Strong mind, Weak grip

on life teaching me to let go

Nov 25, 2023

“You gotta be kidding me… No way I lost it,”

I hissed as I tore through my 40L Osprey pack, strewing my belongings across the floor in Ezeiza International Airport’s domestic terminal.

~~~

I arrived to the Paris of Latin America on the last day of September, spent all October and 11 days of November there.

On one of my final days, I decided to revisit (for the third time) one of my favorite restaurants, Pizzería Güerrín, a “hopping institution for traditional Argentinian-style pizza.”

It’s located on 1368 Corrientes Avenue. A street that stretches 69 blocks. A street where the heartbeat of Buenos Aires pulses through the pavement.

The East section runs all the way to the river into the financial district. Further East, across the river, is the re-gentrified Puerto Madero neighborhood, dangerous 40 years ago but today chock-full of five-star steakhouses and sought-after lofts in red brick buildings, once canning factories and ship-building bays.

As you wander West, away from the water, Corrientes slowly melds into a hub for tango, nightlife, and cuisine. The skyline morphs from sleek steel skyscrapers into crude 1980s low-rise buildings. All a gray monotone, but spattered by blown-up billboards—for cologne or fast food or smartphones—the size of swimming pools that add splashes of color. The street is littered with shops, selling dulce de leche or soccer jerseys or wooden tea gourds, many targeted at tourists, including the oh-so-popular “I ❤️ Gifts”.

~~~

Wednesday night, just before 7pm, I spotted the “Güerrín” billboard from two blocks down the street. Proud red letters, font a cross between the regality of Garamond and the modernity of Comic Sans, with carnival-style incandescent bulbs announcing its perimeter.

The front doors were splayed open to the street to entice foot traffic. Each door made of a marked-up marbled oak with a gorgeous stained glass top panel but, pinned back by doorstops, easy to miss.

I weaved my way through the bustling front section, where locals were leaning on chest-high tables grabbing a slice on the go.

Customers were crowded around a counter, shouting their order to a teenager manning the register, handing over fistfuls of pesos. Pizzas came out of the front kitchen with delirious speed, cut up into eight equal pieces in ¾ of a second, by the rhythmic rocking of a gleaming 10 ½ stainless steel kitchen knife, wielded by an old Italian man with decades of pizza-cutting experience in his fingertips, and served to hungry hands as fast as they could be made.

I got to the server’s booth, smiled, and was seated at the back, at a small, single-person table along the side wall, facing out to the restaurant. I sat down and put my hat on the bench beside me. I haven’t forgotten my grandfather’s lesson that it’s not polite to wear a hat at the dinner table.

The air was thick with savory heat from the pizza ovens. Alive with the clamor of forks and knives, hungry mouths, and good conversation.

Stereotypical sepia photos of Italy—the coliseum and a lone bicycle leaning against a wall and two men playing chess in a park—and 1920’s advertisements for cans of tomatoes or olive oil decorated the plaster walls. Blood-red bottles of Barolo and Barbaresco wine and full jars of tomato sauce perched above on narrow wooden shelves. A red backlit sign with bold white lettering, celebrating they’ve been in business for 91 years, above the entranceway. Not far away, three analog clocks hung at eye level, showing time for Geneva, New York City, and Buenos Aires, all off by four hours (daylight savings… maybe??).

Minutes after I ordered a pepperoni pizza, a guy sat at the table four feet to my left.

He scrutinized his surroundings suspiciously, straightened his fork and knife, moved his water glass from the left to the right, unholstered his Samsung phone.

I glanced over, almost involuntarily, saw a WhatsApp chat and… no way, English!

Then he tabbed to his home screen and I saw the Scotiabank app and… no way, Canadian!

Hundreds of seats in this restaurant and he sits right beside me.

As he leafed through the chapter-length menu of every pizza imaginable, I leaned over, made some remark about the paradox of choice and asked if he’s been here before. Classic pick up line, you know?

We started talking and didn’t stop for two hours.

He was Vincent. 32. Born in Hong Kong. Raised in Vancouver, where he lives now.

He went to university for political science but ended up working as an admin assistant for a private wealth manager under the umbrella of a big bank. He’s been there now for nearly a decade.

I asked if he enjoys it. He replied it’s “stable and has good benefits”. The industry is declining and his boss doesn’t beat the market, but helps his clients sleep at night.

In school, Vincent devoured books on the stock market. His heroes were esoteric 1980s value investors. But, in his role, he mostly schedules meetings, does database management. It wasn’t what he dreamed of but he needed a job and they were hiring. “You just kind of settle, sink in” he explained.

He’d love to go to law school but feels too old.

He was in Argentina for two weeks, forced to take his vacation time because it’s been accumulating. It was only his second day but already felt far from home. He missed traditional dim sum and late-night dumplings from his Chinatown spots on Pender Street.

I asked if he tried to wrangle friends to come with him, but he said he’s alone most of the time. He struggled to be social in his teenage years and most of his 20’s. “I’ve started to accept myself,” he noted in a moment of vulnerability, “that I’m happier alone”. He loves trying new food but only started to go out to eat by himself in his 30’s.

He has a sister in Vancouver he doesn’t talk to anymore. He’s best friends with his younger brother who lives across the country. He gets Chinese food with his Dad every Sunday.

After we both finished our pizza, I got up from my table, paid, said bye to him again, and walked back to my Airbnb in the blanket of night.

~~~

Two days later, I was in an Uber to Ezeiza International Airport, to catch a 4:30am flight to Bariloche.

Out of nowhere, a thought thundered through my sleep-deprived, semi-delusional brain. “Did I pack my hat???”

I ran through my mental catalog of memories, trying to visualize packing my bag. “The room was tiny … if my hat was there, I would’ve packed it,” I reasoned.

Now, this wasn’t just any hat.

This was the hat I searched up and screenshotted (is that a word?) in April but waited like a diligent consumer, who doesn’t have much income to dispose of, to purchase. This was the hat that was sold out in Toronto but I found in a hiking store on the outskirts of Canmore when the girl at the counter said they were sold out but found one in the back. This was the hat my brother said I looked cool in. My Dad hat to accompany my Dad jokes.

This was my favorite black Patagonia hat.

I got to the airport, with a lot of time to kill, found a spot to wait, and started to rummage through my bag.

No hat.

“You gotta be kidding me… No way I lost it,” I repeated, trying to sanity-check reality, now more of a moan.

~~~

I lost something small, silly, replaceable. A new hat is $50 and a few clicks away.

It’s almost like God is saying “Wow lucky you… think of all the things you could have lost that aren’t easily replaceable.” Like my snazzy vintage French silk shirt or phone or wallet or passport or my limbs or my life…

Still, a mixture of frustration and disbelief riddled my mind for days. I’m like a dog with a bone. But that’s insulting to dogs because even they chew through those things in a day or two.

~~~

It’s amazing how, if I pay attention, I notice all the little ways life is asking me to let go.

There is an old prayer, "Lord, teach us when to let go."

Similar to the serenity prayer I’ve heard a million times but never listened to. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Letting go is a real skill. Not becoming a passive pushover, but letting go of the inevitable, of the things I can’t control. Surrender, perhaps.

I lost my favorite hat in Pizzería Güerrín… Let it go.

Someone in the hostel kitchen took my overpriced olive oil… Let it go.

A funding application for my writing retreat was rejected… Let it go.

I fucked up at work and could have tanked part of the book… Let it go.

I’m ruinously sad after meeting a guy in an Argentine pizza place with a big heart whose life just hasn’t turned out quite the way he wanted… Let it go.

Recently, I read from James Clear:

“At some point, you will have to learn to let go.
There is an endless list of obligations and expectations, desires and ambitions, and worries and fears that will always be ready to insert themselves between you and the feeling of peace.
If you never learn to let them go, there will never be enough.”

~~~

If Gatsby taught me anything, it’s the danger of remaining stuck in the past. Not being able to let go. Move on. That famous last line, “We beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

The years will wear on me. I’ll be forced to let go, to stop clinging, more and more. To my youth, to my hair (eek), to my parents. To the elasticity of my skin and the spring in my step.

All in preparation for the ultimate act of letting go I can only hope to perform with grace…

But clearly, I have some work to do because I still can’t believe I lost my hat.

If you liked this, you may enjoy my short piece on my love for lighted windows.

Thank you

Catalina

for your help on this piece. Appreciate ya’

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👋 what i’ve been up to:

I spent my last week in Argentina writing and working, reading and hiking. I’ve fallen in love with Persuasion by Jane Austen.
On Friday, I flew from Buenos Aires back to Toronto. I left on this +65-day adventure on September 19. It feels good to be home. The older I get, the deeper my love grows for my country.

✍️ quote i’m pondering:

Philosopher John Macmurray on one of the dilemmas of life:

"In imagination we feel sure that it would be lovely to live with a full and rich awareness of the world. But in practice sensitiveness hurts.
It is not possible to develop the capacity to see beauty without developing also the capacity to see ugliness, for they are the same capacity. The capacity for joy is also the capacity for pain.
We soon find that any increase in our sensitiveness to what is lovely in the world increases also our capacity for being hurt.
That is the dilemma in which life has placed us.
We must choose between a life that is thin and narrow, uncreative and mechanical, with the assurance that even if it is not very exciting it will not be intolerably painful; and a life in which the increase in its fullness and creativeness brings a vast increase in delight, but also in pain and hurt."

❓ question i’m asking:

How many activities do I engage in for no other reason besides the fact they grip my soul?

📸 photo of the week:

My best photo from Week 9 of learning photography in public. (Where is National Geographic when you need them???)

See my best four photos (taken in Patagonia while wearing Patagonia) on Substack Notes.

Also… Always pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.

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