Are Places What We Expect?

One of my life dreams was always to visit Machu Picchu, Peru.  It was probably one of the greatest travel aspirations that I have had for most of my life.  It is interesting to say that here because it isn’t so uncommon for people to travel between countries.  But for me, coming from a place like the U.S. where we tend to not travel outside of our own country that often for a variety of reasons, I had always imagined Machu Picchu when I was younger as a place that was remote, far away and unattainable.  Years ago, I probably felt that way about all of South America.  Perhaps because throughout my childhood, all of my memories of the news on TV centered on scenes of guerilla war and uprisings (many caused by our own government) as well as drug trafficking.  Never mind the major contrast of all of the Latin American countries, not to mention the major distances between them, our news helped grow the vision that all of Latin America together must be the same:  unsafe.  Interestingly enough, most of my students are now having the same thoughts towards the U.S. after continuously hearing about loose gunmen randomly killing people in schools and movie theaters. Their opinion is that we are somewhat crazy, and I think they probably have good reason to think so.

The truth is that flying into Cusco, the closest city to Machu Picchu was really very easy.  While the city is somewhat touristy and the local people are adamantly trying to sell you things like hats and magnets and massages on every corner, it is definitely a place where I felt for the most part, serene.  The architecture is a combination of the colonial Spanish and the indigenous Quechua culture of the Andes Mountains.  For me, having a vacation from the dreary winter of Santiago, I couldn’t get enough of the clear sky and the balky clouds that hover low that remind me of places like the desert of New Mexico and Arizona.  The only problem was becoming accustomed to the higher altitude during the first day which led to me spending the first five hours in bed nauseous, with a migraine headache.  However, the hostel provided plenty of free coca tea which supposedly relieves these symptoms.  I think my body eventually adjusted.

In the days leading up to Machu Picchu, I was able to travel outside the city to an area called the Sacred Valley which is filled with scattered indigenous ruins.

     

There are two options for seeing Machu Picchu.  One is by taking a train from outside of Cusco and the other is by hiking the Inca Trail.  Because access to the trail is limited by the number of people per year in an attempt to preserve its existence, the latter involves making a reservation at least five months in advance with a guide and a small group of other hikers.  This is what I decided to do and yes, the trail can be tough at times, but it’s really the better way to see Machu Picchu.  Not only because you see many other ruins along the way and have the opportunity to connect with other travelers from different countries, it also builds more of an anticipation to reach the destination.  And, in addition, you acquire much more of a relationship with the land.  The hike is not completely difficult as I passed many people that were very young and very old, but it can be exhausting since you are walking six to eight hours each day up and down very steep steps, part of the time in the rain, the second day being the most strenuous.

   

We were lucky enough to have signed up with the tour that we did because I have heard of some that give little food.  On the contrary, ours offered three huge meals each day and not mediocre food, but a variety of homemade soups and vegetable and meat dishes complete with a dessert.  Below are the men that carried and prepared all of our food and equipment.

These men, some of them wearing only sandals literally ran very quickly ahead of us on the trail transporting all of these items on their backs.  Some people even paid them to carry their own personal belongings as well.

Usually it takes four days to reach Machu Picchu, but our group arrived just before sunset on the third day which only gave us enough time to view it from a distance and relax a little before walking to Aguas Calientes, the closest small town to stay the night in a hostel.  The next morning we returned around 6am to have an official guided tour of the site, unfortunately, in the rain.  The area was covered in a thick layer of fog that later began to disappear.

Not long after our tour, hundreds of other tourists began appearing which made me think of when I went to the Grand Canyon and found myself bombarded with large buses of loud mouthed families all anxiously waiting their turn to take pictures of themselves on the edge of the cliff.  It sort of disrupts the serenity of it all, to say the least, especially after spending so many days away from the sounds of vehicles and city life.  Therefore…..

No, I didn’t have any spiritual realizations.  For some reason, I always considered that I would, but I find that I have those in moments that are more unanticipated.  This is why I am happy that I experienced the hike, because the actions of walking the steps and spending so much time under the trees and noticing all of the subtle changes in landscape and climate and altitude from the beginning to end are what affected me most and what I will most remember of Machu Picchu.  Sometimes I like to think of places in terms of relationships and so I could say that in some ways, I had a short encounter with a very beautiful and amazing place and I wish I had had more time to continue knowing it.

  

And, it was an interesting experience having always imagined a place, a perfect place and always carrying a certain image of how I might be changed in some way by that place.  The reality is that real change cannot be predicted or foreseen or maybe even longed for; instead, it is usually quite unexpected.  I must admit with some honesty that I am more certain that I have had spiritual and emotional shifts in places like….yes, Santiago… only because it is a place that has tested my patience and caused me to struggle in ways that have forced me to grow as a person.   It is a place that I have built a relationship with and in this respect, I am always seeing myself mirrored back to me, the good and the bad.  And so, the trip made me think a lot about the expectations I project towards places as well as the time limits I place upon them.

Finishing the trip also made me think a lot about fulfilling life dreams and life goals.  It sort of gave me that dreaded what’s next? feeling.  Maybe it’s even caused me to feel like I can be finished (at least temporarily) with all of that traveling I was dying to do all those years.  Not that I don’t want to see other places, but at the same time, I can let go of that feeling of having never really experienced life outside my country in a profound way.  It’s no longer a big mystery and I see it as something do-able instead of unattainable.   I guess my goals in life are returning to that need to once again build a career for myself and maybe how to do it a little differently this time, and that leaves me with making some decisions on how to approach things next.

I used to think I would know what to do when the time presented itself to me…but I think it’s more like me being ready enough to seek out the time and knowing that making the decision is just like taking an opportunity…like trying something new and interesting.

Whatever I decide, the process continues…

I’m Still Here…

So…It’s the beginning of May and I haven’t written in this blog since sometime in December.  The longer the time has elapsed the more intimidating it has become to produce something new…just because I think after the last 4 months I should perhaps report back something…say…earth shattering.  However, it’s not really the case.

I’m still here.

But I did take advantage of the summer here and had an extended period of vacations in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil…    

    

      

    

      

And when I came back, I felt great.

And now I also have the new experience of dating someone in Santiago which is making me happy:)

And I am also painting again.  Returning to my art has been great…even if I am not doing it every day.

Of course when I think about being here…I am still pressuring myself over finding a good meaning and purpose and if am I am living up to all that I could do here…not only for myself, but I also spend a lot of time being conscious of my affect on others as a foreigner here.  Probably I’m not, at least living up to all of the expectations I place on myself and sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed…in fact I think too much focus on this stops me dead in the tracks of enjoying myself here.

A couple years ago I worked for a mental health institute, as an assistant to train people in the mental health field.  There I learned about a concept in which all people have a “core value.”  It speaks of the person one is at their core beyond what defines them as a worker with skills or even their own personality traits.  The process of learning about your “core value” is through a series of questions which takes place in a group.  It can last for hours as the group discusses and decides what they feel could possibly motivate you as a person.  I remember mine being about curiosity.  It was as simple as that.  I’m a curious person and somehow my curiosity is supposed to work for me in this life.

As I return to how I originally felt about coming here, I think about how I tried something very random and let myself see where I would go with that experience…all for the joy of exploring and traveling.  Each experience building upon another…and here I am.  When I think of the core of me…a person who loves to investigate and experience things….I came here because I was acting on an instinctual desire of something I love to do for my own curiosity.  Maybe it was a little random, but I started something and now I am trying to figure out what it means to me.

Because i’ve been painting again, I’ve realized that my process of painting is very similar…because I have always started my work with some very random marks and no image in mind (all of my work is abstract)…and many layers later it slowly becomes something but not without fighting with it.  The constant struggle is the part I hate and so I always feel like I don’t completely love painting.

For years this has made me think that maybe I am not a “real” painter…because it doesn’t always flow for me.  Actually, it never completely flows for me and sometimes I have no idea what the hell I am working towards because I had no idea in the first place (one would think that by now I would considering making a plan…but I just don’t work that way!!).  Usually the middle point of my paintings look like a freaking mess of small build ups of texture and color that I don’t want to give up, but they don’t quite support the whole of the painting.  Usually it takes me some time to back away and come back and simplify everything after I’ve let it be for a while.  Every painting is the same.  During the process of it all, it’s difficult for me to realize that I need to eliminate those things to find a balance in the painting.  It can make me feel very insecure as a painter.  The only thing that keeps me going is that somehow I have always had this tenacity (coincidentally…very similar to my last name) where I don’t give up until I find some sort of ending that satisfies me.  And I always love the outcome of all my work.

If that is not an analogy of the way I live my life, I don’t know what is.  My creative process pretty much equals the way in which I live my life.  I struggle and try to do so many things that seem to sometimes be going somewhere or that might lead to something temporarily but then go nowhere and something inside me tries to resist so many things that could perhaps be easier until one day I clear away all of the fears and “problems” and find a sudden peaceful resolution.  The thing is…for some reason I have to go through trying all the possibilities until I find that resolution.  I don’t know any other way.  Yet, I always put up the same fight because there are so many times when I hold on so tight to those same “small build ups of texture and color” in my life that I think are going to keep me feeling so “secure,” but are not supporting the real me totally.  And, just as with my art, it makes me also not always completely love myself.

My original intentions of being here were to explore.  It wasn’t until I came here that my purpose began changing and taking different forms and avenues…maybe I need to remind myself of the origin of who I am…that person who loves to “explore and investigate”…who is “curious”…and that it is okay just being that…because I can feel downright insecure considering all of my plans and intentions and whether I am doing all of them the best I can.

Leaving the city for the day yesterday and being in nature, was an affirmation to give space for what I love.  It reminds me of my very first blog entry of when I went hiking in the mountains for the first time here.

Maybe the best purpose I can offer in my life right now is what I feel that my art is supposed to be about until I begin challenging it with all of the expectations of what the outcome should be…its a matter of play…the joy of building and creating and seeing where it takes me.  I perfected this in my childhood and as an adult I hold on.  This is what I need to remember about both painting and my life…to take a little advice from my silly side in which I feel the most free…let go of trying to make it all work, give it some space and accept the absurdity of it all because maybe that is where I sort everything out and it comes together for me.

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.

Getting back to myself..

For so long I have been talking about manifesting the things I want and trying hard to attain these things, in order to improve my life.  I feel like I have been doing the work for this for years now.   I’ve read so many books that have made me change parts of my life in terms of how I take care of myself physically or that have altered my perspective about life in general.   I’ve tried going to all kinds of churches and spiritual centers, I’ve done 12 step programs…I did the Artist Way.  All of these things gave me something, but they never gave me that thing that kept me from feeling still partially dissatisfied.

My friend Roxana asks me this question:   “What is it you have to offer other people?”  As I rack my brain for the most truthful answer to this question, mostly I find myself silent.  This she says is what I really have to work on.

Personally, at first I found this very frustrating as my immediate response was:  AGH!  I’ve done enough already!  I mean, from everything I have mentioned above, I felt like this is actually more of time in my life to finally relax, and instead her question left me once again thinking of what more I could do artistically or what kind of project I could get myself involved in..

But then, I realized the other day after the 4^th of July how much I just enjoy laughing and being with people…I enjoy making people laugh.  I enjoy laughing at myself.  In fact, I love it.  I love all of the ridiculous things that I do and all of the ridiculous things that happen to me and I love sharing it.  For so long I feel like my sense of humor has been buried, in the midst of trying to become someone I am not.  And, while it might not be the most productive way of being, I secretly love being that person who didn’t read the schedule and who asks what we are doing for the rest of the day.

Recently, my friend wrote me from the States informing me in a long email about how she was so inspired by me and the things I have accomplished that she pushed herself to attempt becoming an intern for LA Yoga Magazine, and upon inquiring into this, instead was offered to be one of the staff writers.  She actually wrote about owing it to me for getting this new position.  This makes me feel somewhat weird, because in so many ways, I don’t see myself doing anything that magnificent here.  I mean plenty of people travel and many people work abroad in much more unique and amazing careers.   And, I always imagine how I need to keep striving to be better to achieve that sort of status whether it be as an artist or in something else.  In fact, I am always seeing how I need to be more like her.  It has never occurred to me that maybe by just being me in all that I am not…is enough.  It was enough to somehow change part of my friend’s life.  In addition, I have received so many comments on my blog from people, emails and such that have really blown my mind.  For one, I am astonished that people actually read the thing, but for some people to keep reading every entry and to write me about how I inspired them or made them think just makes me feel great.  When I think about it, maybe what I see as a life that I constantly want to change and alter and improve upon is actually just the life that is okay as it is.

So maybe the most honest answer that I can give to what it is I have to offer people is actually just me being myself.

And instead of always searching for something outside of myself to give to the world, I am better off beginning by just expressing the person I am now and investing in things in which I find joy.  That is the most positive thing I can offer at this point.  This constant search for something beyond what I am in this moment, has only lead me to constant struggle and this is not the kind of energy I want to continue sharing.  Certainly, volunteer work and furthering my art career, along with using the social system that we have of entering certain careers is important, but those things can never be fully realized until I am okay with being without them first and by just being solely the person I am in all honesty.

I started this blog to have something fun to do…to record my time here and because I imagined I’d go crazy if I wasn’t working on something creative.  And, I came here for the love of traveling.  Travel and writing, along with sharing a sense of humor have been by far the things in which I find the most joy in my life.  To not permit myself to do the things in which I find so much enjoyment, would keep me from fully expressing that which I am.   And this is part of the reason I have always felt unfulfilled in the past.

As I’ve mentioned so many times on here, I never allowed my mind any amount of silence in the US.   And here, I just don’t worry about much at all.  I sometimes wonder if it is because the energy here is different.  Maybe in the US, we have a shared energy of things having to be just right all of the time, a shared energy of not having enough, of not being in the right place.  All of this can be very confusing and contradictory as we listen to so many people in all sorts of authority roles tell us how we should live our lives.  Perhaps it’s our media, our news never having anything positive to say, the fact that we love competition, the fact that we for the most part are obsessed with work, the fact that we often love to see people get what we think they deserve and nothing more and that also as a nation we seem to thrive off of fear.  It seems to consume us, making us afraid of not having insurance for every possible thing that could go wrong and making us feel like we must save and save for any conceivable emergency that might happen instead of actually using the money that we earn for any kind of true pleasure.  We go to work sick because we fear disappointing others and we only rarely take vacations.  We are accustomed to attaching guilt to those that actually do miss work.  We are conditioned to avoid certain people and places because we imagine them unsafe.  It seems like we live a large part of our lives thinking only about what could go wrong.  We have no training to handle any uncertainty or to see where it actually may be of value.  I wonder if this is why I felt like life was so overwhelming back in the States and why it was so hard for me to move beyond things or to say goodbye to things a lot of the time…so afraid to be without my own false security.  I’m really not sure, but here, I just don’t feel that kind of pressure and I sometimes wonder how I will feel when I once again am living in the US.

I am not saying it is better here or that there aren’t people here that don’t fall into the same category.  And, there are certainly tons of things I miss and wish I had here.  So many things are much more available and more convenient in the States and being here has in fact made me more appreciative of those things.  Let me repeat once again how much I realize how spoiled I was in California.  I had a very good life despite the numerous complaints I often daily voiced.  I lived near the beach with many great friends, not to mention inexpensive food of different varieties from all over the world available always, stores open all night, tons of cultural things to do, places to ride my bike, places to do just about anything imaginable.  Maybe the only thing absent for me in California was joy.  And I’m not talking about the joy that comes from always being constantly entertained, but merely the joy and happiness for all that I have and all that I am and all that I CAN do. Losing my job and experiencing periods of unemployment during the last two years in the States began to shift my perspective on this.  And here, while I can only rarely eat food at a restaurant, as food is very expensive, and while I don’t have a car to escape the city and the smog (it’s much, much more expensive to even own a car here, not to mention gas is at least double the price here than in the States), I now depend on the few friendships I’ve made, and I find activities to do on the weekend.  And I actually get really excited about the possibility of getting into a car and spending the day walking in nature…not such a novelty in the States.  But, I actually feel like, wow, I GET to do this here, while in the States, I only felt that things were never enough.  The ironic thing being that I always had so much more there.

I don’t love it here.  I do love my own country.  But, I am also trying to understand how I can love a place full of so much hostility.

Sometimes I read the news feed on Face Book and I see so many complaints from different people in the States.  I see people write about what they consider are incompetent people at their jobs.  I see people write about their neighbors, their relationships…with so much negativity.  I get it.  I just wonder though if we have all jointly manifested this kind of national unhappiness through all of the expectations we have created of one another, including ourselves.  And, I just wonder if somehow we could all practice a little empathy.  It’s not necessary that everyone be perfect nor that we all be the same.   And also I wonder if we could practice a little more joy for that which we do have an abundance of, especially compared to the rest of the world.   If we could all realize how much we have available to us and how much freedom we waste by not changing parts of our lives that are no longer doing ourselves or anyone else justice.  These are things that many people are unable to change in other parts of the world due to many reasons that are economic or social or because their governments won’t allow it.  We ARE actually free to do what we want.  It’s not always without a lot of effort and not always without giving something else up, but the point is that we GET to make those choices.  It just takes some courage to live life a little less secure and to allow our real selves to be expressed.

Where is the fun?

I have been discovering that it is hard to meet people in their 30’s here…meaning single people like me who have come here just to break up the routine of life in their home countries.  I meet a lot of people in the 20’s age range who are usually first time travelers and students, and beyond that I meet a lot of people who have come here to retire.

Roxana and I recently hosted an event for expats in their 30’s.  Although about 18 people confirmed that they were coming, only four people showed up.  And, I am no judge of appearance, but the two men were perhaps not in their 30’s.  The thing we did all have in common was the frustration we felt in connecting with other people similar to ourselves…30’s, 40’s, 50’s….it’s all the same.

After this event, we had to think about what kind of social life we are to expect here.

Around the time of this event, which I credit Roxana for organizing, (I just showed up and attached my name to the event posting), we met for dinner at her apartment and she invited her friend.

Her friend is a psychotherapist.  Maybe you can see where I am going with this – but suddenly dinner seemed more like an intervention for all involved.  He knew as much English as I knew Spanish, so Roxana had to translate.  He made me draw a pie of the areas of life in which I divide my time.  About three quarters of my pie was work.  Aside from my actual job, there were maybe 3 big slices of projects I was getting into, starting, finishing, creating…  Very productive!  The rest…the rest was time I spend on the internet researching things for projects I can start, finish and create.  Very productive, very driven and also maybe very boring.  My pie looks like a resume.  I was a little disappointed to discover my life resembles a corporation instead of a human being.  Where’s the fun…aside from the small sliver of pie that included dinner at Roxana’s apartment?

He also recognized that not one part of the pie reflected time that I spend being a woman.

A woman?

How from everything I’ve learned in life in the US about working hard and striving to do better does it come down to my biggest problem being that I’m not having enough fun?  And being a woman?

What a bummer.

My diagnosis:  I need to have more fun and go out and meet people and not to just network for work, but to actually laugh and just hang out and be idle.

When did my life become so serious?  The thing I love to do most in life is laugh and play and they might be the things I spend the least amount of time doing these days other than the times I am able to slip in some sarcasm or joke about some absurd situation I have put myself in and please believe those situations are ample for me here.  I love ridiculous movies.  The other night I stayed up until 2am watching National Lampoon’s National Vacation on TV for the three hundredth time.  And, thank god it was in English.  A while ago, I tried watching School of Rock and couldn’t bare Jack Black’s dubbed in Spanish voice.  The thing is, I still feel very much like a kid and I need to defend my silliness.  But, it’s kind of difficult when at the same time I am expecting myself to be like this person that is supposed to be constantly spiraling higher and higher towards success and self improvement in all ways every day.

I felt pulled in two directions sometimes in the US.  Because at times, I missed the days when I could go to an art exhibition and steal the wine and barely look at the art or the times when my friends and I would go dance every night at the Turkish bar in Laguna Beach instead of taking advantage of the studio spaces we were so fortunate enough to have at the time.  I mean, come on.  We had extremely affordable art studios in the most expensive art city in California and we only half used them for work.  Not to mention we lived in a place with tons of possible connections…an abundance of people ripe for networking, but it was the last thing I did.  Maybe ever since I turned 30, I felt like I had to pay for it by constantly working, worrying and wishing to get ahead.  Everything I’ve been doing for the last several years has been in order to fulfill some sort of purpose to improve my life.  I did yoga, because it made me feel better or I road my bike for exercise.  I met friends because there was an art show or some other event.  Occasionally I would see my old friends who were also trying to recover all their years of not getting ahead.  I also had a relationship with little romance.  We were like two individuals working as a team to help each other survive, very honorable, but we had very little fun together just as a couple in separation from everything we had going on.   In fact the relationship mostly involved working, be it for money or on ourselves.  I don’t mean to sound cheesy here, but a little romance can go a long way.  It does wonders to your soul to feel wanted and to feel the way in which god made me.  As a woman.

So it’s true.  Where is the time I spend being a woman, you know, kinda like I used to do once upon a time back in my early 20’s before I somehow forgot what it was like to live like a female and not a constant problem solver…

This question has really thrown me off.

Being “Laid Back”

The internet is down in my apartment.  Its little things like that that make me want to go back to the States because I am certain that if this happened to me in the States, I could call someone first thing in the morning and someone would be here to fix the problem, but here I know that I should anticipate at least a week of down time before finding resolution.  I can check my email at the café, but I need Skype so I can call my mom.  My mom doesn’t have email, so our only communication is if I call her landline via Skype.  She’s still convinced that having the internet is going to “tie up the phone lines” no matter how much I tell her it’s not 1996 anymore.   It’s like living in two faltering worlds between her and Chile.

I’m so used to everything being fast and easy in the States even though I’m sure I complained a bunch, I never realized how good I had it….how everything was so much more convenient and organized.

I went to make copies a few weeks ago at the copy store here and they were out of paper.  I mean, how can you be a copy center and run out of your most vital item?  First off, why even stay open?  And why was this not anticipated ahead of time when you took inventory?  And on top of that, why isn’t someone panicking and making emergency runs to Office Depot?  The man didn’t even care.  He just sort of casually looked at me and said he didn’t have any paper.   There was no “I’m so sorry for the inconvenience”.  Can you imagine what kind of chaos this would create if Kinko’s suddenly ran out of paper in the US?  (It’s funny to me because I used to think Kinko’s had the absolute worst customer service ever, but at least they had paper!)

Restaurant service is interesting here too.  Pretty much there seems to be no service.  Once you get your food don’t plan on ever seeing your waiter again for anything, not even the check.

People from the East Coast of the US often like to complain about people on the West Coast for being too laid back.  (and yes, I was once one of these people).   Should we even contemplate how on earth being “laid back” ever came to be a negative thing?  Yes, it’s much better to have everyone stressed and worried!  Go East Coast!!!   Somehow some illusion was created that people from the East Coast are efficient and model workers while people from California are too busy hanging at the beach to be doing anything responsible.   Lax.  Lazy.  Laid back.  I disagree.

Number one, I don’t think any American has any clue what it really is to be laid back.  I know I don’t.  We have too many expectations for the immediate.   And expectations that are not met cause stress.   And no stressed out person can be “laid back.”  To everyone from California:  How laid back do you really feel driving on the 405 freeway?  Isn’t it a blast?  Thank god you can roll down your window and enjoy the California sun.

Let’s be clear on where this whole laid back irritation comes from and let’s be clear on what we expect of each other as efficient workers.  Is it that we want people to be productive and passionately helping each other or is it that we want to see people stressed out and depleted just as much as we are in our own lives?  And if we don’t see that in each other then we criticize each other for the lack of it.  Because the latter enables us to give validation to all of the reasons we have for doing all of the work we do: agitated, we feel like we have to do all of these things because no one else will.  In reality, we work so much because we are afraid not to.  Our work seems to give us some sense of power, some identity and we’d be lost without it.  Unfortunately the only identity its offering is as a stressed out, overworked person.

Experiencing life here creates a completely new definition of laid back for me.  And from what I hear, Chile is supposed to be the least laid back of all of the Latin American countries.  I can believe this after being in Brazil.  I don’t know how anyone gets anything done in that country.  Every night was a party.

In some respects, even though I did not feel this at the time, I say kudos to the copy guy for not giving a shit about being a copy center that had no paper for the day.  He had no urgency in his response with me.  This is truly laid back and I can kind of get it.  There is a difference between having urgency to do something and having a passion to do something.  I have a passion to create art.  I don’t have a passion to make sure Kinko’s is stocked with paper.  And I’m pretty sure that this man had no passion for stocking paper anymore than I do.  Why should he fake it for me?  But I’m also sure he knows how to run his business as well.  I mean, it still exists and I’m sure it’s existed long before I was here.  Of course, it’s supported by a people that are used to living this way.  So obviously you can survive and not have to be anxious about pleasing everyone that you encounter.  Maybe it’s even possible to take care of your own needs first before helping those around you.  I don’t mean to sound selfish, but even the airlines believe it’s safer that way.  Allowing work to consume us because we are freaked out about other people’s expectations and deadlines has only made us miserable people that expect everyone to be like us.  Work first, then family, then yourself.  But if you are not healthy enough to care for yourself, how are you expected to have the energy to care for anything else?

One last thing.   The Metro.

The metro during rush hour is a complete nightmare.  It’s awful.  You will be crushed if you are not careful.  I’ve never seen anything like this before.  There seems to be no limit to the amount of people you can pile onto the cars and no safety precautions.  I’m pretty sure in the US, this would not be allowed.  I actually had an old man jump in front of me and push me out of the way so he could get on the train before me.  “What is wrong with you!?” (I wish I knew how to say and said in Spanish at the time).  My first instinct is to push him back, but no one does that here.  It just seems to be accepted that you can act like a jackass and people put up with it.  I don’t get that.   No one seems to mind being pushed and shoved.  They seem rather complacent about it, actually.  No alteration in their facial expressions, no sense of hostility.  I wonder am I the only person that wants to scream at everyone on this damn thing?  I’m pretty sure in the States this would cause a huge fight or end in some kind of violence.   The metro seems to be the only place where I’ve seen people act with a deep sense of urgency.  Why all this urgency to get on the metro, when there seems to be no sense of urgency when the people get off of the metro?  I wonder if the copy guy pushed his way to get on the metro that day to hurry to get to his job where there was no paper?

My resolution to this lately has been bringing my IPod along whenever I need to take the thing.  Now I just focus on listening to the Beatles instead….hard to feel too anxious while hearing “All You Need is Love.”

My New Home

Two days ago I moved into my new apartment.  Hopefully, this will be the place that will last at least until the rest of the year.  My roommate is Chilean.  She’s has her own vintage furniture store and she’s also a painter, my age.  It’s perfect for me.

I traded this:  (Depressing – kind of looks like a room at the hospital)

For this:  (Much Better)

I’ve also been making myself meet Chilean people to have language exchanges where we meet up and speak half in English and half in Spanish.  Yesterday, I met a girl from Peru and was so happy to be able to understand mostly everything she said!  It kind of gave me some reassurance that I am making some progress and maybe Chilean Spanish really is the hardest to learn.

The more I meet and get to know the Chilean people the less I feel homesick.   The more I integrate and stay in the present moment – stay focused on what I can do here – the less I think of what I don’t have here.  I guess that makes sense.  The more I think of what I do have and what I can do, the less my mind wanders toward the negative.

But I have to admit that this can be a struggle because many moments I spend thinking, I wish I could just talk to my old friends and laugh like I used to, express myself in ways I feel more comfortable.  I miss having people who know me so well.

I used to miss the east coast of the US for years and I don’t think, after 13 years I ever surrendered to living in California until the last two years.  I finally felt like I had a home – a community.  I felt settled in ways that I never felt before.  And to me, it was a huge accomplishment.  It meant that I finally felt okay with life, where I was.  I lost that idea that life was better elsewhere and I lost that lack of place that I used to feel there.  The more I think about it, that lack feeling I felt for so long in California was really a need for some kind of special identity to prevent me from fitting in, probably because I was too afraid to.  Too afraid of just being normal.  Of just being myself.  I held on to being “from the east coast” just as much as I think I was holding onto “being an artist” for so long.  In every office job I ever had, I had to make it clear that I was an artist because I sure as hell didn’t want to just be the office worker and how dare I just be Jen.

It’s amazing how much this false identification with words has kept me from changing parts of my life for so long.

If I didn’t drop my negative separatist attitude, I would never have made so many connections in Long Beach and who knows what possibilities could have happened if I would have dropped my attitude years before that.

And at the same time, if I hadn’t let go of my art and tried something new, I wouldn’t be here.

For years, I told myself, when I was in the midst of wishing I was everywhere else, that I probably wouldn’t leave California until I accepted it as home and accepted that nothing was really going to be any better anywhere else.  I didn’t want to leave California because I was escaping, I wanted to be able to leave for the joy of knowing another place.  Mentally I knew this, but I couldn’t make myself feel it.

The thing that really did it, that really made me feel at home was that I finally invested in the area.  I looked for things to do and I met a lot of people and finally I wasn’t living like an island anymore.  And actually, I didn’t just look for things…I had fun with it.  I had fun joining new things…spending a few weeks doing this thing and then looking into something else.  And I enjoyed imagining where each new thing could lead.  I made some of the best friends I have in the last two years.  And, I started to love my life so much that I didn’t want to leave right down to the moment I got on the plane to come here.  I didn’t have money.  I didn’t have a fabulous job.  I didn’t have a comfortable place.  But, I was abundant.

Where the hell did that feeling suddenly come from? (Coincidentally, while the plane was rolling down the runway, we came to a very abrupt stop just seconds before taking off which scared the bejesus out of me (apparently, one of doors was not completely shut…Shouldn’t they check that before take off?).  Anyway, was that a sign for me to stay?).

But, now here I am.  I’m glad that I am here.  I’m doing this because it’s good for me and it’s pushing me in ways I wanted and needed to be pushed, but my heart still feels like it’s somewhere else.

Can you fall in love with a place?

I think so.  And like all of my relationships when I would finally realize I was indeed in love, it was only after a long period of experiencing a good mix of pain and happiness.  Because it’s a love that comes from really knowing something inside out and for merely existing together in the day to day.  I call that love, home.

And, so I’ve decided that I’m experiencing some loss now, and my heart feels it.  I’m mourning things that have passed and knowing that everything in life is always changing and that whenever I do go back to the States again, it won’t be quite the same as it was.  So I feel like I’m leaving a great love in my life and suddenly I’m meeting someone else and it’s not the same feeling at all.  I’m comparing them to the former person.  I’m expecting them to be like the former person.  Trying to dress them the same and I’m missing the music we used to play and the way they used to make me laugh.  In so many ways, I feel that about Santiago when I compare.

But is it good to be that attached to a place or a person where it makes me suffocate parts of who I am because I fear that I’ll lose them?   I have a huge curiosity for life and that will never go away.

One thing I have always liked about myself is the ability to learn from the people I love and allow them to creep into my past without resentments.  And, I am going to use what my former residence has taught me.  And that is to invest in all of the great possibilities that are here and to forget about all the other places I could be right now.

I’m going to have fun with my new space and I even bought two small blank canvases just for the purposes of creating something for myself to hang on my wall.  Hopefully, this will get me painting again.  Photos to come….