And if ever I go too far
It’s because of the things you are
Beautiful town…I love you
And if I need a moment’s rest
Give your lover the very best
~ Evita
You let down your people Evita
You were supposed to have been immortal
That’s all they wanted…not much to ask for
But in the end you could not deliever
There are some days that try their hardest to defy description. Amras promised me a Valentine’s Day I would remember, and he’s been planning this weekend since before Christmas. I had no idea what to expect; and for once, I didn’t really try to guess. Actual Valentine’s Day morning he brought a single red rose to me at breakfast…
And then yesterday we packed a bag, I got excused from my morning commitments on 16th, and we packed an overnight bag and went out into the city. The cab pulled up outside of – I kid you not – a 4.5 star hotel, where they had our room ready hours early (check in wasn’t supposed to be until 3, we arrived at 11:30), allowing us to enter into an oasis of comfort (and more importantly, air conditioning) for the next 24 hours.
Now, Amras had been very tight lipped about what he had planned for this weekend, and he was very concerned I would be disappointed. I have, after all, “done” Buenos Aires twice before (one of my contracts even started here a few years ago). But Buenos Aires is one of those cities that you can always come back to and find something different. Anyway, I had no idea what to expect after we dropped off our luggage. Little did I know that he had picked the hotel for a very specific reason, and not just because it was a luxury hotel. He picked it because it was next to a florist.
Today is about you picking whatever flowers you want…so we can go and put them on Evita’s grave.
You could have knocked me over with a feather.
Now, I have “done” Eva Peron’s grave, I’ve done Recolleta cemetery – and that’s what made Amras nervous, because he didn’t realize that I had made that trek before. But I had never done it like this. Picking out those flowers was a very careful process: Tiger lily – for regality and royalty, wealth & Pride. Freesia – innocence and thoughtfulness , daisies – new beginnings, carnations – admiration. Also, carnations to me are opening night flowers, and the local production of Evita was one of the last shows I ever performed in.
There’s a history there.
And – also on purpose – the hotel is across the street from the cemetery.
The City of the Dead is unlike anywhere you will see elsewhere in the world. It’s easy to imagine what it must look like without the tourists, when no living being is walking those streets. Some of the monuments are pristine, some are falling to pieces, some are completely collapsed. A tour guide as we were walking past happened to mention that this was because the modern generation doesn’t see the point in maintaining tombs that are hundreds of years old for family members that they never knew. And if you don’t pay the taxes for the maintenance, the staff of the City do not maintain the monuments.
There are some side streets that are far away from the main thoroughfare, far away from the throngs of tourists crowding in to the “important” graves. On these doors the cobwebs are so thick that you feel like they could be woven into cloth. Glass is broken, flowers toppled. Time or vandalism, it’s hard to say. You could imagine steps echoing off the ancient buildings, whispered through the long quiet walls. I found myself wondering where the cats where. There used to be cats here. They were everywhere, silent guardians of the dead sleeping at the feet of long dead generals.
Who were all these people? What happened to all these stories? Who did they love? Who did they hate? Did they want to end up here? How did those stories end…and when was the last time someone brought them flowers.
Had it been up to me…I would have had a much bigger bouquet.
When we first made our way to Evita’s grave I was too intimated to do anything. There are dozens of people there every hour, and it’s not a very big space. What connection I have to Evita – and it’s a small one compared to the tremendous amount of local emotion attached to her – is private; and I wasn’t quite ready. I dropped a single freesia blossom in front of the grate and we went around the other end of the cemetery instead. But I came back. And though there were still dozens of people around me, though there were still tour guides giving history lectures in the background…for just those few seconds…I was alone. Alone in front of a monument that truly looks no different than any other in the cemetery – except for the flowers. On Evita’s grave there are always flowers; woven into the grates, laid on the marble stoop in front of the door. Always flowers. Evita is woven into Argentina’s culture – she has risen from being a person to being a symbol, no matter what she may or may not have actually been.
And she lies among her enemies and her enemies are surrounded by her…the irony in that circumstance is thick.
There is something very very heavy in that knowledge. It stops you for just a second. And I found myself remembering lines from another completely different musical
It’s a sobering thought isn’t it? No matter what I do or don’t do, no matter how I do it or don’t do it. My last appointment is here ~ The Slipper and the Rose
They wanted her to be immortal.
And all these years later, in a very special way, they’ve have gotten their wish.
Our mission accomplished, we left the City of the Dead to the sunshine and the cats (wherever they are) and went seeking lunch.
Lunch proved to be a non-descript little sidewalk café resteraunt that served the most amazing pasta I have eaten in ages (I swear I have eaten more this weekend than I have in days!).
It is almost impossible to explain how wonderful and rare it is for us to be able to sit down for lunch and not have to be anywhere or run anywhere.
We did have to go back to the ship briefly to change and board the bus to the Tango Show.
The tango show was the one part of the day that was my idea. Because in Argentina tango is a UNESCO Symbol of Cultural Heritage (really, it’s officially designated), if you’re going to see real tango, this is where you see it.
I was expecting the same show I had been lucky enough to see a few years ago. But the bus did not pull up in front of the same theatre, but instead in front of a small local tango theatre with a café out front. We filed into the back and took our seats and…the world…spun into a tiny theatre with a high raised stage and the crying of a bandolier. There is a beauty in tango that pulls something out of you, it reaches down deep and grabs onto whatever you’re carrying with you and draws it to the light. The stress, the pain the worry of day to day life…it…doesn’t disappear exactly, but it takes a back seat. At at a least one point both Amras and I were crying and couldn’t for the life of us have told someone why had they asked. Early in the show there were a lot of attempts at photography (despite the warnings not to do so) but by the halfway mark, phones and cameras disappeared and everyone just…stared.
When you are watching that kind of beauty, it is enough to make your life feel beautiful, no matter what else the outside world may be trying to tell you.
Because we had a hotel, we did not have to reboard the bus to return to the ship. Instead we walked through the early Argentinian twilight. Buenos Aires is an incredible city. Full of art and culture and history everywhere you step. So we walked…taking pictures of landmarks, commenting on architecture, debating on whether or not we had time to make it to the Casa De Rosa (we didn’t)…and eventually stopping for tea at a corner shop before taking a taxi to a very late dinner. A very late very amazing dinner…the salmon I had tasted like a mouthful of ocean water (and trust me, that’s a good thing!).
Seriously, I may not have to eat for a week at this point.
Unfortunately, the real world is whispering just around the corner. We are only in Buenos Aires for these two days. So we need to gather up our wine and roses and head back to the grind. There are new passengers to greet, new shows to play and new classes to teach…
But just once in a very great while…we remember how incredibly important it is to hit the reset button, and carve out a couple of days to just. Be. Us.