Moving Up in the World

Just to keep things interesting... I have moved- from my home and my life in Santiago to the North.  I arrived yesterday to my new home a small mining town, Calama.  The whole thing has been a very interesting process.  Like most of my travels of late this whole decision has been very whimsical. I dropped my resume off to a couple of English teaching schools looking for a little side work and wound up getting offered this ridiculously high paying job with one small catch... I would need to move to the driest desert in the world and teach English to a group of managers and engineers in this mine called Codelco.  I was really on the fence about the whole thing for a while, but ultimately I felt that taking this job brought me closer to my personal goals of traveling in South America.  For the next six months I will be saving a lot of money and getting the chance to explore the North of Chile.  When that time is up I will be able to see a lot of other areas- Lima, Buenos Aires, etc. 

So in the end it was hard to say goodbye to what had started to resemble a life in Santiago, but it was a chance I had to take.  Very suddenly I packed my bags, quit my job, and jumped on an airplane headed up... way up north!  Having only just arrived its hard to say how I feel about my new home, but Im pretty sure no matter what I'm going to be alright here.  Ive always been a roll with the punches kind of girl with very little in the way of dire necessities... plus just about anything is an upgrade from the floors and schools I lived on when I walked the Camino de Santiago.  

shorty

"abre tu corazon"

you tell me in the language of children.

you speak lazily.  it isn't a command... just passing commentary,

as we sit

leisurely watching time change us.

i begin to speak but my words turn into laughter.

mi vida es un sueno.

More Badness

When I knew you, oh love, the elements of my heart divided. It scattered my earthly body into the wind like a bird's song.  And you found my heart again for me drifting over the Pyrenees. Like a butterfly it fluttered amongst the pilgrims.  My heart so young and wild, so red and strong beat with the song of freedom and so you let it go- because you loved me so.  You gave me my freedom again.  

And then you found my eyes, my liquid eyes deep off the pacific.  Hiding with the whales and dolphins, green as you remembered like the hills of Ireland.  They were buried deep like a treasure in the sea. And with the gentle hands I will always know you took me back to the shore.  But when my eyes caught sight of the land they turned form green to blue, the blue of the infinite ocean.  They cried the tears of mermaids and titans and again you said to me, "Girl of water and air-light as the wind and free as the fishes your elements are my own. So long as you are of the earth we are never far apart."

And you put me back with the blue crabs and rays, the angel fish and tangled limbs of the seas' forest once again- for you knew I would someday return to you.  For years you and I both wandered together but separate, my scent in the breeze your words never far from my mind.  

My lips full and deadly sweet, you found at last in Sedona -red as the earth and wise as the mountains.  You followed my laugh.  I was talking with the wolves.  They were teaching me how to howl when you saw my sharp teeth against the moonlight.  But you were not afraid you'd heard me shout before and still you loved me.  You called out for me to come home, but the call of the wolves was too great, and I could not hear you, my dear love.  The red clay of Arizona filled my mouth, and I was the land.  I would have come, oh love, I swear if I could have heard your call.  And still you shouted and the wolves and I laughed like children in the night, terrifying and permeating.  

For the third time you walked away still in love but changed.  Why hadn't I answered back? And your love grew dark wanting but no longer believing I would return.  "Girl of water, earth, and air- your body scattered all the world. I have found your heart, your eyes, and mouth but still you forsake me.  How can you love me so and forbid me this way?"  There you left our love to dry in the desert of your loneliness.  

But through the breeze my heart heard your cry and it knew in an instant that its freedom must change.  From the mountains it flew over oceans and time.  It collected my eyes and freed my red, sand mouth for the heart can do all things.  But still we were incomplete only your love- only your love could make us whole.  

And then it was my turn to cry.  "Oh boy of the earth, more patient, than time and more constant than the sun return to me and we will never be a part again."  You heard me cry, but your silence moved me to say more.  "Oh love, sweet love, what would you have me say?  You love me because I am the sea, the wind, and the earth- infinite and wide as my love for you.  But love, sweet love, you are my fire, my torch in the dark.  You have found me no matter where I hide because your love burned so.  I am not complete without you... because I am the earth and its elements and it takes all 4 to make one."  

And with that you took my hand in yours and we were fire.  So strong burned the flame of our love that it was eternal at an instant.  We were no longer of the earth, we became the earth- a love so tangible you could hold it.

I am the sky, the sea, the land and they are me, but you oh love, sweet and true love, fire to my soul that you have always been--you bring me back to myself. You guide me home, and you forge me into something new.  

Bad Poetry for the Soul

I have held a starfish of the coast of California.

Tamed a rattlesnake in Texas.  

Touched the greenest clover in Ireland.

Drank velvet wine in Tuscany.

And tasted the salty sea of the Atlantic from the sunny coves of Finisterre.

Drank brandy as it ran through the streets of Santiago.

Been a fish in the crystal oceans of Mexico.

And through it all and over again I finally come to understand that home is still the nicest sight.

That the welcoming hand of friendship will keep you warmer than the strongest fire.  That my mother's awkward smile in a photo is more genuinely kind than the outstretched hands of the statues at St. Peter's.  More than the ocean's tide trapped in the echo of a shell, the sound of Emily snoring leaves me in wonder of the great mystery of life.  All these struggles, all these stamps, these tears of joy, pain, and love are mine. Made of me, and perhaps only to me will all of this ever matter.  I leave it now, but know too true that my heart wise and wide with experience and life beats today because of the family I have left behind.  Because of the friends who have held me up along the way.  And this journey is the journey of life, and is only complete by returning back to them.