I was so excited to get back to Buenos Aires (BsAs)! Like the song goes, I couldn’t wait to get back to where I once belonged. And that’s just it, I felt that I belonged in BsAs. I visited for the first time three years ago. It was a transformative two week trip. I Instantly felt at ease in a city where I was the furthest I’d ever been from home and I barely spoke the language.
I had never been somewhere where English wasn’t spoken at the basic tourist level (think restaurants and stores) and I liked it. It immediately forced me out of my comfort zone and pushed my high school Spanish to the limit. I enjoyed the challenge of basic communication, something that comes so easily in your mother tongue, that you inevitably take it for granted. As Gregory David Roberts puts it so eloquently in Shantaram, “We don’t really know what a pleasure it is to run in our own language until we are forced to stumble in someone else’s.”
He couldn’t be more right. Yet, I realized that I liked stumbling in Spanish. My clumsy attempts opened the door to so many interactions with locals, including what became our morning ritual of coffee and Spanish with the baristas at Felix Felicis & Co. Every morning we would head to the end of the block, stop in, get our morning cup, and practice our Spanish with Luis and Sebastian. It sent me into the rest of the day on a high of caffeine and confidence.
I remember eyeing Felix Felicis & Co on my first walk around the neighborhood. My flight got into BsAs a couple hours before my friends Krystle and Amanda so I took that time to explore our new neighborhood of Palermo. I love a good coffee shop (see practically any blog post) and when I spotted Felix Felicis I remember thinking, oh that looks too nice, they’ll probably be snobs. I likened it to a bike store, where the employees can be elitist in attitude if they read you as too mainstream. I kept walking.
The very next day I found myself walking in with my girls and boy was I wrong. There was nothing affected about this corner coffee shop. Luis and Sebastian were warm and welcoming from the first pour. It became our go-to spot. It was this experience that showed me the importance of having a home away from home when you travel.
More than anything it taught me the power of connecting with locals. By the end of the trip I was looking forward to the conversation as much as I was the coffee. Unsurprisingly, music was the common ground that took our conversations past the weather. Luis is a musician himself and both of us are fans, so it gave us something to talk about and when you’re trying to learn a language, something is good.
When our time ran out in BsAs I was sad to leave the city, and let’s be real, Luis and Sebastian too. In a stroke of symmetry, I was the last of our girl group to leave the city. I spent those final solitary hours strolling the streets and taking all the pictures I wanted.
My last act was getting my final flat white from the guys. For the girl who lives her life wishing it was a John Hughes movie, what happened next was my most movie like moment. I walked in and heard the sounds of John Frusciante coming through the speakers. Let me say this about John Frusciante, he’s not exactly a household name. Some might know him as the former guitarist of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, but he also has a prolific and unique solo career.
I was introduced to him by my brother-in-law Jeremiah and my sister Evie. I’ll never forget hearing the song “Cut-Out” for the first time and thinking “this is the music I wish came out of my body.” I can’t tell you why. All I can tell you is that the connection was immediate.
Now with the musical context in place, let’s get back to that last flat white. I walk into Felix Felicis and I am greeted by the sounds of John Frusciante. I excitedly tell Luis in Spanish, “This is John Frusciante, right? He makes the music I wish came out of my body.” And instead of looking at me like I have a third eye, he smiles and says, “He’s the best right?”
Luis and I proceed to talk as he makes my last flat white. When I ask for it “para llevar” (to-go) he looks surprised and asks why I can’t sit. I tell him that I must pack for my flight home. By this point the next song, “Carvel” is playing. The chorus of “Carvel” hypnotically repeats these two lines:
Have you gone, have you gone away already
(come back, come back, come back, come back)
Luis points up to the speaker and says in English “I wish you didn’t have to leave.” Momentarily thrown by his use of English, I reply “Me too Luis, me too.” My John Hughes moment: for in that moment my life had a literal soundtrack (not just the one I hear in my head) that echoed the conversation we were having. We hug. I take my flat white and go.
As the door closes behind me, I look to cross the street, and find that I’m crying. The tears stop as quickly as they started once realization hits. I left in such a Hughes haze that I forgot to pay.
I enter to a hopeful Luis, “You’re back?” I sheepishly tell him “Yes, because I forgot to pay.” I try to pay but he won’t accept my money. So I leave it as a tip and exit again. And that’s why life is life, and not a movie, there are no sweeping exits. Life is filled with moments that are far from grace.
Graceful it may not have been, but memorable it was. The song whispers “Come back, come back, come back, come back” like an invitation. And come back I did. Three years almost to the day, I find myself back where I once belonged.
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