Still in Bariloche, Argentina.
We’re back to the night of the wedding…I wait for the sign that it is okay to go in, it’s around midnight. As I arrive at the back the room the traditional Argentinian band is playing on stage. The crowd is dancing. I take in the beauty of the room. I have the biggest smile on face, in my heart. Amazing. Paulina comes and grabs me to dance with a man and soon I am in a line of people doing a ‘traditional dance’. I feel a bit like Elizabeth Bennet at the Netherfield ball except I am in Argentina and wearing a sexy black jumpsuit. I am making up some dance moves..and then my partner becomes a lovely 10 year boy who also loves to dance. I can tell. And I feel myself relax into the magic of this night. The band raps up, there is great applause. Great delight and then the DJ starts playing and we dance.
Throughout the night, I experience new traditions: Jordan Almonds being thrown into the crowd gathered around the cake cutting (which here happens at about 1am), there are headbands of paper flowers in the colors of Italy (the groom is Italian) that guests are wearing, the bride and groom are lifted onto friends shoulders more times than I can count, glow in the dark bracelets are passed out at one point. A dessert table is set out around 3am. Pizza is passed out around 4am. And amongst all of it we dance.
For hours. I dance salsa with beautiful Argentinian men. I dance on a stage to electronica, sweat pouring off me with glow bracelets on my arms. I dance with new friends I met at the barbecue two nights before, so grateful to have met them and have them welcome me here. The woman who I reassured should be at the barbecue, is now reassuring me that the more happy people dancing the better.
I dance by myself, allowing my body to move me, guide me. I dance and I dance. And I. Am. So. Damn. Happy.
I am so full after this night of dancing, this night of a few kisses, this night feeling so beautiful with my mascara running down my face, this night of potato chip and peanuts dinner. I am so full. I am so full of these people gathered from all over the world to celebrate love. I am one of the last to leave, cleaning up here and there. Telling one of my salsa dance partners four times, in four various locations, you are not coming up to my room.
It’s around 5:45am and I am wide awake after a night of such love. Of feeling so alive in my body. So much joyful out loud LIVING. I grab my puffy coat and I go for walk in these waking hours of Patagonia. I walk through the woods for a bit and make my way to the terrace overlooking the lake and mountains that have some cloud cover which adds to the magic of this morning. I listen to the birds. I do gratitudes in my mind. I watch the clouds, and the colors of the changing sky.
I feel such a sense of profound peace, sitting out here alone on a chair, overlooking this part of the world that in two weeks has come to feel like a part of my soul. I am so grateful for all the work I have done to get me back to this place, this place where love is my guide.
Let the love flow.
Thank you universe. Thank you love.