Little Epiphanies

When the river started to rise, they busied themselves getting everything as high up as they could. They threw ropes over the rafters and hoisted furniture into the air. A dining room table and its chairs became an elaborate swaying chandelier. They drove the livestock to the highest part of this rolling, water-logged terrain. “The…

I was fortunate to be present at the birth of this movement when Augusto organized the first gay milongas in Buenos Aires. Lalo and Roxana Gargano went table to table offering plates of cookies they’d brought from their family’s bakery. It was all very homespun. Nevertheless, we sensed that something momentous was happening that night.…

Thank you for your letter. I am well. It has been a trying time. But now the storm has passed and the detritus left in its wake is treasure. I reap the richness now. Scattered seeds are punching up through the hard soil. Their birth was troubled — but isn’t it from such couplings that…

My mother believed that you could make the world a better place through little gestures. Flowers in a vase. Hosting a party. Sharing a piece of chocolate. Telling a grocery clerk that they had done a great job. Encouraging her children to “try and look cute.” Her life, like all lives, was touched by tragedy…

Walking toward the milonga in the late afternoon, I hadn’t noticed the lack of light in the buildings I passed. Long golden rays of sunset shot down the cross streets. But when I saw two women leaving — two hard-core milongueras, the sort who stayed till the very last note — I knew something was…