I was thinking about how I should respond should someone ask me where I was at the end of the decade. The satisfying version would be, “in the Amazon,” which is partially true, but not very precise. Amazônas is the name of the province in Brazil which encompasses the rainforest; Amazonas is also the name of the analogous departments in Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela. It also would not be accurate to say so, as I was only at the edge of this part of the Amazon River, not the forest, known for “as encontras das aguas,” where black and brown waters meet. For some reason, as I was thinking about the question, I pictured myself on a dance floor somewhere undiscerning and without a shape, not alone but invariably by myself. There must have been some vague music playing in the background – as not a connossieur of great music (the type who likes anything but not everything) – I could not decide which soundtrack should burn in the echoes of this distilled fantasy. The picture was half full, as a glass. I was in the bottom third of the frame walking out of it, while at the top there was some purple tinged resonance of an air of greed, or lust. Something that would captivate an audience.

But isn’t it the morning that matters? I woke the next morning without an alarm, and got up at around 7:10, made coffee and eggs in the shared kitchen downstairs, and put on my repellent to cover the scars of bites. I had “lost,” or dropped, or had stolen, my debit card the day before, which in the way that things are lost gives way to guilt and mourning that are totally unreasonable and not brief. I feel that I am better at being more concise with it, able to shed with lighter effort the mourning like a skin, of things lost which lingered and which were held for so long that they began to accumulate meaning. It is a wonder artificial intelligence seeks to become more human; and it is no wonder this is an easy feat, easier in all the ways it is possible to transform without a purpose, will, or saying.

This is too morose for New Year’s Day, and I apologize. At least there is the smell of coffee, the oils and the aroma that could accompany almost any edible fruit. As for the dancing, I must admit I can’t. It is not simply a matter of trying – which I’m used to – and not, I think, a question of talent. It is sheer intuition: that other institution which connects parts of the brain to the body, the muscle, the movement. 

I am reminded of what the novelist Ottessa Moshfegh mentioned in passing on a podcast, where she was telling an anecdote she had heard which goes something like this: When you are writing a story, there is going to be a breakthrough moment where clarity sets in and the story becomes lucid. But the experience is like being trapped in a room with no visible door. Although trapped may be a tinge too forceful, since you are there of your own will. (Something like that other joke, about being trapped in a haunted house in a dream.) You only know that there is a trap door, but you don’t know where. You know it is possible to find a way, but the way does not appear until it does. I have found this maddening and terrifying since I became aware of it, the picture of a room with square beige walls lingered in my mind. So, it is possible for me to one day spontaneously know how to dance, but until the day arrives the thought is moot, a complete waste of feeling. This is an insane inducing madness. It is easier to write without thinking of such things.

As far as imagined places go, Buenos Aires conjures a state of mind, and if the world were made to roam I think it would be on a faraway edge of a middle. But more than a mind Buenos Aires belies a state, the exact nature of which is easy to intuit and hard to explain. A government district, a whole city, the dull edge of a blade balanced on a table, a fleshy eye from its grey socket, a metropolis of some mass of nerves they continentalize; a centre and a suburb, a carving of a centre for a suburb to exist.

Still I wonder how it is possible to feel free there.

I arrived in Buenos Aires by bus, across a border. It was raining and I was on my period. The station was damp with the marks of acid rain on the outside, which washed the yellow and red walls and roofs a sort of grey. I didn’t like it even one bit. In the bathroom a woman handed out squares of toilet paper and we all of us pretended not to notice each other too much. I was tired and my hair greasy; we went into our separate stalls.

I had hoped there would be some comparison to draw, between one continent I had seen much of and another one I had not yet seen. I waited for a warm breath to be let out. At a speakeasy, a bartender told me, “If you don’t like it, get another one,” meaning my drink. He was the nicest person I think I’ve ever met.

The city made me believe in neighbourhoods. Recoleta, Retiro, San Telmo, Puerto Madero, Palermo. The coffee came from actual shops, where there were often two prices, one for cash and another for credit, if it were a form of payment possible. Even for non-recluses, it was possible to be alone and happy. The faraway feeling was close to the bone, the sun shone on the buildings along the street.

The rain on the pavement dissipated into a sort of fog that I liked. I asked a foreign exchange student from China to show me where a reliable cash machine was located, one with relatively low fees. She was pale and had short hair. I wondered if she was unhappy living there, to what extent she felt like she belonged. I asked her something to the effect, but I forget what was asked, and answered.

I ended up wandering back home anyway, without having made a transaction. The men and women who worked the streets near Calle Florida, yelling exchange rates, were endearing mostly. Some of them had a kind ritual and asked where I was from, escaped into their trailer to count money, and emerged with a fist full of bills with marks on them. There is always a danger, except when you most expect it. “No, we cannot make money off that,” a man sitting on a step proclaimed with an exacting sort of fury. “It’s not possible.” I explained I wasn’t in particular need. I could keep on going.

BA at night is the jewel of the whole experience. There is always a soft breeze, in the rain and not. A few of us who met in a hostel walked up and down the streets in search of a suitable bar. There is no more exemplary feeling than that of being in the presence of quasi-strangers and quasi-friends. The not-yet friends, the nevermore-strangers. It’s a kind of twilight I won’t easily forget.