Ok a heads up before y'all read this blog: I actually started writing it around Thanksgiving and never got around to finishing it. Sooo, it's been collecting dust in my draftbox, hiding from all of you! After I retrofit my blog with this post, I'm going to share few journal entries and other stuff I wrote over the summer, which wasn't a ton, but will give you a nice idea of what I was up to the past two months. Enjoy!
In honor of the Thanksgiving season, I'd like to dedicate this blog post to the things I am thankful for in my life. Living in another country--thousands of miles away from my family and the everyday comforts I once took for granted--has once again (mind you I had a brief stint studying abroad in Guatemala) shed light on these things.
Lately I've been reading Jack Keruoac, which may lend a feeling of spontaneity and stream of consciousness to my writing. What an interesting personaje he is! My interest in his life began when I picked up an old copy of On The Road, which belongs to my buddy Tipton from Georgia. First of all, the book itself has an intriguing vibe to it. It's really old; the pages are as brittle as brown fallen leaves in autumn; you can smell the passing of years as you flip through the chapters. As I held that rusty paperback for the first time, I could tell it had seen a lot, which is a fitting personification for such a book. Maybe I'm biggin' up this work more than some would like. In fact, Tipton himself said he hates Keruoac. Nonetheless, I love it, and if my readers aren't down with Jack, then they can skip down a few paragraphs and read about me being sick.
Lately I've been reading Jack Keruoac, which may lend a feeling of spontaneity and stream of consciousness to my writing. What an interesting personaje he is! My interest in his life began when I picked up an old copy of On The Road, which belongs to my buddy Tipton from Georgia. First of all, the book itself has an intriguing vibe to it. It's really old; the pages are as brittle as brown fallen leaves in autumn; you can smell the passing of years as you flip through the chapters. As I held that rusty paperback for the first time, I could tell it had seen a lot, which is a fitting personification for such a book. Maybe I'm biggin' up this work more than some would like. In fact, Tipton himself said he hates Keruoac. Nonetheless, I love it, and if my readers aren't down with Jack, then they can skip down a few paragraphs and read about me being sick.
Al continuar, as I read of Sal Paradise's (really Keruoac's) exploits with his friend and tragic hero Dean Moriarty (Keruoac's pen name for Neal Cassady), travelling impulsively across the vast and horrible continent--From Jersey to New York to San Francisco (Frisco) to LA back to Jersey then to Virginia and once again to Frisco only to return to New York before roaring south to Mexico, with numerous stints in Denver in between--I kept picturing a 20th century Don Quixote of sorts (which I am planning to read in Spanish by the way), in search of his true love, his doncella, whose role is played by the very road he travels on, endlessly beckoning, forever opening the expanses of America and all its people and ideas. It made me yearn for a similar experience this summer in my South American continental hazañas (exploits).
Is anyone else over this swine flu bologna? While duking it out with my own respiratory ailment in November, mi mama sent me some electronic literature about H1N1, which led me to read further about the latest "world health crisis." After dabbling in local health periodicals, reading blogs, scanning online articles, I have come to the conclusion that H1N1 is a product of evolution just like everything else (as unnatural as that evolution may be), and that combatting a potential pandemic will not be up to a vaccination (and I could go on for days about the H1N1 vacuna), but to each family and/or individual's initiative in living a healthy life. In giving thanks for my own health, I shall cite three central tenets to well-being: diet, exercise, and happiness.
"Careful how you season and prepare your food," says M-1 of Dead Prez. I'd like to go back in time to my adolescent lunch eating habits for a moment. In sixth grade, my lunch consisted of a bag of chips, cookies, and a Surge--the precursor to today's "energy drinks." In seventh and eighth grade, my school outsourced Pizza Hut and Chick-Fil-A to serve us lunch, so nothing really changed regarding nutritional value there. And for virtually all four years of high school, I ate from the Wendy's dollar menu. Today, I ask how I let myself make those decisions while resolving to learn from my mistakes. Although I now have difficulty visiting Santiago's bigger fresh-produce markets (have I mentioned how ridiculously busy I am lately?) there is still plenty of legit goodies to be found at nearby corner stores and local fruit 'n veggie stands (right now (December) there's a bunch of delicious cherries, peaches, and apricots to be disfrutado--mmmmmmm). And again I highlight the joy of living with two great roomies, Mel 'n Trish, who enjoy cooking as much as I do! Oh the meals we've created...
On the 28th of November, we hosted our own little Thanksgiving banquet--potluck style (the older Chileans, los ancianos, call it a malón). We invited a bunch of close friends we'd made over the last 5 months, and each person contributed something tasty to share. Excuse me as I briefly ride this human tangent of thankfulness, for isn't food a sacred coefficient in the formula of a healthy society? Shouldn't it be something we cherish? Why did Abraham Lincoln start our beloved holiday of Thanksgiving amidst the chaos and misery of a horrible civil war, anyways? Could it have been something he and others on his political team saw in the idea of food and our connection with it? And its way of connecting us with our planet and each other, perhaps? Claro que si! What worries me more and more lately is our culture's conceptual representation of food--how we understand its role in our lives, how we go about choosing our food, etc. It seems that food, something so precious and important, has just become another involuntary, automatic, fabricated commodity in the well-oiled machine of consumerism. Crank 'em out, pack 'em up, and disperse 'em; cop it, consume it; repeat. Y claro, I'm defitinitely not an exception to this "rule," I but I would like to see a departure from our current state of food consumption, and perhaps a return to the idea that food connects all of us and needs to be urgently cherished and protected, almost as if it were an endangered species. From the moment a drop of water hits the earth to quench a plant's thirst to the moment a plate of food rich in time-transcending nutrients sits before a panorama of smiling faces, our food has a story to tell! As I sat down with my homies that evening, admiring the spread of colors and flavors ready to dance yummy in my tummy Yo Gabba Gabba style, I gave infinite thanks for all the naturaleza, gente, y vida that helped bring those nutrients to my body, mind, and soul, sustaining my self and contributing to my contribution.
Maintaining an active lifestyle has always been very important to me. Growing up in Denver, working for the Department of Parks and Recreation, provided tons of opportunities to get out 'n about, move 'n shake, and share my love of playing with others. (Shout out to all my Summer in the Parks crew!) In the Santiago metropolis, it's been tough to stay active at times these past months. There are a lot of parks, but with little open space (they're more like pedestrian malls). Many days this past semester, I'd come home at 7 p.m., cook dinner, and by the time I washed my dishes it would already be bedtime. I did find opportunities to get my heart racin' and body movin' as the months passed, however. Playing soccer, tag (which they call pinta--paint), and capture the flag with my students during recreos was a good start, but my body yearned for more. I started playing in the weekly soccer game after school, which was a nice weekly workout, but not enough, so I began doing weekly jogs with Melissa in Parque Bustamante as a supplment. Later on in the semester, I started tagging along with David, Guille, and Jean, my compañeros de trabajo, for weekly matches of baby football, a version of indoor soccer that is very popular all over Latin America. As the weather warmed up, my gringo buddies and I started hitting up the pick-up basketball sessions in Parque Araucano in Las Condes (a neighborhood many call "The Other Chile" for its posh, modern buildings and upper income tax brackets). My buddy from Teaching Chile, Zach, connected me with an ultimate frisbee club in Santiago, and I played in a hat tournament (teams selected at random) on Thanksgiving day. Little by little, I was able to bring myself back to a level of activeness that I had always enjoyed back home. This coming year, I am hoping to build on this; I am looking to become more involved with the ultimate community in the greater Santiago metro area, and will also be starting up an ultimate workshop at Colegio San Francisco de Paine, where I worked last year.
And finally, happiness, which I believe boils down to one thing: mix it up, baby! Whether it's my food, my leisurely activities, or the people I surround myself with, implementing variety in all spheres of my life, I have found, is paramount. Yes, true, having some consistency and predictability in life is nice--some would call it a source of stability and comfort--but c'mon, a life chock full of the s.o.s. day after day? No es justo! Here's a few ways that I've mixed it up that might interest my readers... For one, I've decided to adopt a popular Chilean hairstyle--the choco, aka the (euro)mullet, aka the faux-hawk, aka business in the front and party in the back! Many chuckle, but you'd be surprised to know many people, even professionals like doctors and lawyers, have been known to don the style...ok, many of you are probably laughing even harder now. Trish, a woman of many talents, had her hand at cutting her first mullet, and I commend her efforts, as the result was a success: carefully-done layering in the front to complement my lazy locks in the back. Niiiiiice.
Secondly, I've expanded my musical horizons! Many of you know I picked up the guitar about a year back. Well, now I play two instruments (three if you include my voice)! After the school year expired in Paine, I was invited to a "teacher's breakfast," which turned out to be a Ben Westlund farewell, a very thoughtful gesture. After some of my cohorts and I shared our meditations, they presented me with a parting gift: a charango! A charango is like a mix between a ukelele and a mandolin, and produces a very bright sound. Originally fashioned by first nation peoples on the Bolivian altiplano from armadillo shells and horsegut (the snooty Spanish colonists didn't let the "heathens" play their sacred instruments), they are now made of wood and nylon strings. Going back in time a bit, Guillermo brought his charango to school one day, taught me a few chords, and let me fiddle around with it. I fell in love with the instrument, and I believe it was his idea to give me such an awesome gift. My charango accompanied me throughout my travels (oh by the way this is Ben 2010 narrating now), and during the past two months I've managed to learn nearly all its chords! I'm excited to share this beautiful instrument with all of you when I get back!
I end this installment with a final meditation of thanks: for everyone who poured out their support, concerns, and prayers after the earthquake in the fifth, sixth, and metropolitan regions of Chile. Although was far away from the events as they unfolded, I was also very anxious to learn more about the state of affairs where a lot of my friends were in Santiago, as well as the dicey situations in coastal towns affected by the tsunamis, such as Concepcion, Pichilemu, Boyeruca, Constitucion, and many others. A few have shown interest in becoming more involved in the relief efforts in Chile, as well as Haiti. Aside from the obvious option of opening your wallets, I would strongly recommend looking into organizing food and clothing drives and, or course, reading about people's experiences during the quake, the aftershocks (over 200!), the tsunamis, and the aftermath.
More to come, folks. Keep your compys, lappys, and smartphones ready! -B
