The song I am learning now is "Adiós Buenos". In a few words the song speaks of the yearning for one's neighborhood, the love, the pain of being so far away, every corner brings back memories. But a goodbye is in order.
My little town isn't Buenos Aires, not in the sense that it has the richness of good and bad and everything in between and all the dimensions that overshadow any simplistic evaluation. It is loved only if you have lived here for a while. I wonder if it's like me. You only really appreciate all my potentials if you spend the time, and a long time, to get to know me. Perhaps that's the case for a lot of people. For some people, they only see the surface, they are moved by the physical superficialities, the apparent self-confidence, the false charisma. They can't see me. They can't see the small city they live in because it doesn't have all the interesting theaters or the art galleries. That's most people, really. That's why I don't really have many close friends, and it is with pride and not regret that I have such a small circle of close friends because I am lucky to have found any who "sees" me. One of them asked me what I meant by "seeing" me. I almost told her that she should know since she is one of the few who sees me.
I went to have my car washed by driving through a carwash. For a moment, while inside that water tunnel of soap and huge rotating brushes and noise, I remember how I gave a carwash to my best friend's car, twice, before her return from Europe. She always reminds me of what being in love really felt and meant. I was so happy to surprise her with a clean shiny car, something she cherished a lot because it was the only thing she owned in the world besides her own body. To love someone requires knowing them, more than skindeep. Knowing what makes them happy with the simplest gestures like a 6-dollar carwash.
This weekend was a lot of "last time" events. Another one of my close friends called me dramatic, calling everything "last time." Last time I was washing this car, because I hope I will sell it and never own a car again in a while. It is not without sentimentality I am parting with my car. It is "my" car. Unlike my computer or even my house, my car has been the vehicle, figuratively as well as literally, of many of my memories. Driving down to New York for tango is an obvious piece of memory. But also, all the complicated memories that makes the chapter in this little city so complicated. All the romance, the true ones, the false ones. All the talks, late night. So cold, I remember those late night talks in winters, and yet I didn't want the talk to end. Discussing life, philosophy, sharing each other's past. I remember the first time I told someone what a monster my mother was when she tried to ruin my sister's wedding. That was many years ago, I mean, my telling someone for the first time. That was a turning point in my life because I finally started to share me with others. I wasn't just the listener constantly, I also shared my stories with someone I trusted. It was also in my car that so much anger had transpired. The latest was when a woman walked out of my car in anger, leaving me perplexed and shocked that such histrionic maneuvering actually could happen in real life. I am sad to say that I never made out in the backseat of my car, if one wants to live in a movie. I guess I am never that wild. I guess I am always the talker. But to compensate for this lack of Hollywood imbecility, I have done a few interesting things in the front seats.
Putting aside embarrassing moments, it was in the front seat I held hands with a girl I finally won over after so much struggle (why do women have to struggle so much to give me a chance?). I remember it was a cold and rainy night (sounds like a movie already). We were supposed to go inside a milonga. I was, at least, supposed to return to the milonga. But I stepped outside and never went back in so I could be with this woman. How sweet it was to have someone hold my hands and lean over my shoulders while we both listened to the rain dance on the glass sunroof. That was my car.
When I was vacuuming the car (all this cleaning, mind you, isn't for appreciation of the car, but rather to prep it for its sale), I found hair clips that belonged to one woman and long strands of hair belonging to another. It was as if I was going through the strata of the sedimentation of my life in this little town. And each little token reminds me of some story. And it was not without feelings that I vacuumed those relics into oblivion as I prepared myself for a new chapter.
Leaving this place still is fraught with anger and frustration. I am moving alone. I have friends, of course, and not just the close ones, and they are ready to help me. I am not speaking of moving alone like I did in every one of the moves between college and coming to this little town. I mean, as I was cutting through the strata of my memories, I realized that each layer had its sweet side, but each layer was exactly that, a layer. No woman really stayed behind with me. No one let me stay with them, at least not until it was too late.
But not all strata are about failed romances with fossils of good memories. I remember even recently sitting there in the front seat with one of my closest friends. We were sharing our anger and frustration with imbecilic people in the world who can't appreciate us. It's all subjective, of course, but in the end, through our connection, we were able to find the strength to move on, find the wisdom to make important and difficult decisions. That's perhaps the most beautiful thing about life: making connections with someone you love. This little blue car has been with me through a lot, and I prefer to remember it as the place where important bonds were forged, those of permanent friendships or even those temporary ones, romantic or not, that brought meaning to my life in the past eight and a half years.
No comments:
Post a Comment