Ghosts of Buenos Aires

I'm just recently emerging from a funk that I fell into upon returning to Buenos Aires. Last Sunday, after several days of drifting, unsure whether I was staying or leaving, and unable to muster enthusiasm about the many and various wonders of this city, unable to even call forth the excitement and pleasure I had so recently and consistently felt for travel, for adventure, for being abroad, I finally, mercifully, snapped out of it.

I had been staying for a few days with my friend Kenyon, in the charming barrio of San Telmo, and decided last Sunday, after spending way too much time inside watching movies, to get outside and see what there was to see. Right outside her building is a lively weekly craft fair, a dangerous spot to be living. I hadn't meant to seek solace in retail, but before I knew it, I had found a pair of handmade leather sandals that I couldn't resist, even though the temperatures around here continue to drop as winter sets in (I justified the purchase with visions of my upcoming trip to Colombia in August). I made a brief attempt to enter the madness of the Bicentennial events, set up along a closed-off avenue not too far away, but was immediately traumatized by the rushing current of stroller-pushing parents and their flag-toting children, and extracted myself as quickly as I entered.

I headed back to San Telmo, and by that time it had started to rain--the first real rain since I had arrived in Buenos Aires two weeks earlier. People out "paseando" took cover under awnings, umbrellas, and newspapers, and I was grateful to duck into the indoor antique market and wait out the storm digging for treasures and souvenirs. I began asking around for yerba tins, something like this to bring home as a souvenir, but I was soon sidetracked by a stall with two huge crates of old black and white photographs.

Forty-five minutes later, my hands full of other people's precious, faded memories, I was utterly transfixed. Unable to part with any of the gems that I had found, I finally pried myself away, and ended up spending as much on the photos as I had on the sandals. The images are incredible: Grandma crouching next to four little ones--all in bathing suits, sun-bronzed, squinting against the bright beach sun; two smiling women in the backseat of a twenties-era convertible, their male companion, seemingly oblivious to the camera, taking a swig from a bottle.



And my favorite: five well-dressed young folks, in their teens and young twenties, probably siblings, posing for a portrait. Each is looking in a different direction, and smirking in unavoidable delight at a shared private joke. The photo was taken probably seventy years ago, their hairstyles antiquated and their clothing old-fashioned, yet I couldn't help but smirk back, in knowing recognition of such a timeless game.



I found so many that called to me, for reasons both obvious and mysterious. The shopkeeper, a middle-aged woman who readily agreeing with me about the power and beauty of these simple snapshots, gave me a discount, and despite the fact that I still paid the equivalent of two nights at a hostel, the treasure was well worth it.



When I left the market, night had fallen and the rain was letting up. I found a nearby cafe, and over my beer and salad, sifted through the photos again, a smile lighting on my face as I studied each one. Beaches, vacations, car trips, family portraits--such typical subjects and settings, yet there was something inexplicably special about these images. Somehow, inexplicably, time-traveling to another time, to the Buenos Aires of unknown ghosts, the fog lifted, and life was good again.