Yesterday was my second birthday in South America ( the 2nd time I celebrated a birthday, I'm noticeably not 2) and I passed it quietly at home relaxing with Jimmy and preparing for our first visit home since moving here a little over a year ago.
It’s funny, because we’ve been known to say that “we came here to open and yoga and art studio” but obviously we could have done that somewhere in the States. We came here to have a cultural experience, which we both very much wanted. The realities of it have been overwhelming at times and along with the ever shifting economy led us to choose a simpler life here with an apartment but no brick and mortar business. We know a couple who arrived five months before we did with a plan to open a studio and seventeen months and many thousands of dollars later - not to mention the work! - they are not open (sending powerful positive eyeball rays in general direction of studio) and while we have admired their persistence and determination we have also often said, “glad it’s not us”. I’m glad someone is doing it because this city needs a Bikram Yoga Studio, but I’m glad it’s not me.
Jimmy’s art though was not something that would wait, it pulls on him too hard and calls too loudly for his attention, and he has steadily continued to work toward being in a place logistically where he can take full advantage of the artistic culture here and do the work he loves, let world begin to see his stuff. Last Friday night we passed a major milestone on that path.
Photo by Beatrice Murch
We prepped, planned, sweated and worked to create an opening night for Jimmy’s work in South America which coincided with the completion of his website and the 1st official Jimmy Danko t-shirt and a limited edition print of Changin’ Times, his portrait of Bob Dylan. We put the word out (in English & Spanish) and were flooded with support from some of the amazing people we’ve met since we came here. We found ourselves at 7:00 pm anxiously awaiting the crowds. Sure enough at 7:05 the doorbell buzzed and the 1st of over 100 people started the one minute elevator ride to the 24th floor (where you get off and walk up one more...) to our art gallery in the sky, Gallery 24B.
Photo by Beatrice Murch
There were locals and expats, artists and professors, the very young, musicians and business people, the somewhat older and more. We poured cases of wine (almost ran out but a back up order arrived in a flash!) and passed trays of home made love courtesy of a really good friend. There were people we knew and many we didn’t and they spent the evening talking to Jimmy, to each other, about art, about life, about living in another culture.
Photo by Beatrice Murch
I asked everyone I spoke to which piece was their favorite and got answers as varied and interesting as Jimmy’s art. As I raced around, energy high, bottle of wine in one hand and dirty glasses (headed for the kitchen) in the other I stopped for just a moment to notice the buzz of the voices, the energy, the evening, all buzzing around me. I felt a sense of accomplishment. We did it. We moved to another country, bought and remodeled a home, created something to share and blended the local culture with our own in sharing it. We did it.
The next morning as I washed the floors and put everything to rights I felt a calm satisfaction. My Spanish isn’t perfect and I don’t have a yoga studio but we have done an amazing thing and we have learned and grown and stretched our understanding of the world in the process.
The day after tomorrow we’ll board a fourteen hour flight back to California for a visit and I am curious to see how my year in Buenos Aires will have changed the way I interact with the place I lived for most of my life. I hear from other expats to expect some interesting stuff to happen in the experience. I look forward to that. I don’t know what doors life will open for us next and I don’t know if they will open onto America when we leave here, or when that will be, but I do know I got what I came for. We have had a cultural awakening in this big, loud, dirty, spunky city and we are stronger, more flexible and more open to what will come next because of it.
Stay tuned...
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