During my travels, it's always been special for me when I find someone with a dramatically different life trajectory and circumstance whom I share personality traits – really, more like a human essence – with. One of those people, Lalo, is shown here.
Both of us sense it. We sit quietly together, watching the young men who disappear behind his house to get high, the children playing, the birds arriving to inhabit their roosts in the trees as evening approaches and when the sun finally sinks behind the shanties of the barrio.
Occasionally, we’ll make jokes, reflect on the surroundings, on the people we see, on what it means to be growing older, or recount intimate details of our lives. Both of us have a tendency to drink to excess, love dogs, and share an amorphous sense of longing tinged with sadness.
I have known Lalo for many years and still can’t quite make sense of how the two of us, one living in destitution and the other with abundance, managed to recognize one another as kindred spirits and develop a such a strong bond.
