amaneceres

2011-04-01

NEW TUMBLR

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2011-02-08

…I see narrow orders, limited tightness, but will

not run to that easy victory:

still around the looser, wider forces work:

I will try

to fasten into order enlarging grasps of disorder, widening

scope, but enjoying the freedom that

Scope eludes my grasp, that there is no finality of vision,

that I have perceived nothing completely,

that tomorrow a new walk is a new walk.

Corson’s Inlet, A.R. Ammons

2010-08-22

Ojos Verdes - Miguel de Molina

su voz, su voz…

In this house it is easy to feel small. There are books everywhere, and the exact ones you’ve been wanting to read for years and years. An entire collection of Joseph Campbell, Octavio Paz, Borges, Sartre, anything and everything poetic and existential awaits me. At my bedside I have a very hopeful collection of which I have only barely grazed the surface. I confess that when it comes to books, I am sometimes more about looking at them, smelling them, and being in their presence than reading them.

Trinkets and antiques line the shelves of Eduardo and Laura’s house and each have a history. This place is sort of like a museum, except one you can relax in, spill tea in, lounge around with hot water pillows and talk about god in and what faith really is and so on and on and on and on… I know this is home because the house and the people in it inspire patience and growth. I am more aware of who I am and more patient to become the person I aspire to be. Not a day goes by without laughter—hearty laughter—morning, noon and night. I’m beginning to realize how difficult it will be to leave here in December. Eduardo and Laura are the best host parents I could have ever asked for. They are simply divine.

My roommates are wonderful as well. There are five exchange students living here. Kate, who lives in the casita with me, is from North Carolina. She’s a wonderful, caring person—a go-getter. She misses her pet hedgehog “Ollie” in North Carolina so much that today we hung up a mobile of hedgehogs from the ceiling. It looks lovely. Tylie (from Seattle) and Anna (from Poland) both go to the University of St. Andrews in Scotland but are studying here for a year. They both study international relations yet somehow didn’t know each other before arriving here. I’m looking forward to getting to know them both better in the upcoming months. And then there’s Rob from Mississippi. The poor guy is currently in the hospital recovering from a staff infection. The doctors removed it yesterday so he no longer has a gargantuan red mountain on the side of his calf. He’s remained his typical comic self throughout the whole ordeal. We’re going to celebrate his release from the hospital with dinner at a sushi restaurant which happens to be dangerously near my house.

There is also a confectionary on the corner. The fact that there are chocolate covered caramels and kiwi tarts and raspberry donuts and glazed croissants and everything else orgasmic to the taste buds two blocks away is a bit troublesome. On my way home I see Salvador Dali, graffitied onto the electrical box with his blue crazed stare and antennae-like mustache looking petrified that I have just returned home with a large slice of rich chocolate and dulce de leche cake. “What?” I ask him, one hand in the air, the other holding the dessert close to my chest, “Don’t judge me.”

2010-08-04

“La tierra prometida es tu corazón! Es tu corazón!”

2010-08-02

“…like, maybe you’ll fulfill the Great White Salsa Dancer prophesy.”

Okay, I take that back. Dancing until sunrise is my lifestyle. Who can go to sleep when you’re in a hip salsa club in La Ciudad Vieja? Although it is taking some time for the rhythm of salsa to sink into my blood, I know salsa is something I want to do. I love watching everyone on the dance floor. They hold hands, spinning and wrapping each other in knots that they somehow know how to untangle in the most graceful manner. The saucy back and forth motion is entrancing—forward, back, forward, back again.

…and Jazz. Oh, divine Jazz. I went to a place tonight called El Tartamudo, “The Stutterer”, to listen to a jazz quartet. A few images the saxophonist brought to mind: birds wings when landing on a tree branch, a storm siren, a cigarette being tapped on an ashtray, a teapot’s boiling climax…I have come to the realization that jazz, hands down, is the music that most moves me.

Improvisation.

How long were these musicians slaves to their instruments before they mastered them and could speak fluently with them? “Action without action”—this is mastery. There comes a point when playing becomes effortless and a musician is suddenly doing without trying, spontaneously expressing exactly what his heart means…no thoughts in the way…just exactly what his heart means. And everyone in a jazz room recognizes when soul emerges in a note. It’s that one note you weren’t expecting, yet somehow the same one you needed. And you can’t not respond to it. Everyone in the audience nods and breaks a smile as if to say: “Thank you, thank you, thank you, Gods of Jazz, for healing me and making me overflow with everything good.”

Here’s the deal: I don’t want to be a stutterer. I want to be a creator so I can give something to somebody.

2010-07-31

The Uruguayans don’t go home until sunrise. They celebrate their youth by drinking and dancing in the clubs then stumbling to mcdonalds around seven in the morning. I made it until six am and decided to call it quits. It’s not my lifestyle and there’s no use in pretending that it is.

It has been raining all day, “raining penguins” the Uruguayans say, and is a perfect night to sit inside and have tea with Octavio Paz.

Hermandad

Soy hombre: duro poco

y es enorme la noche.

Pero miro hacia arriba:

las estrellas escriben.

Sin entender comprendo:

Tambien soy escritura

y en este mismo instante

alguien me deletrea.

Brotherhood

I am a man: little do I last

and the night is enormous.

But I look up:

the stars write.

Unknowing I understand:

I too am written

and at this very moment

someone spells me out.

2010-07-29

cultura

So I went to a salsa class tonight. Oh, boy. I like to think I have rhythm, but salsa is an entirely different breed. I stumbled through the entire hour and a half, was made fun of by the instructor, and was laughed at by the guys who tugged me around the dance floor. When someone had to dance with me and one guy (bless his heart) timidly volunteered, the rest applauded him for his graciousness. At one point, while I was dancing with the instructor, he put his hand up in the air, looked around at everyone as if to say “Hey guys, watch this! I’m about to flip this skinny ass white girl and she doesn’t even know it’s coming!” and all of a sudden all I could see was ceiling, and then I was back on my feet not even knowing what just hit me.

I sound like a bad dancer, right? Wrong: I’m a GOOD dancer. Really, I am! Shawn, a girl who studies here (and a very, very good dancer), says that if you’re having fun, you’re a good dancer. And let me tell you—I laughed with everyone else at myself the whole time. The instructor wants me to come back this Friday.

“But I hear that is for the advanced dancers,” I say.

“No,” he says, “es una mezcla!” “It’s a mix of different levels!”

But I know what that means. That means he wants to train his fellow amazing dancers in a little thing called patience. I’ve decided I’m going to go next Monday instead, the beginner classes, and I’ll work my way up from there.

In other news, I’m eating meat again. As most of you know, I’ve been a vegetarian off and on since I was fourteen…probably a total of three or four years. I wasn’t planning to eat meat here but, then again, meat here is nothing like the meat of the United States. Here, all animals are free to roam and live long healthy lives without being trapped in a cage or having hormones shoved down their throats. On my own, I choose to eat vegetarian, but en casa, I want to eat what they serve me.

Eduardo and I had a heated discussion about it at the dinner table the other day. He says that vegetarianism is the current “thing” of our generation. He says that we feel responsible for all of the environmental disasters that are occurring and not eating meat is a way of punishing ourselves. “Every generation has a war they fight, and a way of punishing themselves for losing it.”

He has a point. Eduardo has lots of enraging points. He’s recently taken to calling me a “new ager” and stomping on everything I hold dear. His brutal honesty is appreciated, but not without a bit of American sass thrown at him first. When I talked about yoga lessons and meditation this afternoon he told me I should stop pretending, that I, raised in the Occident, will never be Oriental. He said I would have to take my head off my shoulders and replace it with the head of a chinaman in order to do Tai Chi, to understand Tao Te Ching as it truly is. He was right, and because he was right I had to leave the room.

“You will never be enlightened,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “But there are little enlightenments everyday. You know this, or else you wouldn’t lock yourself in your room every night reading books the way you do.”

And then I left for salsa.

On the bus I kept thinking there was truth in what he said. I will never be Uruguayan. I can buy a pair of Uruguayan boots and learn to salsa dance like an Uruguayan, but I will never be Uruguayan. You can live in Spain for twenty years and speak like an Asturian, but you’re still running away from your parents, away from a life you thought for some reason lacked something.

2010-07-27

My first dream in Montevideo

I was stirring a large bowl of clear water with my hand. Inside the bowl were koi fish. I could see their bodies gleaming in orange circles through the glass. Suddenly, one jumped from the bowl, shed its fins and began walking. I searched for it for days and days and could not find it.

2010-07-26

El Ombú

It’s official—I’m living here! I’ve unpacked all my things and have even arranged a little spanglish library on the dresser beside my bed. The casita feels like home to me now, especially because I have discovered something in it that I also have, and cherish deeply, in my room in Eau Claire. On the wall above my bed here is a metal sculpture of two birds in flight facing each other. In the states, my wall holds the same emblem and was woven by South American women who I imagine did not have much. Surrounding the birds are circles that ripple outward. It is woven intricately with bright colors, every color you can think of, and must have taken many days to complete. The graybeard in Madrid who sold it to me told me that the birds are a symbol of freedom, power, and love. I like to think of it as freedom found in looking each other honestly in the face—a mutual acknowledgment of existence and co-dependence. As Mr. Allan Watts would say, “Existence is a function of relationship.” It is a good reminder for me here where feelings of isolation may sometimes arise—mainly because it is difficult to express yourself fully in another language. But I truly have nothing to worry about because the people who live here are wonderfully supportive and encouraging. I look forward to growing with them.

Today I took a walk along the “rambla” with my lovely roommates, accompanied by Marito, Laura’s street savvy black lab. Everyone and their mother has a dog here and the majority of them don’t have leashes. They freely sniff each other, are satisfied, then move on. Marito leads us well, until he is distracted by a plastic bag full of old bacon on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, there are no fines for littering here. It’s common to see bits of trash on the walkways and along the beach. Recycling is also nonexistent. Laura informed us this afternoon that the sanitation system here is a major political issue. The “Left” wants to do something about it but the “Right” doesn’t. I’ve seen a few people with horses and buggies parked next to dumpsters. I’m not sure if they’re freegans or your regular dumpster divers or even if they’re trying to instill some sort of recycling system. Their buggies are heaping with what seem to be recyclables. Whoever they are, Laura doesn’t seem to like them much because their sorting leaves the streets a mess. “There are children walking those streets,” Laura says. Not to mention dogs like Marito, whose nose finds its way into everything.

The neglect of the environment surprises me, especially because in the heart of my Pocitos neighborhood the streets split to form a circle around “El Ombu,” the largest, oldest tree in the city. Everyone in the city knows El Ombu and can direct you there if you are lost. I was told that this tree is five or six hundred years old. Imagine the root system!