End of Winter?

Last night, on the roof of the bar down our street, and then within the bar, we drank fuerte caipirinhas and said goodbye to Phillip, our new Munich friend--who once snuck kittens in his pully (sweater) and was the first to dare the river at night. We then went with Rodrigo, the guide, to another corner restaurant where I had squash gnocchi and raspberry juice. We spoke about Europe and as both Julie and Rodrigo recounted Italian memories, I was seized with a strong desire to go to Tuscany, to see Venice before it sinks. Today we are going to a Mapuche community, to a waterfall and other places which I have already forgotten, after hastily organizing this trip. We will return and rest ourselves for the volcano tomorrow, rise at six when I will be hopeful for a cup of coffee and annoyed at myself for pretending, if only for a moment, a day, a week, that I am not terrified of heights.

Many people talk about conquering their fears: I am not that blind. I do believe, however, that confronting fears somehow frees me, somehow allows me to grow older in the wisest of ways. I am looking forward, mostly, to the summit and the lava and most of all, sliding down, my own bottom my tobogin in the snow. I wish my sister was here: I love her in the strangest, strongest, most innate of ways--different, of course, but in many ways more than I could ever love a lover--the way I expect to love my children, I suppose.

We will likely go to Valdivia and then Santiago (thanks to Julie´s ability to actually organize things), returning through the Andes to Mendoza. I think I will spend my last few days in Cordoba. Given a choice between one of the world´s greatest wonders (the Iguazu falls) and a central city, known for its dashing streets and divenly untouristy atmosphere, I have chosen the latter. Of course, I am a tourist here. But as everyone knows the real heart of me lies in quaint cafes and stone plazas, the reality of humid, siesta-clad life that only Marquez has caught with fantastical fraud. Cordoba should make my heart sigh in the most adolescent of ways.

I know I will then go home and be glad and sad and somewhat lost. I have no purpose here, now, and yet that is the best of things. But will I be able to resettle in the New York City apartment that has so long been my home, solemnly pregnant with memory? Or will those memories, that have followed me here if only in slight, ghostly form, be still in the air, the walls, the end of winter?