Trip to Buenos Aires - 3

Today was a strange day,,,

It began with a video call from a European country. A woman whom I once loved dearly was calling to tell me, personally, that she was about to marry her boyfriend. Not like she had any obligation (we remained good friends ever since our relationship was over... sure, it took some time, but anyway), but she felt that she wanted me to learn about that directly from herself, rather than "from Facebook gossip", as she said. She seemed far from enthusiastic - not about her partner, with whom she has been living for the last four years, but about the whole "wedding" thing, something she was going to do to please her Eastern European family more than anything. It was somehow an awkward and bittersweet situation, but it was beautiful, refreshing, to find out during the conversation how much she cares about me and how much I still care about her, in spite of the many years that have past. She insists that I would get along just great with her husband, and insisted that if I ever fly/visit their city, that I come and see them. Something I would likely do, if for no other reason as to enjoy her heartfelt, shining humor again.

But the wider issue (being a guy with philosophical inclinations, I must look for the wider issue, right? 😉) is - if relationships evolve, maybe the secret of eternal love is in its transformation? Maybe we never ever ended our relationship - just our feelings for each other took new forms, adjusted to our changing circumstances and for personal growth? I don't know. But I do know that, if after time and space have separated you from somebody, you still can, sincerely, in your heart, wish for the best to that person, and if that person, after such incredibly long time, feels that she wants to inform you of a major change in her life (one that, symbolically, widens the already existing distance), then you must have done something right.

I saw my "old" violin repairs master today. He looks great, he still smokes like a chimney (I had to change my cloths after that to go on with my day!), his craft is still superior. He is doing well, and that is just a tribute to his excellent and reliable work. And I saw a little violin that caught my eye... maybe I'll buy it? Thinking...

Finally, the purpose of this trip was accomplished. At least, the initial part of it. I saw my father today.

He looked thinner, he of course shrank a bit (he was joking that I had become remarkably tall since we met for the last time), he is tan (he's spending a lot of time under the sun now), he got, finally, new teeth, something long overdue, he is walking way better than two years ago, and chiefly, although he is subject to the changes in mood and memory fails of his age, the diagnose of "early senile dementia" seems premature to say the least. He is very much himself. Sure, I was informed that he has "his days" but who doesn't? His memory and language were remarkably sharp - something no medication can fake. The most important part of it, though, was his keen, deep awareness of his situation. There was sadness about the loss of personal freedom and privacy that comes with living in a senior facility, but he understands that without that structure, he couldn't live - at least, not in a healthy and dignified way, and likely not for long. It was great to hear that from him, since my heart was bleeding over his interning in that assisted living facility. He's even writing a book on his experiences!

I will see him again in a week, after returning from Brazil.

Time for a traditional Romanian happy drunken folk song: Gabi Lunca - Cu damigeana si un pahar (With a Jug of Wine and a Glass)!

https://youtu.be/hJKQQF4Aa5s

Trip to Buenos Aires - 2

And I arrived in Ezeiza, or the Buenos Aires Airport, also know as Ministro Pistarini Airport.

First thing: lines. Oh, I had almost forgotten the lines! Apparently, there was a strike of customs control personnel, so.... I'd say, a 50-100 meter line, after picking the luggage? Then another line, to change money. I got a wad of local cash for my $ 300. It turns out, there are now notes of 500 and 1000 pesos. And then... the line to get a taxi. But these were Argentine lines - friendly and folkloric, if boring and unwanted - not angry, frustrated Soviet lines. Having lived in different cultures and political systems gives you some prospective, after all.

I take this as a deep sign of the Spirit or the gods that my dear friend and colleague Luis Sava was in the waiting area of the airport, awaiting his cousin who happened to arrive from the US in the same flight from Atlanta as I did. It was beyond nice to see a friendly face at the first steps into a place that mobilizes my deepest apprehensions and emotions.

The visit to the National Registry at the airport proved useful as well - they advised me how to obtain my National Identity Card in Buenos Aires in 24 hours.

During my taxi trip to the city I took a call from the US - there was a fundraising meeting taking place, for the China tour of my orchestra, and it was important that the people we were asking money from heard my voice. Well timed!

Wonderful weather in Buenos Aires - indeed, a little on the hot side for me, after adjusting to North Dakota's spring.

Now in my rented apartment, barely two block away from our dear phallic monument, the Obelisk :)

Time for Gardel's immortal "Mi Buenos Aires querido"

https://youtu.be/Pb9Hv9lw5Tw
    

Trip to Buenos Aires - 1

If it were so easy to write about this...

It is not.

Years ago, sitting in Buenos Aires, at Sunderland's famous (now regrettably extinct milonga) with an academician from the Emory University, I asked her - if you are abroad, away from home, what would be the music that would bring you memories of your homeland, the music that would make you drop a tear? She thought for long but couldn't come up with an answer. Mine, as wound any "porteño's", was instant, indubitable: a tango. I've been there. Sitting in a Hungarian restaurant in Transylvania, I was asked to translate into English some lines from a famous tango. I could, for a while. After some time, emotion took over. I realized HOW far away from home I am, I realized that I was trying to translate not just words but experiences, a whole culture, a whole city. I had to excuse myself - my voice was overtaken by emotion, tears clouded my eyes.

Tango is not a kind of music, or not "just" a kind of music. Is the living expression of a whole nation, or tribe if you wish. In that regard, Porteños are similar to Jews, in that the center of their world view is not only a philosophy (or a theology), but a place - Israel for the Jews, Buenos Aires for the Porteños.

And here I am, with my father fading into mental incapacity and feebleness, travelling across the world to meet him once again before his faculties abandon him, going back to the city of my birth and my upbringing, a city so full of past (my own, and the revered past of generations before me, generations that revered past as a form of a cult of sadness), that one would wonder at the thought of anything present ever happening. I am travelling to the source of the very core of my sensibility. Yet I am travelling to a chaotic, dysfunctional place, from which I consciously fled 15 years ago, one that treated me unfairly, that crushed my every attempt at taking off, personally and career-wise. A place committed to autophagy. A place I swore I would never again live in.

Talk about contradictory feelings.

But there I go, yet again. This time. alone. I won't have the buffering effect of the presence of my children on the impact the Big City is going to have on me this time. I cannot adopt "daddy mode" and move on ignoring my own feelings.

Tango, again, is the answer.

Vuelvo al Sur, by Piazzolla, in Roberto Goyeneche's immortal performance.

https://youtu.be/MDpgHNoWASM