eenie meanie miney and mo

There we were, the four of us, sitting around a bottle or several of wine, like no time had passed, like it hadn't been light years since the last wine-fuelled encounter in another capital city thousands of miles away. And though so much had changed, nothing was different. N still exploding with that booming belly laugh of hers as she explained, glass in one hand, fag in the other, that she'd come directly from another detoxifying, soul-cleansing "breathing course", then leaping to her feet, legs splayed, as she illustrated another of her side-splitting stories with an anecdote or accent. L still the understated fulcrum of it all, organising and galvanising things the way only she can, and managing somehow to look both like an authoritative professional and a little giggling girl at the same time. G still out to save the world, the sweet endearing softness of her shot through with that steely firmness of prurpose that strikes awe and admiration in the rest of us. And me.
The four of us, banging on about endless Buenos Aires nights, about fabulocinos , and exes known only by their country of origin, about cheap depilation and the 152 bus, about bad dates and happy hours and the controversial open-door policy in our Bolivar residence, but still so much ourselves, despite shorter hair here, or a love won and lost there.
There's just something about being with these people whose Latin adventure coincided so fortunately with my own, that warmed the cockles of my vagabond heart, and helped break the fall from there to here. Something that puts geography firmly in its place behind history, behind contact.