THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH (AND OTHER THINGS)
Returning to Buenos Aires, we decided to walk to our hotel instead of catching a cab. Sometimes you pay the price for having an adventurous spirit. Between losing cell phone signals and making wrong turns down serpentine streets, I think we doubled back on ourselves three or four times. It felt as if we were in a labyrinth, with signs in a foreign language—because that’s exactly what it was.
Keith was the first to spot the Sheraton logo in the distance. Now we had a lock on our destination, and you’d think that’d be enough. But every time we made a turn we thought would lead us closer to the hotel, the street would end up making some abrupt turn and becoming a dead end. It probably wouldn’t have been as frustrating if we hadn’t been orbiting our hotel the whole time. Then suddenly, as if the streets of Buenos Aires had bored of toying with us, we magically appeared at the hotel.
Throughout our week in Buenos Aires, we walked many more miles, usually with a lot more success. We walked down Avenida del Libertador to the beautiful city of Palermo, with its French flare and sidewalk cafés. And we walked to Recoleta to visit the famous cemetery where Eva Perón (aka Evita) was laid to rest, and encountered some interesting stories there.
Rufina Cambaceres, known as the girl who died twice, collapsed after a party her mother threw for her. She was pronounced dead by three different doctors and buried the following day. A cemetery worker later reported he’d found the lid of the casket pushed aside. Urban legend says she was buried alive and died only after trying to force her way out of the casket. Her mother then had a substantial mausoleum built with a statue of sad Rufina holding the door as if to determine who might enter.
The grave of a young girl who died in an avalanche in Austria also captured our attention. She was entombed in a neo-Gothic mini-manor guarded by a life-size bronze statue of her in her wedding dress. When her dog later died, the same sculptor was commissioned to add the dog to the work of art.
The gravesite most tourists come to see, that of Eva Perón, was one of the most modest. A bronze door decorated with a cross was slightly inset from the framing and walls surrounding it. Plaques lamenting Perón’s untimely death and praising her spiritual and political compass for the nation flanked the entrance to her tomb. Her body had previously been exhumed and flown to Spain by her husband, and he and his third wife kept the corpse in their dining room. It was stolen, hidden, and then stolen all over again, and now it rests at Recoleta, in her family’s tomb, with so many trapdoors and coffins above her, I think everyone feels she’s finally safe inside.
Though Recoleta was gorgeous, there was a fitting somberness walking among the departed. Keith and I agreed we needed a jolt of energy or else we’d slip into an entranced lethargy. San Telmo is where everyone told us we should go to get a feel of the “tango” side of Buenos Aires, and that sounded like exactly what we needed.
San Telmo’s street fair is held every Sunday, and it brings in thousands of tourists, who fit tightly into a street just big enough to fit a Mini Cooper. We were just such tourists, and it was a Sunday. While an Argentine street fair might sound like the best thing ever, I have an acute claustrophobia when I’m in crowds. It hit me the moment we arrived, and I knew I’d lose it deep in the masses, and I’d have nowhere to go. Instead we headed to what would become my favorite place to walk in the city, Puerto Madero.
Puerto Madero is the waterfront district lined with some of the best restaurants in Buenos Aires, including a place we returned to twice, Cabaña Las Lilas. This popular restaurant is deemed as a “must visit” in so many tourist books that restaurants nearby have taken to giving themselves names that could fool the less-discriminating diner.
Meat is a big deal in Argentina. They love their beef and are the world’s second highest consumer of it. I remembered Mario comparing the meat in Uruguay to that in Argentina: “We export our best meat. Those crazy Argentines eat all their good meat.” Las Lilas was hailed as the best steak restaurant in the city. When you have an entire culture centered around one consumable, and a place pops up as the best place to have it, go. Las Lilas served us the best cut of meat we’ve ever had (and we have some great meat in the States).
“The best meals I’ve had on this journey were in London, Montevideo, and now here,” I told Keith. “And they were all with you. I wonder if food just tastes better when you’re at the table with me.” I think it might.
Once we got back to the hotel, we had an hour or so to shower and get dressed before taking a thirty-minute taxi ride to the home of Dr. Silvina.
Buenos Aires can seem a bit like a city with nothing but hardscape, similar to the metropolitan areas of New York, London, or Paris. But the outskirts of this city are beautifully lined with trees, manicured grass, and playgrounds. To the east of Palermo and lining both sides of the streets beginning in that city and heading north, the treescapes are glorious. Driving through that area, I finally got a sense of the softer side of Buenos Aires.
Arriving at Dr. Silvina’s home, I wasn’t sure what to expect on the other side of the door. I knew there was a bit of a language barrier. Most of our e-mails had been in Spanish, and when I’d spoken to her over the telephone the night before, I’d had to use all the Spanish in my arsenal and she’d had to use all the English in hers for us to fully understand each other. We’d made it work, but I hoped our husbands would have the patience to sit through that process. Either way, I knew love only speaks one language, so if there was anything that could be extracted from this conversation, it would be the essence of love.
When Silvina opened the door, she welcomed us in as had every other family along this journey, with a radiant smile, open arms, and an English “Hello!” She radiated joy, and we immediately felt welcome. Their bilingual daughter Rosio would be close by just in case we needed help translating.
I was interested to know how Silvina became such a sought-after plastic surgeon, something to which her husband was quick to respond. “She’s the best! She has a gold medal.” Marcello took great pleasure bragging on his wife. He seemed less inclined to talk about himself. But that was okay; like Silvina, he had a spokesperson too. Silvina lit up when she talked about his accomplishments as a prosecutor before becoming a judge twenty years earlier. I began to calculate backwards because Marcello didn’t look old enough to have been an attorney for twenty years, let alone a judge.
There are many reasons for choosing happiness daily and a happy marriage, but I must admit, this “fountain of youth” theory is one of my favorites! I look forward to growing old with Keith, especially if I’m able to keep from looking it. Maybe I should become a marriage counselor and use that as my first line of defense with wives: “If you can figure out how to choose happiness in your marriage daily, and stop sweating the small stuff, it’ll take ten years off your looks.” And then I’d tell the husbands, “It’s in your best interest for your wife to look fabulous ten years from now, so knock it off!”
Observing the contentment and partnership Marcello and Silvina had, it was clear that creating goals and working toward them together was one of the greatest gifts of their marriage. Two minds instead of one and four hands instead of two. I’ve seen this approach to marriage as a common denominator with the couples I’ve interviewed. They invest in each other’s dreams, and as a result, they’re living a life that is a bit of a dream in and of itself.
But in Marcello’s and Silvina’s minds, it was more than just partnership and goals that had propelled them forward. Silvina started to talk about a concept similar to “donnant, donnant” from my earlier encounter.
“Are you saying the difference between your relationship and your friends’ who have ended in divorce is, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’?” I got a confused look. Okay, let’s try this again, I thought. We pulled Rosio into the dining room, where we were sipping on tea and coffee and enjoying small tea sandwiches and pastries.
We fumbled a little more with our words, and with Rosio’s help we finally understood each other.
“Claro!” Silvina said (“Of course!”). “Pero [but] I don’t think about my arm, but I take care of it.” She moved her right hand up and down her left arm, and Keith and I struggled to follow her analogy. She saw the confused looks on our faces.
“No es transaccional,” she said.
“It’s not transactional,” Keith translated, with a self-satisfied look on his face.
I took her to mean that when you tend to your spouse’s needs and dreams as a part of your day-to-day life, it begins to come natural to you and you don’t have to think about it much. Nor do you expect anything in return for your giving. The obvious beauty of that approach is that if both spouses adopt this approach, both receive in good measure and give selflessly. It’s a good economy.
Another difference, Silvina said, is that they are constantly improving. I asked if they were still changing even after twenty-five years of marriage, and they both responded with a resounding yes. Because life circumstances change, you naturally change along with them. But the key, they told us, is in embracing those changes and improving throughout.
“Marcello says I am like a spider,” Silvina said with a laugh. It was a strange image, so Keith and I tried to figure out if the language barrier was the problem. “Yes, I’m like a spider. I have made this web,” she said, with her hands whirling in the air. “When the web is broken, I zzzz zzzz zzzz.”
Okay, if her web is broken, she fixes it. I got that. Silvina was industrious, in other words. She didn’t let things undone go by the wayside, either in her personal development or in her marriage. I’ve known plenty of couples who choose to ignore budding problems or dissatisfactions because it’s easier in the moment. But too much of that for long enough, and you all of a sudden have a huge problem on your hands, or a midlife crisis, or a broken marriage. I liked Silvina’s spider analogy—they never let their web go untended. It’s their protection and their lifeblood. If they get lazy, they can’t survive.
Both of them talked about their level of honesty with each other about what they should change and how they should improve. They said neither of them got offended when the other pointed something out. I can relate.
Every year, on an index card, I write all my personal goals for the upcoming year for myself, and on the flip side I write all of the goals I have for Keith. He does the same for me. And on December 31, we exchange the cards and talk about them. The first few years Keith gave me my list, it was a little difficult. I felt as though there were more things I was doing wrong than I was doing right. But then I realized, how many things can you really fit on an index card? As the years have gone on, that list has gotten shorter and shorter every year. Now I welcome the feedback. I want to be the best wife and friend to him I can be, so I want him to point out where there are holes in my web. Every year we’ve done this, we’ve agreed to work on each item on our goal list. Rarely have we needed to write down the same things two years in a row because, like Silvina, we zzzz zzzz zzzz.
Our time with Marcello and Silvina was nourishing in so many ways. They were so generous with their time, wisdom, and hospitality. When we got in the taxi to return to the hotel, Keith said, “I want to bottle up the South American hospitality and bring it home.”
I completely agreed. In all my travels during this worldwide search, I have been so humbled and honored by the generosity of others. Keith has heard all about it, too, but this was his first experience. It truly is a strange and wondrous thing to step into the lives of strangers, enter into their most intimate dynamics, eat their delicious food, accept their gifts, and absorb their hard-earned wisdom. And all they do the whole time is smile and feel gratitude that they can give. A good marriage teaches us that over time, as I’m learning from these happy wives and couples. Happy marriages create kind people who can give freely out of the surplus their relationship creates. Those who are happy in their personal lives, and especially within their most important earthly relationship, just seem to enrich all those around them. They are such a light in what can be a dark and cruel world. They are different. They are special. They are angels.
Keith and I concluded our time in South America with an inextinguishable glow on our faces. All we could do was think about the beauty of a marriage gone right and smile. Keith especially. He was finally experiencing what I’d been experiencing with every couple I’d met: a profound impact the moment I left their presence, knowing that I would never be the same. I was overtaken with joy that Keith and I got to share that together. It was emboldening, energizing us to keep going deeper into our relationship with each other. I turned to him.
“If we’re not happily married for the remainder of our years, it’s our fault. Because we now know all it takes to build a successful marriage and remain in love all the days of our lives.”
Keith just kept smiling, saying nothing and everything all at once, which made me smile too.