The Alyph

I still can't believe we did it.

From the time this trip was suggested to me on Nov 5, 2012, to the date when our plane touched down in SFO, it took a mere 17 days.  It is very unlike how we have usually taken things these days, slow, uncertain, sentimental, and over analysis.

It is especially amazing considering I need to get visa from the Argentine consulate in Los Angles, which is a very inefficient but classic (if you will) type of operation and a good story for another day.

The visa was delivered the day before my trip.

Buenos Aires is a city that I have longed for since I read Borges, his stories of knife fight, labyrinth, library with endless books, a whole life lived in mere one minute, distortion of time, man who remembers every detail of things happened in his life, an infinite universe in a two inch ball in the basement of an old apartment, the Alyph.

I did not expect that I would step into my own labyrinth of hearts in its endless alleys and streets, in a different universe from the one we live in here. Revelations, strange feelings on the familiar face, humidity and chaos, feeling of anger and love, witness of poverty, secrets, romantic wandering around the city that looks like Shanghai, Chennai, Rome, Paris, New York all at the same time, yet truly its own.

It reminds me of something familiar, warm and cosy, a sense of nostalgia, something that was lost, the sound, the noise, the apartments buildings around beautiful little parks, with white and long french windows, I feel I could be living there, lived there, or will do in my next life.

I will alway remember the purple flowers around the city, the tangos, and tangos of hearts, walking to the alley where the old national library was, where the book of sand is hidden, where Borges became the head of the national library while growing blind at the same time.

We did not walked out at night to see the Southern Cross.

Cafe Richmond where Borges and Graham Green both visited and wrote about, is closed, making room for Nike Store. Some changes are sad and some lost are permanent.

It is my Alyph.  

And I can live in that city, with its vibrance, and feel the whole universe, it is the universe of our hearts.