Apart

Buenos Aires truly is a city that never sleeps. At 12:00am on a Tuesday night, restaurants are still packed with people. Maybe it’s that the clubs don’t get going until 2:00am or maybe it’s the constant consumption of mate, a mild narcotic. This city is awake at all hours, full of life. However, there is another side to the city. Amid posh apartment buildings, designer clothing boutiques and up-scale steak restaurants lies a different place; Cementerio de la Recoleta. When we arrive at the cemetery, we are given a map to negotiate the small roadways that twist and turn between expanse of marble and granite mausoleums. Contained within these structures are the bones and decay of Argentina’s most rich and influential historical figures. The miniature fortresses were built to hold the dead for eternity. Each mausoleum is an architectural masterpiece, complete with stained glass windows, spires, ionic columns, mosaics and statues. It is strange to tour such a place, the morbid beauty attract hundreds a day.

A single statue grabs my attention more than plundered tombs and internal stairways that lead into unknown darkness. This statue of a woman (likely the wife of the barrier, morning forever-more over her diseased love) captivates my attention. Her stone face is abstracted by city pollution. She exist both in the purity of the white marble she was carved from and covered by dirt and grime that the world has deposited upon her over the years. As I peer at her, I cannot help but think that her face, her existence is a metaphor for everything. This would appear to be a strong claim: metaphor for everything. In all likelihood, it is too strong a claim.
Her face represents the world we live in: the dirty the clean, the life the death, the good the bad. But all the beautiful and even more so for the expression of surrender she wears.

It is this image that I keep in my mind as Julie and I prepare to part after nearly 6 months of travel together, 6 months of waking up in the same room and sharing every meal. Life leads us in different directions. As Julie ventures forward with her own plans, I continue on with mine. The parting is bitter-sweet. She is a friend like few I have in this world, a person who knows the dark and light that live within me. At the same time, I look forward to the freedom of independent travel. The freedom to continue on without compromise. I morn the loss of companionship as I wish her happiness in her future plans. Life is strange, souls pulled together and than apart. Needs shifting and wants changing. No situation is clear and splits of emotion occur more often than not. I cherish all that has past and all that is ahead. For what is light without dark and what is dark without light? The statue personifies this. Beauty watching over decay.

What will come next? For now, I am on my own. A situation that I find strangely comforting.