nostalgia

Some of the things I miss most often about the past are the things that never were.

I was thinking about how a little over a year ago, in Argentina, I rode an overnight bus (Andesmar company) to Mendoza. I rode in executivo class, because the difference to me was a mere 4 dollars.

They show a movie, they serve you dinner, they play bingo, and they show another movie. I won the bingo. It is the only time in my life I can remember winning a game of chance. My prize was a bottle of "tinto," that is, red wine, with the Andesmar logo printed neatly on the label. I carried it carefully to the hostel in Mendoza, stashed it deep in the dorm locker, lest some Dane should steal it, brought it back home on another overnight bus (they didn't play bingo the second time around; would I have won again?) and when I got back to my host family's house in Palermo, Beunos Aires, I roughly set it, in it's cardboard berth, down on the floor, and it broke, all over the ikea rug in my 5' x 6' bedroom.

I had never wanted to taste a wine so badly as then, to see it seep past the blue and white Andesmar wine label, over the pieces of green glass, and onto the faded lime-colored rug.

Maybe I was too rough with the bottle; maybe it was just a cheaply made glass bottle; maybe God does not want me to win too many things. But that spreading wine smelled fecund and rich and heavy, and might have been the best wine I would have ever tasted.

obviously, in memory of things and people we miss.