Thursday, August 02, 2007

santiago to chicago


Back where the toilets flush clockwise, where August means sitting on the stoop in the summer heat, and where the colors in the sky at sunset call all of your attention due to lack of mountains or really any topographical variation, I have returned to my home town. Traditionally, I suppose it is my home town, the greater Chicagoland area, although my idea of "home" shifts and changes sometimes. Home could be the feeling of having dinner around a full table of friendly faces, home could be the sensation of a hug from someone you haven't seen in a long time. Home could be a place where you are living and experiencing your daily reality, or home could be of historic importance, where your memories live.

The last couple of months in Chile made it even more clear to me that they will not be my last at all. Chile, South America, are still just developing their roles in my life. With a rush of activities and events at the end of May, including the OJOS nuevos exhibition at ARCOS, I left Santiago in a blur, running to the bus terminal and arriving just in time with a good friend of mine to begin our trip up north, through Bolivia and to Peru. Spanning the month of June, this journey has been extensively documented and will unfold here in a series of essays referencing the notes I scribbled along the way, electricity permitting, and countless photographs. But in regards to my time in Santiago, most importantly, my connection with the foundations and people with whom I worked are still intact, and I look forward to continuing these relationships. I won't always know exactly how much I meant to the people I met, the girls, my friends; I know that with some, we shared a mutual understanding about the power of our friendship. Without a doubt, my year in Chile will not be forgotten, nor will it remain untouched, tucked in a frame on the wall in some obscure, private room. In the most humble sense, I have been changed, and it was change that I was seeking. Hopefully this change has gone beyond me. Without a doubt, my attitude and perspective has shifted. The force of my experiences has picked me up out of the rut in which I found myself one year ago, and I feel that I have embarked on a different, much more satisfying-- albeit challenging-- path: I am so glad that I went.

2 comments:

*Vicky* said...

yo tambien estoy muy feliz de que hayas venido, y de estar aca para conocerte por que eres una persona increible, MI AMIGA! tengo mi corazon muy triste, ayer fue la despedida de Briana...y pronto será Lena...Maricarmen dice que es parte de todo, pero me duele!

te quiero mucho!

MC said...

que más que decir amiiiiga que te quiero montones! muchííísimo! y espero que vuelvas a Chile o nos volvamos a ver en otra parte del mundo... que tal NY? jajaja!
LUV YA!