’s cheeks for too long. After a little more inappropriate conversation and seeing Nena off on the second attempt, we all went our separate ways home, to our different parts of the city.

And so there I was, after an epic night: awake and frustrated, journal open to sad, blank pages. But then I got to thinking: Every single one of us that sat at that table has immensely different interests, different tastes in drinks, different religious views, different backgrounds, different goals and different reasons for travelling.

But there we were: together.

The only thing, other than our chromosome count, that we all have in common is that we were brave enough to choose Buenos Aires as our next destination. We all ended up here, somehow, together. Together and so different, we had one of the best Buenos Aires nights so far, at a little hole in the wall German pub over some delicious chocolate, good beer and sappy, wonderful conversation.

How cool is that?

Cool enough to write about, I’d say.