La plaza grande was abuzz with afternoon comings and goings and, if I remember correctly, it was a Wednesday. One of the things I love most about Latin American culture is la plaza - the main square. Energy funnels into the city center, a nucleus of the human element and daily life - although the more we 'progress' the energy has gained an air of nostalgia and tradition - of date nights and tourism. I am the tourist in this plaza, La Virgen del Pendacillo watching over me as I contemplate the fact that none of the basilica's clocks match. Two clock towers, four clock-faces each, and none of them agree. I think they're all sleeping, actually, as I've never seen them change.
That is the feeling I get here though, that different times are colliding. All this as I do things that tourists are expected to do - as well as some things that they're not expected to do. Try as I might to not look like a tourist, my affinity for photos and penchant to carry to many things (in the event that inspiration hits) leaves me with a camera around my neck and a backpack. It seems like when I have it all with me, I never need it. The minute I deside to leave it in the room - I see the most photo-worthy human moment, and I have nothing.
This, perhaps, is where writing comes in. There are moments that deserve to be remembered. Many of them are small, daily movements that go unnoticed by many people. Today on the bus, for example:
The bus, new-to-me transport in Quito, a familiar beast by genus, but each specie having its own territory and quirks city-to-city. I climb the ramp and it's the wrong side. Walk around, climb the ramp again. Twenty-five cents, barreling down the bus lane. Perdon, perdon, squeezing up to the front of the bus to see where I am. . . look for the park, look for the park, the park - el ejido. No seats open, I'm standing, swaying, hanging by a loop. To my right, in a seat facing the rear, ten year old eyes, biggest I've ever seen, stare at me, curiously I'm sure - I look out of place. Peripherally aware, finally I drop my gaze to meet his - contact and a returned smile of large, gapped teeth. Pure positivity and unafraid. What a kid.
Resuming my looking, for the park, for the park. A tap on my knee and a soft pssstt ". . . you want to sit?" he more mouths than whispers in Spanish, offering me his seat. Moved and smiling, "No, no te preocupes. Está bien," I say. He seems content to have offered. What a kid.
Two seats across from him open up, and I don't realize it. Pssstt! I look, he points, I look, I sit. By the window, I mouth, "Gracias!" What a kid.
He sees me looking, first for the park, now at my guide book. The park! We both stand at the same time. The stop is called Casa de Cultura. Deboarding together he asks, ¨¿Adònde va usted?¨ I tell him I'm going to the park, the parque el ejido. He points and steers me to my left, and I now have a guide. What a kid.
Park entrance, he reaches out his hand. "Hasta luego. . ." he says.
Hasta luego. . . Normally, luego never comes in such a case.
We leave each other, smiling. Several hours in the park and the rain, then even more hours in La Casa de Cultura, where I read every informational plaque in English and in Spanish, completely unware that the museum had closed when security guards escorted me out of the building. Ancient pottery and indigenous, artistic, phallic preoccupations. Second floor, colonial art. Christanity reaches the Andes, and now the preoccupation is santos, la virgen, and bleeding Christs. Walking outside, quite cold, and looking for coffee. I find it two blocks from El Parque el Ejido, north towards La Plaza Foch. Finishing my book, and two cups of coffee, I bawled when Madame Michel died. Always in never. . .
Luego tends to never happen. Running late, quick to the bus, I miss the one that's there already - barely. Waiting, waiting, there is the next one; barreling down the hill from the old city, headed uptown. Bus stops, drops the ramp, and I file in line. There, in front of me, ears plugged with white headphones. What kid? Is that the kid? Luego never happens in these situations. . . yet, and amazingly, luego is unfolding in the middle of rush hour in Ecuador's capital.
On the bus, we're up front again, both facing forward this time. Luego never happens, and it's happening, and I feel like there must be some significance to it. But how do I mark it? How to I take advantage of luego. I dig through my backpack, terribly upset that I don't carry an emergency statuette of Lady Liberty, or a pin of Elvis dancing, for such occasions. (As a proper tourist from the U.S. ought to do.) I wanted a recuerdo for what seemed to be like such a random, chance reconvergence of two completely separate lives. I find a bracelet at the bottom of my bag, twin to the one on my right wrist that I bought from a young, traveling, Otavalo artist on the bus from that city to Quito. He still doesn't see me.
I stepped forward when I saw that my stop was coming, Los Sauces, and I tapped on his hand that was grasping the rail in front of him. He looks at me, eyes realizing and turning to plates. We both smile as I hand him the bracelet. Such a smile, geniune and surreal, I say, "¿Que chance, que nos veamos en el bus y que luego pasara?" What are the chances we would run into each other on the bus, and that luego would happen?
The bus slows to my stop, and I have a sea of people to beg pardon around in order to reach the door. He reaches out his hand to shake mine, and that unrelenting smile gives way to, "Hasta luego."
Luego never comes in such a case, does it?
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