Lucia Dancing

Reflecting on time passing quickly and the shifting feelings in my body. I've been investing most of my time into conversation and art, trying to pour my energy into dancing at Casa Arte and supporting local artists and performers and sitting for many hours talking to people over good Chilean beer and wine and empanadas. I do hope to see more of the country, but there's time for that!  (Apologies for the quality in the video, it was a spontaneous moment!) begin freewrite.  It's been a little more than a month and as I start to achieve my goal of living in the moment and fully appreciating things as they come I also find that time is flying by like the sidelines of a passing train. I know this is what happens. Juicy feelings of belonging and laughter makes me want to close my eyes and wiggle around. Smile as my eyes are closed and let the sensation travel around, up my spine, down my legs, around my neck and down into my feet. Its the internal humming that zings aroun...

This is the first time I've lived with a baby, and its beautiful watching Emilia the baby grow and change in such a short time. Babies are also exhausting! Appreciation to all the mothers and fathers and childrearers of all sorts. Sometimes, here, I feel like a baby myself, because I often find myself in situations where I have absolutely no idea what is happening, or feel the overwhelming sensation to cry and curl up in a fetal position. This happens rarely of course, but I feel like most humans can relate to that profound instinct in times of excessive adventuring out of one's comfort zone to curl and cry. It feels good to do sometimes! I've been enjoying Afroperuvian dance classes, connecting with many, many wonderful people, learning (as always) from the amazing women I meet and also those I've known for years, and embarking on the terrifying and exciting journey of classes in a foreign language/cultural context. As an example of the locura of classes, today I par...

I've been in Chile for 11 days and have learned so much already. Patience and gratitude have been my guiding words; moving somewhere new is complicated! The people I have met and am living with have taken me in with grace and love, and also I miss my home family wildly. All these feelings coexist and I am learning (always) to sit with them and allow them to flow as needed. Valparaiso is beautiful and radical. I look forward to starting classes next week! begin freewrite. Pebbles--cobblestone ground wobbly dancing, but the colors of the marvelous art painting the streets and the fresh night add to the wobble with delight. Wobbly but delightful just like the transition to a new place, the process of rooting in but not totally rooted yet. Art on walls, it tells such fascinating stories of love and political allegiance and contentions with intergenerational trauma from the dictatorship and US-sponsored state repression. Repression that still exists at the pacifist women's march ...

After arriving in Chile on Tuesday, we went straight to a small town called Los Andes for orientation. I stole away to dance a bit in a soccer pitch and at a view point, "el Mirador". begin freewrite. To ask myself these questions: Am I enjoying the sun sundress hair down sweat sunscreen combination dripping, breeze catching sweat sunscreen, tear from sweat sunscreen, cool and warm, dogs barking in the distance at el Mirador? Yes. Did I imagine I would see a desert and a vineyard in the same view? This is new. Romper allows me to move and still sway while I stand and as I stand I feel sand and something sharp in my sandal. I like to be alone sometimes so the sanctuary of soccer pitch enclosed with vines tall and thick provided me a moment- the first of my time in Chile- to sit and then get up and move. My toes laugh at the reunion of grass under them, a relic sensation from my childhood. Humming--my brain, the sun soaking into my skin, the bugs and birds and goats (the ai...