Argentine apartment adventures:
Finding the heart in my hearth and home
Argentine apartment adventures:
Finding the heart in my hearth and home
When I moved into my first apartment in Buenos Aires I knew I was in for an adventure… There was no refrigerator and starting the oven was an ordeal. None of the lights had fixtures and they were dangling dangerously by their sockets. And the bathroom was dark, damp, drab disaster. Nonetheless, I had a vibrant vision of a beautiful abode that I knew I would eventually breathe into being…
It was an old building and so, naturally, things began to break. I needed to learn the words for random repair services in my third language. Then I needed to figure out how to get the repair people to come. They didn’t come. It was a trying time. The high level of inflation in Argentina and the fact that furniture is so expensive here meant that it took a long time for things to come together. Every single piece of furniture, appliance, and ornament was painstakingly acquired at high cost. At first this made for many frustrations living in what seemed like limited and uncomfortable quarters. Then, weeks sleeping on an air-mattress and months without a couch or curtains revealed my adaptability and resilience, previously buried under layers of pampering and privilege.
I came to practically revel in the almost-reluctant evolution of my residence. I developed an appetite for picking out the precious pieces that would become part of my apartment. I delighted in the details that slowly appeared around me as if by some snaillike sorcery, shrouding me in majesty and magic. I came to love the lights without fixtures that were a license to illuminate my flat in the most fabulous and farfetched form I could find. I saw the bothersome bathroom as an invitation to bathe it in beauty and bedazzled brilliance. And each time something broke I began to see it as an expensive, expansive opportunity to get something that was more to my liking.
Eventually, with purpose and patience, my essence has found its way out of the aether and into the fabric of my fabrics. Each little luxury littering the space, fills it with openness, opulence, and opportunity. In all the material, there’s an immaterial yet ever-present sense of possibility and plenty, painting the palace in an aura of abundance.
When I moved into my first apartment in Buenos Aires I knew I was in for an adventure… There was no refrigerator and starting the oven was an ordeal. None of the lights had fixtures and they were dangling dangerously by their sockets. And the bathroom was dark, damp, drab disaster. Nonetheless, I had a vibrant vision of a beautiful abode that I knew I would eventually breathe into being…
It was an old building and so, naturally, things began to break. I needed to learn the words for random repair services in my third language. Then I needed to figure out how to get the repair people to come. They didn’t come. It was a trying time. The high level of inflation in Argentina and the fact that furniture is so expensive here meant that it took a long time for things to come together. Every single piece of furniture, appliance, and ornament was painstakingly acquired at high cost. At first this made for many frustrations living in what seemed like limited and uncomfortable quarters. Then, weeks sleeping on an air-mattress and months without a couch or curtains revealed my adaptability and resilience, previously buried under layers of pampering and privilege.
I came to practically revel in the almost-reluctant evolution of my residence. I developed an appetite for picking out the precious pieces that would become part of my apartment. I delighted in the details that slowly appeared around me as if by some snaillike sorcery, shrouding me in majesty and magic. I came to love the lights without fixtures that were a license to illuminate my flat in the most fabulous and farfetched form I could find. I saw the bothersome bathroom as an invitation to bathe it in beauty and bedazzled brilliance. And each time something broke I began to see it as an expensive, expansive opportunity to get something that was more to my liking.
Eventually, with purpose and patience, my essence has found its way out of the aether and into the fabric of my fabrics. Each little luxury littering the space, fills it with openness, opulence, and opportunity. In all the material, there’s an immaterial yet ever-present sense of possibility and plenty, painting the palace in an aura of abundance.