She sits on a wood chair with a small cream cushion underneath.
A lively small party commences in an old puesto in Argentina.
The room is dark, only lit by a few candles in the center table.
Argentinian tango music plays out of a small speaker
while the fast paced Spanish voices compete in tangent.
She makes eye contact with her good friend
with whom she has gotten close with over the past three weeks isolated in the ranch together.
Their eye contact extends comfortably,
neither of them feeling the need to look away.
With a friendly smile and nod, she silently invites her friend over to her.
Once arrived, the friend sits her lap
without question or a shiver of awkwardness.
They sit as one, surrounded by conversation and minor chaos.
Naturally, her hand starts running through her friend’s hair.
She lightly scratches her back.
Touch between them is not intrusive, but endearing.
She cares for her.
They sit in silence, in calmness, and in love,
her fingers running on her back.
No one in the puestro blinks twice at this moment of pure friendship.
No one, besides me, as I stand there alongside the two girls,
thinks that this act is magical or revolutionary.
This act of sitting intimately on laps and back scratching
is within the colloquial nature of the puesto.
The girls in the puesto are not afraid to show pure emotion.
The girls in the puesto are vulnerable enough to show their truth.
There are no “people” here in this puesto.
There is no judgement or control.
Here in this puesto,
there is just
being.
Ali Walks Around 