Sunday, August 20, 2017

La memoria

Santiago, Chile

It is a bright, beautiful, sunny day.  The smog took the afternoon off and parque forestal is teeming with families and young couples enjoying one another's company. All in all, it looks like a great moment to be a santaguinero.

It was a little more than two weeks ago I first arrived. This morning, I passed the small cafe where I initially stopped after getting off my flight and initial metro ride to order a cappuccino and check the guide book to make sure I was headed in the right direction (I was).  Like most businesses on Sunday, that little cafe was closed today. I didn't need a map this morning or afternoon and not only because I am pleasantly killing a nine-hour layover; I also just know my way around.

It is pretty incredible how far one can travel in two weeks' time. Sure, I've notched some kilometers, but that's not what I mean. It is remarkable how the foreign becomes familiar in such a small period of time. There's no amount of reading or research that can simulate this familiarity as the experience of just jumping right in.

I've been thinking about a lot of things of late. One constant of this trip to a place I've never been is its familiarity and the memories it has stirred. Up north, meandering around San Pedro de Atacama, I felt like I was back in Peru from my trip ten years ago. The sights, sounds, smells, all of it conjured a wonderful trip, even if it was with someone with whom I no longer share everything. Or, really, much of anything. I hope and believe time has healed those wounds on both sides and hope she would receive as warmly the reminders this past week has given me.

And I also strongly feel the tug on the heartstrings first pulled by Buenos Aires. These countries are so parallel, literally parallel, it's not even worth diving that granular to find the details for comparison.  I could make some commentary, but it's been nine years so my observations may be more rooted in time than space anyway.

And I guess that's where this all leads anyway: time and space. In own appreciation, I believe I've used both well, these past two weeks and in my adult life as well. That is really all that matters: our own honest, heartfelt assessment of how we use our one opportunity at life.

Whatever problems I left at home will be there when I arrive tomorrow morning.  Same too for assets and/or the proverbial things going for me.  I will have time to take a taxi and a shower before hitting the office tomorrow morning for a full day. I have a full day of meetings on Wednesday and an important meeting to lead on Thursday morning. I've got tickets to a show Friday and some old friends in town next weekend. I will not have much time to process this trip and it'll likely be a quick merge back on to the highway of life.

But I showed myself a few things. I can make the transfer from train to bus in Chillán, even in the cold rain. I can find lodging and book excursions in San Pedro without much guidance. I can push back my plans because of fresh powder and I can do just fine in a Spanish speaking country without a dictionary or translator. I can give myself two weeks away from whatever identity I've built at home and indulge my fancy to wander because I've found that is what I like and do best.

I don't know what legacy this trip will leave; I'm still the same person. I guess that's the overarching takeaway: for however I've felt of late and whatever experiences I've been through the past several years, I'm still me. There are good and bad days ahead and more mundanity to traverse. But if I remember to keep my head and heart open and stay true to who I've been thus far, more adventures await. So I'll keep going. I would anyway, but maybe these next steps will have just a little more pep. 

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Sleeping dogs & cemetery cats

Valparaíso, Chile

Dogs and cats, in addition to measuring precipitation, serve as semaphores for the worlds within our own. They hear the noises we cannot hear, perceive the threats we cannot see, demarcate the boundaries of which we are unaware. Even for those unafraid, there is a certain caution or wariness one must abide when present in their domain.  In Valparaíso, though there are many strays scattered throughout, I never felt anything other than welcome or safe passage by these friends. That in itself may be as apt an indicator of the intriguing city. 

Though founded before, Valparaíso entered its epoca de oro with the San Francisco gold rush of 1848. Europeans looking to cast out in search of treasure sailed around the cape and the port city was well-positioned as a decent halfway point. With enough offerings and opportunity of its own, a good many decided to stay. Until the completion of the Panama Canal, Valparaíso was a hub of great significance on the world stage. 

The vibe persists. Valparaíso feels like the gathering grounds of generations of diverse individuals who had a third gear to their slakeable ambitions. These are a people who set out with to conquer the moon and sun only to ultimately settle on a fine place where they coukd say, "this'll do just fine."  It's as if a caravel of pirate ships ran aground and instead of attending to repairs, each foreswore the life of the seas to indulge their secret passion to become art students. 

The natural harbor and flatness of el plan, the commercial stretch adjacent to the water, lent themselves to the development of a rich maritime trade. The forty-something hills rising just behind el plan do not seem hospitable to much of anything.   So all these generations of recien llegados had to do something if they were not sailors or stevedores or prostitutes, etc. (and this is where I'm offering conjecture with no historical knowledge whatsoever), so there had to be some sense of communal solidarity to arise, right? Steep, rising hills and congested living do not accommodate a Walden pond-type existence, so surely that is how this undetectable but omnipresent sense of community must have arisen. Again, I took a walking tour and not much more, but I'm pretty confident in this diagnosis despite a small sample size of observations. 

Community and history is great and all that, but what I really found endearing was the independence of the people, their confidence in themselves, and, for me, importantly, the lack of need to demonstrate said independence or confidence ad nauseum. There are plenty of tourists and plenty of souvenirs to be bought and sold, but very little in the way of Keep Valpo Weird. It seems some of our most charming cities have decided to continually cash in on their charm to the point their balances are depleting. Rapidly. The protectiveness of a place's charm leads to an inveterate defensiveness among its inhabitants to the point where a visitor can feel like there's no enchantment left to protect. Living in New Orleans (we can insert Austin, Boulder, Portland, and many other places here) I am only growing more tired of the banner people carry, as if the city's eccentricity needs to be continually reinforced for our own preservation. Are we weird? Then let's just be weird. We can be fierce and proud of our independence without always taking to Facebook or wearing the t-shirt. And that's what I feel Valparaíso does very well. 

In my brief impressions, I saw art students sketching landscapes, businessmen having Important Discussions over pisco sours, artisans peddling their beautiful and intricate wares, taxi drivers with their lanyards for the Santiago Wanderers, old men working at newspaper kiosks listening to milongas, young folks rolling and smoking joints in the darkened stairwells, and more than a few Willie Loman-types commuting home after a long day's work. There was diversity, there was character, there were sleeping dogs and cemetery cats and nothing about it had to be advertised or shouted through the bullhorn. It was, and that was more than appreciated. 

Monday, August 14, 2017

Fire on the Mountain

Valle las Trancas, Chile

It took long enough to pair my twin loves of travel and skiing, but this jaunt to the lower vertebrae of South America was well worth the wait. It is exactly what I would have expected had I been cruel enough to set expectations.

Heard your news report, you knew you're falling short
Pretty soon won't trust you for the weather
When that ship comes in, you won't know where it's been 
You got to try to see a little further

I made a one week reservation back in April, which may as well have been a dart at the calendar as far as conditions go. There's no guarantee of fresh snow and even, so I've learned, the mountain open and lifts running. As was my great fortune, after confinement to the slushy, lower pockets on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday's storm brought about a foot of fresh powder.  Wind speeds died down Thursday night, allowing the upper lifts to open and the patient and fortunate among us to access the great fields of snow just below the volcanoes at Nevados de Chillán.  My decision to extend my stay was very well rewarded.

My time coming any day, don't worry about me, no 
Gonna be just like they say, them voices tell me so 
Seems so long I've felt this way and time's sure passing slow
Still I know I lead the way, they tell me where I go

So, yeah, sure, the snow fell.  That made a lot of us happy and my own contentment was probably the least tied to the climate among those I met.  At the hostel, in the lift lines, at the bar, the other voices belonged to some serious powderhounds.  It seemed like everyone was trying to find some new line yet untouched or get even further away from what was not a very considerable crowd. This could have been insufferable, and some sailed pretty close to those rocks, but nobody was a dick.  Instead, the general onda was one of some very simple people with one particularly high standard, but even if that was unsatisfied, life still marched on and was, in fact, pretty good.

Did he doubt or did he try?
Answers aplenty in the bye and bye
Talk about your plenty and talk about your ills
One man gathers what another man spills

And the accoutrements, did I mention them? The cute shops lining the faux-Bavarian village at the bottom of the mountain? The high speed chair lifts and gondolas outfitted with wifi access and television screens? Cause there was none of that.  There was a mountain outfitted with orange chairlifts that, though lacking in padding and having a few squeaky wheels, offered more assurance than a cheap import from a former war torn Soviet backwater. Skiers and riders were outfitted for performance, not as ostentatious reflections of purchasing power.

Got to settle one old score
And one small point of pride

As for me, well, I believe I fit right in there. I was a very tall man in a yellow jacket cutting some
tight turns on the groomers and traversing the thick stuff when the visibility got too low or couldn't
trust myself or the rental equipment. I was in my own space and time.

Gonna get there I don't know
Seems a common way to go, get out and row row row row row

And if I'm getting back to any overarching theme here, and I'm not sure I ever was but at this point
the omission doesn't particularly matter, it is that I discovered I really like to shred some
fresh pow pow while listening to the Grateful Dead Live at Barton Hall (5.8.1977). I'm a casual fan, not a purist, but there's just something soothing about the artistry, the improvisation, the rhythms, the synchronicity, and the graceful elision of these musical giants. It fits the terrain.

Come to daddy on the inside straight
I've got no chance of losin' this time

I did not exactly have the best of years recently, though extraordinary in several respects, and have really just been looking for ways to free my thoughts and pivot my perspective from rear view to windshield for the next. I've been so careful not to put too much pressure on this trip; no epiphanies, no need to return with some new frame of mind or perspective or grandiose self-improvement projects. I really just needed to work on my Spanish, smell some trees, seize the occasional laugh, and point my skis down a goddamn mountain so I can free myself to move a bit more forward a bit more quickly once I get back.  There are no elevators or quick fixes toward a restorative space of self,  but there are the simple realizations, their sudden seizure, and a handful of healthy moments to get you back on track.

Long distance runner what you standin there for?





Thursday, August 3, 2017

It's a Large World

New Orleans, La.

I've written this before, but I guess some truths bear repeating: it is, in fact, a very large world.  Deep, abundant oceans, towering mountains, vistas defying horizons, cities that rise up like pimples from the arbitrary oils of history, and countless topographical idiosyncrasies stippled across this great planet we call Home.

We forget it.  I forget it.  I give myself credit for being able to bird eye my life and see some larger perspective or great divination moving my piece across the chessboard, but how much do I really see?  How much in my day-to-day am I actually aware?  I think about it. I feel I 'get it'.  But I don't.  I lose it.

I sit here in my square miles of proximity to where I report for my paycheck, where I buy my foodstuffs, where Someone Else circulates.  And in my case, I've had a pretty okay five years of establishing my square miles and deeply understanding the movements therein.

They haven't always been kind.  In fact, during the past year, I'd say it's been taxing.  I love my work, I have a solid circle of friends, but my viewpoint has condensed to the point where I've lost perspective of the worlds I've known before, the worlds I've explored, the worlds where I feel I've accomplished something, even if it's only absent movement.  I feel like I've lost sight of how big the world actually is and how insignificant my troubles truly are.

It's time to remind myself of the great expanses out there, both globally and within my own perspective.

It's time to travel.

It's been a long time.  I now hold a steady job, a fucking career, if you will.  This career could not be more rewarding or in tune with my values and yet I still find myself hostage to loss, defeat, melancholy.

It's time to travel.

This will only be two weeks.  Standard, rote, American vacation allowance.  But goddamn do I need it.  I once thought that anything less than a month was chicken scrap and now that I'm in the modern workforce I feel like it's nothing less than Knighthood.  I will travel.  I will ski.  I will hike. I will speak a foreign tongue and keep my phone in an inaccessible pocket and respond only to sunsets and open spirits.

It's time to travel.

It's never too late to remind yourself of the infinite of the cosmos and the fallibility of your own life.  It's never too late to remind yourself life is much bigger than where you are, where you stand, where you've been.  It's generally understood it's impossible to catch up with every setting sun or shooting star but that should never mean you shouldn't damn well try.  And so I go.