Since I moved from Xela, this blog would be a misnomer so here's my new blog:
http://misadventuresinnewyork.blogspot.com/
Here are the old ones, too:
http://misadventuresintomsriver.blogspot.com/
http://mis-adventuresinmadrid.blogspot.com/
http://misadventuresinlalaland.blogspot.com/
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Learning in Guatemala
I scribed this on my iPhone while taking the four hour bus trip from Xela to Guatemala City. So for most grammar and spelling errors, I'm going to blame autocorrect...
I have learned so much in Guatemala. All I could write would never be enough to express just how much or exactly how I feel but I'll still attempt to put down at least some of it here.
Cultural Observations
1. The road is also an optional second sidewalk
2. Beans can be had at any meal and/ or at any time
3. Improvisation is key
4. Time here is relative. When I say 4, I could really mean say 5 or 6 or oh even 7...
5. The menu is merely a suggestion of what the restaurant would like to have on a perfect day
6. Hot water and internet are pretty much like grandparents: slow to get moving and a little grumpy sometimes but when everything is good with them, they give you all the love and care you need in the world
7. Let go...just let go of thinking and holding onto the idea that you can have everything the way you want it or the way you think you deserve it. Take what comes and enjoy it, or, conversely, if it sucks just let it pass without letting it take too much of you. You can't completely control or dictate your own happiness or your own sadness; you can just live in this moment and take it for what it's worth and hopefully you won't take it for granted. Probably all obvious stuff but it's good to have a firm grasp of the obvious...
8. Have faith. Ha! Whoever thought I'd be saying that one. Not to go all Paulo Coelho Alchemist or anything but I've learned that everything will be calm and good again after calamity and that I can trust in stability.
9. It is important to be kind to others (this is obvious...like duh) but first you must be kind to yourself.
I have learned so much in Guatemala. All I could write would never be enough to express just how much or exactly how I feel but I'll still attempt to put down at least some of it here.
Cultural Observations
1. The road is also an optional second sidewalk
2. Beans can be had at any meal and/ or at any time
3. Improvisation is key
4. Time here is relative. When I say 4, I could really mean say 5 or 6 or oh even 7...
5. The menu is merely a suggestion of what the restaurant would like to have on a perfect day
6. Hot water and internet are pretty much like grandparents: slow to get moving and a little grumpy sometimes but when everything is good with them, they give you all the love and care you need in the world
7. Let go...just let go of thinking and holding onto the idea that you can have everything the way you want it or the way you think you deserve it. Take what comes and enjoy it, or, conversely, if it sucks just let it pass without letting it take too much of you. You can't completely control or dictate your own happiness or your own sadness; you can just live in this moment and take it for what it's worth and hopefully you won't take it for granted. Probably all obvious stuff but it's good to have a firm grasp of the obvious...
8. Have faith. Ha! Whoever thought I'd be saying that one. Not to go all Paulo Coelho Alchemist or anything but I've learned that everything will be calm and good again after calamity and that I can trust in stability.
9. It is important to be kind to others (this is obvious...like duh) but first you must be kind to yourself.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Hiding Behind Easy
EPIPHANY! Ok, maybe not, but it seemed like one. Maybe it's more like an idea...
Being here in Guatemala, things have been easy and fun for me. I kind of got accustomed to it. I kind of wanted things to stay like that, too. I began to get stubbornly attached to the idea that things should remain easy and fun. Me...stubborn!?!? Shocking, I know.
Life is supposed to be challenging and difficult. When things are kind of easy and swimming along, you kind of forget that. I guess I have just had a lot of challenging times, and so completely embraced easy and kind of like staying in it. But I realized that we can't hide behind easy and try to keep things as such. When you don't face things or you try to avoid difficult things, then you're really learning nothing. And if you're not learning anything, then what's the point of living? I'm not saying a person shouldn't enjoy life when things are easy, but, at least for me, a person shouldn't try to maintain an easy life as the status quo as an avoidance response. Am I making sense? Bueller...Bueller...
Being here in Guatemala, things have been easy and fun for me. I kind of got accustomed to it. I kind of wanted things to stay like that, too. I began to get stubbornly attached to the idea that things should remain easy and fun. Me...stubborn!?!? Shocking, I know.
Life is supposed to be challenging and difficult. When things are kind of easy and swimming along, you kind of forget that. I guess I have just had a lot of challenging times, and so completely embraced easy and kind of like staying in it. But I realized that we can't hide behind easy and try to keep things as such. When you don't face things or you try to avoid difficult things, then you're really learning nothing. And if you're not learning anything, then what's the point of living? I'm not saying a person shouldn't enjoy life when things are easy, but, at least for me, a person shouldn't try to maintain an easy life as the status quo as an avoidance response. Am I making sense? Bueller...Bueller...
Monday, August 13, 2012
Van Damme V. Stallone
I believe in magic. Ok, not the stupid card trick, rabbit out of the hat, let´s cut the girl in half magic (though that kind of stuff is kind of fun if done with witty and hilarious commentary) but like the magic that comes from ideas, literature (can I say A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez... http://salvoblue.homestead.com/wings.html) and the kind that makes life more fun to think about. Like reading astrological profiles or believing in fate or kismet (though please don´t name a child Kismet or some such similar ridiculousness). Not that I believe in it because magic or miracles necessarily exist in reality, but just because believing in magic or fate or whatever you want to call it (I´m sure another language that I don´t know must have coined the perfect term for this but being that I am constantly confronted by how much I don´t know, I really can´t come up with a specific term so I´ll just use few small words instead) make life more interesting and imaginative. Coincidence v. serendipity...who will win? This fight might be more exciting than Van Damme v. Stallone from when they were super awesome and kickass back in the day (my money is on the former though part of me hopes for a tie and a hug of brotherhood at the end). But I, as usual, digress.
Believing that certain things happen because of fate or magic or what you will, make it fun to read astrological profiles and see signs in the universe and give your head over wholeheartedly to books like The Alchemist while still keeping your feet on somewhat solid ground. It also allows your imagination to grow and your horizons to get bigger because with magic available, almost anything (anything?) is possible. You´ll only limitations are your own mental constrictions.
I love stories. I hate lying. But I love stories. Paradox. My life is also a continual confrontation of paradox. But I think fate is a story we tell ourselves. It´s a story we can believe in. We give ourselves magic because life is...sometimes tedious. But the more imaginative we are and the more stories we dress our lives up in, the more magical it can become. But, always, there is the necessity to watch where our feet are. Are they still on the ground? You need a surface to have a comparison with the sky.
I like to believe in magic and fate and see signs because it gives my life character (as if it needed more of that), but also because it allows me to keep certain things, ideas, and people around. I have a landlord here and she reminds me of my grandmother, Nan, who passed away just before Christmas last year. My grandfather, Poppop, died a little after her. My landlord is so sweet and it gives me comfort to think that I have her to take care of me in some way, like how I used to have Nan. It´s good to feel that somehow Nan is protecting me. Coming back home tonight, walking in through the second door, I smelt a scent that reminded me of Nan and Poppop´s home from when I was a kid and they would let me stay up late in front of the tv, munching a bag of potato chips, and falling asleep. I like to believe that they are both with me, especially Nan, watching and helping and though I know this is magic, it´s good to feel. We can carry our magical ideas around with us and we can let them grow; we can see signs or things that don´t really exist in places or scents or moments. I don´t think it really hurts to have some magic in your life. Sometimes it broadens things and makes you think in different ways.
Believing that certain things happen because of fate or magic or what you will, make it fun to read astrological profiles and see signs in the universe and give your head over wholeheartedly to books like The Alchemist while still keeping your feet on somewhat solid ground. It also allows your imagination to grow and your horizons to get bigger because with magic available, almost anything (anything?) is possible. You´ll only limitations are your own mental constrictions.
I love stories. I hate lying. But I love stories. Paradox. My life is also a continual confrontation of paradox. But I think fate is a story we tell ourselves. It´s a story we can believe in. We give ourselves magic because life is...sometimes tedious. But the more imaginative we are and the more stories we dress our lives up in, the more magical it can become. But, always, there is the necessity to watch where our feet are. Are they still on the ground? You need a surface to have a comparison with the sky.
I like to believe in magic and fate and see signs because it gives my life character (as if it needed more of that), but also because it allows me to keep certain things, ideas, and people around. I have a landlord here and she reminds me of my grandmother, Nan, who passed away just before Christmas last year. My grandfather, Poppop, died a little after her. My landlord is so sweet and it gives me comfort to think that I have her to take care of me in some way, like how I used to have Nan. It´s good to feel that somehow Nan is protecting me. Coming back home tonight, walking in through the second door, I smelt a scent that reminded me of Nan and Poppop´s home from when I was a kid and they would let me stay up late in front of the tv, munching a bag of potato chips, and falling asleep. I like to believe that they are both with me, especially Nan, watching and helping and though I know this is magic, it´s good to feel. We can carry our magical ideas around with us and we can let them grow; we can see signs or things that don´t really exist in places or scents or moments. I don´t think it really hurts to have some magic in your life. Sometimes it broadens things and makes you think in different ways.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Xela is Limbo, My Life is Limbo
Thanks to S for the title :) And for making me think, too :)
Xela is limbo because there are a lot of foreigners that come here just for a time but don´t stay permanently...like me! But then how I thought that my adult life is limbo because all I ever do is move and change jobs.
In a seemingly unrelatedly comment but actually not (you´ll see later), I love math. Like I could genuinely do standard deviation if you gave me a bunch of numbers and some interesting context behind them (ok, fine, the context doesn´t even have to be that interesting...). I like how orderly numbers make everything. It´s probably why I like to make lists (though I don´t always complete them. I think I just like to make them so as to feel that the chaos that surrounds us all is somehow neatly confined into some words on a screen or piece of paper which I just might lose). But it would be kind of fun if we could quantify our life experiences in some manner. This of course would be completely subjective because you could decide how many points each thing was depending on how much experiential, learning, or emotional impact you felt it had on you. For example, a normal day or group of time where nothing momentous happened or a day or so you just kind of lived through, well that wouldn´t really generate much if any points at all, like .00435. But if you moved to another city then that would be like 4 points. If you moved to another country, then that would be like 11 points. China for me would be like 342132 points. I feel like with this point system (and this is where my seemingly tangential love of math comment becomes pertinent), my adult life of limbo would seem less desultory and more like a coherent measure of value and worth seeing that it would be a somewhat high number. But here I go again trying to find a way to claim success through quantification as a means of justification when I don´t really think success exists in the way its socially decreed. I don´t really think success or failure exists at all. Life exists in the absence of them. We create them in our head.
Xela is limbo because there are a lot of foreigners that come here just for a time but don´t stay permanently...like me! But then how I thought that my adult life is limbo because all I ever do is move and change jobs.
In a seemingly unrelatedly comment but actually not (you´ll see later), I love math. Like I could genuinely do standard deviation if you gave me a bunch of numbers and some interesting context behind them (ok, fine, the context doesn´t even have to be that interesting...). I like how orderly numbers make everything. It´s probably why I like to make lists (though I don´t always complete them. I think I just like to make them so as to feel that the chaos that surrounds us all is somehow neatly confined into some words on a screen or piece of paper which I just might lose). But it would be kind of fun if we could quantify our life experiences in some manner. This of course would be completely subjective because you could decide how many points each thing was depending on how much experiential, learning, or emotional impact you felt it had on you. For example, a normal day or group of time where nothing momentous happened or a day or so you just kind of lived through, well that wouldn´t really generate much if any points at all, like .00435. But if you moved to another city then that would be like 4 points. If you moved to another country, then that would be like 11 points. China for me would be like 342132 points. I feel like with this point system (and this is where my seemingly tangential love of math comment becomes pertinent), my adult life of limbo would seem less desultory and more like a coherent measure of value and worth seeing that it would be a somewhat high number. But here I go again trying to find a way to claim success through quantification as a means of justification when I don´t really think success exists in the way its socially decreed. I don´t really think success or failure exists at all. Life exists in the absence of them. We create them in our head.
Stuck in the Middle
I feel like I live my life somewhere in the middle of the following phrases: what were you thinking and you can´t do that. The former being a prohibition I don´t really respond to with any sort of eloquence and the latter mostly being consummately ignored.
You set up a life for yourself and once everything is all set up just how you want it and are comfortable, you long to leave it. But while contemplating leaving it, there are so many practical concerns that haunt you: what about the lease you signed, what about the people you promised, what about all your stuff, you just bought the new dryer and now you want to leave...But when you really want to leave a place, you just go. All of these previous concerns don´t matter or are easily figured out. The lease you can get out, people that truly care about you will understand your need to leave, some stuff you can take with you and the rest you can leave with family, and you can sell the dryer and use the money for wherever you want to go.
You set up a life for yourself and once everything is all set up just how you want it and are comfortable, you long to leave it. But while contemplating leaving it, there are so many practical concerns that haunt you: what about the lease you signed, what about the people you promised, what about all your stuff, you just bought the new dryer and now you want to leave...But when you really want to leave a place, you just go. All of these previous concerns don´t matter or are easily figured out. The lease you can get out, people that truly care about you will understand your need to leave, some stuff you can take with you and the rest you can leave with family, and you can sell the dryer and use the money for wherever you want to go.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Oh the Ennui!
I don´t want to do anything. All my life, I´ve been occupied and busy. I´ve always been super motivated or, if not motivated, then too busy to contemplate not being motivated. I could list all that I´ve done but that would be stupid...whatever I´ve done is nothing really though it does matter to me. It´s so strange to have come from a flurry of hyperactivity to just wanting to have nothing to do. I do work now but not quite that much, just enough to stay comfortable. There are things that I want, material things, but I don´t want them so much that I want to do more work to have them. It´s weird to have come from a perspective of working all the time just to afford an apartment and pay my bills with just enough extra money to spend on the diversions that took away the rest of my time. This is what life is supposed to be anyway, no? Working to live and then having a few extra hours every week to call your own. It´s all kind of silly and absurd...
Now that I have free time, I absolutely love and adore it, but I have that nagging feel that I should be doing more. And there is definitely more things I could do; volunteer, work more, teach more, take Spanish classes, write another book, figure out this Spanish keyboard so that I actually know where both the hyphen and slash are...but when I search my thoughts and my ambition, I find...nothing...On the plus side, there is no real restlessness stirring which I usually encounter...only a calm that hasn´t been this strong and permeating before. There is a touch of boredom and ennui to it, but nothing troublesome. No strong desire to move to another place or get another job, a desire which has seemed to become the hallmark of my adult existance thus far. Tangentially, I remember in the past if I had more than a week off of work, I´d go crazy with having nothing to do. But I guess it´s slightly different now considering I´m working in the mornings. And of course I have all those axioms and quotes in my head, like the unexamined life isn´t worth leading and how man doesn´t like to take the path that leads back to himself...yada yada yada...those and similar phrases meaning to me that people like distractions and work so as not to have to face one of the most fearsome things: themselves (well, this would be the second most fearsome thing after the Spanish keyboard of course). Then that would mean that this free time would allow me to get to know myself better and examine life (ha like what I´m doing now with this here blog), but that might just be some silly philosophical justification for what just might boil down to sheer laziness.
I´m really writing this looking for justification and meaning in my own laziness...and I really can´t find any. I also can´t find any real and overt justification for doing more things besides the obvious goodness of doing work. But in the back of my mind and heart, I feel like doing more activities is the right thing to do, and not because society or some exigent moral code tells me so, but more because my own head and heart do. And they´ve led me this far...
Now that I have free time, I absolutely love and adore it, but I have that nagging feel that I should be doing more. And there is definitely more things I could do; volunteer, work more, teach more, take Spanish classes, write another book, figure out this Spanish keyboard so that I actually know where both the hyphen and slash are...but when I search my thoughts and my ambition, I find...nothing...On the plus side, there is no real restlessness stirring which I usually encounter...only a calm that hasn´t been this strong and permeating before. There is a touch of boredom and ennui to it, but nothing troublesome. No strong desire to move to another place or get another job, a desire which has seemed to become the hallmark of my adult existance thus far. Tangentially, I remember in the past if I had more than a week off of work, I´d go crazy with having nothing to do. But I guess it´s slightly different now considering I´m working in the mornings. And of course I have all those axioms and quotes in my head, like the unexamined life isn´t worth leading and how man doesn´t like to take the path that leads back to himself...yada yada yada...those and similar phrases meaning to me that people like distractions and work so as not to have to face one of the most fearsome things: themselves (well, this would be the second most fearsome thing after the Spanish keyboard of course). Then that would mean that this free time would allow me to get to know myself better and examine life (ha like what I´m doing now with this here blog), but that might just be some silly philosophical justification for what just might boil down to sheer laziness.
I´m really writing this looking for justification and meaning in my own laziness...and I really can´t find any. I also can´t find any real and overt justification for doing more things besides the obvious goodness of doing work. But in the back of my mind and heart, I feel like doing more activities is the right thing to do, and not because society or some exigent moral code tells me so, but more because my own head and heart do. And they´ve led me this far...
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