Sunflower fields forever

The most vivid memory I have from my summer trips to Mar del Plata when I was a child, is the image of sunflower fields by the route.
I remember I used to look at them in amazement, not because the flowers themselves were beautiful, but for the shining bright yellow carpet that they could create. By looking at them from a certain distance, I could imagine myself walking in bare feet and being caressed by that golden velvet surface.
The last time I went to the coast I wouldn’t have imagined being away from there for so many years, and coming back was much more significant than what I expected
Last January, I went back to Mar del Plata again with my parents after thirteen years, and it was really moving in several ways.
First, the last time I went, I was a daughter who travelled with her parents and younger brother. This time, I arrived there as a proud mother of a six-year-old boy, with my parents, my son and my husband.

Going back to my perfect place or a holiday, was quite shocking. When we entered the city, everything was familiar in a way, but completely new in another. The city itself has been improved in many ways for an international meeting that took place there some years ago, in which we could see on the news many demonstrations against president Bush.

We stayed there for 8 days, 3 of which I spent in bed with a massive sunburn. I was so excited the first day we went to "Punta Mogotes", remembering my childhood days and being so worried for my son not to get burnt, that I didn't take into account the fact that a 50-factor-protection cream had to be re-spread all over my body every time I went out of water. Staying under the sun with salty water between 10.00 a.m up to 18.00 p.m. is insanely dangerous, but I was so happy, feeling as a child again, playing with my son, looking at my parents faces and enjoying the moment that I only noticed my sunburns when I went to sleep at night and a burning fever was killing me. When I took my clothes off, my skin was red...but a fluorescent red. I was in real pain, but nobody could take away from me the fact that I spent the whole day in the sea.

All of us, except for my son, were burnt in different degrees. My mother, carrying her pain and trying not to notice it, wen to the beach every day! The following three days of my sun burnt, I didn't want to walk near the sun. I walked as someone trying to avoid being discovered, but actually avoiding being touched by the sun rays. Only those as white as me know the pain you may suffer with such burnts.

Anyway, I was so happy there, and so relaxed, that the day we had to go back to Tucumán I suffered from one of my horrible anxiety attacks. We had to stop by the road for thirty minutes because I couldn't breath. I felt that air was so thick that my lungs were unable to process it. My mother realized that I was not OK, and that's where she asked my father to stop.

When we could finally start our journey again, I sat by my mother's side, she hugged me and told me: "This trip moved so many things, right?" I just looked at her and we both started to cry in silence. Without words, we were sharing a feeling that no one else could have understood.

After half an hour of travelling, my sunflower fields started to appear again, and gladly enough, I started taking pictures of them. They inexplicably brought peace to my anxiety, and I could continue my travelling without any other explosion of sadness and melancholy.