The Same But Different.

I am so aware of time lately. Time and how quickly it goes by.


(July 2007)

I took this photo two years ago in Argentina. I had just quit my job and the feeling of empowerment and the high that I felt right after taking the leap was starting to wear off and worry and doubt and insecurity were taking their place. I took a trip to Buenos Aires to see my family and friends for three weeks hoping that when I got back, I would know what to do...as it turns out, it did not (at least not right away) but it was okay. Since I was very young, being in Argentina always seemed to recharge my batteries and make me stronger and better in a way. I remember the day of this particular photo because it was freezing and I was out for a walk with a friend. We stopped to watch these dancers move furiously and smoothly to the sound of a tango that always reminds me of my grandparents and my childhood in the house that my father grew up in. I snapped a bunch of photos but then I was just watching them moving - it was so sexy and so natural and so fluid. I had taken so many photos that day but this one was my favorite. To me it was like life seemed at the time...rushed and fluid and hazy and full of movement and change.

When I got back home I came across the image again and it looked like it was alive on my computer screen. I closed my eyes and for an instant I was standing on that street surrounded not only by tourists but also locals who were as mesmerized by these flowing figures as I was. My feet and the tip of my nose and fingers felt cold remembering how I felt frozen by the wind that day. The irony is that on that afternoon, watching these dancers I suddenly forgot about the weather. I couldn't feel my toes but I felt warmed up and in a trance by these people staring into each other's eyes and moving together like I've never seen before...or at least how I've only ever seen on the streets of Buenos Aires.

That was two years ago. Two years and yet it seems like a blink. Two years that seem to have flown by me at lightening speed and yet so much has happened since then.

Last year I went back to Buenos Aires for the ArteClasica Art Fair. I went back to the place to see if my dancers were there. They were there in the same place dancing to the same song and I was the same but also so different than the last time I had seen them. There they were and there I was...and I was different.


(July 2008)

I had finally learned to accept and embrace change and not knowing. I grew to like not knowing where exactly I was going (professionally) and I felt lighter than I had the year before. I had the perspective that I did not have the year before and that made me feel more still. Life was still fluid and a little hazy but it was better. It felt right or more right than it had the year before. My professional life had finally caught up to the bliss of my personal life and that was really all that I was seeking.

I'm not going to go back this year* but I'm thinking about my dancers. I'm thinking of them moving and flowing. I'm thinking of myself and how in two years so much has happened and how much I have grown.

Next year...I don't know...and I like it that way.


Today's Soundtrack:
Por Una Cabeza - Carlos Gardel

My grandfather always listened to news radio in the morning. He and my grandmother were always up early and it would be so quiet in their big house. From my room, my father's old room, I could hear the deep voice of the man reading the news and the occasional laughter of whoever else was with him and every time they went to commercial, they played this tango. Every time. I remember lying in my bed listening and thinking, today he will play something else. Today will be the day. But, then I grew to rely on this song. Year after year I would go to Argentina and morning after morning I would wake up and my grandfather would listen to his news and I would wait for the very brief moment just before a commercial where they would play this song. Every time I hear it I think about him. Well, the truth is that any time I hear a lot of things or think of certain things or smell certain things, I think about him. But this was my little private moment with him and my grandmother...in the morning, when they didn't know I was listening and I listened to their quiet routine.

_________

*my work will be at the Art Fair but more on that later...