Palegoldenrod

I was told that travel is an experience. I thought “oh yeah, you get to see stuff, and do stuff, and stuff goes wrong and you have to deal with it and all that”.

But I was not prepared for this feeling, so hard to describe. Maybe its the solo travel that is adding this new aspect for me. I am alone. Now don’t get me wrong - this isn’t the same feeling you get when you are at home and bored and you decide to start calling your friends. That happens, and then you transcend that, and arrive where I am now.

A fundamental understanding of the value of being alone.

Don’t mistake this for being lonely, I’m not. This is an appreciation of the quality of that feeling. Becoming comfortable with that feeling - even in a city of six million. I guess on some level becoming comfortable with oneself, which (I noted last night) was something that I haven’t done very well in the past. Actually it quite probably interfered with my brain in such a fundamental way that I would make poor decisions because of it.

Last night I went to the local Irish pub (yes, in Santiago, Chile, there are Irish pubs). I tried a local beer (Kuntsmann Miel if you are interested) and I sat in a corner seat and watched the football (soccer). Now, if I had been sitting alone in a pub in Australia - even as recently as 3 months ago… well, I wouldn’t have been sitting there. I would need a reason to be there: waiting for someone maybe. And if I were waiting I would fidget. I would get self conscious. I would feel like I needed to be doing something, talk on my phone, read a book, something.

Last night I sat and watched football. I thought. A lot. I felt. Maybe not a lot (not strong feelings), but many different things. I thought about what I wanted, which is (for me) one of two big questions of my life. “What do I want?” and “Who am I?”. (I figured that one defines the other so I just picked the one that seems easier to tackle).

I came to a few conclusions that surprised me. I hadn’t thought that the answers would be so… concrete for me, especially when I am usually such a fence-sitter. Other things arose as a result of those conclusions, and I’ve yet to tackle those, but the feeling I had after this initial realisation was of being grounded. Stable.

Maybe it is Chile (or South America) that is doing this to me. I have a scientific mind. I work with facts, unchanging. I think this approach has caused problems with things like “what do you want?” because the answer is based on feeling (unpredictable) and not fact. This somewhat sterile approach is easy to get by with in Australia. Chileans, however, feel a lot more. They have “the passion”. The feel energy, they are open with their thoughts and feelings, they dance and make music and sing and love and compose poetry and are utterly unselfconscious about it. It is beautiful, and maybe contagious

So after all this thinking and conclusion making my brain produced a few lines of something and I’m not really sure what to do with it. As it is so rare for me to create such things I thought I’d put it up here. Its not like anyone reads this anyway, so I think I am pretty safe, haha.

Its not really very sensible, but hey. Don’t say I never gave you anything.

Love you guys.

I started walking on a long dirt road slowly with you years ago
and only now is the end starting to draw near
The dust is settling
I can tell which way is north
I can tell which way is north even without you.
even at night, sometimes
even though, right now, i don’t know where I am

The many stars still guide my way
but these are further from me.
They don’t blind me like the sun
they are gentle, beautiful
less intense
unreachable

Sometimes on nights like this I pause for a moment
In the silent darkness.
I let the dust swirl slowly to a halt around my ankles.
And I wonder if there is such a thing as middle ground
Or balance
Or perfection.

In those moments I feel like we are forced to choose between extremes:
like beauty untouchable and numerous
or blistering splendor in blinding proximity.
Neither satisfying.

But such a choice is impossible -
Preferences have no meaning here
On this road.
Things are not chosen, cannot be chosen
They just are.
Like you and I
and the dirt caked on my shoes.

Maybe my only hope for perfection is to watch for dawn and dusk
When part of the sun and the stars are obscured, but visible
When the sky itself manifests magnificence, even if only fleetingly.
A testament to the beauty of impermanence.
A twice-daily reminder of mortality.