Put A Sock In It

A deadly water bottle assassin killed my computer about a month ago, which has made my blog entries wane. So now I find myself en el "Cibercafe," located in the backright corner, with a sweet view of the bathroom and its cleaning supplies. Talk about inspiration!

This, I believe, will be my last Chile blog. It has been quite a ride, family, friends, and occassional random web stalkers. We have shared bathroom references, more bathroom references, and occassional abstract anecdotes to what I´m actually doing here. So so lovely.

And now, I´m going home.

As most of you were probably aware, I was going to spend a year studying in Chile (14 months outside the U.S. in total). And about a week ago, 6 months into my stay, I hit the wall, and I just knew, all of a sudden, that it was time to come back. I actually went to the forest, a la Thoreau, to write a long impassionaed letter about how I was feeling, my reasons for returning, all of that, which I might still share. But for now, I find it sufficient to say: I had an incredible, incredible time here. I came here to learn Spanish and get to know myself better, and that´s exactly what I´ve done. I´ve had the biggest ups and downs in my life, and in the very end of things, I can say I´m happy for every single moment I had here, that I had a million once-in-a-life-time experiences, that I dont regret a single thing. What else can we ask for, in the end of things?

To better illustrate my feelings and reasons for returning, i´d like to share with you all a little anecdote from this past weekend. With Alex and Adam from my program, I traveled to Bariloche, Argentina, my second time there. Only this time, besides watching people drink mate from the bank to in the bathroom (no joke), we decided to hike a glaciar, called Tronador (thunder) because as you hike you occassionally hear the glaciar cracking and spitting off little gumball loogies into the valley below, which sounds like thunder. It was truly incredible, we hiked into the valley and got pretty close to the source of the water, where we bottled up and drank the freshest water of our life. Screw you, Arrowhead, I´ll get to the source myself!

And after 6ish hours of hiking, powering through snow and giant horse flies who wouldnt even let us stop to pee, we reached a lodge at 6,000 feet where you can stay, and have a 360 degree view of andes mountains in every direction. we havent invented good enough words yet in any language to describe this view. alex and i woke up at 6 am to see the sunrise. the only word i got for that one is dayammmmm.

and finally, here´s the anecdote that describes it all:

alex wakes me up at 6 a.m. i groggily reach up above on the shelf to pull out my two beautifully soft and warm wool hiking socks. somehow, they shoot out of my hand, i fall onto my side like an oval shaped egg rolling around, and when i right myself, i look down expecting to see my two beautifully soft and warm wool hiking socks on the ground next to me. any decent csi bullet spray detective would have shown the only possible place for them to land, based on angle and location of fall, would be on the floor, somewhere around me.

BUT THERE WAS ONLY ONE SOCK THERE......

It was a nightmare. The only Andes mountains sunset of my entire life approaching. An impossible horrific situation...a missing wool sock, without any explanation. It was terribly insignificantly annoying. Muttering to myself over and over again how very impossible and ridiculous this moment was, I turned up every matress and floorboard on this side of the Andes, to no avail. Finally, I gave up, found other socks, and went outside to enjoy the sunset. Then I came back to look some more. Still no results. A couple hours later, I return again, this time constructing far flung theories about how perhaps it landed in my pants, how perhaps Alex stole it, how perhaps it bounced off a floor board, a matress and an errant horsefly and flew out the open window, where an Andes current carried it to the top of the glaciar, where I would be forced to conduct a dangerous life threatening glaciar rescue.

Nada nada nada. At one point, Alex, who kindly helped me search, was like "hey man, you might just have to forget it." It was good advice, at some point you gotta let it go, right? So I decided I would walk to the other side of the room, my last grand search. Nothing again, until Alex, who followed me over there, looks on the ground and sees my beautifully soft and warm wool hiking sock sitting there like a sad lost puppy. He hands it to me, and in the glory of an NFL touchdown, I do mad fist pumps and hop around the room. Glory is mine.

Now, perhaps youre asking me how this crazy long drawn out anecdote has anything to do with deciding to return home. Here it is, two things: the mysterious force of life and persistence. mysterious force of life: I had no idea where this south american journey would take me. i had my ideas, like where i thought the sock would land at my feet, but as tends to happen in life, i got thrown around for an exciting tumble. and here´s where persistence comes in, something my mom has always always told me: its all about persistence. everytime she would tell me maybe i should think about switching programs when i would tell her i was struggling, i would shrug her off. its me, i would say, i need to try harder, make it work. i can be happy anywhere.

And man, I fought. I persisted and persisted, and I had some incredible times here, some incredible highs. But also some incredible lows, the lows of loneliness, missing your language, missing the companionship of those who know you. And then, out of nowhere, appears the magical sock. Across the room, where you least expected it, where you hadnt even looked yet. Persistence isnt always just sticking things out cuz you should, it turns out...persistence is staying with yourself, compassionately, seeing what appears, listening to yourself over and over again. And everything in me is telling me to return, take the semester off Ive always wanted, go and explore and find community and learn about permaculture and rest my tired spirit. Be home in April for my sister´s second baby being born. Get to know my first nephew better. Read and write and learn to knit and reflect on everything these past 7 months has meant to me. Thats where I found the sock, when I least expected it. And I am so so happy for everything...so happy that I put the sock up there in the first place, so happy it got thrown around and I spent so much time searching for it, so happy to pick up the stinky sock and start the next journey of my life. I have about 11 days left here, and Im blessed with the time to say good-bye to something that has just meant so much to me, so very very much. To write letters to the girls at the orphanage, to Jacqui and Manola from the hostal, to all the incredible kids in the program. To walk down Avenida Picarte just one more time, see the blind man in his same white coat play his accordeon as people walk by without stopping, walk down the costanera and watch people rowing on the calle calle river, watch this beautiful valdivian spring, which has brought so much life, spread its seeds to the wind, that giving and receiving that is life itself.

Thank you Valdivia, thank you life, you have given me so so much.

So for some hard facts, so you understand what´s next: I leave Chile Dec. 20, to go to Cancun, Mexico with my family for vacation for one week. From there, I fly Dec. 28 to Bologna, Italy, to visit Kalen for a month. And then Jan. 28 I fly home to San Diego, where I´ll try to plant some tomatoes and make up for my deepening carbon footprint, hehe.

So that´s it folks. I´m gonna put a sock in it for now. There may come a night in the future when I awake from a dream and notice my fingers moving antsily, like theyre trying to write on a keyboard, and Ill sleep walk over to the keyboard and just start typing another blog. Be prepared, peoples, be prepared....

Love to you all :-)

Ryan

"Every night when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, I´m reborn." --Mahatma Gandhi