I'm Way Too Good At Goodbyes

Unlike the Sam Smith hit, though, that doesn't mean "I'm never gonna let you close to me."

In fact, I think my experience with goodbyes has helped me react in the opposite way.

The past 365 days have involved a lot of goodbyes...

A high school friend passed away in the Oakland Fire, and I still think of them and my whole chest aches and I find myself crying unexpectedly.

My friends have slowly been spreading out across the country and across the globe, and every time I go to spend time with friends in one place I have to say goodbye to others.

In order to come to Argentina I said goodbye to my first full-time job, a job that meant so much more to me than anything I could have imagined straight out of college. I had to say goodbye to the kids I saw every single day, to the incredible team of coworkers who I love with all my heart, to the neighborhood that feels like a home.

I said goodbye to my family, not for the first time but it was certainly the hardest and felt like the farthest I had ever been from them.

I said goodbye to both of my grandparents.

And now here I am again.

This whole week has been a series of goodbyes-- literally, I've had at least 2 scheduled each day. Goodbye to the first years, goodbye to the secondary schools, goodbye to my aerial rope class, goodbye to the second and fourth and third years, goodbye to the students I worked with one-on-one...

And it's sad, but... it is also heartwarming?

I think I'm a little unusual in that sadness, for me, isn't exactly a negative emotion (hey hey Pixar... thnx for making Sadness the hero <3 ).

The sadness I feel when saying goodbye also makes me smile, because it reminds me how much all of these people and places and experiences mean to me. It reminds me that even when I leave they're not gone from me, because they've become a part of the narrative that makes up who I am.

Goodbyes hurt because I care, and I don't want to feel that any less.

To be fair, this week has also been a bit of a blur and sometimes it just feels surreal. People keep asking how I feel and my answer is usually "weeeeeeeird!!" Sometimes it's easier to say goodbye because it doesn't even seem real. I know that the emotional processing of the end of my time in Argentina won't happen overnight, and it will continue well into my re-entry to the U. S.

But I'm feeling really good about where I'm at, and where I'm going, and where I've been.

There were times here, especially toward the beginning, when I doubted that I had made the right decision in choosing to come to Argentina. I worried it was too hard, I wasn't doing enough, I had given up too much.

I don't worry that anymore.

This morning, after going for a run in the neighborhood and cooling down with some yoga, I lay back in shavasana, taking deep breaths, and I thought: I am becoming someone I would admire.

I think it may actually be the first time I've felt that way before.

In high school, I had all of the typical angst, and I got particularly hung up on the feeling that I would never be enough. No matter what I did, I would never live up to my own expectations for myself. I would never be the person I wanted to be. I would never be good enough.

I think my high school self would be proud to see who I am now.

It's not that I ever reached the impossible standards that I set for myself. It's more of a balance: letting go of the things that I won't ever be (and maybe never truly wanted to be anyways, but rather felt compelled to strive for because of external expectations) and working really hard to amplify the qualities in myself that I already appreciate, to learn to reflect what I most admire in others, and to unlearn the tendencies which do not serve me and the world I live in.

And most importantly, I recognized that I can't do any of it alone.

The support and acknowledgement from others has played a huge role in my slowly growing self-confidence. My fellow Fulbrighter told me something that another foreign traveler who spent the day with us apparently said about me: he said that he loved how I was unapologetically me, and that I didn't lie about what I liked/didn't like or wanted/didn't want or needed/didn't need just to please others.

It meant a lot to me that someone perceived me that way, because that's something I've really struggled with over the years.

Last night, after my very last clases at Zorrilla, the institute I've been working at, I wrote a long facebook post in Spanish. It helped that I was tired and it was late and my filter was down. Everything actually flowed in Spanish, not English, and I found myself using grammar that I didn't even realize I was comfortable with, but it fit what I wanted to say... which was basically just a big thank-you.

I don't usually write much of anything personal on facebook, but a lot of the people I've gotten to know here stay connected on social media and I wanted to say something to acknowledge what a huge group effort it has been for me to survive and thrive here.

So many people responded, and I haven't gotten through the comments yet but what I have read... it's just really affirming. To feel like I had something of a positive impact on some people's lives here, as they had on mine.

I knew going into this experience that it would challenge me in ways I had never been challenged before-- sometimes in ways I could have predicted, but usually completely unexpected. And I feel like coming out of it, I am more unapologetically myself than ever.

I will probably post again another couple times-- my parents are coming and I am sure that exploring the country with them is going to be a whole 'nother set of feels! (Hopefully mostly good-- I'm super excited). And I will probably check in once I am back home.

But this week has been the majority of the goodbyes... and it while it isn't true that every time [I] leave, the quicker [my] tears dry, I think I'm pretty good at goodbyes.

PANICAFE HELADO IS LIFE
Tramontana on the bottom and dulce de leche granizado on top... and you can tell I may have tasted a few other flavors lol

Finally finished my project to work with underserved students to teach basic circus skills!

We had a blast in Parque del Kempes making juggling balls, learning to juggle, doing some partner balances, and working on handstands and pull-overs! The kids were awesome and so willing to try things.

Working the parrilla in 90˚ heat...

Trying morcilla... yes that means blood sausage...

Asado with carne de vaca (cow), papas (potatoes), chorizo (sausage), cebolla (onion), and berenjena y pimientos (eggplant and bell peppers). And a brick to balance the grill.

yeah I ate the meat... #flexitarian

Aplauso para el asador! Applause for the asado cook!

Goodbye treat: blueberry and peach browned butter bars

New mural at the school: Love is love.

Gift from the secondary school students: the rainbow armband that some of them wear, thanks to our awesome conversation about San Francisco Pride and the experience of being queer-identified in the US vs. Argentina

4th years!! <3

2nd years :)

Me and the friend who came with me to get my piercing! She was the very first friend I made at school and is basically a style/piercing/tattoo icon. <3

Last day shenanigans... the power suddenly went out at 10:20pm and the class lost any semblance of order there may have been... we were hooting and frat-snapping and someone started making dolphin/monkey noises???

Thank you thank you thank you beautiful storm for ending the 90-100˚ weather

Making the Most of It All

I really can't believe that next weekend, my parents are coming to meet me in Córdoba. I have such vivid memories of the first couple weeks, when November felt like a million years away.

Time hasn't passed too fast, though-- or at least I feel like I've been present with it. It's just weird to finally be reaching a moment that I thought about lot.

One of the best things about these past couple weeks is that I've finally felt that I have made an impact and become part of the community of my school. Last Friday evening, I helped organize a taller (workshop) about education (specifically second/foreign language education) in the United States for the second year students. Originally the entire workshop was supposed to be in English, so I had prepared a true/false activity and some other information in English... and then the week of, they decided to do it half in Spanish. We kept the true/false in English, but the rest of the 3-hour workshop would be in Spanish.

That meant I would have to speak in Spanish about my Spanish-learning experience in front of a group of native speakers, and then field questions.

Weirdly, I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be-- not nearly as nervous as I was 8 months ago when I had to give a 2-sentence introduction in Spanish that mostly just included my name and what college I attended.

I made plenty of mistakes, I'm sure, some that I was aware of and others I probably missed. But I think I communicated what I meant to communicate, and the students were all very kind about it.

Afterwards, the school principal and professors and students surprised me with a small gift, a book that they had signed. I don't think I was concerned much about what the gift was-- it just meant so much to me that they took that time to show their appreciation in that way. It reaffirmed that I had made an impact, that I was... one of them.

This evening was followed by an absolutely incredible long weekend in Mendoza-- possibly my favorite few days of travel here.

I met up with some of the coolest parents in the world (aside from my own) who were incredibly generous and made me feel so loved and taken care of. Plus we had some incredible meals and OMG FREE WINE TASTINGS ARE THE BEST. As a Californian whose dad regularly worked up in Napa, I've always had a preference for wine over beer. But, as the person who led our first wine tasting mentioned, there is something about being on vacation that makes all the wines taste even better. I think I've even getting a hang of the whole describing the wine thing... "Yes, it's bold with a smoky undertone... and this one is quite fruity, with hints of chocolate at the back of your mouth..." :P I kept thinking of that scene in The Parent Trap with Haley trying a sip of her mom's wine in England...

While in Mendoza, there were a few times that I ended up doing some translating... and I actually shocked myself with how comfortably I fit into the role! It felt really, really good to be able to facilitate conversation between people who didn't share a common language. There was one time that one of the wine cellar guides was attempting to tell us a little bit about the history of the winery and the wines, but she was struggling to find the words in English. I told her to continue in castellano (Spanish), and I related what she said to my friends. I was able to catch the details about the year that the winery was founded, the number of generations it had passed through the same family, when it had been sold, and I was able to ask clarifying questions in Spanish. It's a small interaction, but it's so satisfying to have those moments where I can see that my work here with the language has really been paying off.

So yeah. It's shaping up to be a pretty wonderful end to my time in Argentina. I'm already thinking about how I will need to continue to find opportunities to speak Spanish when I get back to the States. Now that I've had a taste of bilingual life, I don't want to go back... I love existing in both languages simultaneously. I hope to attend conversation groups, maybe sit in on some classes at SF State to brush up on advanced grammar, and I'm looking into the possibilities of a bilingual teaching career.

Pics from the week (there's a lot this time):

Second year crew, teachers and students

Opening my gift :)

Panorama of the Andes mountains near Mendoza!

This Is Not A Rock

Random fuzzy red cactus

Looks like a scene straight out of Motorcycle Diaries

Ancient petroglyphs... pretty cool

Apparently they played Mario Bros a few thousand years ago... gotta love those mushrooms

Alien housing in the desert
(is actually where they melted down metals)

my new best friend... mom and dad, think we can take one home with us?

Biiiiig barrels of wine

Beautiful park

Someone got this whole box of full bottles of wine on carry-on... I don't understand...

Hi I'm a dork but I'm happy to be with these cool people

Calabaza / pumpkin pasta with butter and sage sauce :)

I didn't have time to bake on Halloween, so I finally got around to making these little chocolate spiders!

Expecting the Unexpected

No two days here are the same.

Even when I think I'm going to have the same schedule, that I have my classes nailed down and I know what to expect from the week, things always change.

In the beginning, this instability really annoyed me.

More than that, it drained me.

It was exhausting to feel like I never fully knew what to expect. I have spent basically my whole life either as a student or working in education, with practically every hour of the day tightly scheduled. I had reliable routines that I could stick to. And having that suddenly taken away... it was really really hard.

At some point, though, I guess I got used to it... and now I actually kind of like it. Some of the time.

I like that I can spontaneously decide to spend a couple hours chatting with a new friend and not have to worry that it's cutting into my carefully blocked-out work time. I like that I don't have to set an alarm in the morning and I can wake up when I feel rested. I like that I can book last minute tickets to go on a weekend trip.

Every day is, truly, an adventure.

And I've been feeling like my adventures are becoming a little more successful as I become more adept at navigating the unexpected.

The past couple weeks, I worked on a short series of lessons at a secondary school about cooking and how-to vocabulary. I brought in a video about how to make lemon bars (along with some actual lemon bars to share), we watched it and they had to identify the different verbs used to describe each action, and then they had to match images of the different utensils with their names. We watched the video several times, and broke down the structure: introduction (why make this recipe?), chronological step-by-step instructions (with measurements and verbs), and finally conclusion (how did it turn out?). With this outline, the students had to make their own recipe videos.

I was honestly really impressed with what they created. This is a large class (33 students) in a public school, and the English proficiency level is all over the place. But these kids obviously have more cooking experience than I did as a 14 year old, and they made some pretty impressive recipes ("beat to stiff peaks"? I definitely wasn't very good at separating egg whites and beating them the correct amount at that age!)

At the beginning of this, I wasn't sure how many classes we would have together, what exactly I was supposed to cover, or where to find the classroom. But I made some plans that could be extended or shortened as needed, made choices about content that seemed relevant and important, and... well, wandered around the school building without the ability to contact the teacher until I finally found the classroom and got started about 15 minutes late.

I also switched classes at my regular institute on Monday to give a presentation about the education system in the US, which was fantastic-- I learned a ton doing research, was reminded of how passionate I am about the topic, and had some great conversations about differences and similarities with the Argentine students.

And I made a last-minute presentation on Halloween, which I ended up splitting into two separate presentations and skipped around the slides totally out of order, but made something coherent out of it and got across the main ideas to the students.

I also did not check the weather and got caught in a huge rainstorm on the way to my aerial class and walked in totally soaked (but happy) and found that most of my fellow aerialists love the rain like me and were also feeling giddy and energetic because of the lovely dark grey clouds up above.

With that energy I decided to try something I had done on the rope back in high school, and for the first time I was able to show my classmates something new and they were actually impressed by it (this is legit the first time this has happened, usually it is totally the other way around).

There are, of course, times at which the unexpected can be inconvenient and frustrating and stressful. And as much as I might expect the unexpected, I never know exactly what kind of unexpected to expect (haha try saying that 3 times fast).

This week I had to renew my 90-day tourist visa, which expires on November 7. I had gone in a month ago to try to renew it, and they told me I was literally too on top of my shit and I had to come back a few days before it expired. So I went back on Wednesday, November 1, thinking the process (of trámite, as they call these bureaucratic paperwork procedures) would take maybe a couple hours.

Of course, I was wrong.

I arrived at the Migrations office a little bit before noon, went upstairs where I had been told to go, knocked on the door to ask for assistance, and told them I needed to renew my 90-day visa. They asked me to wait "un minuntito," just a minute, and I waited a little over an hour until they finally printed a piece of paper saying that it would cost 900 pesos... and then told me I had to go pay the fee at the national bank, about 20 minutes away. Also I had to get a passport-size photo taken. By this time, it was siesta, so almost everything was closed down (even in the city center). I walked around for about 15 minutes before I finally found a kiosko that was open that could take my photo, and then I made my way to the bank. I got there at about 1:40pm, only to find that it closed for the day at 1:30pm and I'd have to come back again the next day.

So I did. On Thursday I left my house earlier in the morning and arrived at the bank shortly after 9am. I asked where to pay and was directed to the DMV-like waiting room on the main floor, where I grabbed my number (C050) and sat down to wait until I was called up (the screen was on B038). I was called up around 10:30am, made my payment quickly and easily, and then headed back to the Migrations office, thinking I was finally on the last step.

No, Lizzy, of course that was not the last step.

I once again knocked on the door upstairs, showed them my paper proving that I had paid, waited again for about an hour (at this point it was about noon), and then they came out, gave the paper back to me, and told me to go downstairs to get another piece of paper...

So I went downstairs, had no idea what the system was, found a little ticket machine with numbered tickets, grabbed one, and when I was called up I was told I didn't need a ticket and that I would be called by name. This wait felt like the longest yet, although it was broken up by a few random conversations, one with a binational student from Honduras and Peru who wanted to study at one of the oldest and best universities in South America (University of Córdoba), and another short interaction with a couple from Portland, Oregon who were moving to Argentina with their adorable 2-year-old.

Finally my name was called, I signed a paper and scanned my fingerprints, and went back upstairs... to wait some more!

It was after 1pm, I was starving and bored and tired, but they finally came back out, handed me a piece of paper saying I'd been certified to stay for another 90-days, and I was able to leave that building... hopefully once and for all.

All of this because my visa would expire just 3 weeks before I left the country. *sigh*

Everyone I talked to said that this was pretty standard-- they never expected to finish a trámite in a single day. My housemate started singing Maria Martha Serra Lima's "La tercera es la vencida" (third time's the charm) when I came home feeling tired and frustrated on Wednesday (my second try to renew the visa), and she was right. In the end, I did manage to get what I needed.

There was another unexpected event this past week that could have been awful, but somehow everyone handled without any major issues: after a series of wildfires followed by the sudden storm that had gotten me drenched before my circus class, the water purification plant that provides water to most of the city of Córdoba Capital got clogged with debris and water was cut off in many parts of the city. Luckily there was water in the water tanks so that people could still rinse dishes and have drinking water, but schools had to shut down because they couldn't depend on there being enough reserve water in the tanks.

The unexpected holiday allowed me to spend time with my fellow Fulbrighter here and celebrate having made it through a wild 8-month ride.

I've only mentioned him a couple other times, I think... once when I commented on the fact that he had so many suitcases that I had to help him carry them when we first arrived.

For the first few months, we mostly did our own thing. We're very different people in some ways, and I think we didn't really know how to interact with each other-- not to mention we were each going through a bunch of other things along with the transition to this new city.

But I always knew that he was there, in the city in with me, the only other person who was really in a similar situation... and when we came back after the Rio Conference, I guess something clicked and we started talking.

Now, I don't know what I would have done without him here... I think Córdoba was one of-- if not the only-- city with two Fulbrighters, and I am so, so grateful.

Since classes were cancelled, I spent the evening at the new place he had moved into during the last part of the grant, a residencia for extranjeros, foreigners. We talked a lot, cooked dinner, darted out into the rain and bought some wine from the kiosko next door, and played tipsy Jenga (pronounced "schen-ga" here) until early in the morning.

As frustrating and difficult as it may be sometimes to wake up each morning not knowing what this day is going to throw at me, it's also a little bit freeing. I think I have released my grip on the expectation that I need to do everything, all the time, and do it perfectly. And I think it took a certain level of letting go of my rigid expectations to begin to really flourish.

Pics/videos of the week:

"Cellulite is normal and you are beautiful," a body-positive sign up in the secondary school bathroom where I work

"Attention: Your image in this mirror may be distorted by false stereotypes of beauty," another awesome poster in the bathroom. (Underneath it there is also a take one/leave one box ford pads and tampons)

La Salle school, an elementary/middle school that is basically a castle. Visited to see my professor's daughter perform on the aerial silks-- video below!!

After the aerial silks performance I went over with my professor's daughter and played on the silks a bit... may have forgotten that wearing jeans is not the best idea on silks... ooops... (they were old jeans anyways)

These gorgeous purple flowers have been blooming all over the city. I've taken about a million pics of them because they are so pretty and they make me happy.

A glance at what a public secondary school classroom looks like in Córdoba, Argentina

A quick tour around the space where I do aerial arts here. Wall art: "Love is in the air... climb up to look for it." / "Overcome your limits."

Professor's daughter and her classmates performing on aerial rope... to the Spanish version of "How Far I'll Go"!! (yeah I got way more excited about that than the actual kids were...)

Spontaneous dancing at the residencia where I hung out with my fellow Fulbrighter and friends (sorry it shows up sideways and I can't make it rotate...)

#Me Too

Sometimes Córdoba is frustrating and a little isolating and nothing works the way I want it to.

And sometimes I kiss my friends goodbye after a nice evening and I run to catch the bus at 11:30pm and the bus driver waits for me and I get a solo seat by the window and in the back of the bus there's someone with a guitar playing folk songs and spreading words of compassion and love for the passengers and I look out the window and listen and smile.

Harry Potter reference coming, bear with me... (I've just finished my long journey of reading and watching all of the books and movies in Spanish, so I've really got HP on the mind). I think my relationship with Oxford was more like Ginny/Harry, where it started with naive infatuation and I had to get over that initial idealization for it to grow into a more complex understanding and sustainable affection. And my relationship with Córdoba is more like Ron/Hermione, starting with irritation and lack of understanding and, after living day after day and going through a lot of rough stuff together, building mutual respect and appreciation.

Or maybe I personify cities a little too much. :P

On a more serious note, I've been thinking a lot this week about body and gender. (Okay like when am I NOT thinking about that kind of stuff but like specifically right now) I really don't want to hear another thing about Harvey Weinstein in my life, but he shows up on the TV even here in Argentina.

I've more or less followed the news surrounding him, and on Tuesday morning last week I woke up to the outpouring of #Me Too statements on my Facebook feed. (If you don't know what that is, pause reading this blog post for a second and check out the article here for some background)

Which... I don't know. I have so many conflicting feelings around it all, and I've seen articles and posts expressing just about every different thing that has gone through my mind.

First of all, I appreciate that people are starting conversation around sexual harassment and violence, because it needs to change. I deeply admire the courage shown by everyone who has shared that status, and I hope that it continues to raise awareness and inspire a cultural shift. Every post, as much as it hurt, also added to a feeling of solidarity and strength.

But then there comes the uncertainty: is it my place to post? No, nothing I have experienced is bad enough. I mean sure, technically I guess maybe it would count but other people have experienced things so much worse...

The dismissal, the self-doubt, the normalizing-- the very reasons that this campaign exists-- are stopping me from writing those two words.

I remember seeing the first couple "Me Too's" and thinking... "Well, of course. Who hasn't?"

That, I know, is part of the point. That we are so accustomed to it. What femme person has not experienced gendered harassment or violence at some point? Why is anyone surprised to see all of the women in their life sharing this post? It was shocking to me that people found this shocking.

I understand and want to acknowledge how sexual harassment/violence is tied to sexism and often directly arises out of a culture of toxic masculinity. And while reading these posts, I also thought of the people who have experienced assault who are not women, and the focus on cis women while trans women often slipped through the cracks. A couple people on my feed pointed this out, commenting that rape culture is something that impacts all of us: cis women, trans women, trans men, nonbinary folk, and cis men, too (these categories not being mutually exclusive). People of all genders have experienced the kind of violence that is being discussed.

So given the fact that these experiences are so widespread and can leave scars so deep... what does it mean that person after person is reliving their experiences on social media platforms? How many people felt obligated to share, to dredge up memories and hurts that they may not have been ready to face? How many people have felt guilty for not sharing because they simply could not, or would be made unsafe by sharing?

This past week, two friends were sexually assaulted. One week.

This week, a young woman I know in Córdoba was slapped in the face by a man on a motorbike and had her phone stolen on the middle of a busy street in the city center in broad daylight.

This week, I gritted my teeth and kept my eyes forward as man after man whistled and catcalled me while I walked to school because I had decided to wear a dress in the hot weather instead of long pants and a shirt. I tried to reassure myself by saying that it was normal, it would go no further than words, which I could easily ignore and block out with headphones. But it still brings up fears and frustrations about my body and how I am perceived in the world.

For me, the choice to wear a dress is always fraught. I love dresses, but I hate the kind of attention I get for choosing to put them on-- not just the uncomfortable objectification, but also the showering of compliments and praise for correctly performing femininity. I know people mean it well, and part of me is able to take in the compliments and appreciate them (much easier if they are from people who I feel know me well and value me in other ways). But when people I barely know, who have never complimented me for my skills or my strength or something other than my appearance... It makes me feel like a stranger in my own skin. When I see gender as a social construct, something far beyond the typical binary, I cannot bring myself to place my own body squarely into the category of man or woman. Yet the world sees me as "woman," and that shapes the way I walk through it. It shapes the way people respond to my clothing choices. And sometimes it puts me at higher risk of certain kinds of harassment and violence.

What does it mean to have bodily autonomy, to have ownership of your body, when you are surrounded by a culture of sexual violence?

I am reminded of the art opening in my old apartment, and the phrase that was written above one of the doorways: la piel es un limite / entonces / la piel es una posibilidad, "the skin is a limit / therefore / the skin is a possibility."

Is there a way to turn what feels like limits placed on my skin, my body, into possibilities?

How do I challenge people to question the way they gender me? How do I understand my own gender?

Can I find a sense of safety in this body?

What does my outward appearance say about me?

What difference is there between "me" and "my body'?

I've been practicing yoga the last several mornings, listening to youtube videos that tell me to pay attention to my body, to listen to what it needs, to follow it. I think, like many people, I've had times where it is easier to mentally detach from my body. To try to control it. To stop listening to it, to ignore how it feels because maybe that will make the discomforts of it go away.

But I know that, for me, detaching myself from my body is not going to help me answer any of those questions I just posed or help me feel authentically myself.

When I practice circus arts, I often feel happier, more at ease, and more connected (to myself and to others). Part of it, I believe, is because of this deeply physical experience. I can't ignore my body when I'm climbing the rope and the pressure between my feet, or the strength of my grip, is the only thing keeping me in the air. I am there, physically and mentally present. And in that presence, something true and unique to me comes out.

In my aerial rope class, we did an activity where we partnered up and practiced a short routine. We went through it a few times, becoming comfortable. Then we had to watch our partner as they did the routine, and then repeat it-- but try to do it exactly the way our partner did. We had to watch and notice how each person's movements were unique to them. Some of it was easy to copy, like flexing the feet instead of pointing. Some of it was more difficult. It was funny, to see each other's attempts to mimic our partner's unique style-- to see where we succeeded at imitating them and where we just couldn't shake our own habits.

This exercise not only taught us to seek out new, different ways of performing certain skills on rope, it also revealed to each of use that there is something to each of our individual physical styles that no one else can quite capture.

We talked about each person's style after, and it was really wonderful to listen to people describe my unique manner of doing rope. Apparently I have a very special way of gripping the rope, almost like I am caressing it-- I'm very cariñosa toward it. And, with my long limbs, I create a sense of extension, expansion, that changes the way the movements look.

At this point, you are probably like "Lizzy where on earth is this rambling going." But I guess what I'm realizing, or what I'm trying to get at, is that these moments of physicality help ground me. They help me feel at home in this body. It isn't as much about whether or not I wear a dress, whether I present more masculine or feminine, but when I am in touch with these physical sensations and motions that are uniquely mine. When I notice the way my legs carry me as I jog down the block, the way I hold onto the bars on the bus to stabilize myself, the way that I automatically position my fingers to snap when I agree with someone.

In Argentina, I have sometimes felt less safe moving through the world in this body, and it almost feels like that awareness has been... echoed, or heightened, by things happening in the states.

In answer to those Facebook and Twitter posts: Me too.

But I am also learning to find healing and connection with my body despite-- because of?-- this. I feel like I have become better and better at listening to my body.

Bodies, of course, are in constant flux, so this is an ongoing process. But right now, I feel really appreciative of some of the things I have learned here.

To close, a few pictures from my week:

Waffle with ice cream!! As I suspected, the waffle was a little sad and not exactly what I would hope for from a waffle, but the ice cream was tasty :)

Somebody fell asleep with his glasses on?

Mochi u such a dork

The night before Argentine elections, all of the bars have to stop selling alcoholic drinks... so instead of having a wild night out at the clubs this Saturday, we went to a tea house... my kind of evening

Excellent graffiti on a school desk, warning of the imminent viking invasion of the entire world

Are You Ready?

I've got a month left, and it's around the time when every other conversation starts "So, are you ready to leave?"

And I think my answer changes about every hour.

Usually as I finish my aerial arts class, I feel waves of appreciation for my placement and my circus family and when I step outside, either into the rain or the sun, I turn my face upwards and soak it in and want to keep doing this forever.

And then while I sit on the bus and stare out the window the waves of missing wash over me and I think about sitting on the 43 going up Haight St in San Francisco and walking home from the bus stop almost every day of high school and I miss it, I miss my neighborhood and the hilly streets and the bus voice that tells me to please reserve the front seats for seniors and people with disabilities in three different languages.

And then I get to school, and I start chatting with the students, and the teachers tell me "Oh, we have some questions for you! What semantic difference do you interpret from 'I could have gone' and 'I might have gone?'" (I'm not sure, I guess it sounds like "might" means we don't know if you did go or not and "could" means it was possible, but you didn't?) "What's the word for an older man who pursues younger women?" (There is none-- we have a word for an older woman who pursues younger men, "cougar," but it is so normalized in our culture to have an age gap the other way around that there is no name for it) "Is it common for people to move to different cities throughout their life?" (Yes, spending time living outside of your hometown is often a sign of "success," or "getting out"-- it's definitely the norm to move around, which is pretty opposite Argentina, although it is becoming more accepted in the States for graduates to move in with their parents due to student debt, high cost of living, and the competitive job market). I get involved in these discussions and think about how much I have learned from everyone here, how many conversations I would never have had, how many conversations I haven't had yet, and I'm not sure if I'm ready to go.

Then I'm waiting at the bus stop in the dark and thinking about what I'm going to make for dinner when I get back home at 10:30 or 11pm and I feel ready for an earlier schedule, ready to go back to a day job and to cook dinner in the kitchen I know so well and share meals with my parents.

When I left for Argentina, I wasn't ready-- there was no way to be ready. I hadn't been ready for the phone call informing me that a spot had opened up for me, and I hadn't been ready to say goodbye to the kids and staff I worked with, and I definitely was not ready for life in Argentina. But there was no time to think about ready or not-- I just had to go.

This is the opposite. I have lots of time, now, and I'm spent many hours planning to leave and planning my parents' visit. I've spent time thinking about leaving, thinking about what I'll do when I get back, setting goals and writing job applications and getting organized. And I'm not sure if all of that time will make it easier or harder.

Am I ready to go back? Yes, and also no. Funny enough I think I'm a lot less ready now than I was a few months ago.

I don't count down the days any more, and they seem to be passing faster.

Now, instead of going through each day thinking about how I am one day closer to coming home, I feel a pang of sadness as I realize how close I am to having to say goodbye to this new home.

But the longing for San Francisco is still there, and I still miss being close to my family, and I still think a lot about the possibilities that I'll be jumping into when I get back.

It's also strange to notice this even in the way I perceive the seasons here. We just came out of winter and it's technically spring, but part of me feels like it's fall... on social media, I see pictures of the leaves changing color in my college town and people are talking about Halloween and pumpkins and fireplaces and meals with autumn squash. Here, the weather has been flipping back and forth between hot and cold, like it used to do during the fall in college.

And both fall and spring make sense for this place I'm in. Fall, which is associated with endings, with the oncoming cold and uncertainty of winter, and spring, with its new beginnings and sense of change and growth.

Although people keep asking me if I'm ready, and it is a constant thought in the back of my mind, the fact is I do still have a month left. So to be going back and forth, to feel ready and not ready at the same time-- I think that's a good place to be right now. I can appreciate the moments knowing that they are limited without dreading the ending.

A few moments from the week:

Ran into McGonagall on the street

Figured out how to make my own quick, 1-pot, super easy mac and cheese since I ran out of my boxes of Annie's (and mmmm this version that I made was so good)

Went out to a lovely Casa de té (teahouse) with a friend and alternated practicing English/Spanish while nibbling out treats and caffeinated beverages

Drank mate out of my own mate for the first time

Mochi decided to do some typing practice on my laptop

I received this lovely plant for Mother's Day, which is today in Argentina, despite not being a mother... thinking of you, mom <3

And of course I had to watch the game that decided whether or not Argentina would be going to the Fútbol World Championships...

This is a few seconds after Argentina's third goal, basically securing their spot-- I missed the initial shouting, but you can hear the dogs barking like nuts. The person bouncing up and down on the comfy chair is my housemate, and if you listen to the TV commentator as they repeat the playbacks, you can hear how he slowly devolves from saying full sentences into just going "MESSI MESSI MESSI FUTBOL FUTBOL FUTBOL," which tbh is a pretty accurate assessment of Argentina :P

"Sos Muy Sana:" Salud/Health of Body and Mind

Live Update from Barrio Belgrano: I've spent the last hour sitting at the dining room table with my Argentine host and her sobrino (nephew) watching cooking shows on the living room TV and yep.

(Fyi, Argentine cooking shows = lots of asado, but they included a grilled provolone dish with cherry tomatoes so this vegetarian is happy :) Plus I still find it really interesting to see how they cook the meat dishes)

Today, after a sudden random thunderstorm right around noon, we broke our regular stay-at-home Sunday routine and my host family and I drove out into the mountains. We brought our mate and home-baked blueberry muffins and made our way up to Río Ceballos to spend the afternoon by the dique la quebrada, a dam in the mountains.

My housemate, who is lovely and takes such good care of me and is an incredibly generous soul <3

Pano of the dam (that wall is straight irl lol)

We brought our homemade blueberry muffins, baked last night by me and my profe, to snack on

View of the amphitheater were we sat to drink mate

Can you believe it was thunderstorming earlier in the day?? The weather was gorgeous

Me and my profe/mentor/Argentine mom, the incredible person who has taken me into her family and helped me out these past couple months

Kiddos ("Chicis," as their mom calls them-- pronounced "cheek-ees") doing cartwheels, which apparently are called medialunas here, like the pastry :)

It was a really nice afternoon, especially because this morning I woke up really missing the outdoor trips I used to go on with my family in the Bay Area.

After walking around in the mountains, breathing the fresh air and closing my eyes and not hearing any of the sounds of the city, I felt calm, refreshed, tranqui...

And I thought about something that I've been told a lot here: sos muy sana!/You're so healthy!

Whenever I eat something with vegetables instead of meat, this is usually the response I get. When I make chia seed pudding, people tell me this. When I cook up a milenesa de soja, a breaded soy patty, instead of the traditional meat milenesa, I hear this... even when my patty is equally breaded and fried.

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be sana, healthy, and in what instances people use that word to label me... and in what instances they don't use it to label others.

/// TW for the following parts of this post: discussion of eating disorders ///

I don't think they're wrong. I do try to be conscious of my habits, eating and otherwise, and I strive to be a healthy person (i.e. my earlier blog post about self-care). But sometimes it feels a little weird to have people comment on my "healthy habits" specifically because of what I choose (not) to eat-- usually while putting themselves down for their own choices. I can't name the number of times I have shared pastries with an Argentine woman who has said at some point "Oh I shouldn't be eating these," or commented on the amount of flour and sugar and butter, or said they haven't been going to the gym enough. These comments happen a lot at home in the states, too, but I guess I have particularly noticed them here.

And I am not ignorant of the fact that the comments about my perceived healthiness are directly tied to my physical appearance-- namely, the fact that I'm tall and thin. I question whether, if I had a shorter, curvier build or had more fat, I would get the same comments-- even if I made the same choices about food.

I've never had an easy time balancing the pressure to achieve impossible thinness/fitness standards with my underlying knowledge that the way I look doesn't determine my value as a human being. Actually, that's not true-- I have a very distinct memory of discussing eating disorders with my dad after I read about them in a puberty book I had been reading, probably around 6th grade. My dad told me that I should never feel like I had to starve myself or make myself throw up. I laughed and said he didn't have to worry, I loved food way too much (and hated throwing up way too much) to ever want to do that.

Somehow, over the next few years, that casual confidence disappeared. I guess I didn't realize at the time how invasive those kinds of thoughts and impulses could be.

In my experience of U. S. culture and Argentine culture alike, there's a common association between eating "too much" => unhealthy => morally bad. This is a huge problem that is perpetuated by all kinds of media (looking at you, Rowling, and the portrayal of fatness throughout Harry Potter...).

I've noticed that at times when I felt good about myself, when I felt like I was making positive contributions to the world, what I ate didn't bother me so much. It was when I felt like I had messed up or I was overwhelmed by things going on in my life or I just didn't feel "good enough" that the kinds of thoughts I told my dad I would never have started to sneak in. I think I had internalized a lot of the fatphobia that permeates our culture, our media; when I wasn't in a particularly healthy state of mind, what I ate and what my body looked like became tied to my worth as a person.

Many, many people, of all genders, have experienced similar feelings. I've heard the statistic (echoed in this article) that 1 in 10 Argentines suffer from an eating disorder.

So that's probably why I don't entirely know how to respond when someone literally strokes my waist and complements me on how healthy I am (yeah, that's happened).

A lot of times, when people say "sos muy sana," it doesn't sound like it's about me so much as it is a critical self-reflection... and I don't want anyone else beating themselves up based on the way I behave and look. I don't want to perpetuate the culture of body-policing that exists in the U. S. and South America alike. Because of genetics, I have a fast metabolism and I'm almost 6 feet tall and I don't put on weight as easily as some people do. But that doesn't necessarily say anything about how healthy/unhealthy I am, or about who I am as a person.

My first few months in Argentina took a lot of adjustment, and a huge part of that was finding a healthy routine with food and exercise. As I wrote about, things as simple as going to the grocery store felt really scary, and since I kept moving locations, I often didn't know my way around the kitchen (or the lack of gas meant I couldn't use the kitchen). As I didn't know my way around or know what areas were safe or unsafe, I had a really hard time going for runs or doing any exercise outside. The most accessible foods were pizza, pasta, and empanadas; I was surrounded by bakeries; and the social culture often involved plates of delicious pastries... and since school started late I had very little to occupy my time and felt I was already failing to meet my own expectations for what I would accomplish during my time here. It all brought back a lot of the body anxiety that I thought I had mostly put behind me.

One of the things I realized about having these kinds of feelings is that the thoughts may never entirely go away, I just become a lot better at dealing with them. I've worked to educate myself about fat-shaming and body positivity. If I strongly hold the belief that how someone eats or how fat they are does not in any way affect their value as a human being-- which I do-- then being caught up in self-critical thoughts based around my own eating or bodyweight leads to cognitive dissonance. I can't say all bodies are good while at the same time focus my actions and efforts on losing (or avoiding gaining) weight. And by calling out the negative thoughts in myself, I can begin to break down the unconscious biases I have about physical appearance and worth. I try to catch myself when I begin policing myself ("Oh, I shouldn't eat another" or "Haha good thing I went for a run this morning) and instead focus on being mindful about my choices ("That cupcake was good but I'm full and don't need another right now, maybe later this evening," or "I'm feeling a little low-energy, maybe some yoga and stretching will help wake my body up").

Some time around junior year of college, when I was having an especially hard time with this stuff, I started a list. When the negative thoughts felt particularly strong, I would write down one reason not to follow through. Each time I had to look at the list again and add another (new) reason. I was surprised by how effective this was for me-- sometimes just the knowledge that I have the list can help flip my mindset or stop a negative spiral.

So right now... yeah, I feel pretty sana. I exercise because it makes my body feel better and I want to become stronger and I want to get better at aerial rope. I eat foods that I enjoy making, that taste good, and that include-- as much as possible-- sustainably and ethically produced ingredients. I meditate because it helps me keep my mind and body connected/balanced.

I wish there was an easy way to respond to people's comments and acknowledge the complicated role that health of body and mind plays in my salud in addition to just eating some vegetables. At the moment I don't know what it is, so when people say this, I just kind of smile and wave it off.

It's hard for me to talk about this stuff. The truth is that I finished writing this post on Sunday, but it took me until halfway through the week to post it because... it's hard to acknowledge that I sometimes struggle with food and body image. It's hard because I do freaking love food, and I am known as someone who loves food, so admitting that I sometimes have a complicated relationship with food is hard. And it's hard because I know that I benefit from thin privilege, and so acknowledging that the culture of dieting and body-shaming affects me, too, can feel a little counter-intuitive. But it does, it effects everyone, and I think one of the most positive things I can do is to address my own relationship with my body... and be honest about that.

So there we go... that was a post that got much more intense that I intended when I first sat down to write. But I guess that usually tends to happen, and was sort of the intention with this blog.