Miguel

Miguel is more of a free spirit. Even Laura talks about how he has no cares in the world. He’s almost best described as an indigenous Argentinean hippy. Coming from an indigenous background, he does stone carvings that tell stories. He loves poetry and is a member of a poetry group where they read their recent work. His spiritual leader is Señor Li, who runs the Tai Chi class, but also has a group of followers in Taoism. He loves talking about what he knows—especially about different types of art and music. He’ll attempt to sing various songs by American artists. This morning, he started belting out “Angie” by the Rolling Stones.

His friends are all painters, photographers, artists, etc. Miguel believes that they have all left the “system.” The system is doing the same thing every day and living by other’s people lives instead of your by your own desires and wishes. He thinks there is too much going on in the world to be happy with just one thing—one needs to escape the “regular” schedule created by society and culture.

I often hear Laura and Miguel bickering about responsibilities. Miguel always has his head in the clouds and Laura gets frustrated. Also, every Wednesday and Thursday Miguel leaves to go to the neighboring province Jujuy to visit his 10-year old son from his previous marriage. Laura understands Miguel needs to visit his son regularly, and almost enjoys this time to clean up the house and keep it clean! She always says Flor takes after her father by making a mess and leaving it.

Miguel is also fascinated with other cultures. Whenever the Argentinean news comes on, he asks how it relates to the U.S., or what is happening in the U.S., or what did I think about it.

This morning, he showed me Spanish haikus and talked about Japanese poetry and its connection to various South American authors. We also took a long walk to the Museum of Anthropology. I didn’t have time to walk inside, but during the walk we talked about what it means to be human. If people are instinctually greedy, power hungry, and crude, or if everyone internally believed in peace and wanted to solve conflicts instead of create them. Every thing has a counterpart, and one must realize that you can’t have one without the other. According to Miguel, just because there is war and killing, in the end, it doesn’t matter, because overall people want peace. Especially, people need to take the time to stop and think before acting on impulse. People normally feel anger in specific instances, not over a continuous period of time. For that reason, he feels people are naturally willing to find harmony.

He’s an interesting character—with so many interests, thoughts, and opinions. But he does love to talk. Often at dinner, he’ll be blabbering about something and Laura will look at me and roll her eyes. Ah true love!