Things work in a funny little, upside-down, topsy turvy kind of way.
Here I sit again. In the same place, on the main pivot point in my life, at the very beginning.
Now the funny part is that this constant return to my now tattered start position is NOT the result of a 2-way yo-yo like existence (thank GOD), but moreso that of a loopy, spirographical existence I now think I’m destined to lead.
I’ve a feeling my life has gone & decided that to get to the place it wants to be, it must confuse the hell out of everything in it’s path by doing a strange kind of repetitious dance. By creating this kind of diversion, then and only then will it get by unscathed. It is so dizzying a dance, I fear in the end even I won’t realise we are finally sitting upon my very own dreams. My life and I.
So let me look back to this time last year, which I never usually like to do by the way, but in this instance that time happened to become the one of my life. We (my life and I) had been swept to the ridiculously beautiful land of Peru. At the time, it was actually a pure unintention. We were supposed to find ourselves in Cambodia but didn’t due to some awful reason like the fear of Bird flu or terrorism.. or affordability.
But as they always tell me, everything happens for a reason daughter. OK, as my mum always tells me. And there is something about that country, and everything in it that just adheres to me. With it I felt and feel a strange familiarity, comfort, connection. I was as foreign to it as one could get, but on the trip I found my arrival and departure senses had switched around to make me feel like I was returning home for a teasing while then leaving it again much too soon and for a depressingly long period of time. Of course, we’d made the loveliest new associations there so this isn’t anything too surprising.
However, even prior to the trip, when Peru didn’t occupy my dreams or my mind and was just a slab in the atlas I’d have probably liked to check out one day, there were subtle references to the place. I recall now that I’d used it as my literal escape country without even knowing it. “If only I could crawl into a log and roll myself to Peru in it.”- is what I’d say. Furthermore my entire life since I can remember I’d have people question my cultural background, and ask me if I was a myriad of things, but especially Peruvian. This is how I got to sound learned in my early years by correcting people when they’d refer to something like a Peruan or Perusian. “I think you mean Peruvian.” “No, I mean Peruan. What the hell’s a Peruvian?”
My point to all this?
Well everything, these recent significant events in my life, and the past littler moments I didn’t pay much attention to previously have led me to conclude: There is something I have to do in Peru. This is it. And I don’t mean I’ve gotta go back and visit a friend or eat more than 3 bites of a guinea pig or make up for missing the Inca trail (though I do plan to do all 3 on the way). I mean, there is something we (my life and I) are supposed to go and do and perhaps establish there.
The dream we’re approaching via this circular dance waits for us in Peru. I know this now. My visit last year allowed me to see it. Of course, interpretations of what we see are usually pretty bodged up. So here I went thinking I’m supposed to be there right this instant. I fell carelessly in love, with yes- Peru, and also- a boy. As a result, 2006 was spent physically here in Sydney but completely neglecting that fact.
My mind spent it craning its neck to peek at the lush, magnificent mountains I missed, the beautiful, heart-wrenching people I missed, the everything I’d missed in my world that I’d suddenly found hiding over there across an ocean. The impracticality of wanting nothing but to be back there wasn’t near enough to overrule the minty-green energy breathed into me by this newfound careless love. However, no matter how fresh these sensations were, they were just that- sensations.
Reality is such that life itself cannot be constructed on feelings alone. The feelings are what turn it into an artwork, a masterpiece- yes. But without the practicality- that’s all it is. Life becomes naught but an idealistic vision on a piece of canvas. It took having one and not the other to realise that to be truly happy in a realistic sense, I’ll need both.
I need to get myself to a situation where I’m not sacrificing all I have, all my priveleges, all my world as it stands, for my adventure-savouring appetite. I need to stay put for a while, build my foundation here, refine and be content with myself before I get out there and do my piece for the world. Discover myself before it, in a way.
I do have somewhat scary, actually feasible big-as plans for what I eventually want to do over there in my faraway second home. Recognising them makes me understand further why I have to keep my feet on the ground first. Complying with what I understand gives proof to the fact that this isn’t just a fickle impulse. I have a dream, and it’s not smothered with clouds and smokey effects this time ‘round.
I have a dream and it is real and here is where I’m going to document it becoming just that. (and all the stuff in-between too)
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