I Met a Dragonfly in Buenos Aires

A midnight encounter offered an unexpected lesson about facing fears

Jan 26, 2025

Images near the mirror may appear closer than they seem.

Like vampires, I thought winged phantoms needed an invitation to enter your home. But in Buenos Aires, a dragonfly proved me wrong. Returning to my apartment at midnight after visiting my great aunt and aunt, I stepped onto the patio to collect my workout clothes drying on the balcony. In that simple moment, my world shifted — a dragonfly, iridescent and enormous, followed me inside.

So beautiful, so terrifying, so much noise. The sound of its wings against my walls as it thrashed about echoed like helicopter blades. In that moment of panic, I locked myself in my bathroom and did what we all do now: I reached for my phone and texted my WhatsApp family group chat. I’d already begrudgingly messaged everyone that I’d made it back to my apartment safely (I live in New York City! I am a grown ass woman!), but now I sent desperate messages narrating the scene, as if they could reach through their screens from a dozen to 6,000 miles away to help me usher this creature back into the night.

There's something about fear that collapses distance. Even as I hid out, contemplating sleeping on the street rather than sharing space with this buzzing visitor, text by text, they helped me build the courage to face what awaited outside the door. When I stepped out, I found it alighted on the wall, steps away from me. Its translucent wings shimmered as I tried to take in its beauty, but every time I got closer I shivered with terror. It was me and the bug in the night, nobody was going to save me, but me. I stepped into action.

The operation went like this: trap the beast (six-inch wingspan!) under a giant fruit bowl, slide a paper bag underneath, sprint to the balcony, and launch the whole assembly into the night. What I hadn't planned for was its attempted reentry or that I'd end up blocking it with my stomach, the dragonfly bouncing off me like a basketball before finally disappearing into the darkness. I slammed the sliding glass door shut and jumped onto the bed, making sure nothing else awaited me in the room.

Later, as my heart rate settled and the apartment fell quiet again, I found myself back on my phone, scrolling through the familiar blue glow of another Meta property, feeling a little lonely and disconnected from home, processing all of the feelings of the intensity of the news from home and the feelings that greeted me on every street and every encounter in this city where I was born throughout the week.

I was supposed to be at a writing residency in Key West this week, but I decided Florida was not the right place for me at this time. I don't think I quite understood why Buenos Aires made so much sense as an alternative until now. I write best when I feel deep emotions. I write the truth, or whatever I can grasp of it. For me, Buenos Aires is a place of melancholy, of love, of grief and sadness and great joy. It is apparently a place of facing my fears, and my truth. It is a place where I cannot escape emotion. I need it, but just because you choose something that you know to be true does not mean that it's easy going down.

I am here in part to write and focus on this work of creating. Alongside that goal is another fear, deeper and more persistent. Many of you know that for years now, I've been writing a book — a literary memoir centered on four years in my 20s. It's about what I long thought was the biggest mistake of my life and how I realized it was actually the decision and lived experience that ultimately saved me. I’m not ready to share the exact nature of this experience, but I am preparing and I know I am creating the kind of community and support I need to get there. Thank you for being part of that community.

When loved ones who know what I'm writing express their own fear for me telling this truth, I feel a flash of irritation. Their fear mirrors my own, and my tension is at the enormity of what I'm about to do. I'm standing on a precipice of my own making, and while their concern comes from love, what I need most right now is to trust myself and love myself, providing my own wings, if you will allow me the metaphor.

A friend recently reminded me of something important: I'm a woman who has been through a lot. And I haven't just survived it — I've worked to metabolize it, transform it into something healing, not just for myself but for others. It shows up everywhere: in my interactions with students, the teams I've managed, clients, my neighbors, my relationships, in my writing. This doesn't mean I've found some perfect path forward that can serve as a prescription, or that if we just maintain control, everything will go exactly as planned. Quite the contrary — the more we lean into more fear, more feelings, more life, more living, the more we live the truth of who we are.

There's something powerful about naming our fears in the dark — whether it's of a dragonfly, of disconnection, or of telling our truth so loudly the whole world might hear it. In time, I will share more details about what this book entails. But for now, I'm learning that sometimes the scariest stories we tell are the ones that set us free.

Yes, I managed to guide the dragonfly out eventually, and watched it fly away. But in the morning, I found I'd had another visitor — a dead scarab beetle turned over on its back near the balcony door. Like dragonflies, scarab beetles are meant to portend transformation, but this time in the form of death and resurrection. Sometimes the Universe has a heavy hand. As I shook its glossy black body off the side of the balcony where these harbingers had found their way into my temporary home, I thanked them each for teaching me something about fear and flight, self-realization and rebirth. It comes in all forms — even, sometimes, through uninvited guests in the midnight quiet.