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.