San Pedro and Hope.

"It is not about what you have done, it is what you are about to do"

Night was falling rapidly. The warm ball of fire finally slipped behind the last tree, the lights dimmed setting the mood, while the static sizzling of meat was the only sound other than the constant drone of the passing current. I lay, my purple bathrobe wrapped tightly around my body, watching Ben move the meat back and forth, salting as needed, a freshly chilled beer in his hand. Hunter sat to my right, slicing the meat that was done, dolling it out to us who sat nearest to the fire, the kids could be heard far off playing games assimilated with youth. Jorge swished his boxed white wine around in a plastic cup, and continued in his gloriously dignified Mexican accent about kidnappings in Mexico. My mouth became drowned in the thoughts of what I was bout to eat, my mind somewhere else, lost in it all. It was the end of the first day of our short Rio San Pedro trip, it was the end of a day that taken us from the blinding lights and deafening noise of the discos, to the tranquil, clear blue, waters of the San Pedro.

The beauty had taken us aback. Hunter and I slid forward in our kayaks, eyes peering deep into the depths of the river, the sudden underwater canyons and cliffs the cause of our straining necks. To our sides marble colored clay walls rose up, huge ferns, bamboo, and vines encroaching on the clean walls. We couldn't help but gleefully chatter about all the things we could do if we had a week, a snorkel, and no plans. This river fed the imagination. It brought us from the perceived notions of life, and into the reality of simplicity. To be naked, free from friends, alone, free from the confines of the city, work, reality itself. Free. Truly free. How I longed to be alone on these shores, a small tent, fishing pole, no time limit, no want to go home, no longing for anything, only for the sun to continue to tan my body, and bleach my hair. The long forgotten dreams of my childhood came flooding back, intermingling with the swirling eddy lines, and sudden change of current.

The day seemed as though it would never end, nor did I want it to. With each bend in the river the beauty changed, it was as though we were staring at a lover in the dark, only the street lamp outside to illuminate the beauty, forcing our eyes to strain, to soak in the deep emotion of the moment.

Ben turned over the large steak in the center, slid it on to a long weathered board we had taken into our service, and Hunter cut it into delectable strips. I took the final slug of the red wine in my cup, and chased it with a piece of the perfectly seasoned meat. As dinner ended, my body slid onto my bright green ground mat, placed with care near the fire. The stars came out in rare form, bright, with hope, with promise. My chest rose and sank, my ears became enveloped in the sound of the river, I fell into the dreams of the sober, a first in a while.

The San Pedro stuck in my mind, it refused to leave. I cannot go back, as the days grow longer, brighter, and sunnier, the river waits, but I can not return. The lack of the monopoly like money here keeps me waiting in town, keeps me working, keeps me in the cycle of bars. How I dream of returning, to float through the canyons, a smile plastered on my face, my eyes in constant awe.

I stood, head in hands, outside the bar trying to forget the events after I returned, the pain of what I heard. Cool night air rushed past my face, my body leaning against the outside railing.  Suddenly a hand fell on my shoulder, "Hey you shouldn't go the bed, the night is young" came the bubbly Spanish voice of some girl. I lifted my head and stared back, "I am not sleeping, just thinking" was all I could say. She asked me where I was from, ran her hand through my hair, enamored with its golden color. "Come dance with me" she said, her eyes sparkling in the cool night air. We descended into the dance floor. I took her hips in my hands, she wrapped her arms around my neck. The music faded, the world went black. A spot light seemed focused on her face. Her name hung in the back of my brain. It was exactly what I needed. To Forget. Forget about the San Pedro, the bullshit of the town, the nights lost in flashing lights, the passing of time.

"It has passed, you can't live in the past, you can't live in the present, you have to wait for the future. "

The world has a strange way of dropping you into the depths, then raising you into the sky. It is the ride that shows what a person is made of, what a person is capable of dealing with. I have shown that I am learning. The constant rise and fall of life is what makes it worth living. The hope of better times allows for one foot to step in front of the other. While my problems are not nearly as bad as others, they are still mine. I often realize the way I come off, complaining about the problems I face living in a beautiful place, with many opportunities, and endless parties. Sometimes even when everything is okay, you wake up sad, and don't know why, you wake up hurting, and don't know why, but that is okay. That is what makes you human. That is what makes you able to empathize. That is what makes you able  appreciate life. To appreciated every heartbreak, crisis, and turmoil, because when the night has ended and the sun rises, it is the best sun rise you have ever seen. It is full of hope, love, and appreciation.

This? Oh yes, it was my fault.

"This is my life to live, nobody else's to read about."

We took out. Dragging our florescent colored awkward plastic kayaks from the turquoise waters, placing them tentatively on shore, within moments they would be on our shoulders, jostling back toward the put in. My legs burned, screamed from the insides, begging for water. If only I had not taken the free beer for competitors so liberally, maybe I could force them to be silent.

It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. It always does. As the bitter water like Crystal brand fermented liquid hit my throat a switch flipped. I suddenly forgot about the movies playing outside, free, insightful, and entertaining, but instead found a comfortable position leaning against the bar and drank. Refill after refill, my best buddy also choosing the warmth of the bar, over the adventure films in the cold. Soon my brain felt the familiar hug of the warm blanket of alcohol. The night shifted into amber tinted shades, and I stumbled into the dark, and into the many adventures of the inebriated.

 I adjust the kayak on my shoulder now, lungs struggling starved of nutrients. I made it back toward the put in, my race jersey now soaked, my feet cover in mud. The soft cool lawn, shaded in short yet bushy trees, called to me. I let the kayak slip free from my aching shoulder and followed it down toward the lawn. I left my eyes cracked open. They watched the sun slip through the shivering dark green leaves as a slight breath of wind came swirling from the south. My stomach churned, the expulsion of food the only thought on its mind. I was about to sleep, about to fall into a deep nap before the race, but the questions of some gringos kept me awake. Kept me talking. Kept me making friends.

The water is always there, it will always be there. I love kayaking. I do it all the time. Why do I need to talk about it? So I can explain something no one understands? Or so that I can show other kayakers how my balls are the size of a mature bulls'? No there is no need to talk about what has been done on water, the ones I love were there, the others that I love would really rather not hear about it. The constant banter of who ran what, and who cleaned a line no one else had, just shows the lack of love for the sport. Kayaking is my life, it is for me to live, it is not for me to brag about, worry about, or explain.

My first race lap was horrid, the second was better, faster. When it was all over, and the last racer had made it through the final gate, I lay on some rocks my kayak propping my head up, talking with my best friend. We just sat there cracking jokes and monologuing on the absurd, both our brains not back to 100% from the night.  As the sun let its gaze shift to the trees behind us, and our wet clothing no longer kept us cool, but instead caused shivers, we once again forced ourselves back into the straightjacket like confines of kayaks, and headed downstream.

That night, the disco lights blinded my eyes, the music battered my worn ear drums, the other drunk dancers stepped on my feet, and slammed into my side. My grin was the silly drunk grin of someone who no longer cared where he was but was just happy that he was still standing. Somehow I ended up crammed with eight other people in a car, trying to avoid the spinning which now seemed imminent. Finally fresh air hit my lungs, and I slowly walked toward my friend's house, my sanctuary for the night.

"One day I will have a car here, a house here, and I will never be sad again, one day."

I awoke. The world would not let me stand. My body begged for water. My muscles were spent from racing, and the abuse of drink and dance. The hung over brain, I believe, is the most pure. When the world seems as though it has dealt you death, yet forces you to live, is when the most pure thought can be found. I found I was happy, guilty, and hopeful. I found I was more in love than I first believed, I found I was more confused than I had believed, I found I was the same as those I despised, another middle class rebel, hung over.

That is my life. I try to live it as best I can. I try to constantly learn and grow. I also make sure that I have as much fun as I can juice from the day. My problems, worries, and such are not significant in the slightest, they are nothing more than what I bring upon myself. Work is the theme now. Making money to support the fun I wish to have. I often wish that huge chunks of money would fall from the sky, and I could finally replace the kayaking equipment long overdue of replacement, pay for an apartment in the center of town, a car, and a house. Dreams no more. But dreaming never pans into reality. It will be the work I put in, and the skills I perfect that will make my dreams slide into reality, not wishing. So, here I am, at the end of the world, in love with what I do.

It's Just Life.

I find it strange. Life. I had never been fond of it in my angsty teenage years. Feeling as though something wrong had been done to me. Some how I had been dealt the worst hand in the world and was now forced to finish the round. It took leaving what I thought to be safe, what I had always loathed, the middle class lifestyle, to break my angst. Feeling like a rebel with no reigns holding me down, I set forth a year ago to become some big name in kayaking, to be the most amazing thing the world had ever seen. Ignorance was most definitely my friend, modesty, something I had not yet known. Fresh off the sudden and violent rupture of what I thought was a life long relationship with my then girlfriend of a year, I took a train south to San Francisco. A couple days later, and after a few plane flights I found myself beyond tired lost in the Santiago Airport. Life was slowly forcing me to become who I should be not who I thought I was. The next few days melted into a sea of sadness, excitement, crushing set backs, and finally being able to sleep away the jet lag.

 

Within a few days I started kayaking. Within a few days I found the best way to compensate for extreme nervousness was to think I was God’s gift to kayaking. Whether I knew it or not I felt I had to prove something. I been working for the last two years for this moment in my life. I did not want to return home a disappointment to those who had doubted my decisions. I wanted to prove my parents wrong and “make it big” being a dirtbag kayaker. I had now Idea how to obtain sponsors, to make connections, to market myself, but what I did know was that I needed to run the biggest drops, and hardest rivers that Chile had to offer.

            Ignorance is bliss, but it also a shit ton of stupidity, and stupidity is the shadow of youth. By my second week of kayaking I found myself charging into the final and hardest drop on the main section of the Rio Nevados. Dulce Amor it was called, before the earth shifted and it changed irrevocably this year. Due to my youthful shadow I found myself deep in the belly of a siphon, my feet pinned against my boat, my friends thinking I was dead, my life seemed to be over. I remember the moment clearly, frozen in time by the icy terror of death. “Okay, I guess this is the end” was all I thought. It was a helpless acceptance of what I could not control. I did not think about how terrifying the idea of eternity seemed. I did not think about what my family and friends were about to feel. I only helplessly waited, to defeated to cry, just wishing I had more time to kayak, more time to love, more time. Thankfully I was able to get a foot free and crawl, scratch, and fight my way out of the siphon. As my friends saw I was alive, as I floated away from the siphon, I felt the most guilt of my entire life. Because of my own sense of false confidence, because of my own want to prove something, I had almost horribly changed the lives of everyone who still loved me.

 

            That night I watched the helmet camera footage in the cabin where my friends and I were staying. Dan, one of the kayakers with me that day, came and sat next to me. Night had fallen, and the wood stove was leaving a smoky odor clinging to his clothes. “Jon” he said the the most sincere and honest voice I have ever heard, “You have nothing to prove. You are 18, in another country, kayaking things that I could not have run when I was your age. You have so much going for you. You don’t need to prove anything to me or anyone else, you already proved everything you needed to just by following your dream. You just need to get experience so you can make good decisions on the water.”

 

It was one of the greatest gestures of concern, well placed, that changed my mentality entirely. After that conversation, I started just kayaking. Nothing more. I developed a level headed and calculated approach to the thing I love most in life.

Summer came. Kayaking slid to only a few days a week, as I worked more than 45 hours a week as a waiter and bartender at night, and in the day working as a kayaking instructor. For two months I only had two days off, for two months I immersed myself as best I could in the unique lifestyle that Chile offered. As the colors changed, and clouds frequented the sky more than the strong southern sun, I no longer felt welcomed in my home of the last five months, Pucon, Chile. I chose to have one last adventure before leaving South America. I would go to Peru.

 

In my dreams I saw myself taking the long 30 hour bus ride north, crossing the boarder, then finding some small Peruvian town near the beach where I would make friends with a local family and get to experience the “real” Peru. Not the tourist’s view of a country. Peru, as the locals lived. It was a very naïve way to think about where I was about to go.  I was leaving the very first world comfort of Chile, and heading to the very third world reality of Peru.

 

            I sat in the no longer moving bus, staring outside the window. Hundreds of other busses stopped behind ours. I looked forward, a large pile of rubble was positioned across the road, on top, tires engulfed in flames sent dark coal black smoke into the empty blue sky of the desert. Behind the road block were hundreds of sharpen stick wielding hard hat wearing disgruntled Peruvian miners. They were protesting against a new government law forcing them to pay taxes. They had blocked the only road between Arequipa and Lima, the only roadway for all freight and bus traffic. There were hundreds of stuck busses and thousands of people, all slowly dying in the blistering desert heat. Some left the busses, walking to the nearby towns. I could not leave. My long blond hair made me a target every time I set foot outside of the bus. Urine and fecal matter soaked the dust around the buses, babies screamed in want of food. Local vendors from the nearby towns had arrived with small carts of provisions. I could not buy anything from them, acknowledging of the fact I had money would have greatly increased my chances of getting robbed, or worse. For the next three days I went without food, and I drank no water, I had given the last of my water to the family in the seat behind mine. I saw things that I wish to never see again. I saw humanity at its most pure. I saw what real poverty was. I saw what real survival was. I saw what tear gas could do. I saw what real fear was. I cried, but no tears came, my body too dehydrated to allow me to release the sadness. It was the most alone I had ever been in my life. It was the most fear I have had to live with. The nights were long, sleepless and cold. The days suffocating, dangerous, and filled with fighting the urge to give up. I just wanted to escape. I just wanted to have the adventure I had dreamed of. The heat and the lack of food causing hours of unwanted blackness. I would sit just outside of the bus during the day, hoping for shade, reading John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie. I would stare out at the emptiness of the desert, looking away from the deteriorating situation behind me, and would just think. Alone away from everyone, trying to stay awake, trying to stay alive, I found myself repeating the same thought in my head,

 

“If I live, I will be a pro kayaker, I will go back to Chile, I will tell everyone I love how much I love them, I will never take where I came from, or how I was raised for granted. I will try to live a better life, I will only pursue what I love in life, and I never go back to Peru again.”

 

Obviously I lived. By the time I eventually made it to Ica, Peru, I could barely stand with out the sickening feeling of unconsciousness creeping into my eyes. I had passed my limit to feel fear, I only felt exhaustion. I returned home, happy to see my family. I started kayaking almost everyday on awesome hard runs with my best friend, and finally ran the Little White Salmon River, a dream of mine. I found myself back in Idaho again, working as a raft guide. The summer turned into a toxic situation, myself not ready to deal with the bullshit that comes with too many managers, and my co workers unable to understand my need to be alone and have control. Finally the summer ended. I left idaho, was once again able to kayak everyday, and eventually found myself in Chile. After being in the country for two days, I canceled my return ticket home.

 

Now I am back, Pucon, Chile. Rain is falling, summer delayed slightly by the less than perfect weather.  I have almost no money left, very few job prospects that would allow for kayaking everyday, and gear which is rapidly wearing out. It seems like I will never achieve my dream, it seems like I will never reach the place I so badly want to be. Somehow I am hopeful. I am grateful that my worries are about not having money to kayak, rather than the worries of survival. I am so grateful for all my opportunities I have, and the mentality I have gained. This is not normally how I write. I normally use wonderful words to craft a dreamy poetic style of prose, but this is the most honest I can write. The last year was the hardest of my life, it was the most stressful of my life, but it was by far the best, and most rewarding year so far. I have changed so much, yet I still am young, therefore by default will make mistakes and very dumb decisions. I have so much more to learn, and so many more experiences to enjoy. Life is still strange to me, but so far all I can say is that I will continue to work hard, kayak as much as possible, and move forward.

Wine, Thanks, Music.

Its cool glow was blurry in my ever drooping tired turquoise eyes. From it came the wavy sounds of a music long forgot, the sounds of an angst filled teenage summer. I sat up, wandered through the dark abyss of the lightless living room, and pushed the heavy wooden kitchen door open. There in the corner of the counter rested a an obese  shaped cheap friend, five liters of wine. Somehow I hoisted the barrel of a bottle upward, spilling the sweet smelling liquid into a glass. The familiar sound of a full glass the signal to put my friend back on his resting spot. With care I once again made my way back through the living room to finally slump deep into the open arms of a plush leather couch. My hand moved. Soon the deep purple of the wine mixed with  the dull white of teeth, an exercise not approved by the dentist, or my liver. The music continued to echo throughout the wooden interior of the house. How far I had come from those days when as used to put it, "These songs saved my life." Melodramatic of course, on par for my teenage years, of course. How far I had come from the days when being alone used to conjure deep feelings of emptiness in the never ending recesses of my heart. Oh how far I had come, such a self approving statement. Better, how much I have learned. I sucked more sweet wine from the glass, the world suddenly spun in an off putting yet comforting direction. "How thankful I am, how thankful I should stay" came the loose lipped thoughts of my brain.

It was cloudy. The intensely close sun of the southern hemisphere was now hidden, a shadow of itself the day before. I slid into a comfortable puffy black jacket as I headed out of our house and into the slight breeze which move across the lawn like a slight breath on the back of one's neck. My best friend followed as we walked along the dusty gravel road, razor barbed fences and sheep to both sides. After a half hour we came to the road, thumbs outstretched.  A pleasant ride later, by two former residents of the United States, now returned to the land of their birth for their final years of life. Twenty minutes, and a cheesecake later, we found ourselves in a car, next to a babbling three year old, driven by two of our friends, headed toward a day of giving thanks.

Turkeys roasted, new friends made, bellies bulging like the throats of bullfrogs, I laid soaking the fashionably late afternoon sun. I could hear the spattering random conversations of the groups around me, the annoyingly trendy guitar circle of hipsters, the east coast kayakers, the wild babbling of children. I could hear it all, but I could not listen. I could not listen, I was lost in the sky, I was lost in the thoughts that comes with holiday landmarks such as these.

The song changed. My eyes teetered on the precipice of sleep. I set the now empty glass down gently on the table. Time slowed, dreams meshed with reality, my limbs grew heavy on the couch. The song changed. I tried to walk toward the comfort of my bed but found my brain had become dormant. The song changed. The dull glow began to fade. The song changed.

Contentment, happiness, kayaking, and beer.

The cool biting nectar of barley slid past the gates of my lips and rushed into my gulping throat. I slammed the frosty mug on the worn wood table as the foreign words of my friends were cast loudly into the empty surf shack style bar. Reggae blared in the background, I took another swing, feeling the soft warm glow of the beer enter my mind. I smiled and listened. They chattered wildly and rapidly, hands moving in exaggerated gestures, the whites of their teeth highlighting tan faces. Behind the bar stood Franz, Daniela, and Che, all long time disciples of a minority hippie culture, all devoted to the consumption of liberation, all warm faces in the frigid spring Chilean air.  

I had come to this bar often in the past. I had spent hours slowly loosing the shackles of worry. It had been a year ago sense the last time I had hidden inside these walls, it had been in the heart of the most difficult year of my life. It had become a marker now proving a change of self. 

"Jon can play guitar" my Chilean friend Matias said while pulling his long dark matt of hair tightly into a pony tail. I was jolted from a deep journey of exploring the nothingness of my mind, and shoved into the sudden reality of a impromptu performance. "  I don't how to play..." I said, hoping the lie would allow me to return to my happy daydreaming, my aloof engagement. They insisted. The music was turned off. A guitar formed in my hands. My fingers took to the malleable nylon strings while I took my position on top the nearest table. My Spanish put to the test, I belted out an improvised tune about the joys of being a blond gringo in Chile. Their laughter fueled my performance, especially the dimpled bright face of a very spicy waitress from my old job. I strummed the final note and set the guitar down on the table across from me. The laughter died as I resumed my seat, finished the last of my third frosty mug. The spicy waitress, Daniella, shook a near empty bottle of white wine, and simply said, "Que Bacan." (Slang for "how awesome") That was all  it took, another day beyond happy south of the equator. We left, making our way stumbling into the street.  

The night was freezing.

After consuming comically large hot dogs, we jumped into a taxi, and headed toward the consequence of morning.

 

After waking in a house not my own, curled up warmly in blankets on the floor, I left and caught the first bus back to the countryside. I got off and my stop and started the few minute walk down the tree lined gravel road toward my temporary home, and my best of friends. "Hey lover boy is back!" said the wrinkled smiling face of Dan, the most hospitable man in the world, as I walked into his house. "So how did it go?" I related the details, then gulped down glass after glass of heavy spring water. After my friends woke up, we packed up and sped toward the river, we headed toward life.  

Recanting events sipping beer in Dan's Houe.

Another successful day of kayaking completed. As the stink of wet gear was washed from my body, the delectable cooking of Dan was deep inside my gut, and sleep found me headed for the plush leather couch, I once again was consumed in a life most content. My eye lids squashed my vision, thoughts turned to the adventure of the new day, and my mind was lost in dreams of the Chilean life, kayaking, women, and happiness.

The South Fork Feather Part 1: Arival.

Fog poured from my mouth, it spun into the air, evaporating into the empty crisp night. In the distance a vague nickel colored streak shivered in the cool lake waters, showing the half crescent of the low hanging moon. The silence filled my ears, consuming every part of my being. My cold quaking hand shut the green Subaru door behind me, the clang of metal sending shockwaves of noise thundering into the still night. I glanced across the parking lot, shrouded in pines, smelling of pitch. A tent sat in front of a camper on the far side of the darkness, a light illuminating the thin nylon walls. Someone coughed in the distance, sickness threatening the pure air. I turned to see my best friend, Hunter, click on a headlamp. "I need a jacket!" he gasped as he hurriedly searched his bag for something to energized his slowing electrons. I too started to feel the grip of frost inside my bones. After finding more clothes, bundled tightly in hand me downs from my brother, we walked down a small path to a large oak picnic table. This would be our camp. A picnic table, a few yards from the scars of a dying reservoir, surrounded in the majesty of ponderosas. With a few minutes and multiple trips up and down the path, we had assembled two tents, a pop-up, and boxes of food, in a semi circle around the table.

I drifted into dreams. All was silent. The cold persisted.

The cold was cut by the sudden illumination of the earth. My eyes opened to Hunter heating tea on a small stove. I cast my gaze out to the reservoir. Fog ascended in Jesus like glory toward the ever intensifying ball of fire which so timely revealed itself. The rumbled of a generator cut the silence which I had begun to gulp into my soul. I stumbled from my tent, one hand rubbing my eye, the other pushing my bright blond hair from my face. Hunter finished heating the tea. "Tea?" he asked.
"Yeah" I replied.
"What kind?"
"Green"
"Green with apple?"
"Sure"
He poured the tea into two glass mason jars, and we sat back into our camp chairs. My fingers rejoiced from the steaming brew, as I became lost in the waterfront view before me. Within an hour the sun had begun to warm our camp, casting the early shadows of morning. Boredom soon set in. A wonderful feeling at that. Boredom. A feeling I had been longing for. A feeling of peace. Boredom is often confused with the lack of exertion, while in reality boredom itself is a labor in a peaceful state of mind. Hunter, restless as always, soon started to hint at a want of effort. We walked down to the lake, our vividly colored boats resting heavily on our shoulders.  We paddled out into the dark blue water, the only noise the regular slicing of fiberglass blades against shackled waters. We knifed toward the great monstrosity of earth and cement which drowned a valley, imprisoned the river. Just on the other side of the earthen dam lay the South Fork Feather Gorge. After the paddle, I found left over pizza. As the afternoon set in my eyes became heavy. I strolled to my tent, pulled a sleeping bag onto my head, and fell into a deep nap.

I sat up suddenly.

Daydreams always the strangest it seemed. The afternoon sun bringing my tent to an uncomfortable temperature. We left the camp for a few hours, to hike into the gorge and watch the water attempt to cover the boulders, as the release began. We headed back to camp. The sun fell. More pizza consumed for dinner. As the cold came upon us, we began a fire. Suddenly we were informed by a very grungy looking ex camp host that fires were illegal without a permit. As darkness overwhelmed the day
, shrouding the woods in an ominous light, we set up chairs in Hunter's oddly oversized tent. I cracked open a piece of my German heritage as we stayed awake talking. Tomorrow we would kayak. Tomorrow our week would really begin. Tomorrow our lives would change in a torrent of water and gradient.

The love of kayaking

Steam pours from my helmet like the whining whistle of a kettle. My hands move the helmet to rest awkwardly on my tightly stretched spray skirt. My curly hair hangs low from the weight of the overwhelming precipitation. The clouds seem to be venting their long dry frustrations in a downpour of heavy droplets, as I slide slowly through the murky saturated flood colored waters.

The first rain of fall.

I was alone. I paddled ahead while they played in the squirrely eddy lines upstream. The air was quite. The clouds soaking in the distant sounds, the highway cars, the suburban white noise. The silence was welcome. I could see it across the placid waters. I rolled toward the thunder of familiar rapids. I languidly floated toward the places I had been practicing for the last few months, I saw every move, eddyline, boil, hole, rogue wave, I saw it with a fresh mind. A mind washed clean by the rain. A mind tired of people. A mind struggling in a purgatory between optimism and total despair. Still the rain fell, unconcerned with my thoughts.

How the worries of the future had kept me awake. How the memories of the past kept me from dream free sleep. Dreams keeping my brain in a state of distress. Forcing ludicrous hypotheticals into seeming reality. Waking to the sun. Waking to the noise of the my friend banging around and opening drawers for no reason. Waking to reality. Reality being almost as confusing as the dreams, save for the escape upon the water.
 The escape into a world of froth, focus, ecstasy.
 Kayaking fuels my will to live, it is the muse for my prose. It is life. My heart swells, pangs, shudders in a way never felt before. In a love so deep, so violent, so consuming, it overwhelms the senses. To think about snaking through boulder gardens, flying over cascading drops, or to moments quiet moments like this one, bring a happiness to my heart unknown. It is love. It is love, pure.

I glance back, the forms of two kayaks coming toward me, breaking the silence. The slight patter of paddle blades gaining resistance echo in the damp air. I smile. The next few months would be filled with kayaking.

Filled with Happiness.

To escape the city, to flee to the rivers, to love nature, to love the water, to love life, this is why I live. This is why I kayak.

Lost in a Gravel Parking Lot.

They spread amongst the sky. Glittering like mica in dark riverbank sand. Life seemed to be still, save for the crunch of gravel underneath the lone night wander's flip flop. A dot of light in the distant dark, foreboding wood, signaling the sudden trip to the bathroom. For the most part, however, only my thoughts could be heard, overpowering, cascading. To think. A dangerous proposition. The inner philosopher, never helpful. Debilitating most times. I closed my eyes, pulled my sleeping bag more snug, and tried to fall quickly to sleep. My thoughts decided to explode. They moved from the silent Californian gravel parking lot, and thrust me back into the heat of the desert, the frigid night, the worry, the despair, a story over told, a story never fully expressed, a story always slightly hidden by anxiety, by a want to forget, an unwillingness to accept.

Peru. I speak of it only when asked. I drink to forget it. I think of it constantly.

I could hear them talking outside. I could hear the crackle of flames in the distance. The sudden explosion of gas, screams, silence. The thud of boots upon the cracked and blistered earth. The whimpering of the child behind me. The soft snores of the man in front. The fear in my heart. The feeling of entrapment, of being alone. My arms were wrapped like the tight coils of a snake around my backpack, my hand clutching my knife. They had locked the bus doors at night, keeping "danger" out. Allowing for the dangers of the mind to fill the bus. I could not sleep. Not after today. Not after the stress, heat, sudden acts of violence, the calm to the sudden storm, the vicious nature of this place. I would die here. I knew it. I had to face my mortality. Another day without food or water would surely weaken me enough to be assaulted. To be singled out. To be targeted. I was already a target. My hair, clothes, foreign look. "I live only five kilometers away" Fredie, a newly made Peruvian friend had said yesterday, as he stood outside the bus. "I am going to walk home. If you leave the bus you will die. Stay with the bus and do not leave, it is dangerous here."
I begged my brain not to translate those words. I wanted the façade of peace. Being stuck in the desert alone, as roadblocks burned, and police stood poised to unleash the inhumanity of violence, allowed me to realize that survival would be my only goal. A lofty one at that. The next few days changed me. Stayed with me. Even as I boarded the plane a week later and fled the country, I never left.

I close my eyes, I am back in the bus, shivering, scared, alone, clutching my backpack, while the world disintegrates around me. I close my eyes, I see the flames, I see his foot, I see the sandal, I see his life stolen. I close my eyes, I feel the hunger, the swollen tongue, the heat. I close my eyes, I smell the urine, the gas, the sweat, the dust, the faint aroma of food. I close my eyes, I see my own death.

I sprung from my sleeping  bag, sweat pouring from my brow. The chilly fall September night suddenly fell hot, uncomfortable, terrifying. I stared into the eternity of my mortality. I saw the swirling black, purple, blue of death. To die. To die. It was not far away. All around me. I had seen death. I am not afraid of the end. I am petrified with the thought of eternity. Time, its endless nature is as powerful as the currents in a swollen flooded river. I dropped my head to my sweaty palms, they slid through my ever lengthening locks of sun bleached hair. I laid back down, fear in my heart, no liquid to lessen the fear. Just fear. Fear and sleep. Dreams quickly to follow. Dreams to fill the peace of sleep with confusion, stress, and a new life.

The last year had been hard. I have been told that my prose is full of angst. It takes an unnecessary self loathing tone. It takes situations of adventure and draws pain from them. It takes an average life and turns it depressing. I however, seem to be lost in my mind. Lost in the desert. Somewhere, fighting for survival. One day I will come home. Find my peace. No longer fear the night. No longer dream. No longer write to expel feelings which flood from my swollen brain. No longer allow the blackness to lull me to sleep. No longer feel panic with hunger, danger with thirst. I will be in Chile soon, I will be in happiness, I will be home.

Frigid water, angry skies, and my thoughts.

It was soaked, the air, it seemed to retain every droplet of humid summer precipitation which had just gushed forth onto this beach. This lonely beach. I had been here before, with guests, with responsibilities, with worries, with friends, with work, but now, I was here with a stranger, a trainee, a quiet unassuming kid. I groggily opened one eye as the sun made a rare intense appearance in the burned marshmallow sky. Across the river sat the destruction. Thousands of acres of seared grass, the remnants of angry ill appeased sky gods. My face was suctioned to the sticky rubber of an inflatable kayak, our company's name duct taped off, allowing us to be free, to act upon our own accord, yet here we were, at the an expansive white sand beach. A beach for scores of dazed city folk who like startled deer had found themselves placed out of their element, in the middle of the road, headlights flooding their vision. A beach where I had wrestled, drank, cooked, contemplated, and ultimately become lost in the desert. Here I was. Drawn home. Drawn away from my life. Drawn away from my dreams.

It stood like a testament to my life. It stood like a childlike monument to forgotten dreams. It stood still, resting from its violent scuffle with thunder, its resolute beating with the wind.  Two poles, fabric, a waterproof fly, a sanctuary against nature. We had held up inside it, as dark, ash colored explosions from the sky sent fist sized rain drops barreling towards the flimsy walls of the tent. With each drop came the familiar sound of withstanding elements I had become so used to.

"Get underneath the tarp!" we crawled underneath a tattered blue tarp as freezing rain stung our wetsuited skin, making us shiver uncontrollably, my brother and I. I was eight, and we were on the Yampa river. The sting of romantic rejection could not even come close to the cold we were now enveloped in. It seemed like hours we were curled up together underneath the tarp, listening to the others in our group set up shelter while we just hoped to feel warmth again. Around the time I had forgotten what the sun felt like, and furthermore started to doubt it existed, my dad came and got us. My brother and I clambered into an old gray tent, striping off our wet clothes with shaky hands. Soon we emerged adorned in long woolen pants, big puffy colorful sweaters, and there sat my dad, in the same blue and black sweater he had had since the 70's, just waiting for the cold to subside, knowing it would.  The next morning as I dreaded having to slither back into frozen wetsuits, and once again be subjugated to a day on placid river waters in the snow, my dad would already have woken and been rigging the rafts, knee deep in frigid water. He would emerge and trudge through the sand towards us, sand sticking in between his toes, hugging his calves. I vowed to be like him- the last of the true river guides.

I rolled off of the inflatable kayak and stood in the slight breeze which had now began to stir the still air. As the sun retreated behind the scorched hills, the clouds faded into the vast sky, and stars leapt from their hiding places to fall towards us in brilliant displays of color, I could not help but feel a longing to stay. To return to civilization would bring the troubles it had created to consume my brain, to steal my happiness. I seemed to be locked in combat with everyone. I seemed to be lost in a torment of misfiring chemicals, fried brain connections, and self destructive tendencies. If my eight year old self could study me now, if he could write my future, what would he say? How would he end my life? He certainly would not let these worries muddle an otherwise spectacular evening. As I lay down in the sand allowing the weight of my eye lids to blacken my vision, I pushed headphones on to my years and allowed Cat Stevens to flood my ears. The notes pulled me back to the Grand Canyon, and the Walkman my dad let me borrow every night. It came with two cassettes, one Harry Chapin's Varities and Bladerdash, the other, Cat Steven's Greatest hits. "I am being followed by a moon shadow, moon shadow, moon shadow" he sang.
I slept.
I dreamt.
I woke.
I walked into the murky chocolate colored water, and began rigging my raft, shaking off the cool morning air, and trying to capture something which is most certainly lost.

Burning Bridges

The oars were frozen in my hands. My world was turning vertical. We slowed, time slowed, my heart sank as the  two large bodies of my customers were thrown past my widening blue eyes, and into the faded green waters of the Salmon River. The bright gay orange tubes suddenly blocked out the weak and overcast midday sun. The last beam of  glorious light was suffocated as the raft completed its natural corkscrew, my foot still attached painfully inside. Of course this is how this trip would end. It only seemed right that while I was nearing the brink of the horizon, the sun would decide to set, not rise.

My world was spinning as I opened one eye to see the scurried movements of the other guides inside the aging double wide trailer. My stomach churned, ached, boiled, throbbed, flipped and lurched like a sickening foreshadowing. The past three days blurred into one horrid mistake. Today was the start of five days. Five days on the Main Salmon. Five days in a canyon, suffocating and cold. Not cold as in the sense of goose bumps on a crisp fall morning, but cold as in a rejection via typed letters in the dawning days of young love. I rose and shoved my handful of items in to a old, beaten, and traveled navy blue dry bag. My hand grasped the cold green handle of my graffitied ammo can, I stumbled onto the warm back deck, and toward a failing white suburban. The suburban much like my life was a sad mess of breaking parts and a slow will to continue on, with each passing day hoping the brakes would slow the collision.
I passed out in the back, my face stuck to the seat, only moving for a short stop to stare at biscuits and gravy I knew I should eat, but could not summon the courage to do so. The drive passed in a mixing of reality with the turmoil in my brain. Dreams cause me to shake, my brow to furrow, and my face move to a permanent grimace as I battled the explosion of chemicals that were at war in my body.

I sat up to see the sun set.

It was like a deflating basket ball, slowly and sadly rolling behind the ever steepening hills.  I mumbled my sloppy words, I stared glumly out the window. I wished I was crammed securely into my freeing creek boat. If only to feel the wonderful sensation of a fiberglass blade grasp rock, sending my being into the air, over the aeration and turmoil of a ledge and into the moving water toward the next hazard.
If only.

Nights passed, but my heart was blackening. It turned cold, it turned weak, it turned toward the match to burn the bridge. The self destruct phase was beginning, and I felt powerless to stop it. I was heading for the end in the most glorious explosion of dancing flames.

Morning came, the routine started, the afternoon burned, and night soon followed.

He sat across from me at the edge of the lawn in the dim light, surrounded by the healthy un-kept forest. His discerning brown eyes were fixated on my string of worried words along with a quiet frown. His button up shirt and kaki shorts hardly represented the river guide he was by day. I was unhappy. Everyone felt it, they could feel the discontent. I could no longer keep it in, it poured like a spring waterfall from my worried lips. Worries, hopes, and hatreds I never had expressed before were now flying into the midnight air, sucked away into the canyon. I lamented my position in life, the pointlessness of everything, and the horrid feeling of feeling stuck. I never liked being stuck. Stuck in Sieves, a bus in Peru, or my job it was all the same. It chipped away at the cushion on my heart. It eroded my sense of purpose. Being stuck forced me to realize my reality. A reality which was disappointing and unwanted.
 My nervous tirade ended. He waited. The world seemed to breath deeply before he spoke, "Sounds to me like you need to chill out."
I waited. Thinking there was something more.
He continued in a long explanation of adolescence, the period of growth, life in general. "You are a good dude, people gravitate toward you, don't go out of your way to be a dick.....be content with where you are. I don't want to be that old guy that says 'I felt the same way when I was your age' but its true, this period of life is the most interesting. That is why coming of age movies are so fascinating. Don't waste it being worried or unhappy"
The frozen pensive look on my face allowed for another moment of silence to be heard in the quiet night. "I am glad you told about all this stuff going on in your head man."
The vice grip on my heart loosened, the cold winter cloud that frequented the inside of my chest dissipated, and I opened my eyes again. The canyon no longer felt cold, but humid, hot, and peaceful. My jaw relaxed from a clench, and my entire body sighed for just a moment. We talked for a few minutes more, then he walked to bed. I stayed seated in the lawn, the forest creeping up upon my back. I shrugged it off and found my sleeping bag a few minutes later.

Peace found the next few days. It was a labored peace at that.

Oxygen rushed from my lungs, my foot now holding me under the overturned raft. I tugged violently at my entrapped foot. It came free, flip flop still attached. I surfaced in a atmosphere of orange. I took another breath and escaped the clutches in my new found enemy. My hand clutched the underside of the raft and I slithered like a oil soaked seal onto the floor. I came to my feet to look back up stream at the torrent that had knocked me down. "Float away" a voice said, "Quit" it continued. At that moment I felt like a dam was about to burst, I could feel the cracks spreading like a poisonous spider web across my chest. I blinked my eyes quickly and resumed dealing with the pieces of my mistake. "This boat is a perfect metaphor to my life" came a sudden self deprecating thought " 78.6 miles perfectly fine, to flip only a mile and a half from the take out. It does not matter how well you do for the majority of your life, it is the last mile everyone will remember. It is the crash and burn. The self inflicted wound."

When the boat was righted, customers replaced back in the front of the raft, and the last mile finished. When the trailer was loaded, the boats were rolled, and the oars were stowed neatly next to the paddles. When all the work was done and we crept away from the boat ramp, I was left with a weak feeling in my heart. I was left with the worries of the first day, the worries from when I was 12, 16, 17, 18, and now. I was left with a sudden stunt in the growth I was hoping to make. I was left once again at war with myself.



I was left alone.

The Chevy, small towns, and myslef.

It droned, spewing noxious gas from a heaving tail pipe, the engine making the noises of a labored obese man, as we fought our way up the long asphalt hill. Idaho loomed in the distance, still light from the ever weakening sunlight. The Chevy and I had become one. The monstrous six wheeled foaming beast of steel, dragging a twenty four foot trailer raft perched on top, lugged and swayed behind, threatening to loose control on hills, hating the confines of the dividing lines. I had grown to manage it. We crashed through Oregon, cresting long sloping hills, dropping down into fertile, John Deer green fields, and languid sleepy rivers. Small houses lining the banks, well kept, old Fords parked like trophies out front, what lives they must lead... The simple closed life of the Oregon onion famer.

We crossed state lines, the Chevy and I.

My sanity was becoming eroded by the journey, hours on end without stopping, my left leg hanging from the window, my right pushing the gas. We swung into the town of Wieser, searching for a Gas station. Sinclair gas. I stepped outside and inserted the nozzle with one hand, the other, whipping out a cell phone. Conversations while traveling are always an odd procedure. The standard questions about whereabouts, the bidding of safe travels, and the seeming unheard, but felt, wish for the person a the other end of the line to disconnect, always increased my loneliness. We continued onward, one of us fed and re energized, the other weary and lost in the scenery.

I needed to take council, instead I just passed through.

The setting sun cast its orange incursion upon a small football field to my left. A circle of kneeling football player receiving the last vitamin D of the day. Council High, the sign read. Small towns have always caught my attention, the seeming peaceful simple nature of the towns, baiting me to stop and explore. The destination, and approaching darkness were calling me onward. I tried to fight to urge to continue if only for a moment, but the picturesque scene before me, was not the reality of life. Gossip, ignorance, and confinement are the hash realities. Then again, maybe its just my close mindedness that pervades this notion. Better than the big city however, the birthplace of poverty and the comfort of the lonely. I have always been most lonely when others keep me company. Either way I left, cruising into the Payette wilderness, headed for an even smaller town, my home for the summer.

Darkness fell as I came rolling down a narrow mountain road, hugging the Little Salmon River. The familiar road brought back memories of the last summer. The virgin summer, when it all seemed overwhelming, terrifying, yet exhilarating in a unknown way. When being a River guide was just an Idea, instead of an identity.  How different I was, how much I have changed. The only change the Chevy seemed to have was a new light begging for the engine to be serviced. Have I changed? Probably not, but we can all live in delusion.

I finally arrived. Riggins, ID, Pop. 433.

The left turn to the Salmon River Challenge shop, was almost instinctual, old habits rearing their long hidden heads. I pulled off the driveway, tires partway into a well kept manicured lawn. The Chevy breath a sigh of relief, her toil over.  I opened the door, and heard a familiar welcoming voice, "Welcome back! you made it."

Finding an absence of meaning in the desert of Peru

It stung my eyes, sliding from filthy unkempt stench ridden blond curls clinging wildly to my sun burned scalp. My hand moved slowly wiping the sweat from my dry burning eyes. My shirt clung to my skin refusing to let my feel relief from the heat. The overwhelming stench of urine stung my nostrils and flooded every sense so that it became impossible to think. A second day without food was indoctrinating my mind with despair. My tongue filled my mouth swollen and cracked. It slid back causing a dry cough to echo in the dingy stained interior of the bus. I cast a hopeful glance outside of the bus, out into the desert, I hoped with every fiber of my body that I would see the familiar scenery rushing past the dust covered window. It did not rush past however, but instead stood stationary, mocking my desire to head north. I rolled onto my side, the lumpy seat stabbing my hips, my body sore, aching from my sedentary nature of the past week.  "This is how it ends" came my melodramatic inner monologue. "On a bus, in the middle of this godforsaken country, in the middle of this godforsaken desert. I have the worst fucking luck. What a rough few weeks. Is this really better than the being searched by the police? Is this really better than extending my visa? Was this really worth it?" An insane sputtering of laughter came tumbling from the back of my throat. "I am going to die. I am going to die. I am going to be shown on the news, the tale of the lone 19 year old, misguided and alone, dead. Dead in the desert of Peru. Dead during the riots, caught in the middle of unrest." More laughter poured from my ever eroding mental state.

Blackness started to consume my eyes, I tried to fight it, but the afternoon heat prevailed.

I will die someday. This I know. There is no fighting the truth, but only acceptance. It is curious to me now, home, "safe", and very much alive, how much my thoughts wander to death. I once heard that you finally die when the last person who remembered you dies, or conversely when the last person you care about dies, so do you. No matter what I do with my life, I will die. It will happen. I can cross the ocean a thousand times, spend countless summers in Chile and other "far off" places, but when I die, what I have done it will no longer matter.

We all search for meaning in our lives.

I spend most of my life working for money so that I can do what I love. So that I can lead a life where I live for myself, where I become who I want to be. I want to be a writer. I can spend my entire life thinking of different ways to phrase moments, to capture a scene which left a lasting impression my life, and after years of work, maybe I will be published. Maybe a book will materialize and be enjoyed by a few bored college students, perused by a lone traveler. But when life finally casts its last glow upon an old and weary body, my work will have meant nothing. My books will disappear over time, my prose will be forgotten, and my entire life will have been without meaning. In addition, I could wake tomorrow with a deadly cancer, foreign disease, or be struck and killed as I cross the street. Whatever I worked for will once again evaporate into nothingness.

Life will always end with death, a thought that can stifle any urge of motivation, crush any thought of self improvement.

While in Peru, wallowing in despair, thinking that I would perish on a cheap bus, I noticed sight which stuck in my brain, refusing to be dislodged. A family of five, saturated in filth, sitting outside of their small crumbling hut. No larger than the size of a walk in closet, the woven matts which made up the walls were filled with holes form the constant barrage of desert wind. There they sat, crowded around a small table, as a pot of foul smelling food bubbled above a small propane stove just behind them. They watched me as I stumbled around outside of the bus. I stopped and inspected the scene. Suddenly my pain, misfortune, and all future problems died in comparison with their squalor. Their eyes were fixated on me, it was as though they were dreaming of clothes only worn for three days, a belly only without food for two days, and a mouth swollen from only a day's lack of water. I collapsed to a sitting position in the dust. We stared at each other and for an hour, each utterly confused by the other.

I can wail about how I will die, about how my life will not mean anything. I can discuss the philosophy of middle class entitlement, but I will never have to forced into their level of poverty. I will never have to wash my clothes from a bucket as brown as the inside of a rusted toilet. I live such a comfortable live as to allow for obscure worries. I am coddled enough as to worry about a life lived without meaning, rather than a life of survival.

This is life

Cold clings to my back, the hard pavement offering minimal comfort. A hand slung over my face, blocking the intense spring sunlight from tired eyes, my thoughts are no longer here. They are lost among the waves of the day, trapped in the canyon walls, abandoned on the lonely two lane road. My eyes closed, I listen. The ambient noise of the city not reaching my ears, not able to it seems. I can almost hear the waves of the lake, the sudden chatter of sloppy Spanish, the crunching of feet upon coarse dark sand. If I refused to open my eyes, because for a moment, I might believe I am back. I might believe I am once again in Chile.

"You can never return to your hometown."

Steinbeck saved me in Peru. His book kept my hope alive and my mind sane during the three day ordeal of starvation, dehydration, and blistering heat. He allowed for an escape from the survival mentality I was locked into to, he showed me a light other than the harsh and foreboding one of the desert sun. His books filled with wonderful quotes, one seemed to be highlighted on the page, my eyes fixated to the comment, re reading it with a sudden vigor. "You can never return to your hometown" it read. As I was in the long process of finding my way "home," I latched onto that comment, and waited to see if it would hold true.

Each bend in the road was filled with memories, each scent a reminder of past emotions, long forgotten thoughts. Each storefront, conversation with friends, and paddle stroke is filled with the unclear memoires of a uncomfortable youth. Upon my return, hair twisted into unwanted dreadlocks from days lacking showers, body sore and aching from travel, and a mind weak from the past week of hell, I stumbled into the shower. The warm water massaged my weary back, steam clouding my blurry vision.

 Lavender, the aroma drifted from my freshly shampooed hair.

 I could see the Iron bars of the rapidly approaching bridge, the crisp fall air, the Northern California forest slowly succumbing to an oncoming cold.  My heart once again felt the fresh sting of a long forgotten pain. It was strange back then, a new love found, and old one lost but not yet forgotten. She stuck out in my mind like a large sieve in a treacherous rapid. That night, on the first day of fall two years ago,  I knew would forever be held in the nostalgia of childhood, the perfection of a night filled with "firsts." No matter how wonderful any experience would be, it could never live up to that festival in the mountains, that time of close friends and amazing whitewater.

The shower ended, but the aroma lingered.

Being home is filled with reuniting. Friendly pats on the back, long overdue embraces, and a retelling of my adventures. Yet, I seem to find myself aloof in this city, uncomfortable with my surroundings. I do not feel as though I returned home, but instead seem to find myself waiting for the next leg of my life, the next chapter in my ever lengthening novel. I miss the rapid fluid conversations in Spanish, I miss the fierce southern sun, I miss the warm kind nature of the locals, I miss the safety of the streets, I miss the freedom I felt. It does not matter how much I miss a place, I must always wait to return, I am never allowed to stay.

For now, October calls me, and I will wait patiently.

Street lights, Rain, Salmon River, Change.

It is illuminated. Frozen in the night. Slowly passing with a fluid continuality. Caught in the dull orange glow of the streetlight it causes my head to turn, eyes to focus. The misty rain dampens my turquoise jacket. The strange warmth of the night was perfectly contrasted by the sudden turn of the weather, the overcast nature. I become lost in the light, my thoughts slip past my body, drag me unwillingly to another frigid dreary night months before.

Our steps echoed in the still Californian night, the sound of a waves crashing on the rock outcropping the only intrusion into the silence. Fingers tightly interlocked, our hands melded together, we tentatively stepped on to the pier. I cast a glance at her face, hidden by hood of her sweatshirt. She turned her head, caught my eyes and smiled. In a few days I would be gone. I would leave her. I would trade the rainy coast for the hellish Idahoan sun, the burning white sand beaches, the childhood dream of spending everyday on the river . We reached the end of the pier, neither of us saying a word. Not more than an hour earlier we had been sitting on the couch at my best friends house, now we were at the coast, feeling the night, hiding from impending separation. A sudden whooshing noise much like that of a newly opened bottle sent salty spray into our sniffling faces. Both of our bodies lurched forward to see where the sudden spray had come from. The dark shining tail of a whale disappeared underneath the ocean, back to the search for food, back to survival. I was not in the moment, my thoughts elsewhere, to the next few days, to the end of the relationship. I could feel it would be the end, I could feel the future would not be how I desperately wanted it to be. No matter how much I wanted to be with her, no matter how much I loved her, I could never love her as much as the river. I could never give her what she wanted. I could feel the change coming, it was a sickening thought, a painful crushing feeling in my heart. I knew this change would bring the end. It would infect the wound, it would bring the fatality.

The north star is visible now. It signals the end, it is guiding me toward home. It is bringing the end. The end. I say this often now. The end of what? I do not know. I could not say. The end of freedom? The end of myself? The end of happiness?

I love this place. I love the people I have met. I love walking to the beach. Wandering by myself. Loosing myself in the hidden canyons of the campo. Speaking Spanish, the constant test, the beautiful flow of new words, foreign expressions, has grown to be a welcomed addition to the day. My philosophical musings, worries, frustrations, have no place among the relaxed nature of the Chilean people. The faces of the locals change into a smile as I converse with the same slang, the same bravado. I am afraid of the north. I am afraid of the change. I will miss so much.

That summer I was taught a lesson among the sweeping turns, vast landscapes, and captivating canyons of the Salmon river. Acceptance. While I may not want to leave, to head north, I will accept it.

Thoughts during desayuno....

Its falling, the rain, washing away the summer dirt, the grit of the parties, the sin of the Santiagan incursion. I watched memories go up in flames, the disco as it burned, sending the nights misgivings, shortcomings, and mistakes up into the air as dark green smoke, torched metal. The bitter taste of a coffee still sits awkwardly in the depths of my tongue. My toes wiggle rhythmically inside worn kayak shoes to the foreign music blaring from the small speakers in the corner of the café. No work today. Yesterday was a tremor of change, causing plans to fall, people to change, a slight ominous shadow to taint the bright sun. My pocket its fat, uncomfortably so, with small Chilean notes, my sudden urge to drink everything in sight slowly easing the discomfort. I touch my tea, it sears my fingertips, causing my hands to move back to the keyboard, back to the stream of thoughts swirling in my head. It is always days like these, when shelter beckons, and the outdoors appear dreary and damp, that thoughts start to weigh, to strain, to burden.

My time here is over.

I can remember a night, months ago, in the early stages of love, when a shaky, worried thought came bursting from my girlfriend's (at the time) lips. "I feel that when you go to Chile you will never come back." I comforted her by saying that my visa would only allow for me to be there 90 days, no more. Having lived her for more than four months now, I can not help but allow her to be right. I did leave her for this place. I gave up on whatever love there was between us to find happiness. I wish I did not have to go home. It is not really my home. I have discovered home is where you are the most happy, fulfilled, and loved.

My home here is now tainted. It leaves a sickening feeling in my chest. I feel the urge to run from this place, yet a reluctance to return to my hometown, my life, my family.

After the interrogation in the street, the PDI asking questions for which I could not supply answers, searched against the wall, I packed my things as though at any moment a SWAT team would come bursting through the door. I sat outside on a bench, all my worldly possessions fitting into two bags, my guitar tightly jacketed in a third. Not knowing why the PDI had searched me I decided to get out of their focus, leave my house. Whatever they were investigating I did not want to be caught in the middle of it. Confused, tired, and alone, I sat waiting to walk to my new house, my new bed for the next few days. The sun was setting, casting a hazy orange glow over the city, I closed my eyes for a moment, waited, allowed the cool fall air to fill my lungs. Sand, the seemingly endless horizon of the ocean, a night sky filled with a scene that allows one to feel insignificant, filled my imagination, fueled my desire to go north, to leave Pucon.

I am lost.

I don't know what will become of my future. To think about the coming years brings a weariness to my body. An overwhelming sense of work. How I wish to see the winter here, to feel the cold bite my cheeks, the rain soak my clothes as I slog to the store, the rivers to rise and become violent and foreboding, a small fire to warm my shaking body after a long day lost in a canyon. My idealistic view on life here allows a comfortable familiarity to warm me. I always have hated change. Loathed every thought of mine which evolves into a new one, showing previous comments to be hypocritical. However, whether I enjoy it or not, change is inevitable, the only constant in life. I touch my tea, my fingers are met by a cool mug, my lips prove the liquid to be warm, a pleasant change.

So much for love, Lets drink beer

I was staring at the street light, watching the cold. My body was steaming, the anger still seeping from muttering lips. I was too tired, too defeated, too buzzed from bitter beer to move. It tilted, slid, spun, I tried to not waver from my perch on top of the bench, but it was futile, the cheap amber liquid skewing my perception. It ached, my heart, for the first time in months. For the first time since that dark day when I ended the call, sending a year of "love" into oblivion.

 The words "I love you" are not hard to misinterpret, but maybe they came too casually from her lips. The first girl I had fallen for since my cold arrival four months earlier, walked away, chose a different path other than my beckoning arms, my awaiting lips. "Ja, chao" came my quiet words form barely open lips. As my feet carried me unwillingly away, I cast one look slowly back over my shoulder, caught her gaze, as she yelled something which was swallowed by the surrounding brick buildings. The warm party filled atmosphere of the night sharply changed, turning into a gray, beach like fog, cold and dreary, the friend of depression. I cast my head up toward the night sky, the stars hidden by the artificial imposition of man, and shouted the horrid flood of thoughts which rushed from my heart and gushed out of my mouth.

I keep learning. Love is never equal.

I was hopeful, my first days here, that I would find love once again. I realize my words sound melodramatic, the " I will never love again" from the young nineteen year old, but I truly believe it is growing dark. I try to see beyond what they say, but I am searching for something I cannot find. Empathy has grown to be my enemy, choosing to walk the drunkest girl home rather than strike with the speed of an awaiting serpent coercing her to choose the option of shame, the option of the next day's guilt. I get harassed. They say that I am trying to go home with those girls, that by being nice I am trying to find a way past the seemingly padlocked zipper on their nicely fitting pants, but this is not the case. I feel bad, I feel worried for them, I feel the familiar empathetic response. Always with the philosophy that one day I will be rewarded, but I only seem to find more walls to scale, more hurdles to leap, more oceans to cross.

I am tired.

I think about my future, what little future there is. I see my return to my homeland, to my state of birth, I see the sun shining awkwardly through the trees above the dust filled driveway of a dear friend. I see white walls stair sterilely back at my nervous and uncomfortable eyes as I try to enjoy the old green sofa in my parents house. I see the short walk the to store, the crisp Oregon air biting my cheeks. I see the oven like heat of Idaho. I see the oncoming change. The return to familiarity. I see the same sickness of a swollen heart, and hopeless thoughts return as they did after Idaho. To be dependent upon others always brings the blackness, the haze of smoke to cover my eyes, suffocating my thoughts. I wonder if it will be different this time. I wonder how long before my hope suffers.

I will miss my life here. I will miss my perceived freedom.

I have changed, but am still the same. This environment feeds my soul, the freedom allows for my personality to slip out and enjoy the sun, relax in the uniqueness of the experience. I still search for someone for which to share my experiences with, but have learned the I prefer to be alone. I walk to the bar alone for a reason, I sit away from everyone else, enjoying the cool biting beer in silence, in peace. I reflect, enjoy, and forget the night, as the crowd around me loudly roars in a language my ears forget, in a tongue I do not understand, and I smile. "Jon! Otra Schopp Escudo cierto?" comes the familiar voice of Franz, the owner of the bar. I nod pulling two green slippery bills from my worn jeans pocket, and wait for another beer to come sliding across the bar and into my awaiting hands. Alone and happy, I wait for the slight intoxication to bring new clarity to an sorely over analyzed subject, Love.

.

On empathy, thoughts, and spicy popcorn

Lines, everything is a line. If only I knew how to draw them, if only I could capture their beauty. I could, if I practiced, my pen and pad nearby. Too far away it seems now. Too far for the strain of grasping fingers. The walls, hold me in. The bed chains me to a reclined manner. Lids half closed, warm in the late afternoon heat. The spattering of paint, mixing the different colors, yellow walls, green roof, clearly not a the work of a professional. A mustard colored drape halfway covering the window holds out the heat, lets in the light, allows for a view of the top half of a tree. The heat shows the sky to be a washed out blue, its as though it is dehydrating the sky, staring the onset of heat stroke. Oh jeez, I hope the sky doesn't succumb to the heat as most of us do. The music focuses my thoughts in a wandering, meandering, manner not unlike that of a river. Flowing, never ending, like eternity. Eternity, a frightening thought. Always has been.
 I watch the walls they tell a story. "Someone liked to hang things from nails", they say. Why haven't I noticed these walls sooner? Strange how I study this room now. Strange I haven't before. I tried to see the outside world, the heat deterred me. I can feel sleep coming, not the sleep of a dreamer, but the sleep of lids shut, ears open. I think about her, I think about everyone, I think about the other hers, the new girls that come in and out of my life.

I am sad, but then again, I am also happy.

It is not the sadness of my youth, it is not the crushing depression I have dealt with since as long as I can remember. It is not brought on by the contemplation of eternity, it is not driven by discontent with myself. I have started to love myself lately. It is not because I constantly am running into road blocks with my plans. It is not because I am alone...well maybe slightly. It is because she is gone, it is because I finally have settled in, it is because I roll over in the night, arm instinctually aiming for her warmth but instead finding the unwelcoming touch of an ancient mattress. Do I miss her? Do I miss the relationship?

No.

She used to ask me what was wrong. I would have grown quiet, lost in thought, shake my head, say nothing. With poking, prodding, and the eventual lack of affection, I would relent. Never feeling any better. It was the feeling akin to someone reading your personal journal, your diary, your deepest thoughts, thoughts for which you feel are yours and yours alone. I have been told talking about your problems makes you feel better, and I realize this to be true. For me, however it is not talking to another person. It is vaguely hinting at the issues though strange and incoherent prose, taking the strained journey to a mountain top to ramble to the likeness of Jesus, or as I do now, watch a tree though the window, allowing for study breaks, as eyes move to the walls. Do I need another person to talk to? Do I need someone to tell me that everything will be all right, everyone will be happy, everything will work out?

No.

My mouth burned. Not herpes, not an STD, but what I assume about the same discomfort, brought on by the fire of spicy popcorn. So good, yet so painful. I allow the beer to stifle the branding fire on my lips. She watches me. I cough, smile, allow a laugh to slip out, met by her eyes brightening, her wonderfully consistent laugh to penetrate the throng of noisy drunk patrons. This popcorn is horrendously hot! The bowl is near empty though. I leave the conversation to tap the burly bearded waiter and ask for a refill. Her Spanish, slow and easy to my ears, starts again. I focus on her problems, I focus on her pain. Earlier she had almost cried, as I sat outside my work, sipping a beer, and enjoying my day off. I saw the need for a friend, I saw the need for release. "Call me, and we will go have a beer, and you can talk" I had said, my empathic words moving tears to a smile. Now, seated across from each other, at a small wooden table, the last one to have been unoccupied, we share stories, laugh, and I assure her she will be fine. I smile, my first conversation in Spanish about more, than girls, kayaking, or waiting tables.

As the night crept toward four, we walked down the street, my problems firmly in my head, hers' as well, now. I did not want to burden her with my problems, nor anyone, they don't keep me awake, they don't hinder my movements, but are more odd musings, and this strange sadness. I do not want to talk, I want someone to hold, someone to wrap in my arms as I close my eyes and wait for the dreams to disrupt the night. I had no time to process the separation of bonds, the ending of love, the shattering of beautiful foreshadowing. I had to leave. There is no escape here. For why would you contemplate leaving this place. A barrier stops from the expressing of one's self, allows for old talents, old abilities to mean nothing here. As I write now, I understand that my Chilean friends will have no understanding of this stories, no ability to understand my strange usage of commas, periods, and ellipses. I find other talents, I find other ways to help them, as they unknowingly help me. Cliché? Of course, but the truth is hard to hide. Empathy is not a skill, but savagely needed. Empathy allows for happiness, empathy is the first step for love.

My eyes close, the vastness of sleep allows for me to become lost. Allows for the afternoon heat to cover my body in an comforting blanket. If I could not hear the Chilean music downstairs I might think I am back in Oregon, far from home.

Dreams, Life, and meanings....maybe I should just go to bed.

It swirls, I feel the world tilt slightly, spin back into focus, the moment already seen, or has it? I step forward tentatively, testing the earth, feeling its momentum. Steady, I wait, hands loosely holding the bag, and apple shaped logo branding its origin. I squeeze my eyes, and open them. Clarity fills them. I think back to the night, I think back toward the days before this moment. I think back to the years of misguided wanderings, sayings, teachings, thoughts. This morning is like the rest, a routine I have fallen into with the ease of resting a weary head upon a welcoming grassy pasture. The delirium of senses focusing into normality, made labored by the dreams of the dark hours of sleep. I now walk confused, questioning what was reality and what was the conjuring of a swelled imagination. The dark eyes of the passers by catch the region above my forehead. The obscurity of the bright dandelion like cluster of hair upon my heavy head causes the stairs. I move past not allowing myself to study their faces, not returning their curiosity. I can feel the strain of an empty stomach upon my limbs, the steaming empanadas transferring their energized molecules into my slow hands. The dream stays with me now, I can feel its reality stir my senses, causing emotions all too real. I shake my head again and focus upon the blue horizon as it is absorbed by the small buildings at the end of the street. I check my pockets, feel the slippery texture of a 5000 peso bill, the dream was not real. I did not hand this reluctantly over. I did not attempt to vocalize those thoughts. My feet rush up the stairs, causing the noise of entry to echo throughout the wooden walls of the apartment. The T.V. is screen now mirroring off of my eyes, as the warm diverse taste of dough stuffed with care, slides down my throat, warming the strained walls. The dream focuses now. I close my eyes and see it clearly. The punches thrown, the words dealt, the love gained and subsequently lost, the memories had.

 Its all a lie now.
Its all lost.
But the fear was real.
The unsettling feeling in my heart leaves now.

They all have the same theme, they all share the same line of thought, the same horrid reality: Trapped in the states, work starts in the morning, the ones I love back in Chile, the ones I love in the States, the conflicting emotions. Old love regained, new love lost.
 Upon the sudden awakening to my alarm, chanting the same monotone voice, urging me to "wake up" I am lost. I am lost in my mind, studying the meaning. Someone once said dreams are the preparation for reality. They mentally and physically prepare you for situations you fear the most. As ancient man roamed the planes, his dreams were filled with escaping the predators he faced as he attempted to survive, his body was prepared. An evolutionary trait hard to deny easy to forget.

My dreams are closely aligned with reality, they seem more real than life sometimes. Reality? Reality is the perception of existence. Something with even the most basic philosophical student can argue to a fallacy. My perception of reality differing from yours, yours differing from his, and his differing from whom? Life is a mystery, a mystery which can never be solved, a case for which there is no ending. We attempt, we declare scientific discoveries which further our understanding, but in truth we merely nibble at our trapped limb of perception, hoping to escape before the lost blood, smothers our life. The exercise appears futile, believed by me to be so. But that is as far as it ever goes, beliefs. We claim to be scientific and hold no beliefs, but the attempt to solve the mystery to further our slight understanding, is to believe that the mystery can be solved. It is to believe that we can figure out why we are here, and where we go? The only absolute in life is that understanding will never be achieved. Our bodies know this, as they slowly loose cells, and limit our time to ponder, to question, to discover. What is the purpose of life? What is the point? Questions asked by a weary brain after a night of cerebral exhaustion. What would be the point, if one could never feel truly rested.

Love?
Empathy?

The point I find for myself now is my own, neither advice or an answer. Advice is greedily given, and rarely accepted. I purely ask questions and work toward a life which supplies answers.

She sits, back pressed against the window of the adjoining building. Her body shakes with the convulsions of deep emotions, hurt, the inability to understand why this sadness must be thrust upon her now. Her friend's hand tenderly rested upon her back, hoping to ease the pain, hoping to right the perceived wrongs. I watch the foam. Eyes, expertly now, making sure the right amount floats tranquilly upon the golden brown liquid. No people sit at the bar, no stories to be shared today, only the heat is my companion now. I wander out of the door, my eyes catch the scene to my right. The tear stained face, the glistening of the running nose, sadly the face is dearly familiar. A face I had seen the week before, with a smile, laughter easily flowing from our conversation. Sharp feelings of an unsettling and unpleasant nature sneak into my heart, the same emotions I feel upon realization in my dreams. Weights meld with shoulders, my feet feel tied to the earth, my mind feels itself shift into one train of thought. It has been nearly two months since this feeling has entered my conscious mind. I want to help her, to solve her problems, to hear her pain. My lack of Spanish bars these urges, slaps the helping hand violently. Work ends, I wander slowly, with feet feeling as though the slog toward home.
They look at me, their eyes sensing the change in mood, there actions slight but noticed. Dinner warm, offered into my hands, they say nothing, having learned something past loves had not. Later that night conversations with old friends offer an unnoticed relief to my over empathetic response. I smile, and head for my beckoning bed. The next day is as the rest, just as I could have dreamed, just as I always wanted. My home is here. My happiness is here, my dreams have followed me here, but I watch them now with a curious nature, their turmoil no longer plagues my heart.

Pursuing moments

I find her now, a smile creeps upon my face, I suppress nothing, except the words I wish to flow from my mouth. Her face is perfectly framed, glasses hardly suppressing the classic beauty which stems from the depth of her look, the congeniality of her smile. The purples, reds, oranges, swirl across her face, reflecting warmly from in her eyes, eyes for which mine refuse to leave. Does she feel my heart bursting from my chest, a reaction of a primal nature, a reaction which is uncontrollable, yet I do not want to control it. I can feel my mouth not saying what my brain begs, the classic conversation of friends, the conversation of the arm around shoulders in the cold, not the conversation of the passionate blur in the night. She goes away now, enveloped in the crowd, the grinding, dancing on tables, hands running through quickly lengthening blond locks, not to be seen by here eyes, nor do I want them to watch, to judge? maybe.

Would I want to be with her? Would I want to hold only her hand, study only her eyes, feel only her warm touch?

No. Some days as the nights drag along with the brain jarring explosion of lights in the discos, photographs with girls, the random dance partner, the random short expression of passion, to find myself walking down dim streets as the sun rises from the still stunning mountains, I think maybe I would like someone to walk home to. Someone to share my life with. What would I share? Wanderings maybe, thoughts I wish to keep to myself. I reel from the thought of expressing the internal workings of poor judgments, and loose morals. To share is to give something I no longer wish to give. Something I can no longer justify giving. My romantic notions surely damaged, the cancer like growth of doubt slowing them to a non existence.

She smiled, followed by an expression of laughter foreign, yet addicting. My brain grew high from the auditory exaltation of approval. My Spanish was awful, yet I was still finding a way to entertain, to hopefully impress? The hours passed, with the gentle change of night to morning. My Spanish grew worse as oxygen left my brain, legs cried in exhaustion. I left, walking home, no number, only a first name, never planning to see her again, knowing I would. He face not leaving mine. What would I say next time I saw her? Probably nothing, but place the greeting of a kiss on her cheek then awkwardly continue to work, making sure not to glance at her table, for only fear would find my heart. Why the wall? Why the obstacles? Why the inability to pursue those I love, and the ability to have the unwanted, the random, the rich girl from Santiago, the student from Temcuo, the allure of unique hair.

The weary grow restless.

I slide the food onto the table, piercing blue eyes full on remembrance peering deep into my heart. "I really want to kiss you" I had said a week before, alcohol expressing a truth which I had only let out once before to her. She smiled, followed by a small yet welcoming shrug and "ok." I leaned in for a kiss. The next moment was one for which I live, one for which I close my eyes and attempt to remember in the purity of perception. I pulled away and disappeared into the crowd, my life complete. Why?
Her walk.
 She walks, I watch intrigued, baffled, and with the confused nature of a wild horse upon eying a human. She walks with the stride of one who walks in a direction, not sure on where it leads, but sure of her progression toward it. How very unlike me. I walk not knowing if I maintain a direction, unsure of my steps, but continue to take them out of curiosity. It was her walk I first noticed, that day. I sat, head spinning from the first drinks to ever enter my hands legally, and ate a disappointing grilled cheese sandwich. She stood staring at the t.v. the blurs of a intense soccer game bringing the tired morning scene a shot of energy. I watched her with a slight curiosity, her features did not match those of the other Chileans. Her smile slid out occasionally and with a expected regularity. I held the water to my head, the cool droplets of fog rolling down my cheek. I guessed she might be German, Spanish, or some other euro traveler turner waiter, but much like many other times in my life, I was very wrong. Now, standing in front of a table, her dad and mom sitting to either side of her, I heard her voice, It shocked me, yet did not. I could have heard it before, but the music would have been loud. In the clarity of a searing summer day, the kind of day where taking a few steps feels like a mile, and sleeping feels like a chore I heard it for the first time. I turned my back to her and walked out of the sun, a smile forcing itself upon my face.

These stories, these brief encounters, must feel mundane to the observer, but there is a story behind every look, a hidden motivation? A darkened intention?  Stories are told by none other than a sudden hand gesture to the right, eyes noticing, drawing the attention away from the moment. A change of words, a glace of the eyes, a deep look combined with a questioning smile, these say more than the mouth. I watch, I wonder, but I refrain from wishing. To wish is to remain stationary in life, to never get to the destination that you may reach. While I may fall in love with moments, I refrain from pursuing an eternity.