I will never be lonely in the world on account of weekend newspapers.

The article byline and knowledge of what is going on are sufficient to predict its contents. In the same way we knew the stories of the bible going to church but told them over again to recognize their relevance and share in them, the small and large tragedies of the world find pious newsprint black/white lines. Let your heart break and atone.

In other parts we stay ahead of the curve, watching ants building hills of small parts, week by week. Trends. Forecasts. In the summer, this goes to shit; maybe everyone went to the lake.

And then there is the piece that writes the words you had but didn't and tells a story that feels like a conversation in a kitchen with the dinner dishes unwashed. Me, too. Excerpt:

Up to this point I had only one close friend in Buenos Aires, another American. Now I began to get to know Argentines, like Pola. Instead of wandering around on my own, I began to venture out with them, exploring parts of the city I had never been in and seeing those I thought I knew in a new light. I was encountering another city, previously invisible to me.

Buenos Aires was starting to feel like home when, in 2005, Juan Pablo and I had our own personal crash, and our marriage ended. I was reeling, and initially considered returning to the United States. But I felt my discovery of Buenos Aires was just beginning; more than that, it was as if, because of the city, new neural pathways were opening in my brain....

Usually, I walk around the outside of the graveyard, on the path along the wall. There are people along the way I’ve come to know. I pass the taxi drivers who sack out in their cars in the middle of the day, seats cranked down, doors left open, arms and legs protruding. There’s the prostitute in her 40s, round and attractive, who works on the corner, with her great clothing style: suede boots, green-and-brown-patterned skirts. There’s the boy with long hair who lives in the slum by the railroad and is always out playing with his friends, whom I’ve imagined adopting. It’s a fantasy, but maybe not entirely.

One sure thing I’ve learned while living here is how the future keeps busting in and surprising you.

-At Home Abroad: Crisis and Renewal; Maxine Swann; NYTimes June 19 2008