I must say that the Santiago life is agreeing with me. Not only this weather that I keep running on about, but the life I have here is pretty chill, which allows for a lot of time to think and write and wander around with neither stress nor direction. This morning I woke up early and from my bed I watched the sunlight slowly creep up the contoured orange-yellow stone shingles on the roof across the courtyard. My mind was moving slowly through the sounds of the wings and cooing of the pigeons; the fan blades turning in another room; the soft, diffused light on the bed sheets; the smell of the morning and the bleeding together of the past and future. The echoing words of a Dostoyevsky story; the dim blue glow of my curtains being illuminated from without; the sad resolution of the tale Bolivar's unification plan; the as of yet unknown fate of so many winding roads...just thinking of this big world that really isn't so big, in this big life that really isn't so big either. So often it is easier to distract one's self with work or study or the speed of life or whatever other thing...easier to cover up the reflections and implications of one's trailings and doings...as to not have to deal with them so much. I often realize, in the travelling, that so much happens and it happens at a rate that is difficult to keep up with mentally. I think, 'later I will reflect on this event or feeling because I know it has signifigance', but then I generally don't because I get carried away with all the craziness that happens later on in those moments. So I guess I have had a little island of time here to do a little of that type of thinking. That type of reflecting. And while I know that it is dangerous to get too far into one's own head, I have still valued this short period of time for that allowance. It seems to me that it gets easier and easier to recognize and appreciate the things in life that are beautiful; for the beauty itself, and for what it gives to a person. And also in understanding the things that are dark and terrible, complete with the gifts of persective and depth that they give a person if that person is ready for them. In all the blur of these things whizzing by it seems easy to be overwhelmed and disillusioned by the obvious and obligatory inability to comprehend it all...it is natural after all, this inability, because of how vast our sphere of occurance is, but still we find it frustrating in a world so increasingly sure of it's own omnipotence. In the noise and vertigo of the machine we call The Modern World...maybe these brief glimpses of silence and nature are just what we need to stay sane, to stay balanced and grounded. I am content amongst the chaos, but in a windless meadow of peace, like the one I find myself in right now, (without warning) I can recognize the value of each setting, and for me that is helpful. But enough new age muttering...on to the news!
To start, I want to mention one quick thing that made me smile from ear to ear and really sort of typifies the kind of things in life that I find great. It is nothing really, just a moment, but it really did make the world better for me yesterday afternoon. I was sitting at one of my new favorite restaurants here in Santiago, a doner kebap restaurant like the kind you see all across Europe and also in Australia, and I was watching the coming's and going's of a typical summery saturday afternoon. I was being tended to by a pretty Chilena waitress, and between our banter and the antics of the passersby, I was thoroughly entertained for a full hour. I was on my own, so I was doing what I often do in restaurants or parks...imagining what the lives of random strangers might be like. Sort of watching the interactions of different people, listening to the voices, reading the body language. Well, there were these two old guys across from me chatting about this and that, and when they stood up to pay the tab, one of them popped up onto his bald and wrinkled head...nothing less than a Slayer hat!!! No joke, he had a brand new black baseball cap with the band logo of Slayer emblazoned in bright red across the front. Man that was funny. The waitress caught it too and we gave each other the "huh?" face across the sidewalk. He payed the tab for the both of them and then the two old men slowly embraced and then the Slayer guy ambled off down the street. I have yet to make any sense of it, but man am I glad I got to see it!
I finished out the week in my classes with a teacher called Juan Luis. He is a cool guy from Santiago who is really into music so we talked a lot about bands. During the dictatorship all sorts of forms of expression were heavily sensored or banned altogether. As a result there is a rich and very inspired musical history of anti-establishmentarianism. (Man I love an opportunity to use that word.) In no other country in my travels have I seen so many death metal, heavy metal, and punk rock band t-shirts. Everywhere you look there is a bearded and tattooed dude wearing a Morbid Angel t-shirt, or an Obituary t-shirt, or a Black Flag t-shirt. It is impressive. They say it is a generation without dreams...an immediate gratification generation based upon the American model...full of anger and lacking much guidance. I will write more on this theme later, because I think it is interesting and I have learned a lot in the last week that has fascinated me about the cultural identity of Chile...and how strangely similar it is to our own...only through a much different process of arrival. Yeah, more on that later...I feel like staying away from the politics today.
So yesterday, before I was blessed by the viejo in the Slayer hat...I woke up at the usual time...about eight, and took my clothes to the laundry. Here they hang you out to dry on the laundry payments!! (Excuse the shitty laundry pun...heh heh heh) It costs almost triple here what it costs in Argentina. But whatever. The lady at the laundry-mat gave me a discount because she is from Peru and she saw my Cusqueña beer t-shirt in the laundry basket and got all excited and nostalgic. We chatted for a few minutes about Lima and I was out the door and on the way to the Santiago home of the much exalted dead poet, Pablo Neruda. For those who are fans, such as myself, it is quite something to see where he lived. In total, he had three estates: the one here, one in Valparaiso on the coast, and the original in Isla Negra. The one here in Santiago was originally built as a place to house an affair he was having behind the back of his second wife, with a woman who would eventually become his third. (I know I probably just lost all the women who are reading this with that one...his poetry is great!! I swear! But I don't claim to support his morality! Ha ha!) So the place is named after the crazy hair that his third wife Matilde had. Las Chasconas it is called. It is actually three separate buildings that share a hillside, in the trees of the Bellavista neighborhood, beneath the Cerro San Cristobal. When he lived there, there were numerous streams that flowed around his property and when combined with the houses that he designed and constructed, and the views out over the city, it would be what you would expect from an artist like him. I was really impressed by his collections of things from all over the world. He called himself a man of things, and this is easily observed by looking at all the stuff in his houses. The houses are all inspired by ships and adorned with things from the sea and representing the sea. He lived in the Far East, Italy and France for long periods of time, among other places, and his houses are full of art and remnants. The houses are made of wood and bear many features of an old style ship. I spent an hour wandering the garden paths and twisted stairways of the poet and I came away feeling more interested than ever in the history of Neruda. After all, he is a foremost representative of most things 'to the left' (liberal) here in South America. He died just days after the military coup was carried out by General Pinochet in 1973, technically of a heart attack, but local lore has it chalked up to a broken heart. Fitting. In that sense, the end of his life marked the beginning of 17 years of hell for Chile.
From there I took off up the dusty trail of Cerro San Cristobal. My plan was to walk from one end to the other, to get a better idea of the situation of the city of Santiago. (Cerro essentially means hill or small mountain. This one is planted in the middle of Santiago, that's to say that Santiago sort of curves around it, and from the summit you can see all of the city's panorama.) It was getting hot at this point and I pounded the water as I gained in elevation. After about an hour of strolling and sweating, I came to the plaza of the Virgen at the top. A massive Virgin Mary statue with her arms held out above the city. This is where the view is at. The sun bore down without mercy, making the wind at the summit more than welcome, and from there I drank a coke and looked out over the city and all it's smog to the magnificent mountain range behind. La Cordillera De Los Andes is as impressive here as it is anywhere else, and it seems to stand behind the city like an ancient protector. (On a tangent, Chile has never been faced with any of the vine plagues (like Phylloxera) that ravaged most of the world's wine scene in the last two hundred years. Amongst Chileans, the reasons for this include the natural boundaries of the Pacific Ocean to the west, the great desert to the north, the Strait of Magellen to the south and the Cordillera to the east...) From the small peak I was on, you could take a gondola across to the other part of the Cerro and that is what I did. I ate cookies and sweated even more profusely as I cooked like a chunk of beef tenderloin in the sun in my little glass bubble, hovering high over the city's skyline...it was a real trip. From there I did a bunch more walking and after not too long had a delicious doner kebap while watching the Slayer-hat guy. I am not quite sure why, but as I said, this Santiago life is a happy one currently. Last night I drank peach nectar with some friends long into the night while discussing the state of it all, and then I dissolved into the strange, dream filled sleep that I am tending to have here...and that lead to the first paragraph of the blog.
So yeah, I guess that's about it for today. As you can see, I got a USB port adapter for the camera and got a few photos loaded up. I finished with Marquez's The General in His Labyrinth and am now happily immersed in Dostoyevsky's The Eternal Husband. Fyodor is and was the best. Coming to the end of february, this trip only has a few more months to go...down here the seasons will soon begin to shift towards the chill, and I will head northward...to follow the sun. To chase it, as one of my Bozeman friends recently put it. In thinking about heading north, I am really excited to spend time with all my friends and family up in the states again...to any of you reading this, I miss you and can't wait to see you!! Chau for now!
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