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.
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