A Girl in the World

Writing

Ode to Argentina

December 11, 2009

Dear Argentina,

How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.

I love you for your beauty: the ragged, raw, realness of your bittersweet glamour, your happy-tragic history, your painted walls and crackling curb sides.  I love your Figuero Alcorta grandeur, ancient purple-blossom trees, French architecture, green parks of happy spoiled dogs.

I love you for your barrios: your rooftop cafes, your bodégans, your fresh quiet Belgrano streets.  I love your crazy beautiful thunderstorms observed from sheltered coffee shops in quiet Palermo squares.  I love your corner bakery shops, your fruit stands, your peluquerias bursting with banter and gossip.

I love the sing-song of your tongue: the rrrrolling of your r’s, the rrrounded echoes of your vowels, your ‘sha’ sounds and ‘yah’ sounds.  I am tongue-tied and twisted in your Castellano, its Italian rhythms, its novelty, its foreign and familiar shapes and sounds.

I love the richness of your cuisine:  your coco medialunas, your maté cocido with honey sweetness, your buttery steaks and crisp milanesa de pollos.  I love your simple meals in small family kitchens with fresh tomatoes and olive oils and warm teas.

I love your helados delivery: the dulce de leche gustos in all incarnations con almendras y nuez y granizadas, los mentas, los frutillas, los bananas y ananas, and yes, maybe even the sambayon.  I love the Freddos, and the Voltas, the Persiccos and the Ghianellis.  I love the magic of everyday ice cream, of everyday celebrations, of everyday delights just because.

I love your leisure: your after-office-till-4am Wednesday parties, your long drawn out dinners, your sweet aired wines, your street-side eateries.  I love your siestas and long lunches, your at-home dinners with friends till midnight, your coffee times and meriendas.  I love that days are lived full and long, late into the night.

I love your tango: its slow, sweet, hard curves and sounds, its turn-abouts and swing-abouts, its push and pull, give and tease.  I love that it ignites a fire inside me so raw and real and physical, not of mind or heart: just body and dance and movement.

I love your people:  their deep friendships and close ties, their Sunday meals with family, their love for children, their anchors with home.  I love that grown men caress their grandmothers, that sisters kiss their brothers, that fathers embrace their sons, that touch and love and affection are infinite and insatiable.  I love their stories and gripes, their strong opinions and lofty dreams.  I love that they love to love.

I love you: for the gifts that you have given in the last 50+ days, for the space and time and freedom that you’ve granted, for the creativity that you’ve inspired, for the love that you’ve nurtured, for the perspective that you’ve shown.  I love that you were once a dream, a lofty faraway dream, that then turned to reality: you literally have been what dreams are made of.

Dear Argentina, this sweet slow dance that we’ve shared has only just begun.

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Letter to my 16 year old self

October 9, 2009

Several months ago, The Guardian published Stephen Fry’s letter to his 16 year old self. Several days later, hundreds of readers responded with their own versions. Some are hilarious, others sarcastic:

Dear Self,
You still don’t have that Ferrari.

Dear Me at 16,
I’m still trying to write that novel.

Dear Self,
Hard to believe, but it’s only going to get worse. None of your dreams will be fulfilled. Your misery won’t go away, but your youth, exuberance and hope will.

I’ve been writing letters to myself for years, sending them via email and automatically filtering them into a folder that I’ll read through later, when I’m old and grey and have a sense of humour about the colossal dramas that have consumed my life. I wrote a letter to my 27 year old self just a few weeks short of my 27th birthday. It captured the fears I had about leaving my job, my excitement about travel, my insecurities about the unknowns. It brought me back to the time and place it was written, when I was feeling lost, hopeful, scared and winded. I was reminded of the time capsule letters we wrote in junior high school, to be opened 5 years later.

Well, here’s an attempt at a reverse time capsule. A Back-to-the-Future-Part-2-esque letter to my 16 year old self (as an 11th grader), a decade from the future.

Dear Me,


This is the year that you first delve into poetry and writing. You fall in love with a Texan. He’s not even that good looking, but he has the highest academic average all three years, and that, my dear, really rocks your boat. He will suck as a boyfriend. And he will give you the gift of your very first heartache. That heartache, in turn, inspires a lot of creativity. You’ll dedicate several pieces to him: a sad one and then Ode to Bastard #1. Just know that you will survive the pain.


Work hard at school. Even if I tell you otherwise, you will still work harder than I would advise. You are an immigrant child – driven, needing to please, perfectionist. Don’t worry, it will mess you up later in life but not so drastically that you won’t recover. If anything, your roots will give you the international and cultural perspective that will be invaluable as an adult.


Do more sports. Find a better hiding place for your diary. Break more rules – miss curfew once in a while, question your teachers, speed on the highway! Geez, Denise, just live a little! And even though he will suck as a boyfriend, make out with Eric more (you will regret not doing this for a really long time. I mean, if he can’t be good to your soul, you should at least enjoy his body).


That is all.

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This is why I travel

August 25, 2009

We're in Livorno for a few days.  It's still so hot but we finally found relief in the sea.  It's a tacky, dirty port town with not many sites to see (The Rough Guide Italy doesn't even mention it!) but it's going to be our base for exploring some of the beaches here. 

On our hunt for a decent place for dinner, we stumbled upon a jewel.  A local haunt. A gem. Something that will make this forgettable city worth remembering.

La Barrocciaia, a bar/taverna/restaurant at the end of a dodgy-looking alleyway just off Piazza Grande.  It was packed full of locals – dreadlocked and sweaty from the unrelenting evening heat.  We couldn't get a table and instead had the best panini sandwiches ever: ham, grilled eggplants, homemade pesto sauce, sundried tomatoes and fresh parmezzan cheese.  It was dripping in grease and grilled veggie juices.  Add to that the atmosphere of the place – warm lighting, blaring funky jazz, chaos between the kitchen and patio, ham hanging from the ceiling, beer, original weird art on the walls and watering cans used as serviette holders.  So genuine, so uncool it was cool.

Such a jewel in the rough. Such a surprise in this supposedly crap little town that has managed to show itself to us in just a few short hours.  This is why I travel – to be surprised and delighted in the most unexpected ways and in the most unexpected places.

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To my first high school boyfriend (after we broke up) – Part 2

July 6, 2009

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To my first high school boyfriend (after we broke up) – Part 1

July 3, 2009

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From my high school journal

July 2, 2009

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On the road to mediocrity

June 24, 2009

From Seth Godin’s blog:

Along the way, we settle.

We settle for something not quite right, or an outfit that isn’t our best look, or a job that doesn’t quite maximize our talents. We settle for relationships that don’t give us joy, or a website that’s, “good enough.”

The only way to get mediocre is one step at a time.

You don’t have to settle. It’s a choice you get to make every day.

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The Leap of Faith

June 22, 2009

I quit my job.

[insert gasp here]

There’s a scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that can describe what I’m feeling right now.

Leaving this place is like jumping off a cliff. The future is uncharted and when people ask me what I’m going to do next, I have business plans, travel plans, tango plans, Spanish plans, writing plans. It both excites and scares me. One door is closing and infinite possibilities are appearing before my eyes.

Google has been a dream. It has been a blessing, a joy, an incredible, indescribable journey. Leaving this place has been one of the most difficult decisions ever. It’s like breaking up with the perfect boyfriend who just isn’t the right fit. There is so much love inside me for this place – for the people, for the wonderful opportunities and the beautiful memories. Google has changed me forever. I am better, stronger, different because of the time that I’ve spent in these walls. And as my days here near their close, I become more aware of how precious the moments are. These are amazing days. I’ve met my two best girl friends / soulmates here, have traveled more of the world than I could have ever imagined, have made friends in countless cities and have witnessed greatness, brilliance, astounding talent every single day. It has been life changing.

A friend, after hearing about my decision, sent me a quote from Steve Jobs’ commencement address at Stanford University from a few years ago. It sent goosebumps through me.

“… you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. “

In my life, I am trusting that God will work wonders. He has worked some pretty incredible wonders thus far. I have always known that I am meant for something different. There are talents to be tapped, lives to touch, people to help, things to learn, places to discover and many many days to marvel at the wonderful blessings that abound. It’s time for me to listen to that burning desire inside, urging me to push myself and discover how high I can fly, without the net of stability that has caused me to procrastinate making the tough decisions. No more procrastinating. Change is good. Chaos is good. Life needs to be shaken up every once in a while. And it has been a while.

It is time.

Great things await.

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to be unstitched by prose

January 14, 2009

There are times, especially during periods of change, chasms of shift, when I need to delve into myself for a few days.  When all I desire on a Friday night, is nothing more than solitude.  It's cathartic.  A cleansing of sorts – a time to reflect, to sort through the jumble of thoughts, emotions and to-do lists constantly floating around in my head.  Solitude is healing, a time when I feel most at peace, at bliss, content.  

I like beautiful music and beautiful prose.  Jim Brickman – the pianist.  Vanessa Mae – the violinist.  Anne Michaels – the poet/novelist.

Anne Michaels.

She unstitches me.  Fugitive Pieces, a book I first read in high school,  still leaves me breathless, lifted, changed.  I've read it a dozen times now, sometimes reading and re-reading a page over and over again, to hear the alliteration in my head, to sift through the layers of symbolism and metaphor.  It is gorgeous prose.    

I spent three hours last week sitting at the kitchen counter, piano music blaring, paging through the book, picking out my favourite lines.  Below are a few of them:

Important lessons: look carefully; record what you see.  Find a way to make beauty necessary; find a way to make necessity beautiful.

Meeting Alex at the music library was like a gift of a beautiful bird on the windowsill.  She was like freedom just over a border, an oasis in the sand.  She was all legs and arms, gangly and elegant, all bits and pieces with one united appeal.  The teenager peeped from her face or limbs just when she was trying to be most sophisticated.  This unsettled innocence was like iron filings to a magnet; she was everywhere on my heart, spiky and charged, itchy and there to stay.

In Michaela's favourite restaurant, I lift my glass and cutlery spills onto the expensive tiled floor.  The sound crashes high as the skylight.  Looking at me, Michaela pushes her own silverware over the edge.  
I fell in love amid the clattering of spoons…

When you are alone – at sea, in the polar dark – an absence can keep you alive.  The one you love maintains your mind.  But when she's merely across the city, this is an absence that eats you at the bone.

Go read it.  It will change you.

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