Where Are We Going?

Photo by Marina Hinic

“Mom,” the little girl says as her family of four passes me on the sidewalk, “where are we going next?”

The mom in question wears a long, flowery skirt that’s billowing in the afternoon breeze while her sandy, blonde hair is tied in a hasty braid reaching midway down her back. She holds her daughter’s hand and I see her share a look with her husband who is walking a couple of paces ahead, holding the hand of her little brother. This look seems to say, “Yeah where are we going, Steve?”

Steve just shrugs and turns back around.

The mom takes a deep breath, a breath mothers everywhere would instantly recognize - it’s the one they exhale into the back of their partner’s head that is somehow both silent and louder than a primal scream at the exact same time. She tugs her braid out over her backpack and smiles down at her daughter.

“I’m not sure, honey,” she responds cheerily, and I watch this maybe happy family shuffle down the street until they’re out of earshot.

I’m sitting at a small table outside a cafe on my last day in Buenos Aires, enjoying the sun after about a week of heavy downpours. It’s cooler out now and I wonder if this is the start of fall here in the upside-down world, where seasons happen at the opposite time of year than I’m accustomed to.

I’m sure I learned why this occurs back when I was that little girl’s age but I cannot remember the specifics now; something to do with the Earth’s axis and rotation and the Sun maybe? This was never information I needed to retain because seasons were regular and predictable and patterned on the months of the year, immutably etched into the calendar like the notches on a sundial, another item from elementary school I’m generally familiar with but cannot explain in detail.

June is summer and December is winter because that’s what happens in those months, what can only happen in those months.

“I’m opting out of winter this year,” I told my coworker back in September over a video call while she was busy explaining to me how cold her town in Canada gets during winter. She described below-freezing temperatures and layers of clothing and ice festivals with the same amount of joy I reserve for new Apple product launches; all I heard was numb fingers and runny noses and days that are way too dark for way too long.

“This year I refuse to be cold.”

When I said these words, I had no idea if this was actually possible for me or if it will wind up being another thing I say with an absurd level of certainty but absolutely no ability to follow through, like the time when I explained in a job interview how I was considering investing in real estate even though I had roughly $12 to my name and was sleeping on an air mattress in a friend’s living room at the time.

“I’ve been watching the market,” I casually noted to the tired HR woman seated across the conference room table from me. This wasn’t technically a lie, if by “market,” I meant real estate shows on HGTV.

But as I drink my coffee and watch the sunlight make its way through the trees and drift down toward the cobblestone street in Palermo, I realize to my surprise I have managed to mostly skip the coldest months in the Northern Hemisphere. This could explain why time has seemed suspended lately, like I’m floating between two seasons, two versions of myself without a fixed calendar to guide me.

It’s late March yet I’m coming out of summer and heading to a place where it’s spring, only to possibly turn right back around and fly straight into winter.

My time in Buenos Aires has clarified some things for me while jumbling others, mixing up what I thought I knew and fixing ideas in places I didn’t expect, places I’m still discovering.

This city is where I started writing again, where I began working in earnest on a book I’ve only talked about for the last decade. It’s where I finally committed to advancing my Spanish, practicing daily with a tutor and stacking up piles of flashcards around my apartment with words I use often (cuando! cena! gracioso!) and others I wonder when I’ll get to deploy. I now know garra means claw or fang but can’t remember the last time I used either of those words in English.

Though maybe I’ll get to use them soon, when I’m explaining how I am clawing my way to fluency.

Different versions of “Where are you going next?” messages filled my replies when I posted this morning about leaving Buenos Aires, and while I know where the airplane I’m waiting to board while I write these words will eventually land, I’m not entirely sure yet where I’m going.

And so, just like Steve (and all the Steves that came before him and all those that will follow), I guess the only thing I can do is shrug, smile and keep on moving forward.