I've been a stranger lately

It’s 7:30 in the evening and it’s sprinkling rain. Darkness has about overtaken the light and heat of the day and there are distracted people in the parking lot of the Unimarc trying to hail cabs or toting dinner home. The metro is buzzing, the feria libre’s fresh fruits and vegetables and nuts are being packed up in crates, taxi’s are whizzing by looking for patrons and a pretty young woman is leaning over trying not to laugh as she checks to see if the fall off of the curb has scraped my knees too badly.

estoy bien, gracias, estoy bien. es nada, te lo prometo.

She giggles as she chats at me and I try to shoo her away politely. It’s been a long day and my knees are stinging. Santiago sucks. Barely surviving sucks. My Spanish sucks.
But she isn’t taking the hint that my waving hands are laying down. She’s got my right knee in between her legs and is leaning forward to blow on it. I blush at the sweetness of the mother/daughter moment thinking that she really can’t be any older than me. She chats rapidly in heavily accented Chilean about how I need better shoes and how I fall gracefully and how she was scared I’d get run over by a taxi if she didn’t help me up. She looks straight at me and asks,

estas bien?

I answer embarrassed and literally trying to convey my well-being,

mi corazon esta en silencio.

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It’s proving difficult here. Santiago is a city of six million nestled against the Andes mountains. On clear days you can see that the snow-capped peaks form a bowl around the ultra-modern skyscrapers in a breath-takingly disjunctive manner. It’s as though God and humans are competing for tourists on this South American battlefield. And we are winning. Most days the pollution is so bad you can’t see the mountains at all.
With respect to a great poet, it isn’t enough just to know that something is there. We need proof of…I think we just need proof.

I somehow won a position as a tutor at a business run by two Brits. Lively and talkative, they are the kindest people I’ve met here in Santiago. They pay well and help you how and whenever they can. Considering that I showed up late to the interview, late and in tears to a trial run, and left early from the training…they’ve given me grace when I didn’t deserve it. An embarrassingly common occurrence.

I teach business men too.

“Ok. Present of do, third person. He, it, she does…”
“Oh, I love she does.”
“Oh, uh, use it in a sentence.”
“She does taste so good.”
“I…oh, goodness. She does…”
“Taste too much good.”
“Ok. I don’t think, um. Ahem. He does…”
“What are he does? I only like she does.”
“I guess it‘s a personal preference.”
“She does? The American kind are more better. They taste como queso and are snappy.”
(pause) “…Cheetos?”
“Oh she does taste so good.”

“I, you, he she it, we, you plural, they.”
“What?”
“Oh sorry, plural means…”
“What?”
“Plural. Many things…”
“What?”
“…I.”
“What?”
“…it”
“What?”
“…I‘m going to steal all your stuff if you take one more call during class.”
“What?”
“Hello.”
“Hello.”
“My name is Jo…”
“What?”


But it isn’t without it’s sparkle and shine. I have made really good friends here. The girls especially are easy on the soul. We laugh while we talk and drink wine as we discuss and hold arms as we walk home. The firm root we’ve taken in each other has rooted me here to Santiago for the winter, at least. I must say though, I hear Peruvians actually speak intelligible Spanish, Argentina has Gods of Thunder masquerading as male citizens, and that there’s only a 70% of contracting a social disease in Brazil. If I keep each objective separate there stands a hearty chance of not needing a shot of penicillin when I get back to the states, and being able to say so en espanol through the silence.

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It’s silent here. The wood floor is clean and shined. The dim winter evening light has barely enough strength to push past the wall of glass at the far end of the small studio . Tiny raindrops slide down the wall lazily like they haven’t just made the longest fall of their existence. The tiny pond outside shifts and adjusts to each teensy heavens-sent addition. The statue of the Buddha that sits at it’s edge waits, and is silent. All around the statue a tiny grove of trees keep most of the precipitation at bay but droplets roll off of flame red leaves onto the statue’s face and continue their descent. And it’s silent.

I narrow my eyes watching the Buddha. Without thinking, I quietly shift into a mimicking position. I close my eyes and think…silence.
There’s the feeling of lungs expanding. Deflating. Nostrils stretching. Hips settling. Eyelids maintaining. Heart quieting. There’s the feeling of soft mat on still-cold skin. Of dark curls on bare shoulders. Of a still-learning tongue pressing against teeth. Of breath exhaling. Of silence.

I open my eyes to the serene Buddha. It occurs to me the strength of his conviction and the release of his inhibitions. It occurs to me the intensity of his quiet life and the endurance of his faith in himself. It occurs to me the silence in which he must have sat so often.

It occurs to me what bullshit all that is.

I’m up and out of my meditation and storming across the room. When I reach the glass I realize that, in fact, I can’t go through it. In utter helplessness and pissed offness, I drop to my knees and hold back tears. The truth is that I want to smash the Buddha into the pond and cover it in flame red leaves. I want to consecrate the burial ground with my frustration and fear and add that negative energy in the form of blood from my own sentient veins so that he knows unequivocally that not everyone can sit under a fucking tree and reach enlightenment. I want to bury myself under that fiery blanket too so that God knows that if I would condemn one soul to hell, I would justly condemn my own to burn with them.

I’m tired of people living their lives trying to reach what one man did. It would have been meaningful to watch the Buddha meditate. It would have been heartbreaking to watch Jesus die. But one renounced his human body and the other was forcibly stripped of his. I would’ve kept my riches and just started out-reach programs. I would’ve forced God to part another sea looking for the rock I’d hidden under to escape death.

I let my breath steam the window and the front of my face. Buddha, why do so many people give a shit about you when you really had no vested interest in the world? Jesus, how could you love us when we acknowledge so little what was done for us, so little of what we could do?

But there’s silence.

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“I don’t understand you American girls. All the time, I love this man I love this woman I love this man I love this woman. You think it’s ok to love both men and women. You have no shame.”

“Oh, that’s all a lie. We really only do that because the government offers tax breaks to bisexual couples. Obama is really obsessed with the fringe votes. Si se puede and all that noise.”

“En serio? You pay less taxes for loving a woman?”

“Why else would we do it?”

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This expensive apartment is always cold. My nine-year old threatened to kill himself today. I ate a bag of skittles, a bag of M&M’s and a baggie of sugar-coated peanuts from a street vendor. A woman in an adjoining barrio thinks I read nudey magazines because I mixed up the Chilean word and regular Spanish word for gum, and I almost vomit up the M&M’s while running to yoga partly because of the chilly Andean air stripping my lungs and partly because of the taxi that clips me as I dart across the road. I don’t mind the bruises but I do mind the sassy way that the driver accelerated right as I was almost to the other side.

My heart is silent and has been for weeks.
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I moved out of the apartment I shared with my host a month ago to live with a friend. While I loved her doting attention, her fantastic meals, and her helpful advice on Chilean culture and customs, she is a bit old-fashioned in some of her beliefs. She did surprise me with her candidness in such matters as sex and love. Brutally surprised me.

“It’s terrible how many American girls get pregnant and have babies. And then most of them kill them. No, no, Chilean women are better girls.”
“Have you even visited the US, Carmen?”
“No. I was always working. We work so much here…”
“Oh. We don’t all get pregnant. It’s the same as here, really.”
“No it’s not. All sex and abortions.”
“Chilean women do this. And so many young girls are pregnant here. The difference is that you make them marry the boys.”
“Babies are the result of marriage.”
“But marriage here is often the result of babies.”
“But we don’t kill the babies.”
“Oh I would never have an abortion.”
“See? You’re a good girl.”
“I hear you can get a lot of money from selling them to the Chinese.”
She choked on her porrotos and I smiled without clarifying whether or not I was joking.

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Leaves crunch beneath Hanna’s tennis shoes. To be fair, I’m kicking them into the street like a nine-year old whose been denied her favorite treat. Anything would crunch with that kind of erratic force Yogashala is just down the street but I’m early and have time to kill. Hanna’s tennis shoes are staining red and I think about washing them. I’ve been praying for a sign that I’m wasting my time in the right place. Maybe I should move to Argentina. Maybe Peru. I’ve gotten no response. I feel bad for the leaves and stand there silently asking forgiveness. It’s expensive to live here. It’s a big city. My head hurts from Spanish all the time. I miss my dog, friends and family. The poor leaves. I stained Hanna’s shoes with their color. This neighborhood quiet and beautiful and meant for people who know what the hell their doing in life. Why isn’t anyone answering me?

I take off running down the street. Maybe I can run home. No, I don’t have a home anymore. Maybe I can run back to the easy life in Austin. No, there’s no running back to anything. It’s all different now. I round a corner as fast as I can. My legs are burning, my lungs are sucking in air as fast as possible. My eyes are streaming tears. My heart is still. The sprint goes on for blocks and my body is about to give out. As I round another corner the sun bounces off a house with pure white walls and the light is completely blinding. I stop short gasping for air and throw an arm over my eyes. When I look up all I can see is white and I stumble backwards. Surrounded by nothing but impenetrable shine I’m confused and exhausted and unbalanced and I hear, just once, just quietly coming from my chest,

thumpthump.