Volaré. OoohOoh.

I've done the goodbye rounds. Didn't get plastered by an earthquake. Bought more books than I know how to carry. Brought more luggage than I'm allowed to carry. Woke up late and considered going back to bed...but I had a fuzzy idea in the back of my head that there was something important I had to do today. Lugged my luggage to the door--first step--to the elevator--in the elevator--out the elevator--to the portería--to the sidewalk--to the cab. I'm getting strong. And here I am in the airport, savoring precious friendships that I can't really bear to surrender to Good Memories quite yet, carrying the Chilean essence that managed to seep inside my veins, and absolutely giddy for change.

So this is it.

Woke up to the gentle swaying of the apartment building today. And after questioning whether it was an earthquake or if my heart was beating abnormally fast, the gentle swaying of the apartment building rocked me back to sleep. It's hard to stay sleeping for long, however, when the sun is already up and anxious to get things started at 6:36 in the morning. The days are long in Chile in December.

As long as they are (25 hours, in the southern-most parts of the country), I catch the sand in my hourglass streaming faster and faster every day. According to my records, I have exactly 72 hours to:

-avoid being plastered by earthquakes
-say goodbye to dear friends, dog friends, friendly acquaintances, and nod once more at the familiar faces that faithfully guard doorways and observe activities in the barrio
-learn Spanish
-convince people to pay me, now
-take one last promenade through the book shops
-confirm an elusive airline reservation
-hail a taxi to the airport

It's the press of time that makes my heart beat faster and faster and makes the apartment rattle its bones. And what happens when the sand runs out? If all goes as planned, I turn it over in English and it all starts again, north of here, where the days are shorter but the sand runs more slowly.

Paseando

[Sea Lions
Biting Animals
Keep Your Distance]

TRIVIA: Who can remember the names of both the continents on Earth?

Look! Here I am on a bike ride through Chiloé!
My what big pebbles. Oh MY what big hills!

About 15 km into the gravel, and 35 km from home ... Uh ... oh ...


Sometimes when your plan goes all wonky and your muscles start cramping and you run out of water and you have the sudden urge to sit down and cry--if you keep telling yourself that it'll work out alright because it always works out alright, and if you refuse to sit down and cry because you still have a 2.5 km race against the bus to the bus stop--sometimes you can just barely catch the last bus back to town just in time, and it all works out alright.

2.

1. I do not understand the logic behind hitting a child or an animal and saying, ¨TRANQUILO!!¨ (i.e. Settle down! Calm down! Hold still! Shhhhh!) ... If one day you and I are together and I get a bit anxious or unsettled, I'll let you know in advance that your hitting me and saying, ¨TRANQUILA!¨won't pacify me.

2. I hate travelling. Mira. I don't hate travelling. I hate being a tourist. The travelling that entails extended months and years in a place--I like that. But being a tourist is about the most boring thing I can put my mind to.
I thought I would be taking advantage of being in Chile if I took a couple weeks to travel. So on Tuesday I headed down to the island of Chiloé. Everybody goes on about Chiloé--the magic of Chiloé! It's beautiful. It's haunting. It's the Puget Sound.
It's a terrible way to think about things, but ... Punta Arenas, Alaska. San Pedro de Atacama, Mojave Desert. The central region, Napa Valley. The Chilean coast, the California coast. My Appreciation of The New has been spoiled by fresh snow in the Sierra Nevadas and sleeping under brilliant stars in Death Valley, by burning my feet on the Great Sand Dunes. I've been ruined by peering over the cliffs of the Grand Canyon and nestling into the porch to watch the afternoon thunderstorms rip across the plains of the San Luis Valley. If I had never touched the ice at Mendenhall Glacier or explored the Puget Sound, maybe I would be enchanted.
Instead I'm bored. Bored and lonely. Yesterday I left my friend Brittany in Chiloé while I continued on to Valdivia--a small town with a lot of German influence. I arrived, bored, in the afternoon after 6 hours of a day-wasting bus ride. Needing to escape my stuffy and overpriced hostal room without windows, I went walking and began ruminating my situation. Do I call it a day and head back to Santiago? When I walk around Santiago, I run into people I know. When I go out in Santiago, I know where I'm going. When I'm in Santiago, I'm not lost. And I'm not a tourist.
With those thoughts weighing my gaze down to the ground, I suddenly noticed a man behaving very strangely--sort of jumping around like a monkey in front of me. And then I realized that he was a poet friend of mine from Santiago, attending a literary conference in Valdivia this weekend. We stopped and talked for a while and then he went his way and I went the other. But it was enough to convince me that travelling alone doesn't have to be lonely if I don't want it to be.

And that's where I have to stop and get out of this underground internet café because there's life out there but not in here. Chau.

¡La locura de todo!

It's ending. But what's ending? I'm just moving. Moving on now to the next. Next Friends, Next Job, Next Adventures, Next Good Books, Next Cafés, Next Home.

My skin and everything inside it is absorbing the expressions, the antics, the inexplicabilities of all the people and places that I love in Santiago. I've even taken to taking pictures with friends, fearing that they'll be forgotten too soon.


Tomorrow, if I can pull myself away, I leave for Chiloé. The temptation to stay and soak up the locura all around me is strong. But a week and a half of rest from the city should do me some sort of good. Right? It'll be a trial Leaving.

let's get ethical

Look, you can't just bring a broken bird home and hand him over to a cat who's never learned to play nice with the other kids on the playground. Differences are sometimes hard to understand, and this one time, I can excuse a certain amount of ignorance (feline ignorance being easy to dismiss). But most adults should know this one: Bring a bird home only when 1) You intentionally plan to captivate it and take care of it forever; 2) You can take it to a zoo today; 3) You're going to eat it.


Next time I sign up for roommates, we're going over the No Birds Overnight rule first thing.