miercoles

today is not as bad...but i feel horible. something is not right. night sweats, night mares, night isnt even night with all the lights and sounds...its just a deeper version of day.

but i talk to josie last night and her voice makes me feel better and we find silly things to laugh about and she doesnt feel a million miles away like she is...like all of you are.

but i am one day closer to you...and that helps a bit.

storm trooper

today i hate the smog, i hate the heat, i hate that my apartment is always noisy, yet somehow, under that drone of alameda, is the most silent white noise, that i could sit in for hours, like the quiet solo act of looking at split ends, or scrutinizing ones face. today is long and painfuly slow and stifling. i cannot. fucking. breathe. here.

i try to sleep but it wont come, last night i toss and turn for hours until the moon becomes the sun over santa lucia and i force myself to take a shower. its pointless, im sweaty the minute i get out, my makeup ruined the minute i finished. i am losing water, i cant retain moisture. everything hurts today. my head, my legs, my heart, even my hair on the back of my neck hurts, your necklace, too heavy on my chest. i even try calling people. i call friends and theyre not home, force myself to walk to his house and call up to his window and hes not there, i am one person in this middle of this fucking storm. that is what this city is today. a storm and no where feels safe.

id kill to go home. but i dont even know where that is anymore. the space i left in san francisco is closing behind me, i can feel it, i can see the edges browning and becoming freyed. i used to think that where ever you were was home, but i cant feel you out there, i cant touch you, i cant see it anymore. its too far away.

maybe none of this is what i wanted. maybe the girl i thought i was isnt real. maybe i never really wanted this big dream, to live on my own, to travel, to teach, to speak another language. maybe i dont want to live so big. at least not today, today id be happy riding my bicycle around town, eat fruit off a tree. sleeping in grass, i need to feel a little bit more simple today. everything is swirling around me and i hate this city today. and its not about you or them or work or writing or sex or missing someone or food or weather. its just about me and something in the pit of my stomach that today says, you should lay low, youre not cut out for this, you are in waaaay over your head, and i want to punch it in the fucking face.

nothing is make or break (its that heady place in between)

today is incredible. the fog is thick when i wake up and smells like san francisco...i am seriously sick for five seconds, trying to remember that word in spanish my friend used to miss something from your guts. i miss you that bad. but i move past it, the sounds of people rising and desperate want for a shower. i eat breakfast, pan y housemade plum jam y huevos y fruta. que rico. y cafe, cafe, how i missed you good cafe. a girl from switzerland goes with me to la sebastiana, pablo nerudas sea house, we walk up a windy hill, get on a fast fast bus, i fear we might fall over the edge of tiny cliffs, he takes a lombard maze at fifty miles an hour. nerudas house is incredible, i cant believe im in his writing room, his bedroom, bathroom, where he took baths and could see boats coming in and out of the port. the view is just amazing. i feel so very inspired today. and yet, so insanely small in the scheme of things. how does one get like neruda? obtain greatness in his capacity? a life size picture of walt whitman in his study, once when someone asked if that was his father, neruda replied, yes, in poetry. i love that.
the houses are part of the mountains, no the houses are the mountains, stacked literally on top of each other, you cant tell the head from the toe, where one balcony began and anothers ended. the girl from switzerland is quiet and shy, growing up in the swiss alps, ive never met so many people before, from so many places and so i feel brave and confidant today. we walk down to museo cielo abierto, houses painted richly, every color, lots of bright greens and pinks, we take photos buy books, get my name made on a pin by a street artist, all before hopping a bus to viña. today is one of my favorites.
laying on the beach in viña del mar. the cities are so vastly different, and while its beautiful here, i am eager to get back to valpo and even more eager to go back to santiago.
i dont see the comparison between valpo and san francisco that so many people keep making, except the hills, and even then, its soooo differnet. this guy at the hostel, an ex junkie that used to live on jones and ofarrell has found himself here, of all places. what a wonderful world we are living in we had exclaimed, over breakfast. but i cant make any real connections...and then we reach the street along the port and it hits me hard. the smell, the sounds, the air, i close my eyes and it IS embarcadero, its pirates cove, and looking back behind me at the city, colorful and towering, if not trembling on its perch, there it is, san francisco. and in that moment, if not at la sebastiana by nerudas desk, i fall in LOVE with valparaiso. i am home.
it hits me for a sweet moment later, i am on a beach in south america, feeling comfortable, capable, sure of myself. how many nights did i dream of this? think it would never happen? cry out of frustration? how i thought... i was so good at thinking i didnt deserve dreams to come true.

times

thursday i wake up sideways on the bed, i had fallen asleep after talking to my sister, legs crawling up the wall, aimlessly. santiago is smoggy today and the clouds are patchy through the slits in my curtains over santa lucia. the night before i had been drinking cristal with basco, some of his friends, painters, artists of sorts. we sat in his apartment and smoked cigarettes for hours and when he walked me home past the strip clubs its still warm outside and we look at each other and giggle like children, bumping into each other along the street. i wake up groggy, dreams of ben and the beach and the wild ramblings of last nights mixed conversation...one sentence by benjamin franklin sticks out : art is long but life is short. for some reason this makes me feel good as i get dressed, ill show you art...i am living this life.
i try to pack little for the beach, five swimsuits and suntan oil, my notebooks and a book on chilenismos and my camera. i charge my camera and think about walking the hills of valpo. i might have to throw these chanel flats out soon...theyve seen their last day...like two months ago. i buy my ticket for the bus at the wrong station, miss my bus, have jumbled spanish with a cute young bus driver who has no idea what im talking about and finally allows me to get on the bus, i dont see what the big problem is, chileans are never on time.
the drive is incredible....at one point i fall asleep and we crest over a hill and come into a valley that looks just like napa...i think im hallucinating but im not, its real...its just not home. but its uncanny...fields and fields of olive trees and vinyards and then dry dusty slums and then palm trees and green green hills break way to brightly colored houses stacked on top of each other like blocks. i dont love valpo...not just yet.
driving into town and some guys arm hangs out the window, covered in tattoos, looking closer it spells
benjamin
in the most beautiful script. i almost weep.

mi casa

a little taste...

mucho gusto

we hang the laundry
in the bathroom to dry
vines of pant legs
and cotton shirts
washing my hair with cold water
is fun
the first time
i stop washing it, let it,
along with my fever
run wild
bar constitucion and were
dancing like mad, boot stops and cigarette
burns on elbows
ignite and i feel dizzy
every second
without you
these streets alone
are enough to haunt
i move from bed to bed
and the noise just rises higher and higher
the 14th floor cant hide me
but i sleep deeply
no dreams, groggy mornings
i cant get out of bed before noon
five weeks without work
and i eat a palta a day
smoke lucky strikes
walk until my feet ache
(why didnt i bring more shoes)
i have never been so scared in my life
smogged in like the mountains
im just searching for a fucking
cup of coffee
and a friend
and some shred of how i thought
this would be

my sheets are cool every night though
and i sleep with the windows open
what more can
i ask for, except for you
be here, be with me, and then poof there
you are
faces of people i meet are san
francisco
you are all here, somehow
the girl from mississipi looks like you
and i want to throw
my arms around her
hug her
tell her, oh
im so glad your here!
but ive only just met her

weve only just met santiago, sip your
piscola slowly, give me a minute
ill kiss back