GOING UP TO PARAÍSO
DOWNTOWN - CERRO PARAÍSO
It’s a port, smelly and insolent, bohemian and pleasurable, decadent and captivating for its freedom and its colors; it grabs you and doesn’t let go.
Because saying you come from paradise is an identity. It’s home to dogs, cats, gringos, vagabonds, porteños, and to me.
My first steps, and countless times I ran down the hill after kindergarten with my mother behind me shouting “Careful!”, from the Yugoslavo down the stairs to Urriola. Then I moved to the suburbs, but I kept coming, always to the downtown that watched me grow, love, fail and triumph.
Here I was born and spoiled, eating York ice cream and pan batido.
I came back, yes, I came back and I feel at home, a home I never stopped visiting, and now it watches me be reborn, facing a new challenge: the independence I longed for so much and feared so much.
What will they say to me?
“And alone?”
“And why, if you’re fine here?”
Fine?
“You’re comfortable here”
Comfortable?
“Looking like that, I don’t see it happening, sweetheart”
“Don’t go doing anything reckless”
Hmmm… haha.
Liberté.
But I want to understand myself, to fight and make friends with my demons, to love myself, hug myself, trust myself with my life.
And to thank the universe, my feet that carry me, my arms and hands I work with, and my whole being for allowing me to be.