In another country, one is suspended in a constant state of disbelief. A simple glance out a shuttered window can induce a shudder of its own; that which is commonplace can be absolutely tickling. For example, the smell of the city is not pleasant: exhaust, a sweet touch of decay, perhaps a nearby eatery. In Palos Grandes, I saw a women striding past an alley plug her nose and turn away with an air of disgust. I passed the same corner and leaned towards the same alley she had passed, my nose in the air, sniffing with curiosity for the smell that she found so repulsive. I was like a dog finally left off a leash, able to relish and roll in the dirtiness that the city shows only at the surface. I could not speak but through my most simple senses. I stopped to smell things, detecting tones of old meat or mummified radish. I picked up rotten fruits determining if it was Fig or Guava or Other. I was skittish, suspicious of everything passing around me. I was.... though it was very hard to say.... I was very much a tourist. The Sole american tourist, but a tourist nonetheless.
Walking around the city yields no coherent story. One moment I walked behind a man whose head would closely follow each female bottom as is passed in the opposite direction; I wandered into the subway station to see how modern was the underground (Quite, though too full according to Luis). During my last moments in Palos Grandes (sticks of unusual size or S.O.U.S.'s) I walked through Miranda Park. It was gargantuan, in the shadow of Mt. Avila, and full of Agave cacti whose leaves hold in callous tissue the marks and signatures of hundreds of passersby.
I am now in the Apartment of my 2nd cousin Luis de Capriles, his wife Eva and their children Victoria and Victor. I and he have very much in common as we sit in the living room, each on their respective computers, listening to opera. The apartment here is small such that I was doing yoga at the elbow of luis as he finished his work. My work remains unfinished. Surrounded by new smells and people, caught in the awkward place between dropping an old language and adding a new, my work is still unidentified. I must wake up everyday with the same approach I do to speaking spanish. I must start before I know if I can finish, whether I will find the right word or fail and fall into silence, only to try again another time. Mine is not a life supported in idleness, but when in motion, searching for the perfect word, it remains unbelievably satisfying.
bello!
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