Final Thoughts

For so long the whole world was just a bus ticket away. For ten months the opportunity at spontaneity, the ability to change course and simply go was a constant. I was always just a few miles from something beautiful to stare at while I thought of far off things. The best part was the rapidity at which everything changed. This was the ultimate freedom, and within this freedom I found some clarity. When I departed from New York last February I feared the physical possibilities of danger. Things like sickness or injury. When I left Chile I feared damage to my new found spirituality. I was afraid that the new expectations I had of myself would quickly be forgotten. What if I came home and forgot the truth that I had uncovered while at a consistent distance. The reality is that I am struggling. Struggling to accept life in the United States and the way that I myself live. I am fighting internally between the girl that was on the road for so long and the one I was before South America. I find myself confused as to who I am now that I can be neither person with my whole heart. I face a daily challenge to be the person I would like to be. The truth is that the trip may have ended and I may be back on home turf but the journey is far from over. Now instead of a backpack I carry  both perspective and an internal struggle on my back.  South America was my road to discovery and freedom; North America holds the challenge of walking uphill with heavier things on my back. 

Collective Perspective

I am nothing if not the collective perspectives of my life. The road I first walked along was illuminated by the expectations of my environment not the pursuit of my own passion. The many lenses I have peered through have filtered my view and given it a unique light. At the age of 18 I became stuck and gained a more diverse yet more complacent perception of the world. My view grew dim and I was lost in the gray. I forgot that life is for living.

I searched for guidance. I visited a sweat lodge and asked the universe for a direction. I sat in the steam filled darkness on the soft wet ground of the Oregon forests and recited the ancient songs of the Americas. The heat swallowed me and I began to dream.

Jungle covered hills stretched as far as the eye could see and the flute of a lizard played a perplexing song. The landscape rose and the greatness of the Andes stood before me. Grandmother earth looked down at me from the icy peak of the tallest mountain. Her voice was ancient and filled with wisdom. “Mija, no puedas esperar mas, necesitas ir ahora.” The Andes crumbled and the sky above me filled with night. Grandfather sky stared down at me and began to cry. I began to cry. Who had I become? I was no longer alive. I simply existed in a world without purpose.  

I left. I bought a one-way ticket, packed a bag, and was gone. I left my country, my language, my people, and my world. The spirits had pointed me down a path and though I didn’t know why, I knew it was time to venture into the unfamiliar.

South America became my classroom, every moment held something to be gained. Every human was a teacher, every opportunity an acceptance letter. I lived on farms and picked coffee every day. I slept on the ground and awoke at sunrise to make cacao into chocolate. I turned plants and insects into dye with Andean women. I gazed up at the Milky Way in the desert and contemplated the sound of the ocean. I stood in silence with impermanent friends and witnessed the heavens erupt with electricity.  I got lost in the cobble stoned streets of unfamiliar cities and heard the voices of the people on the art-covered walls. I joined Bolivar in his tour of liberation across the wetness of Ecuador and met Pacha Mama in the dryness of Peru. I fell for Marquez in the magic of Colombia and recited Neruda in the Chilean wilderness. I practiced art with an argentine muralist and brought South America into my studio. I connected with Spanish as if we shared a lifelong friendship and conversed with locals about government corruption and American imperialism. I felt Guevara’s fire in my blood and I am forever changed by the spiritual wisdom of these ancient lands.

 I have discovered the meaning of the lizard’s song. We must journey to our mountain before we can climb it. When I left I was looking for a place to belong, but what I discovered was an answer. 

a travelers surrealism

There is something surreal about travel.  when you're moving through space into something unknown the whole world is full of wonder and you are free. you have the eyes of a child. looking at hills rolling out in every direction from the window of a cracked and smelly bus holds a magic. after a while walking through crowded streets as an outsider becomes comfortable and speaking a different language seems normal. somehow you cannot quite remember what it feels like to live a life in english. stationary becomes terrifying. and while you're sitting in your sleeping bag on the side of the road waiting for a bus at the crack of dawn in Patagonia you laugh, because of course a week to that plane ticket and your here doing what you do best. Climbing to the top of a mountain to look up at the peaks of the Torres in a park at the end of the world makes sense because what else would you be doing on a thursday in november?

There is something surreal about traveling, and while you sit on that smelly bus, or while you freeze on the side of the road, or climb that mountain you have time to think. You get to think about every single moment of your life, you can evaluate why you said or did certain things or think about all those who've broken your heart. You can analyze your life decisions and still have time to imagine a world where everything goes exactly your way. You have time to study spanish in your head and think about loved ones. mostly though, you learn about letting go. you think about how unreal it all is, how the kilometers have gone right past your eyes and you are not quite sure any of it has even really happened to you.

These past ten months have become a lifetime, and while you know that the world will turn right back to normal when this year's hour glass flips, it certainly did happen. yet, like everything else in life you will have to let go. you must move past the mistakes you've made, the people you have hurt and those who have hurt you. if you have taken anything from your time on the road it is that nothing is permanent. sure you are stranded, maybe you are afraid, you could be cold or alone, but you can laugh because thats what it takes to see the world. thats what it takes to experience the rush, that is what makes it all worth it. Everything will be alright, just breath and remember the good, and you will be able to keep walking.

Pantanal and the language of the jungle

The sun is setting, and though no human talks the earth speaks clearly. My voice is stolen from me because in the conversation of life it is my turn to listen. The insects chant loudly, telling the story of their short lives. They spend their time on the ground, always looking up at the tremendous world around them. Though they are small, they know of their own importance. Without them, the kingdom would fall and the frog could not croak. The frogs sing the story of their metamorphosis. They begin in the water, small and in danger of all things. They grow and change, as all things do, until they step out of the swamp. They are strong and become master of both earth and water, their growth the key to the evolution of us all. They sing a song to the inhabitants of the wetlands, as they jump up to meet the masters of the air. The birds recite their ancient poems, telling the others of their travels. They speak first of their mothers, who taught them how to fly. They tell of the language of the wind and the world from above. They explain the nature of freedom. “We are all free if we choose to be, our freedom comes from the bravery to follow the wind and face those things that seem impossible.” The birds recite their epic poems and speak of the dangers of the land. The caiman is quite. Sitting in the murky water his eyes reflect millions of years. He has witnessed the earth change and has come to know that all things die and nothing can last forever. His armor was built eons ago but all those he was created along side have returned to the ground. He knows of the nature of death and fears nothing save extinction. He carries the wisdom of balance and watches as another day ends in the wetlands. The sun melts behind the line of palm trees in the distance, and the symphony plays on. I sit alone by the water, both prey and predator. Along the edge of the swamp, in the darkness of the oncoming dusk steps a creature. She moves without making a sound. The jaguar leaves nothing but soft footprints behind her as she lurks, a secret queen. She listens to the song of the wetlands, and stairs me right in the eye. She knows, she knows the story of the universe, she knows the story of me. Her spots are the mark of her ancestors, the scars of her evolution. She crouches to the ground and I can feel her spirit, for I am learning the language of the jungle. She knows all, she stairs me in the eye, and then, she disappears. The sun is gone and the moon begins to rise in the east. Tonight it is colored orange and is perfectly round. It sends the intense heat of day and his companions to bed and calls to awaken the creatures of the night. I begin to walk, the symphony has ended and I have taken what I can from its ancient knowledge.

how do i fix it?

I stood online waiting to check my bag for my flight. It was taking a very long time, as things often do in Latin America, and I felt a shiver go down my spine as I thought of a man in need of charity. Earlier that day I had not intended to come home, and here I was, headed back to the giant head of the snake that is imperialism. And as I stood there, waiting for someone to weigh my bag I thought of a man I had seen on the street that day in La Paz. His feet were swollen, and he wore sandals that were breaking in the frozen winter nights of the city. His eyes were squinted shut and he bumped into things as he waddled from one point to the other. Life was clearly punishing him, life had decided that this old man in his years of old age would suffer, and be tortured by the evils of inopportunity. This mans crime? He was born a slave, one of the people who are captive to the corruption of their own government and the government of the United States. This mans crime, is that he is not important enough for anyone to give a shit. This man will be cold tonight, his shoes could not protect his broken and infected feet, and I was going back to the death star, the head of the snake, the country that is exploiting and ignoring this man.

I have been home for a few days now and I am having some trouble rationalizing why the amount of wealth in the world is spread so thin in some places and yet layered so thick in others. The butter that is wealth has failed to melt into a more even layer. It is as if we do not understand that the world has globalized, but we are so connected. We speak something like 5 or 6 languages all over the world; we listen to Katy Perry and Pitbull all over the world. Everyone knows who Obama is, everyone knows who Kanye West is. The world does not exist as a place separated by oceans or mountains anymore; we exist as one globe, as one people. We must forget the labels we have clung to for centuries in order to remember that we are connected. Let labels like, black or white or native die, let labels like man and woman die, we must remember something that I think we all have forgotten, we are all one people, human people.

The CIA assassinated Che Guevara in 1967, do you know who Che Guevara is? You may have seen him on a t-shirt, you may have seen him painted on a wall and you may not have known it was an image of freedom and equality. You may own something with him on it and be apart of the disease he tried so hard to fight off. “The powerful of the earth should take heed: deep inside that t-shirt where we have tried to trap him, the eyes of Che Guevara are still burning with impatience” –Ariel Dorfman. The CIA assassinated Che in 1967 in Bolivia; do you know why? Because he tried to fight for the man without shoes, because he wanted the United States of America to stop exploiting the people of the world. He wanted them to stop using the human brothers and sisters from places like the Congo or Cuba in a game with the soviets. He wanted the people of the rest of America to have a fighting shot at a good life. and we killed him. we killed him and hid his body in a ditch with many other men. We killed a good man, who only wanted to change the world. And do you know what he said when the men came to kill him? “shoot, coward, your only going to kill a man.” Maybe Che’s revolution is over, but he is not truly dead, and hope remains.

The American dream, the American disease. You will never be happy until you own all the stuff in the world. Capitalism, an economic system of greed that will never buy you happiness. The world is an unfair place, and our government wont allow for the world to improve. The government is supposed to be by the people, for the people, but the people are enslaved. The citizens of the empire are enslaved, enslaved by media, enslaved by greed; they are so enslaved that they cannot see any of the richness in their lives. The people of the world are enslaved, they are enslaved because they spend all year growing fruit for the people in the north and they get two cents for it, meanwhile your at whole foods paying someone 8 dollars for it. The system is broken, the man’s feet are broken, and maybe we cannot fix it, but Che believed we could. “I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves.” –El Che So I faced a choice, as I stood online going home, a choice that I will face again soon, what do I do? How do I reconcile where I come from and where I have been? How do I fix it?  

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