That JOURNAL I Lost

It had pieces of me between the pages of swirling Whatnot, things I will never recover. Time was in that book. Pain. Excitement. Boredom. Nagging on my spirit. Too many days of looking from the window of a coffee shop in Virginia to the wet parking lot. Pavement. Stripped. Of. Character. Tears were in that journal. Dried and re-cried. Heat like my skin in the middle of the night. Anxiety and then relief. All of this lost on a bus seat in South America. Not to be recovered except for here, as I touch my finger to my temple. Here.

I said I would return but I knew I could not. There had been shifting sadness in my head for so long and I kept secrets in between the lines. Dark spaces of ink and funk. Legs of spiders. Knowing was in that journal.

Mexico and the night I sat on the roof with a bunch of chicos watching the town sleep and sprinkle to light and the hills, ugly in daylight, were finally dark. We sat in the rubble of it and drank cans of Modelo. The stars pinched open and the moon rose and everything was beautiful. How could I not stay?

On my own. Warm beer, winding Mexican roads, beach side plastic tables, humidity and simplicity and sleeping in the sand with the bugs circling our heads, three in the morning. Cheap bottled rum, the wandering life I briefly imagined for myself. A life I have continued to imagine for myself in one way or another. I missed the bus and slept on the floor of the bus station. Scared but alive. Pained and alive and loving all of that with force. My needs were in that book.

And there was you in there too. Your goodness and perfection, your body I wrote about, your flawless skin, the way you emanated light in that golden boy way, young forever. Eyes like the ocean. And I wondered what was wrong with me. To leave.

There was light in that journal, happiness and anguish too.

Pressed flowers from fleeting hands (not yours)… An intensity that can only happen in shifting time, in travel. The flowers faded to weeds anyway, stripped and weak with my own worry. A dried butterfly wing from the roadside. Yellow. A bus came and I got on. These things I kept to prove my real existence in the world, beauty and pain together in one place. Now lost.

And I wonder: have I lost it for a reason? Life has shifted again, the book is gone, left on a bus full of strangers in a country that is not my own. What does it mean? A lesson? Let go? Face my flaws. Admit who I am. Realize.

You were in that fucking book and I was in that fucking book.

Wanting you to be someone else. Wanting to escape, to prove that I had lived. Because it was my life: the restarting revisiting restructuring and melting again. My desire. So I could turn the pages and see it all again. Is that what I wanted? To hold you in my hand? A piece of you, a piece of me, a piece of time. Or is it best now to let it go? That is the question.

MADE of SAND and SALT

The Atacama Desert, north of Chile.  San Pedro de Atacama is the village up there, where the air is clean and the stars are so close you can touch them. Take the bus from the airport after dark, a two-lane road from Calama to San Pedro. There are no street lights, no buildings, no people.  Just darkness, depth, a peaceful void.

The main street in San Pedro is lined with shops that sell colorful things: hats and clothes made from llama wool, sunglasses, ashtrays with native designs, refrigerator magnets, traditional Chilean dolls.  There are bars and beer stores and pizza joints.  Artists kneel on blankets before handmade jewelry, paintings of women, the curves of their bodies outlined in red.  The same red as the landscape, which is a clay-red, as are the buildings and the streets, until you look way beyond these things, to the Andes, which are snow-covered and jagged blue.

 

 Go to Valle de la Luna where you experience the true remoteness of the desert.  The one-hundred-eighty-degree views of the place, a high valley.  Hills of sandstone and salt flats, where the Earth is dusted white, like snow.  You have to taste it, a little bit of Earth on the tip of your tongue, just to see.

Three Marias, a natural formation, three women, upright, made of sand and salt, bending into the wind.  The land is otherwise bare and extreme; it is as if they are tough, surviving there, like women do.

San Pedro de Atacama is breathtaking, quiet, people say, “Another planet.” The world is vast and dry, a landscape for self-reflection.  Ride a bike for kilometers and kilometers, the dogs will follow you into the vastness of it, a salt lake in the distance, blue clouds, volcanoes, their obvious triangular shapes call from a distance.

Watch the sun go down on the Valley, orange then pink then red, by the second.  Hold your breath.  Look to the horizon: This is it, this is beauty.  But wait.  Look behind you. The brown hills are now red-scarlet, deepening, as mili-seconds pass.  Whoa. It gets better, even now.  The light is changing, it is more amazing than before, and before.

 

 

A Search for Beauty in Valparaiso

“Go to Valparaiso,” they said. “Valpo,” they said. These were the Chileans I’d met in Santiago since moving here five weeks ago. I had an extra day off over the Easter weekend and I was looking for someplace to go.

I looked at my Lonely Planet and noted that Valparaiso is a colorful, “gritty” port town about two hours by bus from Santiago. Perfect distance for the long weekend. I constructed an image of the place in my head: houses and shops neatly packed onto the hillside, each painted a vibrant color. Romantic. I’d seen towns like this in Mexico.

I packed a few things and bought a bus ticket for Good Friday, early in the day. My local friend texted me as the bus was pulling out of Santiago, “Enjoy the colors of Valpo!”

(One thing that I have to admit: So far, I compare everything in Chile to Mexico where I lived for a year in 2014. The public bus for example. Mexican buses are very clean and air conditioned and they provide you with a little bag lunch for most trips. They give you one of those American cheese and white bread sandwiches, chips. A can of Pepsi or bottled water. I don’t even like white bread sandwiches, but I loved it. I loved how they took their public transportation seriously. My bus to Valparaiso was fine, clean enough. No bagged lunch. I know, I know, better than public buses in the US, but still.)

So. I arrive late in the day because the traffic is bad due to the holiday weekend. But here I am! And I’m excited to be away from Santiago for a bit. I exit the terminal and buy an empanada from the old lady vendor on the street. I bite into the warm dough and the cheese stretches and greases my fingers. As I’m walking away, the woman warns me with a stern face to keep my bag zipped.

Now the sky is getting grey with clouds. I look up at the hills. I don’t see colors. I see drab grey. Squinting, it reminds me of Pachuca, an uncolorful town where I lived in Mexico. (Ironically they painted a hill of buildings after I left.) The hills here are the same, packed in with haphazard, sad looking, shackish constructions. Falling down. Not very pretty. Gritty, yes. Worse than gritty. People crowd up on the sidewalk to catch a local bus and I move over to join them. As I’m standing there in the group of people, I’m looking at the flat wide street in front of me, trash along the gutters, piles of dog shit at my feet and I’m thinking, what the hell? This place is a shit hole.

Usually I am a positive person. Really. But I can’t stop this thought from entering my head: what the hell?

I board the bus and ask the unfriendliest bus driver in the world to let me know when we get to my side street. He does not.

I get off the bus ten minutes later and walk back to where my hostel is located.

I see the open water and huge boats over to my left as I walk along Avenida Brasil. Ah, the port. Salt water and fish. The sun pokes through the clouds.

My hostel is friendly enough. I throw my things on the bed and put on my running shoes to go and find a hill or two. Maybe a café.

But when I exit my hostel I unknowingly go up to the hills, but away from downtown. I just climb and climb and see nothing but clouds and grey looking industrial type houses and more shacks. I am not in the right place, I know, but I am getting exercise now, I am just enjoying this strain on my lungs as I go up and up and I just want to see where it all goes. But it goes no where, the place is deserted.

I buy a bottle of wine and some bread and cheese. The sun has come out again and it is now setting. I sit on the patio of my hostel and drink and read. I eat some cheese and bread and then I go to bed. As I settle into sleep I think, I just have to find something beautiful tomorrow. Sometimes finding beauty takes time, it takes acceptance. Maybe this is the theme: I am on a search for beauty in Valpo.

The next day I get up early and go on my way to find the graffiti tour. It’s a tour that is known amongst tourists like me because it is free. You just tip the guide at the end. The hostel manager told me I couldn’t miss the plaza where the tour meets. “Muy Facil. Derecho Derecho,” he said, pointing. Straight straight, you cannot miss it. Well, I did miss it. I kept going all the way to the fish market. The fish market with the stacks of fresh squid and blank eyed fish, frozen in their emptiness. I stop to ask a vendor where I am. I have a shredded tourist map. I’m in the wrong place, he says, ten blocks back I will find the tour.

Finally, I catch up to the tour.

And gradually, amazingly, on the graffiti tour, I begin to see the lovely side of this city. It is like falling in love, not at first sight, but over conversation. For real. Over time, you see what you like about a person and next thing you know, you are in love. Seeing Valparaiso is like scratching the surface of one of those blacked out crayon drawings we did when we were kids. Underneath the black is a rainbow of bright color, all you need to do is scratch away the surface.

Diego was our tour guide. A guy in his early twenties with a string backpack. Every time he turned you could hear the clicking sound of a spray-paint can inside his pack. He energetically introduced us to all of the real graffiti in Valpo. He took us up back alleys and side streets to see yes, the real Valpo. Here is a sideways bicycle distorted. Paint colors so vibrant you can taste them. Here are the features of the artists’ faces themselves, one smoking a hookah.

The street dogs follow us up and up and up to the back alleys and stairs where I would never think to go on my own but yeah, step around the dog shit and there it is: the beauty, the character, the grit. All morning, the pack of dogs continues to follow us like we are part of them. They bark at the tires of each passing car louder and louder as if yes, they are protecting us, we are their foreigners on this graffiti tour in this crazy, dog-shit-strewn city.

“Look way over there,” Diego says, pointing. “See that 5 story building with the mural on the side?”

No not there. Not where the shacks on the side of the hill are disintegrating down like a Salvador Dali painting, not where the scaffolding looks as if it might fall off the side of the mountain all by itself, not where the windows are broken on that house. No. Look further. See? Yes, there. It’s an entire building with a mural of figures in blues, yellows, reds, the entire wall is alive. Amazing. And hey, I think, maybe those shacks falling off the mountain Salvador Dali-style, maybe they are beautiful too.

When the tour is over, you and the other foreigners have become friends, so you go into an empanada shop all together, like tourists do, and you order one empanada after another until you are full, until the grilled vegetables and cheese and bread has filled your belly and the cold Escudo beer goes down smooth.

After eating, you pass through the cute alleys and look at the cafes on the sides of the street. You ta
ke the elevator down the side of the hill for 100 pesos (20 cents). It is way more exciting than going up because it is fun to think about the thing taking a sudden plunge like on a rollercoaster, you can imagine speeding in that little car, the possibility. But all is well. You survive.

Walking back to the hostel, a little bit drunk on Escudo, you realize that yes, it might take some looking, some scratching the surface, but Valparaiso is a beautiful place after all.

 

 

Mexico’s (and My) Obsession with Frida Kahlo

Everywhere you go in Mexico, you will see Frida Kahlo.  Her face, famous for the lovely uni-brow and direct, badass stare, is imprinted on walls, bags, posters, and t-shirts.  In San Miguel de Allendes, a town known for it’s small art scene, a one-story Frida Kahlo puppet walks the zocolo on summer evenings as tourists snap pictures and then stop to drink Pacifico in nearby bars.  Wild in her green floral dress and hoop earrings, Frida is with us.  She is Mexico’s icon.

And there is something to be said about the artist Frida Kahlo and her strife-filled life.

I recommend watching the movie: Frida.  Especially if you like movies about strong women or if you just like strong women in general.  And artists.  And if you are going to visit Mexico, the central states, it is a must.  Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter and she was married to another famous artist, Diego Rivera.  Both Diego and Frida were known for being political activists, communist supporters and overall rebels.  Diego was also known to be a difficult husband, and could not keep his hands off other women.  Thankfully, the couple both had extramarital affairs.

But Frida!  In some ways, her life is most interesting because of all of her physical disadvantages and set-backs.  She was lucky to be born into a fairly well-to-do family.  As a girl, she developed Polio which left her with a bad leg and one weak foot. Then when she was a teenager, she survived a horrible trolley accident which caused her to be bedridden and in pain for many years.  She dealt with physical therapists and specialists who tried to help her regain her health and body but she endured a lot: body casts and braces and traction contraptions, it was the 1920’s.  After all of this though, the spirit of the woman is amazing.  She is a beautiful fighter.  And she can drink and smoke with the best of ‘em. 

Diego, on the other hand, was kind of a self-absorbed a-hole. A typical artist, some might say.  In the movie, we see some endearing qualities.  His love for Frida was powerful.  He believed in her as an artist.  Nevertheless, he was a womanizer.  When Frida was away, he seduced Frida’s sister.  This conflict caused them to split, but years later they remarried.

Frida was an eccentric when it came to her style.  Influenced by the traditional dress of women from her mother’s home state of Oaxaca, Frida wore layers of bright colors and long skirts over her corsets and braces.  She accessorized with beaded jewelry and silver.  I think much of the obsession with Frida is connected to her extraordinary look, her chosen style.

When you visit the Casa Azul, Frida’s old home in Coyoacan, Mexico City, you’ll see her studio, the house, the gardens, the clothes she wore and of course, her art.    The house, now a museum, shows video clips of Frida throughout her life.  In every shot, you can see her spirit and intensity, the feminist icon that so many of us adore.

Surfing in Panama: The Power of Grandmother Ocean

The Ocean 

 

You haven’t felt life until you’ve felt the ocean turn you over and hold you underwater like a piece of driftwood for just a second.  In that moment, eyes wide open, arms flailing, you search for light, sky, surface, air.  You are in the now and you feel what you really are: just a small life in this vast place.  You are a grain of sand in comparison to the rest of Nature, Grandmother Ocean.  You are forced to let go. You are only a conglomeration of cells, a small body hoping to float, to keep your head up, to move through it, to survive.

For me, surfing has always involved survival, survival in its most exhilarating form.  When we are pounded by waves, we question our own sanity, but we also learn to appreciate the power of the ocean and the idea that some things are out of our control.

And the important thing is that every now and then, we do catch a wave, we see the water rushing beneath us, alive, and we feel this way too.

My Goal: To improve my surfing

I’d been surfing before, but I never really knew what the hell I was doing.  I’d stood on a long board.  I’d never caught what they call a “green” wave. 

Surf With Amigas, a company started by Californian pro-surfer Holly Beck, runs women’s only surf retreats to locations all over Central America.  At first, I hesitated to join a group, which is basically a tour, with a surf instructor, a schedule of events and pre-planned meals.  I’d always been a small group/solo traveler, a bit of a wanderer, not the kind of person to join an organized tour.  But the more I read about the retreats and the great online reviews, the more I wanted to just GO for it.

Our first morning in Playa Cambutal, Panama (Azuero Peninsula) we headed to a point break called Short Circuit.  Approaching the rocky beach in the dim morning light, we studied the water, and exited the vehicles.  The steady, frothy waves broke in the distance in smooth lines of white water.  I listened to the ocean and to the quiet voices of the women near me. I pulled a rash guard over my head and watched the others for what I felt: fear and nervous energy.  Thankfully, it was there.  This is exactly what I’d wanted.

I welcomed this sickening feeling of excitement in my belly, of knowing that I would have to push myself.

It’s unusual to find other women who like to push themselves physically.  I’ve been a distance runner for a number of years, I’ve traveled and experienced physical challenges, mountaineering and biking in extreme locations, but I’d always done these things with guys.  For once, I wanted to meet women who were like me.  I knew they were out there: adventurous women who appreciate moving out of their comfort zones.  Badass women.

In the Water

In the water, you paddle.  The mantra repeats.  Paddle, paddle, paddle.  Black water below you, Pacific Ocean warmth on your arms and legs as you pull the water under you, head up, watching the waves.  You top a big wave paddling out and feel the steep backside of it, a tickle in your core.  Whoa.  In that moment, you are alive.  The smell of salt water and the sound of the waves breaking behind you.  You look to the women nearby, concentrating, paddling, you are not alone.  You tell yourself: you are not alone, you are strong, you can do this.

Don’t think about getting hurt.  The stories you heard on the bus ride down. The easiest way to get hurt surfing is by getting pounded on the head by your own surfboard or someone else’s.  That’s how teeth get knocked out, eye sockets smashed.  Don’t think about this right now.

Don’t stop paddling.

You concentrate on your breathing and enjoy the warmth of the water.

The waves look bigger here.  How are you going to do this?

GO for it

After more time in the water, I gained confidence.  I practiced turtling waves that were breaking outside.  I practiced popping up on the board in white water.  I learned to look for the right wave.  I learned to wait, to be in the moment.  I learned to stay aware of my surroundings and also to trust nature.  I learned to paddle and never look back.  I learned to GO for it.

It was on day three that I finally caught a green wave.  I kept my body rigid, paddled as hard as I could, pushed my chest forward and felt the board moving on the surface of the wave with me on top of it.  I felt the water beneath me and the board moving faster and faster on top of the water.  I popped to my feet, standing, crouching, but riding down the line, the beautiful green wave under me.

It was exactly what I’d been waiting for.

The Awesomeness of a Drum Circle: Malcolm X Park, Washington DC

I’m a Northern Virginian who goes into Washington DC for independent movie theatres, consignment shops, and a little taste of culture every now and then.

I recently experienced something awesome: a huge drum circle in Washington DC’s Malcolm X Park (aka Meridian Park, between 15^th and 16^th Streets NW).  Go there on a Sunday afternoon in the summer, bring a blanket, a picnic, a Frisbee or a drum of your own.

As Washington Post’s Jahi Chikwendiu writes:

“[T]he circle is a rainbow of people, the rhythms a soundtrack for yoga, hula-hooping, slacklining, whatever.

The gathering is open to anyone with something to strike, shake or scrape, but there’s a fine line between individuality and democracy. The playing must serve the beat, and the beat must serve the group.”

I felt this balance of “individuality and democracy” as I watched the crowd roll in recently on a warm Sunday afternoon. People arrived toting drums of all sorts: large bongo drums, tambourines, small hand drums and full drum sets with sticks and cymbals.

The participants didn’t seem to talk much, they just shared time together.

I soon became mesmerized by the circular rhythms, the crescendos of intensity as the drummers neared the end of one jam, and moved on, seemingly intuitive about the moment, and what was coming next.

Elements of the DC Drum Circle

1. Dance.  The crowd is a welcoming place for dance.  I saw women dressed for the occasion in the middle of the circle.  OR you can join the crowd on the lawn, have some drinks and take your time about it.
2. Meditation.  There is nothing like feeling the beat of twenty or more drums for an extended time, weaving rhythms together, listening to each other and impromptu performing solos for the crowd.  It inspires thinking…or not thinking.  Whatever you so desire.
3. Collaboration.  In this time of unrest in so many parts of our world, the drum circle brings unity and acceptance.  It is a place where people value people and our collective power of being.
4. Conversation. The casual atmosphere and volume of the music allows you to have your own party and conversation right there. You don’t have to feel like you are at a concert.
5. Peace. For me, the experience was peaceful.  It was a place for all people, all races, all ages.  The intensity of the music left me feeling calm and energized for a new week.

If you’d like to read more on Malcolm X Park (Or Meridian Hill) go here.

Memories of Hidalgo, Mexico

 The loudest thunder you have ever felt in your life is in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico.  The storms creep in slowly with the misty raindrops scattered on the valley for hours.  And then the thunder cracks like a machine crashing down on your roof.  You feel it in your feet and it electrifies your skin ever so briefly and you feel the need to center yourself in the middle of the open space in your apartment and sit on the floor, take a breath and say Whoa. The rain starts and lingers, sometimes for hours, a gentle pattering on the windowsill.  Then it eases slowly out over these brown high desert mountains. When you look up at the hillsides that surround Pachuca, you see houses houses houses built in no particular organized fashion, into the hills.  The view from your apartment roof is interesting, but not pretty, you decide. Rooftops and patios, concrete walls and cell towers, white crosses and The Jesus statue … There’s something ugly about it all, you know this but you love it anyway, running the streets in the heat of the day where an old man stands at an intersection directing lone cars that sporadically travel by, maybe tossing a coin. One night at an expat party, you go up to the roof and drink Pacifico and look at the lights on the hilly horizons. The house is built higher than the rest of the town and the ladder to the roof is romantic, the star-lit sky and the lightening in the distance.  Beautiful in this beer-drenched haze, but sad, too.  Because existential questions fill your head. 

There are parrots in a cage next door to your apartment.  For a long time you thought the neighbor owned monkeys because every evening the parrots chatter and scream like monkeys in a jungle.

On the way to the market on a weekly basis you pass a family on the street, the father looks no more than twenty.  He plays a small accordion and his hija holds a McDonald’s cup for spare change.  Sometimes the mother is there, sitting cross-legged on the concrete, leaning against the building, with a baby on her lap. He is wrapped in a heavy fleece blanket, the perfect face of dark skin and black glassy eyes.  The man plays an upbeat tune you recognize but cannot place.  Where did he learn to play? You wonder. You pull change from your pocket and drop a brown coin into the girl’s cup. What is half a peso to you?

Nearby are the potato chips stands. The papas vendor also sells cigarettes by the pack or singly.  Last week, you bought the chips, warm, and a little stale, but the salt was exactly what you needed.  The old lady vendor couldn’t understand that you didn’t want the hot sauce she offered.

You consider writing a story about the people on the street. The Mexicans who live in the corrugated metal shacks behind Starbucks and Office Depot where old men dig holes at the railroad tracks in the mornings for apparently no reason. (which reminds you of the famine in Ireland when people were hungry and they just built stone walls to keep them busy, to keep their bodies occupied.  Maybe this is the same?) The walls of their shelters are old planks of wood and in some cases there’s an extra room but it is covered only by a blue plastic tarp.  A friend of yours points out that a few of the shelters have satellite dishes.  It doesn’t look like they have running water but maybe they have MTV. In the evenings, diseased looking cats jump out of the long grass that lines the railroad tracks.  You crouch to get their attention but they skitter away with their eyes dripping and sick looking and you see the scabs under their thin fur.

Graffiti makes life interesting.

You take a combi thirty minutes to the mountains, Real de Monte, and see the real beauty of Mexico.  The majestic hills, rugged and looming; you ride down a dirt road, barely passable in a four wheel drive truck, that goes down down down to the river.  After hiking, you look at the colorful pottery in the market and eat Pastes, a Mexican hot pocket with spicy potato and meat.

On the ride back, you see that beauty is everywhere. In these crowded hills, in the eyes of the people, in the graffiti, in the storms.

In Her Dreams…

This fiction story “In Her Dreams” started as a ramble about what it must have felt like to be my grandmother.

She was 92.  When I called her on the phone, I’d say, “Hey, Grandmama, how are you?” And she’d reply, “Well, I’m still here.” Sadly, I don’t remember her being very happy for the last years of her life, even though she was still physically strong and she was still able to fake a good laugh.  I often wonder what it will be like as an old woman, looking back on life, thinking about the roads taken and the people involved.

It seems that we only know so much about family members who have lived lifetimes longer than we have.   Who were they before they became who they are?

I used to wonder if my grandmother ever dreamt that she was younger, like I have.  I am so fascinated with dreaming and briefly inhabiting a younger self.  And then those dreams spill out to our real lives and we are in the grocery store looking at people we think we recognize as the people we’ve known from the past.  There they are, still the same…

Here’s my story as published at Literary Mama:

http://www.literarymama.com/fiction/archives/2015/04/in-her-dreams.html

10 Images of Puerto Rico

Boys on the beach

under Palm trees

unabashedly loving each other

In Isla Verde,

some people said don’t go there

Raggaeton music

plays behind silver doors with

watchful eyes, pitch-dark dancers

Money in your shoe

she said, best way to be safe

People are shady

Heated cell phoned talk

I’ve got all you need; Sun, beer

A car that goes there…

Clouds form images

You decide what to see there

Never Nebulous

Free spirited Miss

Bartender, we fell in awe (with you)

“Smokin hot,” he said.

Friday afternoon

School kids played music, singing

Sand covered, in love

Bottles passed around

Obliviously youthful

Kicked fun, salt water

We ate Mofundo

Rum drinks rain and those gay guys

Until we were tired

Driving into sun

Twisted deserted buildings

Juxtapose the blue bay

In Search…

In Search of Captain Zero, is a book published fourteen years ago about a traveling surfer combing the beaches of Mexico and Central America for his lost friend; a guy named Christopher who apparently moved off the grid by choice. His whereabouts remain a mystery for most of the memoir.  It’s a lost soul kind of book, one that I picked up for a discount at one of those book fair tables somewhere…didn’t read it for a few years because I had too many more pressing things to read.  But I’m glad I held onto it and picked it up finally because it’s a good time for this book, for me.  I feel so much like a lost soul recently in my life, reading Schopenhauer and questioning my existence.  This book gave me something.  Thanks Allan Weisbecker.  I understand you.  Technically I’m not a surfer, but I appreciate big waves and surfing because I’ve seen it, up close and personal, watching my partner and friends from our rented boat off the Mentawai Islands in Indonesia, on deserted beaches in Nicaragua. I’ve been in the water, too.  I’ve paddled out in waves that’ve wrecked me.  I shouldn’t have been there maybe, but it was worth it, this suffering.

The book feeds my wanderlust like kindling to a fire, making me dream of a road trip into Baja.  It will happen one of these days.  I love the characters there, like people I’ve met on my own travels; independents, living out of vehicles and tents in temporary locations. Day to day.  Eating rice and fish caught by local people, licking the salt of the sea from their lips, the water.  This is life.  What else could you want? These are spirited people who have what they need: each other for now, their dogs, their own peace. No commitments.  Yet, Weisbecker writes:  “I do wonder…I do wrestle with what’s behind this thing I’m doing, this life I’m living.”  Of course, we all wrestle with this life, we are restless.  We choose hardship over ease, loneliness over security, yet we live.

Schopenhauer says:

“To live alone is the fate of all great souls.”

“A man can be himself only so long as he is alone and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom.  For it is only when he is alone that he is truly free.”