I recently spent 5 days in the place called Quinched, Chiloé. I was lucky enough to have been invited by my friend and fellow coffee maker Tatiana, to spend time at this beautiful cabin owned by her father's fiancee. All of us included were her, her dad, her dad's fiancee Cami, Cami's son, and me. These days consisted of starting and finishing 100 Years of Solitude, kayaking, sunbathing, bbqing, eating, going to a national park, collecting rocks, and learning new chilenismos. No estoy ni ahí. Irse lona. I was told 100 Years of Solitude was super difficult to understand. Being that it was the first book I've read in english in about 5 months, I really think I got it all, compelling me to read it in Spanish, something I had tried and failed at before. Marquéz writes with what Tatiana told me was Magic Realism. He's brilliant.
Entonces, the wind blew so hard at night there that I became accustomed to listening to it like I listen to the rain in Seattle. It accompanied my insomnia like a twin. What I didn't realize was happening was that the wind blew so hard that by the morning it had pushed the tiny cerro the cabin rested on farther into the Gulf of Corcovado leaving us stranded, or more like blessed to be separated from society. If we had any reason to leave, we hopped in a row boat with the Nana, Claudita, and her 3 perros for a short ride back to the mainland. Usually we were in no hurry to leave our little isletta because we knew by noon, if we were patient, the worn out internal magnets within the isletta and the mainland would struggle to reunite alas. And this is how it went. Reading, thinking, reading, not sleeping except for afternoon naps, hot tubbing, planning the rest of my life in my head...there are so many paths it could take.
I wrote an email to one of my best friends and I am going to past it to this entry because it has a lot of significance for my life right now:
"Querida Amor-
I miss you so much. I think about you all the time and I hope life is being kind to you in this moment and the moments to come. Moments- what a concept, huh? In reality its all about moments. I guess I love the concept of a moment because it isn't defined like a second or a few minutes but instead a sequence of events that leads to one specific space in time. Whether that space in time lingers or just flashes its face, it is a moment. Sometimes these moments slip our mind like they were just another part of our daily routine, but others may last us until we are old and decaying side by side in our adjustable beds eating popcorn with yeast flakes, strawberry licorice, and white cheddar popcorn. (our comfort foods) Lately for me its been hard to live in the moment. Actually, as you know, its always been pretty hard for me. Always planning my life 1....or more like 10 steps ahead. I think I have this idea that I can plan moments, which is absurd, but it really prevents me from living in the now. So don't try and plan moments, just do your best to realize they are around ever corner, or maybe they are right in front of you. I have been thinking a lot about my life after Chile, and it scares the living shit out of me. This is why I bring up moments. I feel for the past five years I've had this whole life thing planned out and all of a sudden, I am lost. Sure, applying to college, deciding to study abroad, that was all easy, because that is what society had been telling me to do. But what next? There are too many things I want to do with my life. From the biggest things like applying to the Peacecorps and coming back to live in South America for two years. Or going to graduate school in the mid west, east coast, or even Switzerland. Or falling in love again. Or learning to trust God again and building my life around that. To small things that seem so big at the time, but really or very small in the scheme of things.. Like buying a car as soon as I get home and going into more debt than I already have. Or road tripping on I-90 to look at grad schools and visit friends when I get home. To buying a dog. To deciding whether I will take my Senior Thesis class in the Fall or Spring...etc. etc. etc. I stayed awake until 4:45am thinking about these things last night. Its actually been happening more often than not. How can this keep me awake when I am always multiple steps ahead and sure of my wants? I have been down here for over 4 months now living my dream, loving every moment. Why am I caught up in real life? Because I know I will have to return to it someday, and as much as I want to put in on hold for the next 6 months until I get back, I just can't. My brain doesn't function that way. So this is why I'm lecturing you on moments, because I, myself, need a lecture."
Then I went on to tell her about the great things going on in my life, like traveling around Southern Chile and later to Uruguay and Argentina. Its quite strange how traveling can wear on you. Maybe its because I am not accustomed to it, I didn't do much traveling when I was young. I can be away from a place of comfort for such a short amount of time, yet be sick of the unfamiliarity, the artificial friendship making, the insomnia, the irregularity...am I really complaining about being in Latin America? Traveling around the Southern Hemisphere? Pathetic, right?
So here's where I am. Taking baby steps to trust that it will all work out how it is supposed to, how God has planned it. I'm trying my best not to worry about tomorrow and instead live in the moments of today. I have finally been able to put heartbreak behind me, my wrong decisions in the dust, my personal regret underground, but forgiving myself for hurting people I love is something I still have to work on.
When I told a new friend of mine about this lack of self-forgiveness, he told me I should build a new boat and sink it better than the last one I had sunk. At first I thought it would be stupid just to build a boat to sink it, but in perspective, how many boats do we build in our lives? How many have I had, and sank? So here I am, building this new boat to fill it with my self-judgment and lack of self-forgiveness so that I can sink it to the bottom of the Gulf of Corcovado and start building a ship to store trust, humility, hope and love.
