Good and Magnificent

March 7, 2009...
“You have to be willing to take risks,” Nael told me with a playful hint of disdain. I ignored him and continued to carefully withdraw my sure-bet middle cube from the row of three. My face, a wall of focus, gave way to a tiny triumphant smirk. I glanced at Nael, also smirking; at his disapproving, smiling green eyes watching me, before I placed my sure-bet cube on the top of the Jenga tower. Without the minutest physical change in expression, his look became one of defiance. He reached down to the foundation of the tower and removed the last cube vital to its stability. The tower wobbled and taunted me like a proud, remaining bowling pin, unwilling to forfeit victory. And succumb it did not…it swayed and yet stood tall as he placed his defiant cube on top of the stack. Now it was my turn to make another move…

August 4, 2009...
So I am preparing that gray bag to be heavy again; filled with a lot of stuff as I travel tomorrow. (If you are confused, refer to my very first blog.) It's going to be so strange to be back on San Jose Avenue in Burbank. It'll be strange generally greeting people with a hug instead of a kiss on the cheek. And how odd it will be to have hot water at any hour of the day. To be able to flush toilet paper and to be able to eavesdrop with ease. To drink 2% milk again, to walk down the street to the cinema, to drive again. To stop always carrying toilet paper in my purse. To say hello, instead of hola. It’s so incredibly weird to think about those things I was so afraid of in the beginning, when I woke up on January 9th and rode to the airport. The language barrier…missing my familiar warm bed. I’ll be sleeping in that bed again two days from now. And I’m heading to a place where everyone speaks my native language. Yet I feel those same nerves all over again. I’m sure I won’t throw up this time, but I don’t quite know if I’m really ready to leave this world behind.

Nael is right...you have to be willing to take risks. I took a risk coming here. And it turned out to be, without a doubt, the best thing I have ever done.

My life has almost always been a route on a map. But this year, when I went off the page and flew to Perú, everything changed. I stepped through a door, out of a fluorescent lit box with white tile flooring and into a colorful, roofless hallway. The brown, sand floor, the closed birchwood doors which boast of my choices, the backs of my caramel-colored, free hands, are all illuminated by perpetual sunlight. I run my fingertips along the the textured walls as I walk forward with closed eyes, unafraid to trip on anything, only feeling for the next doorway to step through and wondering, like an impatient child, what will be on the other side.

This feels right. It feels like love and breathing and warmth. It feels like the perfect mug of hot chocolate.

But now I am dying to know what comes next. I am hoping and praying that I will be somehow led to the next door or, like a polarized ion, drawn to it; or that it would even just fall on me. I can't say I have ever been this curious about what will come next because, along a route on a map, there is no such potential for the magic I feel awaiting me. I can smell it faintly and feel it lightly blowing back the whispy strands of my hair. But what is it? What's to come? Sometimes I thrive on the suspense and sometimes I just want a brick-solid plan. A what-I-want-and-already-know-I-can-have.

Such a thing does not exist at the moment and I stand frozen in the hall. With the light of the sun warming my face. With the hot mug in my hand, between warm, rich sips.

But certainty and knowing and brick-solid plans aren't the stuff that brought me here. What brought me here was risk. Being willing to be afraid and to take a chance. Being willing to mess up and then learn with the passing of time.

I can be nothing but certain that my next risk will deliver me to another beautiful place. This experience, this venture, has been so much more than I could have hoped for.

It has been Good and Magnificent.

But that's only the beginning.

A Few Things I Have Learned...(in no specific order)

1. Spanish (duh...still not fluent, though. But getting there.)
2. Salsa (yay!)
3. The irony in what we call valuables considering a few things: Our material possessions are constantly coming and going and therefore hold far less value than the non-material. The most valuable valuables are actually the least valuable, because they put you nearly within reach of the next best thing...enough to make you want it and inherently depreciate what you already have. Given the nature of valuables, a far more fitting term would be something like hold-looslies.
4. How frustrating it is to teach English as a second language.
5. How frustrating the English language is (here is the Rule. now here are the countless exceptions to the Rule.)
6. How long it takes to blog (a freaking long time. Especially if you're posting pics.)
7. That cereal in a bowl with ice-cold 2% milk is one of my great loves and I miss it dearly.
8. Pick-pockets have the gift of a ghost-like presence.
9. Having your purse zipped closed and slung across your shoulder and under your arm is not enough to deter pick-pockets from targeting you. Due to their ghost-like presence, you must clutch your bag in front of you whenever entering a crowd.
10. I have the best, most understanding, empathetic, and compassionate mother anyone could possibly get. (well, maybe I knew that already.)
11. That the saddest, worst part of being here is always having to say goodbye to the great people you meet.
12. I really enjoy painting.
13. All things have their end.
14. The vegetable-y flavor of coca leaves is best disguised when mixed with brownie batter.
15. I'm not as afraid of sharks as I thought. (went surfing twice!)
16. Wasi means house in Quechua.
17. I love Peru.

Ehem.

August 1, 2009...
Okay, so I may be one of the worst bloggers ever...let's just get that out of the way. Now that I'm about to come home, I am going to recount my past month and a half in a quick blurb. Well, hopefully it will be quick. Where do I begin?? Susie and I went to see this shaman (seer, fortune-teller, some rendition of Miss Cleo) who wasn't at all what I expected. In my head, I envisioned an old, gray man with a long beard, wearing a dusty, bleached-orange-by-the-sun poncho which hung loosely from his emaciated shoulders. But, I guess I have no future career as a shaman, since he turned out to be a middle-aged, clean-shaven (is that a word? clean-shaven. clean-shaven...) man wearing a Packers sweatshirt. I chuckled when I saw him. I'll leave the seeing to someone else. He told me a bunch of craziness that I didn't really like all that much. And it cost like 20 soles, which adds up to alot now that I'm making $3 an hour. Meh.

There's been some drama (an understatement). Roommate problems, boy problems, money problems (I love my mom). I won't go into the juicy details, but it was kinda sucky there for a little while. So it goes...whether you're in the U.S. or Perú.

Amanda came to visit!!!! Hurraaayyy! That was super duper awesome. She was here for two weeks. The first night we went to see a spectacular at the Kusikay theater called Paucartanpu, which was cool for two reasons...one, because it was an amazing show. And two, because I have a couple friends in the show. (Yes, I have Peruvian acrobat friends. I am so cool.) Next we did Machu Picchu by train, just as incredible the second time around. After that we did a three-day rafting trip. 90 miles down the Apurimac river, the source of the Amazon. Stunning. I got tossed from the raft on the first day, on a class 2 rapid. That was actually really fun and I couldn't stop giggling, even as the water bubbled up my nose and into my wind pipe (at which point it became more of a giggle-choke). We all remained safe and sound for the rest of the trip, paddling in sheer panic down the class 5s. Then it was time to do the must-see stuff around town, so we hit the cathedral in the Plaza de Armas and a couple neighboring museums in one gloriously touristy day. Lucky for her, she also happened to visit during one of the biggest celebrations of the year, June 24th, Inti Raymi (which means Sun Party in Quechua). This festival takes place in the form of crazed parade madness in the Plaza de Armas and then everyone marches up to the ruined fortress, Saqsaywaman, to watch a re-enactment of a sacrifice to the Sun God. Other than that, Amanda got a little taste of Salsa dancing, met some of my friends, experienced a window of my life here, and before we knew it, it was time for her to go home.

We hosted some really fun dinner parties at our apartment. Susie did all the cooking, since anyone who knows me doesn't need me to explain why. BUT...I did bake! I made some cakes and my homemade apple pie was a hit! I was super excited about that because even the crust was made from scratch (and love).

Susie and I attended a party in honor of Michael Jackson one Saturday night (I still can't believe he died.) We dressed up as cute little black Mike and older white Mike. All they played were Michael albums, of course, and they showed a bunch of his videos on a projection screen through the night. They held a dance contest which we definitely didn't enter because our preparedness would have brought Mike no honor (shame, rather).

I pierced my nose again and seriously considered getting a tattoo (which I will get eventually) but, alas, finances would not permit. Then, a couple Sundays ago I did some more shopping at the Pisac market, where I was devastated by the sight of a cage full of cuyes, destined to die and be eaten. (This is a really boring blog, isn't it? You can be honest.) I went cuz I had to get gifts to bring home, and I'm actually really excited to hand them out. It might feel like bringing a little bit of my experience to you. I hope it feels that way.

Time flew by (hence the non-blogging) and Susie and I decided to leave Cusco a little early. So we had our despedida, just the two of us. We got dressed up and went out to a nice dinner and drank too much red wine. The day before we left, Anke made us a despedida breakfast. It was our last Sunday brunch in that apartment. And that night, our final night in Cusco, we spent with a few friends going to the circus. This circus was a fantastically third-world spectacle (the bleachers were these thin, plywood boards thrown across some metal piping. I was sure I would fall through one). Still fun, though. And I came out alive (not even a splinter, can you believe it?) but not without 100 soles disappearing from my pocket. Of course. Had to happen on my last night in town. Susie and I got on a plane Monday to spend our final week and a half on the beach (we fly out of Perú on the same day).

So now, here I am, in a beach village an hour south of Lima called San Bartolo. It's really beautiful here, but really slow and quiet. I'm thinking about whether or not I may see my future self here for a while, or if it's too tranquil for what I'm used to. I'm journaling more than I have in the past two months. Dancing less. Well, dancing none. Going for chilly seaside walks where I can think alot. I'm eating ceviche and drinking hot chocolate. (Not together. That would most likely be gross.)

When we boarded the plane on Monday, I couldn't believe I was leaving Cusco. I think it still hasn't hit me. I didn't cry like I thought I would. But I wrote Cusco a letter:

I felt alone and terrified coming to you, and now I feel alone and terrified to be leaving. What is in my future? I don't know. Right now I just know that saying goodbye is hard, and harder not knowing if I'll see you again... So goodbye Cusco. Bye cute little apartment. Bye Coco. Bye Pablo. Goodbye salsa friends. Goodbye Anke. Goodbye delicious coca brownie shop. Bye dogs in the street. Bye Plaza de Armas. Bye street vendors. Goodbye cheap sandwich place. Goodbye cholitas with your little goats. Goodbye Pachakuteq impersonator. Bye beautiful churches on every corner. Goodbye little man at the bodega across the street. Goodbye Inca Kola. Bye little cuyes. Bye discotecas. Bye many travelers. Goodbye impossibly hard to walk on cobbled streets. Bye to you cold nights and hot days. Goodbye to you wind smells of pee and llama. Goodbye afternoon walks up to Saqsaywaman... Good things, bad things, whatever hurt and whatever made me smile, I will miss you all.