Without Pretense

"Then, like so many people, who perhaps ought to be issued only a very probational pass to meet trains, he tried to empty his face of all expression that might quite simply, perhaps even beautifully, reveal how he felt about the arriving person."

Franny, J.D. Salinger

(photo) Retiro station, Buenos Aires. I especially like that you can feel just how hot the day was due to its over exposure (definition) Pre-tense: Mere show without reality; outward appearance (p.s.) more sage | green

Junot Diaz | Bookworm Love

"The only thing that came close was how he felt about his books; only the combined love he had for everything he'd read and everything he hoped to write came even close"

(photo) book page "wallpaper" on a little (but loved) house in Buenos Aires. (quote) Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao | and another line.   (p.s.) world's most beautiful bookstore | book shopping in sartorial style | more bookworm love | intellectual porn from French Glamour

been there | Buenos Aires

Dusk at the Plaza De Mayo, Buenos Aires
(p.s.) other posts from my trip to Argentina. 

The Best Part of Waking Up

'Logically incoherent' is a term philosophers use to describe something that is so contrary it's inconceivable. The easy demonstration of this is to ask someone to imagine a square circle. You can't do it. What it means to be a circle (round) is defeated by the the properties of being square (having corners).

To Argentinians the idea of a 'coffee to-go' is on about the same level as a square circle. Taking coffee with you defeats the purpose - to stay and connect with the person who is (inevitably) joining you. So much so, that in most coffee shops to-go cups don't even exist.

In all of Argentina, a country of 36 million people, there is one starbucks. ONE. In New York City, population 8 million, there are 171. In the country of Japan there are over 800 Starbucks' and counting. There are few foreign markets that Starbucks hasn't dominated. But, I'm not surprised that a coffeshop that is the epitome of 'quick cup on the run' hasn't caught on.

During my time in Buenos Aires I've been a bit jealous of the depth of people's relationships here. Everywhere large groups of friends talk over cups of coffee which sit, half full, as their possessors wave their hands recounting a story which seems to be endlessly climaxing. (Of course, this is aided by a thing also valued by porteños: the two hour lunch break.)

Time is taken for the sharing, and building, and catching up that Americans are always 'too busy' for. People here understand that coffee, like friendship, isn't instant.

p.s click the shot of the single cup to see the heart shaped piece of chocolate floating in it. a good omen!

Argentina : The World's Best Bookstore (Sorry Powell's)

All over Buenos Aires, Argentina there are signs that say "Buenos Aires: World's Best City for ____" some of them say "soccer!", others "tango dancing!" and from what I saw I would agree.

But one of them says "Buenos Aires: World's Best City for bookstores".

and I was like "uhuh. No. I am from the World's Best City for bookstores: Portland, Or. Ever heard of a book store that is 1 square city block, called Powell's?

You can imagine how humbled I was when I stepped inside El Ateneo Grand Splendid, a bookstore that is a converted early 20th century theatre with a seating capacity of 1,050 people. The old opera boxes are now reading nooks and the mezzanines hold thousands of books! With a name like grand splendid it better be, and it truly is.

What is it about bookstores that just makes me filled with the urge to make the world stop? I wish I could be given a year (and unlimited coffee & bagels) to read everything that I want to. I'm afraid something tragic might happen to me before I get time to read all the great tragedies, and sometimes I'm too busy being in love to read the great love stories.

I guess It's just hard to find the time to live two lives: your own, and the more poetic, perfectly tied together one you live while reading a great novel.

(photo) on film with Pentax k1000 (p.s) more posts about books stores: an art installation HERE (one of my favorite posts I've written).

Sara Gruen | On Home

"Is where you're from the place you're leaving or where you have roots?" Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

Home is Wherever I'm With You

I did this little drawing for Eli after he had been away working for the week.

At the time we were living in a tiny little room with his best friends.

Now, after traveling all over a foreign country I feel like every bit of this song is bursting from me! {except I might have written: holy moly me oh my I don't hate you after spending every waking minute with you for two months. Infact, I like you more.}

It was pretty nice to have home sleeping on the bunkbed above me the whole time, even when I was so far away from where I live.

listen to Home by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, my favorite love song in a long time, HERE. and see the other half of the drawing HERE

Haven

(ha·ven) n. A place of refuge or rest; a sanctuary

I found my "special place" when I was in Argentina.
It's called San Telmo: it has art galleries, arching trees and cobblestone streets.
It's the place where I will go if things ever get bad. You know really bad.
I'd sell all my belongings and rent an apartment, change my name, and never look back.
It's my h i d i n g p l a c e. My haven.
My best friend Laura has a place like this in France called Montmartre.
Do you?

Argentina: Lost (& Found) in Translation

this comment, on a post I wrote about foreign language, is pure poetry 

"eventually you make a home in it--the silences where you try and understand each other start to feel like sharing secrets. Je promis."

Caitie Mace at Light on the Subject {who I happen to know in real life, mostly through a shared copy of Vonnegut's Breakfast at Champions}.

Argentina: Hotdogs to High Heaven

Also ... they serve hot dogs at the Recoleta Cemetery.
{which I thought was absolutely hilarious}

Argentina: Recoleta Cemetery's Poignant Posies

"We should concern ourselves only with today, because the lilies in the field toil not but are arrayed in glory"
Matthew 6:28 {via serendipity in Paulo Coelho's Witch of Portobello}

I recognized the flowers planted in front of the Recoleta Cemetery from my mom's garden. They're Day-lilies; a flower that blooms for one day and then dies. I can't think of anything more poignant in front of a cemetery than a floral reminder of how ephemeral life is: short, but so strikingly beautiful.

Argentina: When Book Lovers Go On Vacation

I read about this building in one of my travel books and even though it is described as "no more than an ornate concrete building that now houses offices" Eli and I absolutely had to see it!

The Palacio Barolo was designed by Mario Palanti, an Italian architect who was part of a sacred order which revered Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy. Like most of the expatriates living in Argentina at the time, Palanti believed that Europe would be destroyed by war. In 1919 he constructed a building to safely house Alighieri's ashes when that happened (a plan that unfortunately never came to fruition).

• It is 100 meters tall to represent the 100 cantos of the poem
• Each floor has 11 or 22 offices because each of the poems cantos have 11 or 22 lines.
• The ceiling in the entrance is vaulted in 9 separate domes, 1 for each of the circles of hell in The Inferno
• The ground floor begins as hell and is decorated by iron dragon light fixtures and floor tiles that look like flames. As you progress up the building you go through purgatory and heaven - where the view is the best.

They weren't giving tours the day we went, but luckily we managed to sneak past the security guard and give ourselves our very own tour ... complete with walking up 14 flights of circular stairs; a punishment fitting of purgatory.

Argentina: Raggedy Madness is a Bit Evident

"I realized that these were all the snapshots our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered, stabilize-with-in-a-photo lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness of our actual lives, the senseless emptiness. " Jack Kerouac, On the Road (208)

Just a photo of any day in Argentina: a walk motivated by my insatiable desire for ice cream.

I Carry All This Crap With Me (I Carry It In My Heart)

"I came here with a load, and it feels so much lighter now that I've met you" Coldplay, Green Eyes

It's funny how the words we use to describe emotions are so often material. We "let go" or "move on" from things in our lives and even though thoughts don't weigh anything until they become tears they certainly make our hearts heavy.

What if we had a way to see every thought we had in a day? A physical manifestation of the real but invisible monologue we are never with out; everything would stack neatly in a pile - like my sundresses, rompers, and shorts.

The truth is we carry these thoughts and feelings with us the way I carry my life here in Argentina: on our backs. We devote energy to maintain their presence, and they change the way we experience a walk or a bus ride. Each time I pick up my backpack I am acutely aware of every single item in there. With each step I consider "Yes, I like this (thing). But do I like it enough to carry it around a foreign country and sacrifice my happiness for it?". The answer for nearly all of it, even the hair products, is "no". And if I could do it all over again I would pack a bar of soap, a bathing suit, and a sundress and leave the rest at home.

If I could look at my thoughts I would be ashamed to see how tired I make myself over things and emotions I don't want. My feelings of self-doubt alone could outweigh 42.8 lbs; I keep a heavy supply of it for whenever I check my bank statement or think of a word like 'career'. It even comes in a labeled container that says "what the f- am i doing?".

Then there is anger, the heaviest emotion of all, stacking up with resentment brick by brick. I can feel it behind me with every action, reminding me never to let anyone into that emotional backpack unless I want my proverbial dirty underwear strung across an electric wire. I feel like I need to keep all my faults with me to protect them from being found.

But I'm beginning to realize they they too aren't worth their weight. It seems so obvious, but as a person who buries their feelings I'm tempted to compare my heart to Mary-Poppins purse, not a backpack. I am often surprised by what I find hiding inside myself. It's time to start unpacking, and to leave the things that aren't worth it by the roadside. I'm lucky enough to know now that my backpack wont ever be empty, but it can be light.

Argen-turquoise!

The street lights in San Telmo and this truck match my typewriter and bike!
Potential souvenirs? I think I'd look pretty rad driving around in that now that cindy-civic and the miata are really gone for good. Maybe get Andy & Tessa and go camping. Give Dana a ride to work and then let him park it in valet. Play a little Carrie Underwood with the windows down when I'm by myself and I don't have to have respectable musical tastes.

Something's Missing

I've never missed more people more deeply than this year after graduating college. It seems like every morning I wake up missing someone or something (...like sunshine!)

When I went away to college in San Diego I begged my dad everyday for 8 months to please please let me drop out and come home to Oregon. The word 'homesickness' was an understatement - it was like 'hometerminalillness'. But pain is funny in the way that is goes away little by little; one day you wake up and you look out the window and you read the paper and drink coffee and it then occurs to you that something is a bit different. and you realize you aren't sad anymore. And then it starts all over again when you leave that place for the next step in your life journey.

I have really surprised myself here in Argentina because after a month of being here I'm still not really homesick. (Much to the relief of my family/the phone bill). Maybe after a while we start to realize that part of growing up means that we'll always be missing somebody - and whether that distance is measured from Portland or Buenos Aires doesn't make so much of a difference.

(image) absolutely love these from SilverMade Studios. Especially the e.e cummings inspired one on the right.
I Carry Your Heart With Me is one of my very favorite poems.

Like a Broken Record

I could use this little print by Erin Said So when I move back to the States.
How often do I say the same things?
{unfortunately, they are usually complaints.}
"I need to find a big girl job that I am passionate about"
"I don't feel inspired. I don't feel creative"
"I'm tired."
b l a h b l a h b l a h
It's time to start saying something new.
I'm starting with: "Buenos Dias!"

Jack Kerouac | On Saying Goodbye

"What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - It's the too huge world vaulting us and it's good bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies"

Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Argentina: Makes Me Feel Fine

There aren't many things a person can believe in these days.

But I do believe that the reason most of us go on living is the thing called 'Summer.'

All this working we do is just our way of waiting for the winter to end or the weekend to come; when the air is clear and full and filled with the noise carried on wind-gusts. We close our eyes in relief when they hit us. And we listen.

We listen as the cars humm rather than woosh and can hear everyone going. Somewhere.
The sound of Brillo on white marble floors drift in from a near window. These are the words that summer whispers: do, go, do and go.

A season of potential; of waking everyday to the sun. We stretch our limbs ready to grow now, as if by photosynthesis.

This is the power, hidden, rationed, each day in the gray. Knowing that summer is coming. Hold on.

Jack Kerouac | Manana

"we gazed at the stars together and kissed. 'Manana' she said 'everything'll be alright tomorrow don't you think?'
'Sure baby manana.' It was always manana. A lovely word that probably means heaven."

Jack Kerouac, On the Road