Why can’t I write??

Okay, so I’m really struggling to keep up with this blog and I can’t figure out why.  I love to write and I want to continue it.  But why can’t I make it come together as easily as it did, say, 6 months ago?  Every time I sit down to write, I find myself remembering to do things like pay for my storage space or worse…I dedicated an hour yesterday to skype Sallie Mae about my student loan payments….not to mention relentlessly checking the latest Facebook posts and finding new things to like.  Still, I am insistent on getting one more blog post in by June (and that leaves only one more day!).

I guess without being self critical (as I could call myself lazy)…I like to think that my circumstances have changed a lot from when I began writing on here.  Last year I suspect I used it more as a source of expressing my frustration and uncertainty about many things, while this year, I feel….more….at peace.

And to what do I attribute this peace?  Maybe I have just resigned myself to the fact that I am here…that I live here now.  In a strange way, even though I am far from completing all that I want in my life, I like to think I have begun to resolve a certain sense of incompleteness that I have always felt (of course I am speaking about that part of me that has always felt unsatisfied with my life as it is in the present moment) and I find myself with much fewer “troubles,” feeling more balanced and hence more content maybe more than I have ever felt in my life.

I still feel ambition for all the things I would like to achieve, but I’ve also broken away from insisting on the grand objectives and becoming disappointed.  I think I’m a little more open to the random things that life sort of suggests for me and so I find myself more and more enjoying the moments I have to paint, travel and experience my relationship or the new friendships I have made, rather than anticipating the next big life change or dwelling on how to preserve some sort of stability or better yet, why, I have not attained it.

I realize it’s possible that this could be my greatest accomplishment in coming here.

Plus, its winter now, and I was able to walk home today in the rain (wearing wet socks because my boots no longer withstand the water on the street) and not feel like I was counting down the days….

I’m pretty sure this is good news.

But what does that leave me to write about when I cannot complain?  This is my new problem!

In any case, I’m determined to keep up with this thing.  After all, if not for this blog, I would never have met my newest best friend, who first wrote me in response to one of my posts that she too was a “vegetarian,” who “loved the desert” and was also “thoroughly defeated by the puna in San Pedro de Atacama.”  Both of us being from very small towns in the same geographic area of the East Coast of the United States, we also moved West at the same age, and we practically arrived in Santiago on the same day in March of 2011.  We swear that for sure we must have been completely linked in our past lives…and we are continuously assessing what those lives may have been.  When we last left off and after some wine drinking, we had convinced ourselves that we had without a doubt existed in some era of the old American west as to account for our love of the desert…most certainly outlaws of some sort.  (Well, it sounded reasonable at the time).  But here we are in Valparaiso, in this lifetime, pretending to proudly represent our country in what looks like some kind of US summit meeting, secret agreement, take over of Chile photo:

(Somehow, like Waldo, the US flag always shows up in unexpected places, like here in front of this Chilean war memorial for a war fought against Peru…that to my knowledge had absolutely nothing to do with the United States.  Maybe we assume we won that war too?

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I went on a long drive through the mountains.  This was the day of May 21 when supposedly it was predicted by some Brazilian scientists that there would be a mega earthquake (and possibly also the end of the world – as the day drew nearer, I was hearing more of that).  Naturally, “the end of the world” worked itself into this date as well, as did its cousins, the Mayan Calendar and the year 2012.

Obviously, I survived and none of those things happened.  (Although, I admit it.  I took 10 cans of tuna fish and a bag of almonds as food rations, just in case!)  Here are some photos of the drive…

There is something to the whole end of the world phenomenon as well as all of the catastrophic news that is reported daily, even if it conjures up feelings of fear and dread, that remind us that we are totally vulnerable to whatever might happen.  I am not totally at ease with this feeling, although at the same time I like to think that only through vulnerability and only through giving up a little control and adopting a faith in the unexpected, have I gotten this far.  It has allowed me to travel, meet new people and have certain experiences both abroad as well as in the States.  Ironically, choosing the non-secure lifestyle is what has led me to the harmony I am discovering now.

So, I appreciate my days here even more, knowing it’s not something that will last forever…and maybe none of what we know now will exist one day.  Places, friendships, relationships all have the potential to change or dissolve.  This doesn’t have to signify failure or defeat or destruction…it doesn’t even have to imply an “end,” but perhaps a transformation.

This makes me remember a story of a friend of a friend who had worked in a remote area somewhere in the South of Chile as a person who shaved sheep.  There he met an older woman whom, when she was a pre-teenager, had been kidnapped, kept in a basement, tortured and raped for years.  Today this woman has a husband and five children and would appear to live relatively normal.  I guess one could judge this woman without knowing her past and assume she hadn’t done that much with her life…a simple house wife with kids.  But, in reality, considering all that she had experienced…just to live relatively normal, to raise kids and to be married is a huge accomplishment.  This makes me wonder if maybe the greatest thing we can hope for…is just to feel joy….I mean despite anything negative we have all experienced…maybe this is the greatest achievement in life…and since the energy we possess we inadvertently offer to one another, the greatest thing we can offer to the world is just to be a content person who works with life instead of against it, a joyful person who has gratitude for all that they have in this moment.

Why Chile?

Its Christmas time here, but it’s a little difficult for me to get into the spirit especially after walking down to the center of the city today and seeing Santa and his Elves sweltering in the heat.  I’m happy though.  I made it through the commitment I originally had proposed to myself…that I was going to stay here and teach until the end of December.  Next week I will be headed to Buenos Aires, Argentina and then to Uruguay, and Iguazu Falls and then up to Sao Paolo, Brazil…that is on a very small budget which involves taking a lot of very long bus rides.  The summer months here are extremely slow as far as work and my friend invited me to stay with her and work in Brazil for a while.  I plan to return to Chile…most likely sometime in February.  During the winter months I was counting down the days to leave this place, because I missed my life in California, but now I feel so much more adjusted to life here.

Since I’ve been here, the Chileans have always asked me, “Why Chile?”, and I usually give them answers like being attracted to the mountains or the beach (which is actually where I spend the least amount of time).  I also tell people that it was because I wanted to learn Spanish and people laugh knowing this is the hardest place to learn.  And my other excuse is because of the Chilean economy, even though, as an English teacher I don’t make much money at all to compete with the high cost of living here.  But aside from all of this, maybe this place attracted me or vice versa because I really think it was just the right place to mirror back to me, “me,” in so many ways that I would never have considered.

So many of my students speak of Santiago in a negative way.  They speak of people that are unhappy with their jobs, people that are stressed, people that have a lot of fear…fear of knowing people outside their comfort zones and a fear of trusting each other.  This is so interesting to me because Santiago is supposed to be the “ideal” because of its financial prosperity and its reputation for being for the most part “safe” and “secure” unlike other areas of South America where you have to worry about kidnapping and corrupt police.  Parts of the city resemble the United States with huge shopping malls and Starbucks and wealthy people living in the hills.  But, I sometimes wonder if all of this push for materialism is the reason for my students’ thoughts on the unhappiness of the people here.  It makes me think of my experience living in South Orange County, California where people live in separation, no one knowing their neighbors and how rare it is to actually see someone outside other than their gardeners.  Parts of Santiago, particularly in Las Condes and Vitacura have that same secluded vibe.  My students also often speak of how this place lost a lot of its creative expression during the dictatorship and is still struggling to retrieve it in the midst of becoming a very materialist nation.  In fact, the dictatorship helped boost this materialism.  Maybe this is more true in Santiago alone, but it seems like a country that is trying to make sense of itself and its identity.  They say that out of all of the Latin American countries, and perhaps also because of its geography being that it is so isolated by the Andes Mountains, Chile sets itself apart as the most introverted.  Maybe this was the perfect place for me to learn about myself because that similar feeling of confusion, fear of money and success, and struggle to regain creative expression is exactly what I brought with me to Chile.  And this is actually changing now, but I really discovered how I had been living internally in the time I have spent here.  I felt this the many days I spent alone, most of the time sick, in my apartment during the cold winter months here.  Particularly in August.  That was the worst.

But, its summer now and I feel like I have woken up a little.

And I feel great.

Despite the distance I feel from the people as a whole, the people I have met individually are incredible.  I think recently the thing I’ve been thinking about most is how great solidarity is.  I feel this so much more in Latin culture than in the United States.  I actually feel like people care and want to take care of each other.  No matter how close I am to people here, I am always invited for lunch or dinner to someone’s house or taken care of when I’m sick.  I think I’ve actually finally realized what it is to feel true compassion.  I felt overwhelmed with this feeling for the first time the other night walking home from my friend’s apartment while I thought of my friendships here and how people have helped me and how people say I have helped them.  My friend here actually helped me believe it.  He actually made me feel real compassion for myself.  Maybe I was never opened to that kind of feeling before.  Maybe I never trusted it because in the US often we don’t believe in people in this way, we want to find the flaws in people, waiting for them to screw up, or we want to protect ourselves from something that could be false.  For the most part, my friends here are very expressive with their feelings and show their affection physically and verbally without all the sarcasm that we have in the US.  In fact, most of my students don’t even understand that word.

There are those small things here that I like that make me feel respected.  Of course kissing is the main greeting and expected when meeting someone for the first time or seeing friends or friends of friends.  I am always amazed when I come to someone’s house and even the little kids stop everything to come greet me and they do the same when I leave.  It’s expected of everyone no matter what the age.  In the US, often times the people closest to you won’t even get up from the sofa to answer the door for you, let alone have their kids acknowledge you.  And I grew up this way, being allowed to dismiss my own company.  This only ever trained me to assume that people are not important.

And, maybe this is why I want to stay a little longer here, because my thinking is changing.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what is going on in the States with the Occupy protests and how maybe many of us are waiting and hoping to return to that same lifestyle we have always lived in the States with job security and the availability of mostly whatever we want.  I think we have to accept the reality that nothing is certain and that striving for constant stability in life is sort of futile.  What we need to do in the US is start focusing on helping each other and to stop living so solitary like we have in the past.  So many of us (including myself) would never do anything for anyone if we did not feel that we were getting our fair share.  This is something I see that no longer works in my life.

The common criticism I hear of the protests is that “there are no handouts in life.”  I get that.  But what about compassion and kindness?  Do those things have to be earned?  Perhaps we could stop criticizing the protesters and instead do and say things to help empower them.  Obviously, they are people who have suffered.  Does it matter how or why or who is to blame?  It would be a bit more productive to give up this constant criticism of right and wrong and do something more real and affective for the good of our nation.  How great it would be to actually help people see that they don’t have to live like victims and can change and build their own lives without the limitations of fear.  I swear, the greatest thing we can do as a country is to be of real service to others no matter if we are being paid to do it or not.  It’s kind of a responsibility we have as human beings for the good of humanity.  We can only really do this through showing compassion and empathy, and through little things like actually listening to one another, and not through the joy of hearing ourselves tell each other what we are doing wrong.  I have learned this through the relationships in my life and I can see where I have constantly treated myself the same way.  It hasn’t benefited me at all to remain in this state of being.

I can honestly say that the greatest thing in my life is my friendship with others in the United States and here in South America.  I think of this often and I am so grateful.  I couldn’t survive being alone.  We create each other and so I think we should honor each other often.  I believe in this.

Mi Cumpleaños en San Pedro de Atacama

Two years ago, after I was laid off of my job, I wanted to change my life.  I started gathering every interest I have ever had and began the process of sorting out my life in order to build a new life that reflected me and not what I thought I should be doing.  For my 31st birthday that year, I took myself to Sedona, Arizona to be alone.  To think.  It was one of the best birthdays I have ever had…and it made up for my pitiful 30th birthday that for the most part went uncelebrated.  In Sedona that year, I set the intention to travel abroad and I have now finally realized that.  And so, this year I took myself to the desert again…but in Chile.  Last week I went to San Pedro de Atacama for my 33rd birthday, a two hour plane ride to the North of Chile.

The day prior to the trip was quite strange.  My Brazilian friend Alzinete flew to Santiago from Sao Paulo to celebrate my birthday and to accompany me on my trip; however she had been having health problems and thought it best to not go to such a remote place and be so far from a hospital.  Instead, she stayed in the city for my birthday dinner and decided to go to the beach to relax while I was in the desert.  This was also the advice of one my friends who had had similar symptoms to Alzinete in the past.  Oddly enough, during my birthday dinner Roxana was the one who became ill at the restaurant.  She had to leave immediately, but kept calling me to make sure I was okay because she felt she had ruined my birthday.  At the doctor’s office, she told the staff that she had a plane to catch.  Apparently, she had planned to surprise me at the airport the next morning to go with me to Atacama.  The doctor’s response must have been something like….ummm…you aren’t going anywhere.   I had no idea until the next day when she called me with a fragile little voice telling me that she had been planning this for months with another friend of mine named Farzad who would be meeting me in San Pedro later that night.

Despite all of the unusual circumstances, just the thought of Roxana planning this in addition to having my Brazilian friend visit me really made me feel amazing.

Traveling to the North gave me a different perspective of Chile.  For one, I was feeling more confident traveling on my own since I have been learning the language.  This gave me more reassurance and more desire to connect more with the country.

I also was so happy to finally get away from Santiago.  People always ask me if I like Chile and up until now I could only give an unfair response as I only really knew one area.  I’m just not a big city person and therefore not a huge fan of Santiago.  But also, I love the desert.  It has to be my favorite environment and it was my most loved place “to breathe again” when I needed a break from the endless suburban California coast.  Some people think of the desert as being a flat, stark place…but I think of open space, invigorating sunlight, and unique and bizarre landscapes that seem to transform themselves by altering their color depending on the time of day.

The morning of my actual birthday, I flew from Santiago to a small city in the North called Calama and from there I shared a taxi with two people I met at the airport to the bus station, where we all took a two hour bus ride to the town of San Pedro de Atacama.  San Pedro is a very small touristy town of all adobe buildings filled with restaurants, hostels and tour offices.   The first day while I was still alone, I joined a tour with three other people from Germany and Brazil to see some of the Lagoons and Salt Flats about an hour outside of the town.  The first day was so mellow.  I found the hostel that my friends had reserved, had dinner and waited for Farzad and his brother.

Some of the Salt Flats……

End of the First day……Sunset

Farzad and his brother from New York finally arrived around midnight.  We managed to find a restaurant that was still open and probably waited an hour and half for the pizza we ordered.  Service appeared to be the same as in Santiago.  Because we had no sleep the night before, we missed all of the early morning tours.  We also realized how it’s practically impossible to leave the town without joining a tour.  Farzad almost threw his Lonely Planet guide in the trash when he discovered the real cost of taking a taxi out of the town was at least ten times the amount listed in the book.  The first day with all of us seemed to be about walking aimlessly through the town and watching the Independence day parade.  September 18th is Chilean Independence Day, but it is celebrated for the entire four day weekend, day and night.

But, by four in the afternoon we were able to find a group to see a part of the desert called the Valley of the Moon.  This place resembled Death Valley in California and even had its own Valle de Muerte.  The heat was so intense in this place.  We were baking in the sun.  The Atacama desert is supposed to be the driest place on earth and I was having major allergy problems from all of the dust and sand that I was breathing in.

The walls of the canyon were covered with this texture…

This rock formation is called the “Three Marias,” except that we were told that four years ago a French tourist broke one of the Marias while hugging it to take a picture.  (I’m thinking its the one on the left?)

By the end of the day we were so exhausted from walking in the heat and my allergies were making it difficult to breathe.  We had enough energy to have dinner and drinks and then we were out. Farzad (who speaks maybe just a little less Spanish than I do) and I actually made a good team of putting all of our vocabulary together to ask questions and understand the people we met on the tours, at the hostel and in the restaurants.  The next morning we woke up to both the distant sounds of people still partying for the Independence Day as well as a rooster.  This rooster did not stop making noise for at least two hours.  I always thought roosters weren’t supposed to awaken people until the sun came up.  Farzad kept commenting that he was going to find the rooster and lock it in a room and turn the lights on.  When we finally did get out of bed, we met with a group of people to visit what is called the Lagunas Altiplanicas which included a National Reserve for Flamingos that existed in the middle of Salt Flats and water.

Gradually we made our way towards higher altitude which started to make me feel really sick.  Sometimes my love of nature makes my mind wander into these unrealistic fantasies of say….devoting all of my free time to learning every trail in the San Gabriel Mountains of Southern California and becoming an expert on plant life.  It’s just not going to happen.  Nor am I ever likely to hike the Appalachian Mountains or do any other such great hikes that have always fascinated me.  Five minutes out of the van on our hike at high altitude and I was nauseas and immobilized by the cold weather.  The scenery was incredible, but I’m sure I would have enjoyed it much more without the sudden migraine and dizziness.  I had to remain in one place while my friends walked on.

The next morning we woke up at 3:30 in the morning for a tour that only left at 4am.  This is because we had to take a two hour drive to see geysers that are only active for about two hours or less in the early morning.  This morning I wouldn’t have minded the rooster so much.  I tried to sleep a little on the way to the geysers, but I could not find a comfortable position as I sat next to the window in a freezing van.  I couldn’t get warm.  For some reason, we decided to wear our bathing suits under our clothes thinking we were going to go to hot springs and not really understanding what we were doing that day.  Thankfully, I was wearing many layers and brought my heavy coat.  The guys didn’t.   Once again we were in high altitude.  I left the van to walk around the geysers but couldn’t wait to return to the van.  This was the coldest I had felt in some time and once again, I felt some nausea from the altitude.

After the geysers, the three of us sat in the van and propped our heads up against the seats in front of us and fell in and out of sleep.  When I woke up we came to this small village to eat homemade empanadas and sopaipillas.

I just knew at the end of the day that I’ll never be the type to really put my backpack on and face real challenges in nature.  The extremes of experiencing the desert sun and then the ice and the wind in addition to the altitude changes really wore me out.  But something about this exhaustion caused me to think about how maybe I don’t need to push myself anyway.  I actually felt pleased with the idea of going back to Santiago to rest.  I mean usually I am notorious for planning my next trip or wanting more adventure…more time away, but this time I just felt like four days in the desert was enough.  And I also felt fortunate.  I saw some amazing places that maybe some people will never see.  I don’t need to be the authority on nature or the great adventurer.  And in relation to other parts of my life, I thought about how I also don’t need to be the great artist or teacher.  Much of my time in Santiago has been spent sort of pressuring myself to reinvent myself and recover for all of my years not going after what I wanted.   If anything, all I was really feeling at the moment was weak.  In regards to coming to South America, My friend Roxana likes to tell me that we don’t need the gold medal and that it’s enough that we showed up.  The desert knocked me out.  The thing on my mind most was how much I wanted to take better care of my health especially before attempting big hikes or adventures and especially after seeing my friend black out without warning before I left.

Leaving the desert, I realized how I actually feel satisfied for once in my life.  I have enough, is a little phrase that kept playing in my head on the way home.  Maybe it’s that I am finally really adjusting to being in South America or that I have been away from my life in the States long enough to let go of a lot of things.

I think mostly what I’ve come to terms with lately is that I don’t need to do it all.  That I’m really happy with what I have done and what I am doing.  Having my friend come all the way from Brazil and having Roxana plan such a great surprise for my birthday also made me feel satisfied with the people in my life.  I’m not sure I have ever felt this way.  That in itself is the biggest accomplishment for me.  Two birthdays ago in Sedona was much different.

4th of July….and Being a Vegetarian

Yesterday we celebrated our own 4^th of July (it was actually the 3^rd, but it was the best we could do) by having a BBQ in the park.  This time Roxie had all of our plans colored coded in an excel spreadsheet (which I didn’t read and was reprimanded for!).  We didn’t have fireworks, but at least we had good food (and an abundance of rice).  I was specifically told to make rice for 19 people and of course only one serving of it was actually eaten and I think that was just someone being nice.   One of the guys showed me how he had taken some of it: “See, I’m having some, Jen.”  I looked and he had taken a small sympathy spoonful.  I knew no one was going to eat that stuff.  Rice is like that side dish that you eat last because there isn’t anything else good leftover…or, if you are vegetarian like me.  So now I have rice for 18 people sitting in my refrigerator.

I love how whenever I go to events that involve eating that people assume because I’m a vegetarian, I can be satisfied by just eating some lettuce.  “Oh, there will be something there for you to eat,” is usually the response I get and usually it’s like a piece of cheese or something that someone pulls out of the refrigerator at the last minute.

Vegetarian food here has no imagination.  In the States, a Vegetarian sandwich (commonly called the “health sandwich” as my friend always likes to point out and laugh at – this could just be a California thing) has things like avocado and sprouts and other vegetables carefully chosen for the perfect combination, on some kind of thick toasted wheat bread usually with seasonings and flavor.  The sandwich actually has weight to it and some creativity.  Here, it’s like someone bought a bag of plain white wonder bread and cut up a tomato and put some pieces of canned corn or other such flavorless vegetables inside it.  It feels as if the chef took their inspiration from cleaning out the refrigerator and figuring they could either throw the stuff in the dog’s bowl or make a sandwich.   No taste, no thought…It just sucks.  No one can fathom a meal without some kind of beef or chicken or pork.  The other day I ordered what was called “The Vegetarian” from a small restaurant in between classes.  I only had a vague idea of what that consisted of and assumed it was a salad of some sort, but I was perplexed when I opened up the box while I walked down the street and noticed there was a heap of chicken on top.  I took the box back and explained that there must be some mistake and so the guy just opened the box and grabbed all of the chicken and gave the box back to me.  Needless to say, I make most of my food at home.

I declined meat from one of the guys at the BBQ yesterday, telling him that I don’t eat meat and he didn’t hesitate to inform me that “that will change if you stay here,” but I have news for him; it won’t.

I haven’t eaten meat in almost 7 years now.  I try not to be a pain in the ass about it, but it’s been so long without meat that, I’m sorry, but I’m probably not going to start eating the stuff again at this point, no matter how much people try to tell me I need more protein and no matter how much I try to tell people I have my own sources of protein.  All I know is that my body feels much better without it and I rarely get sick anymore as opposed to before.

It’s funny to me how some people respond when I tell them I don’t eat meat.  Some people actually get quite defensive and edgy about it.  It’s strange to me.  It’s just food.  My mom tends to react this way and always adds “well, we eat meat here,” (referring to her and my dad) as if my decision is an attack on them.  She used to take it very personally in the beginning, insisting that I can eat her chicken, as if I had to choose between vegetarianism or my family.  Mostly, I think it’s just that she doesn’t appreciate her own lifestyle being challenged by her own kid.  And that’s why she has a tendency to announce to a roomful of people that her daughter doesn’t eat meat, and then she kind of waits around to see if anyone will join her in agreement of criticizing my highly “defiant” act that doesn’t jive with her own cooking.  It doesn’t matter how many years go by, my parents still react to me like I am 15 years old and trying to purposely disobey them by getting part of my body pierced.  Alas, I’m the youngest and I will never be seen as an adult.

My friend from the US recently sent me a box of foods and other odd things I am missing here.  The package included things like real organic peanut butter and organic cheese puffs which were all eaten in the first day of receiving the package.  Only in the US would they actually make cheese puffs organic.  And they do it just for people like me who claim to be all health conscious and assume…organic = healthy.  Its cheese puffs for god’s sake.

I want organic refried beans to be in his next package.  He thinks this is an unusual request.   He assumes that Chile must be the same as Mexico and he can’t wrap his head around the fact that beans aren’t a big deal down here.  I miss Mexican food.  Its not the same here and you can’t get beans in a can here without paying $4 and finding them at the giant grocery store across the city.   I don’t have the time and patience to always soak beans and make a dinner that takes 2 days when it normally only took me ten minutes in the States.

(So instead of paying $4, I make my friend pay $50 to send them from the US).  I know it really doesn’t make any sense.

We actually had warmer weather yesterday and so it was nice to be in the park and actually be able to be without a coat for part of the day.  Recently, it rained and so all of the mountains surrounding the city are now covered in snow:

My personal favorite…thanks to yoga…..

 Yes, we shamelessly painted our faces:

After the BBQ, the guy who is convinced that I will eat meat again, gave me a ride home.  I pleaded:  Please don’t make me ride the metro home (alone) with an American flag painted on my face…my poor non-meat eating self is bound to get into some kind of trouble!

In the spirit of the 4^th of July, this morning I gave one of my more advanced students a reading about the holiday from the New York Times called “Red, White and Blue and Many Other Colors.”  It was a sentimental article complete with quotes from the National Anthem about immigrants coming into the harbor in New York City for the first time and gazing at the Statue of Liberty.   The writer ended the article saying “God bless all of you on this great day and god bless America,“ and of course this made both of us laugh immediately.  I left his office and his last words to me were: “God bless!” while my other advanced student drew an arrow on his copy of the article and added “South” to “God Bless America.”  My less advanced student just looked at me, confused and asked “What’s a firecracker?”

 

Family and Friendship…

Yesterday was a great day.  I finally made it out of the city and went hiking with friends and friends of friends.  Roxana organized all of us to get together and go hiking for the day and have lunch in Pirque, a small town outside of Santiago.

Yesterday was one of those days where I couldn’t take anything too seriously.  Maybe its how being in nature makes me feel a little giddy, but I forgot how much good humor I find in all situations even if I have a tendency to laugh at maybe not the most appropriate times as well.  I remember camping with a friend of mine years ago in the desert, setting up our tent and going for a bike ride.  When we returned, all of our things were gone.  Our tent had blown away in the wind.  He was pissed.  I couldn’t stop laughing.  I remember him not being very pleased with my reaction.

I am pretty sure this comes from growing up on ridiculous comedies and maybe also the last 10 years of reality tv shows combined.  I was happy to sit in the back of the bus like a trouble maker scheming with my French friend and being disciplined by Roxana.  I swear she is such a leader and such a great organizer.  The price I pay for my sense of humor is that I am not a great leader, nor a good organizer.  In fact, I fail when it comes to those things much of the time.  I don’t have the personality to pull off what she does.  She even had all of us introduce ourselves and do that thing where you have everyone say one interesting thing about themselves.  I wanted her to have a clip board and a headset and pass out name tags too.

Friendship is so important to me.  It always has been.  I rarely get to see my family and to make up for it I have made exceptionally close friendships in my life with both men and women…they are like my replacement family.

I’m not sure if I consider my biological family close.  It bothers me.  I try to call my mom once a week.  I try, but I don’t always do it.  I haven’t seen my sister in almost 7 years and my brother…I haven’t seen him in at least 3 or more years and I only see my other brother due to the fact that he lives semi close to my parents, so when I see them maybe once a year, I usually see him as well.  Is this normal for us in the US?  My dad and I have never been very close, but his one wish for me was to actually write to my sister to say hi and break the ice a little between us.  Why weren’t we talking?  I have no idea.  I think it’s merely just a lack of consciousness we have for communication.  I feel my real family fading away in the dust and it bothers me immensely.

Sometimes I think about how years ago I couldn’t imagine never seeing my siblings…how they were such an integral part of my life.  How did I ever end up with this completely disconnected family?

I always remember the one time my brother came to California because of his job.  He just happened to visit me as well.  I met him at his hotel and we spent the evening together.  The next morning his flight was canceled and he irritatedly referred to the rest of the day together as “dead time.”  That kind of stung. But then at the same time I hear from so many people that know him about how much he talks about me and how much he thinks about me.  He isn’t the only person like this in my life.  Why can’t we just say how we feel to the actual person we have these feelings for?  And why is it easier to express it to someone else?  My mom always says, “You know your dad talks about you a lot,” but he isn’t talking about me to me so how would I know?  In addition to this, my family has always had a habit of insulting each other and its sort of an affectionate thing.  Tough love.  I kinda have a feeling that this is normal for many American families.

So much of American culture is based on independence.  If you are still living with your family after 20 years old then something is wrong with you…or at least that is what we assume.  I haven’t lived near my parents since I was 18 years old other than a small stretch of time when I needed to stay with them for financial reasons.  I missed out on a consistent relationship with my brother and his family and all of my nephews and my niece.  Suddenly my niece is 14 years old this year.  Suddenly my parents have grey hair and all kinds of medical problems.  When did they age?  I was never around long enough to witness all of the transitions.

Maybe I needed them more.  Maybe leaving them so young was actually a premature thing to do because the lack of them has made me seek it in others and I’ve maybe stayed in relationships way too long or formed bonds that maybe I shouldn’t have because of this.

At the same time, to appear needy at least in the US is completely unacceptable and so I was taught that I need to do it all on my own and I need to be proud of this.  I am proud of it.  I have done a lot just solo…more than I give myself credit for most of the time.  I’m definitely not afraid of being alone.  I can take care of myself and I can support myself just fine even if I slip up sometimes and get my Ipod stolen or forget my keys or have to go back to my apartment two or three times after I intended to leave to get something else.    One of my ex-boyfriends used to call me “two trips” because I couldn’t just leave the apartment the first time.  I’m not perfect.

I am thankful for Roxana because currently she is my stand in family and she does a good job of it.  She also does a good job of including all sorts of other people that are new here.  Our new addition was a guy from the States who lost his financial job during the beginning of the economic crisis in the US and changed his life becoming a yoga instructor and looking towards spirituality instead of the American dream.  That’s not much of a unique story these days.

I think I would absolutely go crazy if I didn’t have at least one good friend here that I could really communicate with inside out.  I’m realizing so much how I actually do need people in my life and maybe being so overly independent isn’t all that its cracked up to be.

The mountains were beautiful yesterday and it was so nice to breathe fresh air again.  Between that and having laughed all day, I feel somewhat renewed from all of it.