Message in a Bottle
Punta del Este, June 2018
Back where I come from, everything is somewhere. Street addresses, floor numbers, suite names, cubicle assignments, ZIP codes, GPS coordinates and more specify location. These somewheres fill endless lists, logs, records, spreadsheets, directories, and databases. But my new hometown, Punta del Este, is different. Here things are less absolute.
Houses, for example, have names not numbers. Though a charming tradition, this does little to specify a location. In aid, hints may be offered, such as to look in a certain neighborhood or near a local landmark. Finding the place may be a treasure hunt. Greetings are different, too. Fellowship, rather than a quick hello or goodbye, is the standard. In a time-honored practice, everyone gives a peck on the cheek to everyone else on the scene as an expression of connection and relativity. Even the Spanish language feels relative. Every verb has over 60 conjugations, depending on the context. And as context is subjective, odds are good that things might seem a little vague.
Mail delivery also is a curiosity. For the most part houses have no mail boxes, strongly suggesting that mail delivery is neither expected or even desired. Of course there are exceptions. My friend has one of those rare mail boxes. His neighborhood has mail service. He regularly receives correspondence from organizations that insist on paper-based communications. Yet, my firm impression is that home mail delivery is not the norm.
Equally mysterious is outgoing mail. Public mail boxes are not found on busy street corners, in shopping malls or even the airport. That same friend claims that a postmaster once explained that there used to be external postboxes but they had been removed. It seems thieves had taken to stealing the letters and selling the uncanceled stamps to “interested parties.” Despite these hurdles, there are occasions when mailing something from Punta is necessary. At those times one visits the city’s only post office (located downtown and open only on weekdays), buys the correct postage over the counter, and deposits the envelope into an inside mailbox. This causes me to wonder how little Maria ever receives a birthday card from her granny. Surely conveying greetings or salutations is not an American invention! Hallmark simply raised this to a profitable art form. But since arriving in Uruguay, I have not seen a greeting card store stocked with racks of cards and boxes of stationary. Perhaps these items are easily found, but until my eyes are accustomed to the light at 35ºS, I have no idea where to look.
Resolving this is important to me because I love sending and receiving mail. I have a long-standing relationship with the U.S. postal service. USPS and I are mates, sharing experiences and exchanging memories on slips of paper. Little equals the arrival of small talk, weather updates, hints of the future, and reflections on the past, with a closing signature scribed in a familiar hand. It is exciting to hold an unopened envelop adorned with an exotic stamp and smudges earned during transit, and anticipate its contents. In times past a parcel might take months, even years, to arrive at its destination. If the ship went down on the high seas or the lone rider was shot dead by a hostile arrow, that important matter of state, longed-for invitation or steamy love letter was lost for good. Communication by human means has always been chancy. Then civilization was rescued by technology. Email provided a fix for the on-the-go lifestyle. Connectedness became effortless and immediate, was had in an Internet instant. Need details? Attach a spreadsheet. Inform others? cc them. Express feelings? Add an emoji. But sadly, mechanical messages have no heart; the Tin Man knew this long before the invention of ARPANET. Love needs snail mail.
We are happy to send our love, family and friends told me, but we need your address. Ah! An address. This clearly is a sticking point. If I hope to receive snail mail, I have to tackle an age-old question: Where am I? Better minds than mine have long searched for an answer, often coming up confused or empty-handed. Luckily, I now could provide needed context regarding my whereabouts: I am below the equator, on the continent of South America; in the tiny country of Uruguay, which bumps up against the South Atlantic Ocean; at land’s end, in a town called Punta del Este; deep in the Aidy Grill neighborhood, between Plaza Mexico and Brava Beach; at Edificio Chronos; up on floor 12; in apartment 1206.
In the U.S. one might expect to find Chronos at 123 Beachfront Drive. But in addition to no mailboxes, Punta assigns no street addresses. Houses and buildings have names. Important buildings shout their name at the front entry. Not-so-important ones display it by the door or on a sign near the street. Houses have humility, with names painted on a rock in the yard or carved on a board propped against a wall. Of course there are exceptions. Some places have nothing at all. Finding them requires context.
Wandering the back lanes of Punta, I fantasized about having one of the snug little houses for my very own. I would repaint it a color I liked and rename it to describe me. During these strolls I often passed a cozy dwelling named El Gauchito. “The little gaucho” seemed a correct translation from Spanish. Gaucho, a masculine noun, meant cowboy. A female owner of this house might name it La Gauchita. “The little cowgirl.” But gaucho also had a second definition: helpful. Perhaps “the little helper” was what the owner wished to convey. Without some context, I was in the dark. Maybe buying the house across the street made more sense, as its name was ready-made for a foreigner like me: El Gringo.
Successful snail mail delivery also relies on a street name, especially when no house name is available. Luckily, I have both. My building has a name, Edificio Chronos, and is on Lenguas de Diamante. But context is needed just to find the street. In the U.S. one relies on designations such as 1st Avenue or 3rd Street for orientation and direction. Here you are happy with a clue like on the south side of the main square. Fortunately the hint for Chronos is its cross street: Lenguas de Diamante esquina Carlos Vaz Ferreira. (Diamante at Ferreira.)
It was pleasing to be somewhere, yet I was curious about the name of my street and others immediately around me. It seemed a safe bet that Carlos Vaz Ferreira was someone important enough to have earned a street name. But Lenguas de Diamante was not a person’s name. Neither were the nearby streets of Cántaro Fresco, Raiz Salvaje or Rosas de los Ventos. Each signified something–but what? The next street, Juana de América, was probably another reference to somebody–but who? I knew a little digging was required to find these answers. What I didn’t know was how satisfying those answers would be.
It turned out that Las Lenguas de Diamante was a book of poetry by Juana Fernández Morales de Ibarbourou, also known as Juana de América (1892–1979). This famous Uruguayan poet was one of the most popular in Latin America, and had been nominated four times for a Noble Prize in Literature. My street and ones nearby carried her name or titles of her published works. I found her book, Las Lenguas de Diamante (Dialogues of Diamond) and translated the opening stanza of her poem of the same name.
Bajo la luna llena, que es una oblea de cobre,
Vagamos taciturnos en un éxtasis vago,
Como sombras delgadas que se deslizan sobre
Las arenas de bronce de la orilla del lago.
Under the full moon, which is a copper wafer,
We wander silently in a vague ecstasy
Like thin shadows that glide over
The bronze sands of the lake shore.
This scintillating poem of love’s unspoken language, of passion sparkling like diamonds, was alive in my mind when a full moon rose over Punta a few days later. As I sat near the ocean on the golden sand, marveling at the moon’s dancing reflection, I sensed Juana’s presence. Together we watched Jupiter strain to touch the moon, its glittering light embracing the undulating waves.
In late 19th/early 20th century literature, four Latin American women were considered the era’s star poets: Juana de Ibarbourou and her compatriot Delmira Agustini, as well as two other contemporaries: Nobel Laureate Gabriela Mistral of Chile and Swiss-born Argentine poet Alfonsina Storni. A fifth, often overlooked, was María Eugenia Vaz Ferreira, sister to Uruguayan philosopher Carlos Vaz Ferreira–namesake of my cross street. If these five women had not actually known each other, they certainly were aware of one another. And by chance of a slip in time, I was among them.
With ample context, snail mail now can find me. Failing that, sending a message in a bottle might be tried, as my post office is but a few steps from the ocean.
© 2018 Joy C. Kopp
