I. Love Story

I had the Love bug, so I started this blog.

It's the story of how two lives were thrown upside down. Of how every plan ever made, or image etched in imagination for what the next ten or even fifty years would have looked like, got thrown up in the air, cut into pieces, and let fall threw a fan on it's way down. It is, in short, a really really great Love story. It just so happens that the story is mine. You WILL forgive me if I get a little gooshy. Like I said, I've got the Love Bug. It's kind of like the flue, but...different.

Who starts the timer on a relationship on the day they were married? People who have arranged marriages. 

If this marriage was arranged, it was by Leprechauns and Unicorns.

I use to say that we'd have a big bash on our tenth anniversary. A REAL bash. With twinkly lights hanging from the canopy of a tree and a flowing fairy like dress. But most importantly, People. All of the people who continue to nurture us and be an important part of our journey, together or individually; like we would have had for a wedding if we could have. Our wedding celebration was Beautiful, Unique, Special, but extraordinarily serendipitous and far from home. Any funds that would have contributed to the wedding went instead to a green card and two plane tickets to get from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Miami, Florida, US of A.

As we get closer to our 10 year wedding anniversary, it's looking less and less like we'll be celebrating with anything more than one bottle of Martinelli. I've decided that ten is an arbitrary number anyway. Eleven is infinitely better. For one thing, it's a prime number; not to be divided by any whole other than itself and one. Two of the same coming together to form something entirely different and much more. Maybe in a couple years expect an invitation to our Big Prime Number Anniversary Bash. This year though, we're coming up on our first Eleven. The Eleventh Anniversary of our being in Love when the timer actually started to run. The time from which we both changed, forever, for each other.

We met dancing, because no one would introduce us while we were standing. The first time I saw him I was sitting with three friends, sisters, my Peruvian family. It was a Young Single Adult dance in Buenos Aires, Argentina, just getting started. I was the only girl present who stuck out like a sore thumb, the only one who wasn't born with Cumbia in her blood. My girlfriends introduced me to every single male at the dance; every single one of whom I kissed on the cheek as a casual, cordial greeting. But to this person who walked up wearing his faded jeans too tight, mustard yellow button down shirt and leather jacket, dimples and laughing honey-brown eyes; I did not have the pleasure of kissing on hello.

Let me indulge my fantasies for a tangent. I have always had the fantasy of kissing a stranger in the street. A perfectly handsome dark, luscious lipped stranger. A longish close-lipped smooch. And that, when I was 13, was my idea of love at first sight. Well, I'm thirty (I think I am still thirty?) That fantasy is still in there somewhere. If I were ever to meet my husband in the street and I had amnesia I would totally do it. But now I know that Love at first sight is much much more than just a kiss. 

Back to the story, I waited and watched, and it seemed my friends were already so well acquainted with this laughing bright eyed man, that they didn't realize I didn't yet know him.  Or at least I hadn't met him. But as I watched him, I saw someone familiar. A personality, a character, a spirit, that I understood and that I knew. You might ask why I didn't simply ask someone who he was or introduce myself. Aside from being cursed with a pathetic dose of shyness, I didn't know how. You see, I had been in Buenos Aires for a total of four days. I spoke less than ten words in Spanish.

And since no one I knew, knew to help me, I would have to do the best I could on my own.

What an Argentine does when they want to dance with someone they don't know: Find a friend who is friends with that persons friend. The pair of you go dance near the pair of them. Throughout the song, dance closer and closer to that pair until you are dancing in unison, two pairs pairing off.

What awkward Americans do when they want to dance with someone they don't know: Stare and stare until it becomes painfully obvious that you can't help yourself, until they come over to dance with you.

I was with Claudia, she danced with Sergio, who was best friends with the bright eyed stranger.

For a shy person, I've got to give myself credit. By the end of the song I wasn't just dancing in front of him in unison, I moved in time with him. I don't remember the exact moment that we touched or who initiated it. But throughout the song our hands clasped at all the right intervals and I let go in time as well. I didn't know any steps to the song and the rhythm was all a fast blur to me, but he didn't seem to mind. During an appropriate moment, according to the song, he pulled me in close, his hand on my back, and whispered in my ear. It was more than a whisper, but to me it was all sweet nothings; for that was all I understood. He repeated, maybe...this time I understood the word "Español?" and I shook my head and said "no". He said something or other that ended in the word "David?" and I motioned "Si" with my head. By the end of the song I knew his name and he knew mine.

I guess I should explain a few things surrounding this little adventure. Two months before I had been sitting in a computer lab in Logan, UT, visiting a friend. I opened my email to find a message from my brother David. I wish I had the e-mail, but that account was deleted about 10 years ago. It said something to the extent of "If no one in the family comes down to visit me while I'm living in Argentina, I may never speak to any of you ever again. Anyone who wants to come would have a place to stay and food to eat. They'd only have to pay for the plane trip down." Some might say that I was touched n the head, and they may be right. It was as if a cloud suddenly blocked out any other paths. I had been working and saving for a trip to China, and had saved about a thousand dollars so far. I decided right then and there that I was going to go to Buenos Aires. I sent an e-mail to my brother and instantly started looking for plane tickets. Within the next twenty four hours I had bought a round trip ticket for 540 dollars.

The rest of the dance is all a blur. I danced, we danced, but mostly I just watched him with a vague attempt at being discrete. Our mutual friends provided me with perfect opportunity and somehow he managed to stay mildly accessible for the rest of the night.

When we left the dance I remember walking in a blur over the cobblestone of the streets. It was the middle of the night and I was already in a dreamlike state, physically and emotionally. There was nothing rational about it, nothing that I could say "that! that was amazing!". It was everything. It was the presence of him in the air. After days of being disoriented, it was like clouds parted just around his familiar face. There's no denying it, Argentina was like a whole new solar system to me. And from that two hour-moment forward I began to revolve around him. The smells, the weather, the fruit, they were all new and rich with spices and freshness. They were all real and they were all him. I asked my girlfriends about him as much as I could while sitting on the corner, cold, waiting for a taxi to pass. I don't know if they noticed that I was more than mildly curious about someone they knew. After all, three gorgeous single females who obviously had more in common with him than a language, much more than I had. It just didn't seem fair or realistic. But the urgency I felt to find out more certainly was. I already felt that I knew him and the unknown in him warmed me.

This truly was Love at first sight. But not some lusty love you can find on a street corner. I was quite sure this feeling wasn't going to go away for quite some time.

2. Ice Cream Cones and Funnels

I didn't have to wait long to see him again. The next day, I woke up.

That's enough of a story considering how late we came in and how much dancing had been done. It was Sunday and I was annoyed that I had even gone to the trouble of getting up and going to church. I sat through the meetings, not being able to understand a thing, barely able to concentrate on the interpretations whispered in my ear of the lesson. Amazed that I was even awake at all.

Then came the main affair for our church meetings, Sacrament Meeting. David, my brother and interpreter, and myself, sat on the front row. Looking behind me, it was a sea of faces, many familiar from the dance the night before, all friendly, most with dark eyes, thick strong locks of hair. So many beautiful people.

At first I didn't know how I would survive an hour long meeting trying to stay alert and attentive in the front row. I think David designed it that way to help tune out background blurr but when the meeting began, there was nowhere for my attention to be but in front of me. I had the best view in the house. Did he think that embarrassment would keep me from falling asleep right under the gaze of the speaker?

I soon found that it was only place I wanted to be. Just as the meeting was starting Ariel came in, walked up past the audience and sat down behind the pulpit, waiting to be announced. I found myself suddenly alert. Maybe he spoke the entire hour long meeting. Maybe it didn't matter. He was there, not seven feet away. Speaking in tones that I read as confidence, firmness, experience; with a look in his eye that told me there was a hearty laugh behind every phrase. I listened to every word interpreted like it came directly from a golden harp. I have never been more grateful for a good interpreter.

He spoke of Missionary work. He was a stake mission leader, which means that when anyone wanted to know more about the beliefs of our church, he coordinated help for them to learn more. He was charged with leading the other missionaries and teaching them how to do it. Our church is a world wide church whose beliefs are outlined fairly clearly for anyone who lives in any small hidden corner but wants to practice them. It meant that we had both been surrounded by a a belief system that shared core ideas. It meant that we had more in common than most random dancing pair pairing off. His speech was firm and forceful. He was bold in sharing his beliefs and his joy at sharing them. In the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world, there were few with the same understanding of Christs teachings that we shared.

It was powerful to me that he didn't only belong to my faith, but was actively seeking it. I felt more hesitant than ever for thinking there was some supernatural pull toward him. But there was no doubt, seeing that he had a strong spiritual compass, seeing in his face the conviction with which he spoke, I couldn't deny that the pull was stronger than it had been the night before. I might as well have been struck dumb as a sign from the heavens. Things were getting weird.

After the meeting I intended on finding him and communicating some level of interest in a less than ridiculous way. What I was thinking was something along the lines of "Can we please go somewhere with a universal translator like on Star Trek, and you know...talk?" But before I could do anything of the sort, there was a haze of people, more to kiss hello, more to be 'presentado'. I found him through the scattered crowd talking to my brother David. I guess I should have expected my brother to know him, but I didn't know if this made things more complicated or more interesting.  I imagined that everything was about me. It seemed that since I had arrived in this country I was the center of attention every place I went. I don't exaggerate when I say that I met and kissed everyone of the 50 people in the room that day. It isn't in my nature to seek out the attention of strangers. And though I can't say I hate it when it comes, the level of interest in me from every one around me was exhausting.

When I finally made my way over to him, I only remember standing trying to understand what they were talking about, glad that I was already a part of it and didn't have to find some excuse to stand listening. There was something about Luke Skywalker and his curious glances at me, wondering possibly why I looked so interested and what was the laugh on the corner of my mouth... All I know for sure is that I hoped this would open the doors to seeing him in some other place,  and that it not be a church. I didn't know how I would talk to him. But I knew what it would be ABOUT. I had about a million questions about him, his life, his everything. I needed to know him, but my curiosity felt like the anticipation of an ice cream cone on a smouldering day. A sweet desire that needed to be satiated because soon it might all melt away. It was so much more than mere curiosity. It was urgent. It was sand falling through the small hole in a glass funnel.  Could one month be long enough?

3. The Push

This was written on our 9th Anniversary, nearly a year ago. But today it seems more valid than ever. Reading about and reliving those first moments helps my love to be fresh like a stack of hot pancakes. 


Writing about life takes courage. For me it's a rite of passage. Something I have to do before I can move on to the next phase. Some things that have happened, haven't actually happened until I write about them. I may move forward but there will always be a wall until I find the courage to write about what I left behind. It isn't courage alone, some things have to be dealt with, consciously or not.  You can write about it as many times as you want until one conclusion is met or another reinvented of the same series of events. And you learn something new about yourself every time, it can get you through the experience, break it down into terms you can wrap your brain around.  But I can not begin to put all the pieces together until I put some connecting piece down in honest words. Some events are so impacting that though I may not think about it regularly or ever, it is always in my subconscious effecting the way I perceive other things. Later it will turn up and I'll remember all of the details, all of the moments, as if no time has passed, look at them with new eyes and a fresh perspective.

For a long time I was stuck in a rut because my writing revolved around one particular series of events and a person who shared my need for words. I was unable to move forward with something infinitely more important because I couldn't write about it. I hadn't figured out how.

Recently though, I've found the courage to push forward through that blockage. I've started a new project and thus a new blog. One that will only deal with this all engulfing subject. The subject of my life with my husband.

4. Quiet Moment Alone

If I have yet to reveal my over sentimental nature, this post will give me away.

A naive 19 years in a country not her own, believing in all of the most blind of love stories, knowing that she had yet to create her own. I didn't enter into this journey thinking of meeting someone.  I think the fact that I wasn't actively looking for someone to interact with in a romantic endeavor made the whole experience more intoxicating. I had, in fact, left someone home waiting for me. He sent me off at the airport with a single long stem rose. But somehow the 5000 miles made it feel like another life.

The dance was the first event of a week long conference for all of the young single adults in the region. A 'convencion', they called it. And I had every hope that my bright eyed friend, whose name I had familiarized on the tip of my tongue and out through my lips, would be in attendance in the rest of the festivities.  He had a friend and by this time I recognized that wherever this friend was, he would be as well. The 'convencion' was held out of the city on a small 'camping' resort, dedicated to reviving the glories of gauchos and asado; traditional Argentine life.

We went by bus, meeting in a public plaza, where for the first time I was genuinely aware of the possibility of being pick pocketed. We loaded our bags, tents, instruments and selves onto the bus and headed out of the city, stopping on a highway and walking a few blocks to the large scenic 'camping'. It was late in the afternoon and after setting up our tent there was a talent show, where my brother David was to perform and asked that I accompany him on a very appropriate Allison Krauss "When you say nothing at all". When it was our turn I looked out nervously for Ariel, my eyes fell on his friend, whose name is Sergio. It set me at ease but sent me searching from face to face for hose dimples and jet black hair. He was nowhere in sight. After the song Sergio came over to 'saludar'. Somehow  I asked him where Ariel was. He tried hard to tell me, but either the music was too loud or I was too stubborn. I left the crowded room determined that I would find him.

Walking out into the fresh air, there were smells I had never experimented. A sweet freshness had settled over the grass and pathways where couples lingered or wandered directionless. I wandered too and a part of me that I disliked wanted to be one of those couples until finally there was someone far off, maybe 50 yards away, who I wanted to see. As I approached his figure, amidst fruit trees, I saw hands resting, clasping each other, sitting casual, relaxed, but thoughtful, on a stool. The light was fading fast and I barely recognized him from behind. I walked, not too quickly toward him, not really knowing how I was going to explain why I had come looking for him. Thus far it was nothing more than a crush. Maybe he was enjoying a quiet moment alone in the fresh air. As I approached I called out a hello, but he didn't respond. In fact he didn't even move. Suddenly I felt embarrassed that I had thought so intently on finding him, strayed back toward one of the many paths and walked on. For a few minutes I walked, thinking on the unexpected vacant response.  I suddenly disliked myself. The idea of being dependent emotionally on this person, who I hardly knew. It struck me how ridiculous it was that in this new place, full of so many new experiences I would pine away for someone whose life was so far from my own that I didn't even illicit a response from a cordial hello. Suddenly I disliked him, feeling hurt and embarrassed.

By this time the sun was setting and the light still glimmered on the corners of things. That freshness in the air had turned to thick dew under my shoes but the smells were still thick with the sweetness of jasmine. A sense of self preservation convinced me that I was going to forget about Ariel and enjoy this crisp autumn night. It was probably at about this time that I pulled my headphones out of my hoody. I put Toad the Wet Sprocket in the disc-man and turned up the volume to drown out any thoughts of Ariel. Toad the Wet Sprocket can be a religious experience, especially when you're alone in a new country, it's dark and you don't know where you're wandering off to.

It was over a hedge and through a fence with dew covered grass under my feet. I wandered past trees, through futbal fields and found myself under a great geometric cement structure. Looking up there were narrow stairs leading upward, over a ladder or two and to a water tank high above. I gravitate to high structures with narrow limbs and the invitation to climb was too great to resist. Up it was. I climbed until I was barred by three thick cords strung across the next set of vertical rungs. I knew from stories I'd heard that if I touched the cords my brother might have to send out a search party to find me. This was South America and its generally known that one can pirate electricity from a neighbors line or the main if one is covert and able. I stretched my legs past the thick lines and pulled my body up and through the hole between them to the platform above. One last stretch of ladder led to one last platform, just wide enough to sit cross legged and stretch my spine upward and back until I was lying looking backward at the flat night sky, thick with cloud cover.

No stars lit up the night and Toad was the only thing in my head keeping my thoughts focused on smells and simple sensations. I belted out every line to a smooth strung guitar and familiar melody. Ear buds drown out the sound of my voice until the song ended and silenced me out of that loud moment into the quiet of night along with one other thing. It was rain, pushed at an angle by a firm breeze, striking me, first lightly then growing in intensity. Looking out, there were no more rays to paint my face or see the shimmering countryside. I could barely make out the rise and fall of trees on the horizon. Nothing closer or farther than anything else, just two shades of dark and darker with patches of street lamps and porch stoops lighting up below. It was silent for a moment until the next sensation made me take my headphones off. Dogs, a dozen of them calling to each other, singing of passersby and smells on the breeze. I became aware that I was quite alone here with my thoughts. I inhaled deeply and listened, cupping my hands to my ears to funnel in the sound.  It was the sound of vulnerability, far from anyplace home to me. I sat for some time in that spot, looking out at the night, listening, feeling hard drops on my cheeks, wetting my hair.  In that moment I knew I didn't need any other thing or one to be in that moment. It was more than enough and it would stay with me.

After a time of soaking that in I made my way back down, past the electrical wires and back to camp. I was disoriented from the climb, but had a renewed sense of purpose. I was here to live and breath whatever Argentina meant or was; the humidity, the sweet and salty scents, the rain, the food, the people.

The next day, as the 'convencion' continued. I was with my brother, the Ubillus, and some other friends; playing, always playing at whatever game we could invent. At one point we wandered to where I had passed Ariel the night before. Probably looking for a tree to climb or a ball. I found there a man, sitting, looking at the ground with his hands resting, clasping each other, relaxed but thoughtful, on a stool. He was made of plaster and paint and enjoying one permanent, thoughtful, quiet moment alone.

 

5. Alive en Mi Bs. As. Quierido

The way I remember that first month in Buenos Aires is one long rain dance with short burst of thunder and brief breaks in the clouds for the suns ray to dry my clothes. When I think of it that way It's fairly inevitable that I would fall in Love.

After the 'camping' trip, where we played in the rain, danced in the rain, sang in the rain and were practically washed out of our tent by torrential rain, I went back to pretending a quiet life with the Ubillus.

Every day I took in every detail that my senses and capacities could hold. Buenos Aires was a new, magical world to me. And though I thought of Ariel in most of the minutes between thumbing through my thick dictionary, there was much to be seen, smelled and felt in this strange new place. The arch of cobblestones under my feet and the smell of fresh humidity mixed with car exhaust as I was led through the streets to accompany my Peruvian family in their daily chores became my new life. I wandered around being led by these three sisters who must have tired of my constant wandering and perplexed-ness at every simple thing. I jumped over puddles in my black flip flops and took the onlooking stares like a true American. I was in heaven.

There is much to be told of this generous family of women, who gave to me the most authentic experience of Buenos Aires as an outsider on the inside. Being themselves from a different place I was able, for two weeks, to see things through a certain set of polarized glasses. My time was manicured carefully through them. Their lives were set aside selflessly for brief moments to make room for me. I was able to observe a culture that was adapting to Argentinism. They owned a 'verduleria' or a vegetable shop. It was a large stall on street level, the likes of which most Argentines visited on a daily basis to buy the vegetables for that day. Most days I remember sitting for hours watching every thing they did, hiding behind a tall wall of vegetables. The shop was the subject of many hours of contemplation and study; both of the Spanish language, the people who inhabited the city. What did people buy? What did they make with it? If I was ever hungry there was always some of the most perfectly fruit brought every other day by 'el Tio' in his bright green and orange truck directly from the farmers 50 kilometers away. I tried to make sense of the business practices of my family, what things they precut and packaged for their costumers. What they put in their addictive fruit salad. One of the last things they ever told me was what that secret ingredient was. They made me promise not to tell. It is apparently an old family secret.

There are a lot of Peruvians living in Buenos Aires. They use normal ingredients in their food, but the way they prepared them is unique. Countless plates of aromatic butternut squash, pureed and served on a bed of herbed rice. Chicken roasted with lemon and garlic and a thick green herb paste slathered over the top. To this day I try to imitate some of the things I ate with them. I learned a lot from the way they prepare their vegetables. The first recipe I begged from my Peruvian Mother Vicky: Papas a la Juan Caina. One thing my brother got right, I ate well. If it weren't for the constant walking and frantic dancing both under rain and in church houses every weekend I might have gained ten pounds in those two weeks.

These people, who fed me, clothed me appropriately, who showed me their life with no boundaries but language. I Love them. And at the time I genuinely believed that they enjoyed my company as well, even if it was mostly laughing at my horrid pronunciation or what I had thought I understood. They let me sing to them. They watched me splash in puddles and line up wine bottles in the street. They let me photograph them and never questioned why. They showed me the kind of generosity and care that I always thought I might find in South America. I had no idea what it was like to know real people who would have given an arm and a leg to help someone out or simply take a stranger into their home and let her pretend she 's one of them.

They lived a humble, magical life. What seemed like long hard days and a lot of sacrifice for them was the perfect balance of sitting, doing nothing and observing. It made it possible for me to throw myself into a storm of information, culture, and sensation that took much energy to process.

When I wasn't at their vegetable shop I spent time recovering at the Ubillus's home. Spending all day every day with things that are foreign is exhausting. On a normal day I would sleep in while they walked the four blocks to roll up a gate to piles of garlic, mounds of onions and trays of kiwi, until one of them would come to fetch me. For me it was a vacation, for them it was life. I daydream still of living in their rooftop house, half a dozen narrow cement stairways, doors to unlock, the map of which is all fading. But some things never fade. The mornings I spent alone at their home were meditative. I took the time to enjoy a shower in the outside bathroom. It was a small cement and tile building with a window that stayed cropped to keep the mirrors from fogging up. Present in my memory is the smell of the first bar of soap and shampoo I bought in Argentina, one citrus and ginger, the other green tea. I can feel the chill of cold from showering with cold water because I didn't know how to work the calefon and no one forgets the sensation of putting on damp clothes because the humidity was already at 99% and the shower had just tipped it over to 100%. I washed my clothes in a large cement basin and generally tried to wrap my mind around the experience. These were my only moments alone.

One morning, the sky gave us some rest from the rain just long enough for me hang my clothes on the line.  Alone in this great newness I listened to the sounds of the city. There were apartment noises, radios blaring, people cooking or doing dishes. All these sound of life, floating out into the air, completely oblivious to my listening ear.  I sat on a terrace on a plastic lawn chair and put my feet up. It was usually at these times that I wrote in my journal or wrote letters to people in my life who were on other adventures. Letters were in an attempt to bring two worlds into the same space. Considering my life and this new reality together, I felt burdened by neglect. Not of those things I was not tending to but all those things I didn't know that I had and knew less that I didn't need. Living in this simple place made even the most normal things feel extraordinary. My life in the United States was cluttered by so many things that dull the subtle flavors of life, which felt so far away. In these moments everything was so blissfully clear. Sitting with my thoughts, someone near bye struck up a tune. It was an accordion and it groaned out into the morning and accompanied the birds and the clatter of traffic horns with it's weary notes. I could do nothing but sit with my feet on a chair, looking up into the sky and listen. It was the soundtrack for a scene of cement walls and huge black water tanks, tiny windows on the sides of twenty stories of flat concrete. The corners of every wall were hung in moss or a small plant clinging to the soil formed from settled smog and wind blown organic matter. It was simply another magical moment in a place that was settling every day more into my phsyche.