Of homecomings and such

Oh, readers of mine! Since my last post journeys were made, a despedida was held in my honor*, tears were shed, disasters were narrowly averted and, finally, I find myself in my native land.

It has been a trying homecoming. I managed to hit all three major venues of my past lives in a scant five days: Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and now I am once more in the city from which I hail, Albuquerque.

I will not trouble you with the details of those various visits except to say that, despite all the existential disturbances caused by such acts of returning, I managed to get in some night swimming in the Pacific, fresh doughnuts in a beach town (coerced from the bakers at a closed shop North of Santa Barbara around three a.m.), a very Hollywood Independence Day bar-b-q as well as the consumption of long awaited (and surprisingly high volumes of) hot sauce.

I only now have come to a bit of a resting point in which to reflect on the sweeping transition I am now making. I miss Buenos Aires. I miss my studio departamento. I miss the keys. I even miss (or perhaps most miss, rather than ‘even’) having to move between languages, having to be always somewhat out of place. Though, worry not, I’ve spent plenty of the last handful of days out my comfort zone.

I find it off-putting that people in the U.S. chat with me as if I’ve always been here. They ask where I’m from and where I am going and I find myself somewhat stunned not to have anything but a complicated, circuitous answer: “Uh, well, I’m here for a bit, then I’ll be headed there, then maybe back again over there, then the world will be my oyster,”** etc. Usually after the second destination I list they stop listening. It’s understandable. Even I stop listening.

So, now that the Buenos Aires portion of this blog has, for a moment, come to a close, itinerant me will begin to write about the other cities in which she finds herself a temporary resident. If you require the whetting of your readerly appetite, know this: The chances of me exploring in detail the outstanding and glorious phenomenon of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos cheese puffs are extremely high.

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*Perhaps you will not be as excited as I am about this fact, but I assure you, it is awesome. At my despedida I was the only U.S. citizen and also the only English speaker. We went to my favorite bar, La Bella Gamba, and I spent the evening switching between political discussions with the handful of Argentines and crude and fabulous jokes with the handful of Colombians.

**My language, as it turns out, is somewhat stilted as I adjust to constant English. Sometimes, without conscious effort, I insert little words in castellano. The most common is ‘dale,’ essentially the Argentine version of ‘o.k.’. Weirder still, when this happens, I pronounce it with a thick American accent.