How does it feel visiting Buenos Aires?

Parque Centenario, Caballito, Buenos Aires, the morning of February 29, 2016

How does it feel being back in Buenos Aires after living away for so long?

That is the question posed to me by a good friend and former teaching colleague here in Buenos Aires. It is a tough question to answer. I mull over the many possibilities. How do I really feel? I take the colectivo or a taxi. I soak in the architecture, the feeling of place, the friendships. I feel nostalgic, and I remember the stress and the anxiety of life and work in this city, and I look for where I fit in now.

In trying to answer the question posed at the beginning, more questions take form and beg to be answered.

Do I belong here? If so, how?
Am I just passing through?
How am I perceived by friends and colleagues?

The question of belonging is a very difficult one for me. It is a question I have thought over ever since I arrived in Buenos Aires in 2012, and one I felt I had answered until early last year when, for health reasons, I made the decision to leave Buenos Aires and return to the United States.

By the end of 2014 I felt I belonged in Buenos Aires. I had built a strong group of friends and I had good working relationships. I felt the city's heartbeat, the schizophrenia of many souls, the passion of a place constantly transitioning.

Now I feel the heartbeat of place, but I am no longer contributing to it. I feel welcomed generously, but that I somehow don't "belong" anymore. And it is true. At this time, this place is not my own. I am not sharing in the experience, only passing through. It is saddening to think this way. I wish to feel part of the experience, I am part of the experience, but a temporary one. I wish to live here again. Though I cannot for several reasons.

Most importantly, I am beginning a tour in the Peace Corps at the beginning of September in Paraguay, which will be my new home for the next two years.

Secondly, while I have a deep attachment to this place, an attachment which I have never fully been able to describe, I have difficulty grappling with the prospects of returning to live in Buenos Aires. I remember the stress I felt, of feeling rushed all the time, and low points of extreme depression. One can feel stressed in any environment. Emotional and physical challenges can occur in any environment. I am conflicted in that as much as I love Buenos Aires, I also find it to have been one of the most challenging places for me to live and feel happy.

In returning to Buenos Aires for vacation I come with eyes not of a tourist, nor of a local weighed down by the stresses of this ciudad de la furia, but as one relaxed and able to compare in a relatively uninvolved way how I felt living here versus only visiting.

Now I am just passing through. A part of the city in transition. I am welcomed by those I know, but welcomed with the knowledge that I will soon leave. I see friends and colleagues now as snapshots in time. We appear together in a moment, we discuss the past and the future and the ties that bind us, and then we disappear again. Where once there had been flow and consistency, an inclusive narrative, now there is only a brief window of time that provides a moment, known faces emerging from long absence, lingering momentarily, and disappearing again into the narrative that I am no longer a part of.

Perhaps to speak accurately, though hopefully not sentimentally, in returning to Buenos Aires I have encountered a curious blend of emotion that I cannot recall having felt before.

I am saddened by the impermanence of my visit, though I understand that to live in Buenos Aires again would be a difficult decision I would be forced to make, and that the city has never been the best place for me in terms of my own personal health and well-being.

I feel slight apprehension. I am accepted by friends and colleagues, though I am not seeing this place as they do. The place is different, they are different, and there are things we can no longer share in. My life is no longer here, and I am an impermanent and soon to disappear variable.

I harbor a deep sense of love for what I appreciated so much about living here. The vibrancy of the life. Friends. The colors and the sounds and the people. The constant movement and the moments of stillness.

I feel respect and compassion for a place I know well and am encountering again.

So, to answer the question, how do I feel visiting Buenos Aires after living away for some time?

At this point I can't really say. Perhaps it is bittersweet? Although to sum it up like that does not do it justice. I feel a mix of the good and the bad and something else, something new and difficult to interpret as well.

But perhaps most importantly, is that I listen. To listen to and understand the voices of others and myself. To be patient, for listening requires patience. And that through listening I am learning to accept my role here, whatever and whenever it may be.

I hold a key, and that key is a quiet understanding, a beautiful relationship with place, and listening closely to the essence of the city. With this key unlocks the silent knowledge of place beneath all the noise.