Tea

I am nose-to-nose with Geronimo, my ‘gateway animal’.

I palm a peach, cupping all its bruises between my wrinkled lifelines. I edge closer and take a deep breath. Geronimo The Horse is the self-induced beginning of my journey to love animals. I like him because he mirrors splattered art- a flank of poured white patches and a deep cream brushstroke down his nose. I edge a little closer. My eyelashes flirt together the tiniest bit as fear squirms my face into a nervous grimace. I meet his nose with my peach, and he breathes warmth into my hands. Then he licks it.

I jump back as he grabs the last bit of the fruit, and I am gasping. He slurps on the juice while I retreat to the swing. My calves huddle in the tall grass as I watch him; we are getting better at this. The other day I went with my host mother, Claudia, and Geronimo to climb a mountainside in search of wild mushrooms. This was no hiking trail. It was steep and rocky and rugged at the seams. Geronimo followed us boldly, learning to place his hooves in strategic places. After we reached the edge of our property (70 freshly picked wild mushrooms in tow), Geronimo froze at the small canal of water. He is only a year old and has not learned to jump. When I saw Geronimo scatter back in fear, I felt a pang of something. I remember being shocked at myself: was I feeling empathy for this horse?

I have been thinking a lot about the idea of empathy. When I was traveling back home from La Paz the other week, my friend Evelyn started that she believes empathy may not exist. A professor once told her that it is impossible for empathy to exist. We may feel pain at the pain of others, but it is nearly always a manifestation of our own memories. It’s just like that one time. Or, it’s basically the same as this. It is impossible for us to know other contexts, and so the best we can do is refracture our own pain into attempts at comfort- incomplete and uneasy.

Of course, this theory leaves us both unnerved. No one likes to think that there might be limits on the power of love- it’s supposed to be infinite. A world without empathy reminds me of a theory in the field of international relations. The realist theory argues that states in the international system act as indistinguishable black boxes; each box will inevitably be entrenched in conflict with other states as each state only exists to preserve its own interests. Empathy does not exist in the anarchy of the international system.

I reduce the international system down to reflections of my own experience in Bolivia. So many times I relied on something like empathy to navigate the new environment, loving and listening and challenging and laughing and loving and dancing and splintering with new people in this new place. I don’t want to think that was all under false pretenses. And yes, I also know that I will need something like empathy when I go home again in just a few short weeks. It’s facing home again that demands the deepest empathy. Our smiles will be the same, but the tongues that press harshly against the backs of our teeth will hold new stories. In preparation, I have started to pack my mental boxes: a few things to be shared right away, a lot to be revealed over time and a small knapsack to keep burrowed in my heart. I think of home, and I can only picture everyone wanting their stories and their changed souls and their indignant rage about the Universe to reign the most infamous. Will it be impossible to see the change in others, to let people into my new closets- to empathize?

I’ve heard the saddest loneliness is when you are surrounded by people who love you, yet you can only seem to breathe the burning silence beneath short conversations. Are we all just destined to be black boxes? We will bump into each other every once in a while, feign interest in each other’s struggle for a just a moment before dissolving back into our own daydreams?

I am thinking of home. More importantly, I am thinking of you.  

No, we may never be empathetic, but we can try a little something. I want to try something with you because I am beautiful and you are beautiful and you, you are beauty and I am estranged by your beauty, and I think that you are so lovely. I hope to awake in your loveliness, and I know that I might sit there and only appear close- I know that my closeness may never be real because I may never understand you, but I am not moving. I am here in the fire with you. I do not understand, I will never understand, but I will be burned with you- we will have different scars, but I will burn with you because together we are so beautiful. I will taste your tears and I will summit with your ecstasy, and I will never know you, I will never get you. You are staggering beauty and I, I am trying to be staggering beauty. And we will leave with different battle scars, yours may be ragged and deep and mine might be so superficial, but there will be rotting tissue shared between us. Because we, we are beautiful. If it comes to this, if you ever truly need someone, I know that it might be scary. I know that I will probably never understand. I am here, as open as I can be. I have left my door ajar ever so slightly. Just turn the knob a little to the right.

I have left a cup of tea warming on the stove for you.

Snap

For those of you that know me, the image of me working on a farm is actually quite comical. In high school, we were always told there were two kinds of people: athletes and non-athletes. Okay yes, this is a generalization but just roll with it for a second. We were told there was a grand division between those who had an affinity for some sort of ball-handling and those who, well, maybe should just stick to reading and pottery. However, I am here to make the case that we have been forgetting all about a crucial third category of people- the people who refused to relent their individuality to the tragic conformity of high school stereotypes, instead embracing the fullness of their own spirit? No. Of course not. Get your head out of your ass.

The third category of people is obviously: “the-awkward-girls-who-pretend-to-be-athletes-due-to-their-throbbing-inner-pefectionist-and-a-religious-devotion-to-the-very-true-events-of-She’s the Man-and/or-Bend it like Beckham-but-who-actually-have-neither-athletic-ability-nor-really-even-basic-human-coordination”.

I am the third category (surprise). I have tried to be an athlete my whole life. I played basketball, soccer, tennis and even swimming (can you ‘play’ swimming?). Most importantly, I lettered in academics my first year of high school and ordered a soccer patch for my jacket to make it seem like I had actually lettered in sports. I did everything so right! I just didn’t have any talent.

This brings us back to my current life on the farm. I don’t have any physical talent here either. My head and my body just aren’t connected that way. If someone were to psychoanalyze me, they might say something like: Aly has a deep fear of vulnerability and a rigid control issue that prevents her body from moving with liberty… Also, we can conclude that this is definitely why she is single and will remain single long after humankind has gone extinct due to the over-growth of foot fungus. But actually the truth is that my center of gravity is at my forehead, not in my hips. I am a walking cranium, which makes me damn good with flashcards but really not that great with manual labor (nor, probably, in bed).

I think everyone has those things that they love but just don’t have a natural gift for. There is a big difference between loving something and ‘being at one’ with something. To be at one with something, I really believe the stars must align to give you a little bit of natural talent. It should fit like your favorite sweater: soft with a little room for growth. For example, here is a list of things I love but absolutely suck at:

·      The aforementioned category of ‘athletics’

·      Writing the letter ‘k’

·      Going to the beach (in the words of my mother, I just “don’t look good wet”)

·      Paint-by-Numbers

·      Being nice

·      Bacon

·      Walking

Now, in contrast, here is a list of things I feel I am ‘at one with’:

·      Cliteracy (no, this is not an ‘academic term’ for masturbation* you weirdo. Go look it up.)

·      Binge-watching Ally McBeal

·      Being in love Watching others be in love/third-wheeling

·      Crying while eating ice cream

·      Cheese

·      Coffee-shops (like, you’re around people but you don’t actually have to talk to anyone)

·      Unsweetened black iced tea

And just because I am kind of having fun making lists, here is a list of the things I hate:

·      Cam Welch

I don’t know if I will ever feel at one with life on the farm. This morning I was walking into my bedroom when a hummingbird followed me and flew toward the window, thinking it was another way outside. She ran into the glass but couldn’t figure out how to turn around and make it out of the windowsill. I am absolutely petrified of birds and all around apathetic to their well-being; I ran to find my host sister so that I later would not be considered an accomplice in murder. She entered my room and grabbed a towel as she headed toward the window. She was going to hold the hummingbird and take her to the door to let her go. This is how it went down:

Miri, the bird-whispering host sister, approaches the bird: “Tranquila. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Me, in my head: “THE BIRD IS LITERALLY GOING TO MURDER YOU.”

Miri, the bird-whispering host sister, holds the bird and pets its head: “Don’t worry, you’re safe now.”

Me, in my head: “SHE HAS BEADY DEVIL EYES AND DESERVED TO DIE.”

Me, in real life: “Thank you for everything. I am so happy she is safe.”

Miri, the bird-whispering host sister, lets the hummingbird go and the bird flies up only to get stuck in the roof: “Oh no! Pobrecita, I’ll go get her!”

Me, in my head: “JUST LEAVE HER ROTTING BODY. SHE GOT HERSELF INTO THIS.”

Me, in real life: “You’re right! We’ve got to do something!”

The point of this little anecdote? Yes, Miri did successfully rescue the hummingbird, but the point is that Miri is someone who is at one with the farm. She emanates this kind of compassion and service, while I might have some things to work on. 

I do love it though. The other day, I harvested crops for the first time. My first harvest was potatoes, which was so fitting, as the papa is a key cornerstone of Bolivian culture. After my partner Paulino uprooted the potatoes, I dropped to my knees to collect them into a basket. As I fell to my knees and grabbed my first potato from the earth, I was overcome by emotion- wonder bubbling with an ecstatic relief. There was something so profound about the fact that I was holding a small golden potato in my hand. I realized this was the first time I had ever worked with my hands. I felt like I knew something that I had never known before.

One of my favorite things about the Spanish language is that there are two words for ‘to know’: saber and conocer. Saber is to know information, things or facts. Do you know the answer to the question? Sí, sé la respuesta. On the other hand, conocer is to know places and people. It is to know lives. I love that the Spanish language distinguishes between knowing things and knowing people, places and experiences because these types of knowledge are so profoundly different. To know things? Well, that is to memorize or to compute. But to know people and places and lives? That is to go home again. It is to be overwhelmed. To listen torrentially as love makes its way through your most guarded maze of ear canals. To bare yourself open to the carving of a new magnetic North within you. To love and to never even begin to be able to describe the way you are feeling.

And if you are beginning to know new people and a new place and new lives all at once? Then I say you must be at a dinner table. I have vagabonded my way through many families during my time abroad. I have worked to know a lot of people and places and lives in Chile, Peru and Bolivia. For me, the best moments always happened at the dinner table. It’s where the three profundities meet: people are all together, they are in the epicenter of their home and for the moment, their lives have all converged. Today, I was at the dinner table with my new host family on the farm. I was listening to their conversation, happy that I was keeping up with the fast pace of Spanish. However, just as I felt truly confident in my understanding of the conversation, my listening was interrupted by my host mom catapulting an olive at my host father’s head as she screamed something in German. My host sister started laughing so hard she literally burped up her strawberry pie. I swore we had just been talking about the rain. So, if I had to pick a snapshot of the moment where things started to shift with my relationship in this family, if I had to flutter a shot of a moment to string alongside my millions of little memories that are beginning to yellow in the caverns of my mind, that would be my snapshot. 

And with this snapshot, I think I know something now that I didn’t know before.

(*I do not mean to say that women should feel ashamed for masturbating. I actually believe that the dramatic difference between the public’s celebration of male masturbation and its disgust with female masturbation is a damaging consequence of outdated and harmful gender expectations. This is a feminist issue. I digress.)

Special

I am really into my body right now.

I mutter this glowing self-affirmation to myself as I stand facing the ocean in Viña del Mar, Chile. I look down at my body as another wave crashes around me and numbs my ankles against the cold. A few days earlier, I had fallen asleep on the beach in a very conservative, appropriate pose: one arm lay stretched above me and my nose wiggled itself into the crevice of my armpit as my other hand rested wide on the center of my stomach. I think I was even spread-eagling because fuck patriarchal expectations of lady-likeness, right? I was so comfortable I slept for three hours. When I awoke, my whole body was drenched the color of cherry juice- the inevitable sunburn.

Now, as I stand facing the infinite aqua, I admire my sunburn. On my sides, there is a deep line that looks like strawberry cheesecake (cream meeting pink). My favorite part is my stomach because while it is also red, there is a large circle of glaring paleness around my belly button where my hand had rested. I look kind of like a reverse bullseye, and I am totally rocking it.

I also haven’t shaven anything on my body since I arrived in Bolivia back in August (next week I hope to host a video webinar that will revolutionarily demonstrate how to use a curling iron on one’s perfectly untouched armpit hair). I have gained so much confidence from my hairiness! Soft furry legs, the erosion of any sort of bikini ‘line’, the startling discovery that at a certain length my armpit hair turns from a deep brown to a highlighted shade of blonde. My body is sexy in the sort of mismatched, imperfect trend that seems to be haunting all the fashion magazines these days.

While I love all of these parts of my body, my favorite part is my cuñapudge. Let me explain. Bolivia has graced the world with the delightful ‘cuñape’, which is a pancito made from yucca flour and cheese. They just make me so happy, and I continue to revere in this most indulgent gluttony. My consumption of cuñapes has led to many smiles and eventually, my pudge.

So here I am: pudgy, hairy, sunburned and delighted.

~

Add one more thing to that list: stained by cheap red wine.

My friend Rosa and I stand outside the liquor store just minutes before midnight on New Year’s Eve holding a box of wine. I had tried to order a bottle of delicious red but we somehow ended up with this box of bitter grape juice. I had just chugged some out of the too-big corner hole and was now dripping wine everywhere. We stroll back to our hostel to look for the group heading to the beach to watch the fireworks. I nuzzle the box close, getting intimate for these last few moments of 2014. My friend stops me and just looks down at my feet. At first, I pretend to feign sweet innocence:

“What?”

She just knowingly replies, “Aly, you really should take off your socks.”

I look down at my socks and Chacos and muster, “But I think this look really works on me.”

Rosa gives me her classic stare. I try to do that thing where I fake giggle and open my mouth really big in my fondest attempt at endearment. She stares back. My mouth opens a little bigger…

She just stares knowingly. God, fine. As we hike the stairs to our apartment, I slip off the socks and throw them in my bedroom. I caress my box of wine, as I know that it would never judge me. I catch a quick look at myself in the mirror, flirting a quick hair flip just for kicks and giggles. We head back down the stairs to catch up with our new friends heading to the beach. As we walk along the streets of Valparaiso, thousands of people flood the calles, people sell cans of beer out of backpacks and there is an energy I have never felt before. I walk down the streets confidently. This was the first time I had done my hair or worn make-up in weeks, and I was waiting for all the beautiful men to flock to me as we reached the shore (I mean, I was wearing mascara for god’s sake). We take our place along the streets just as the fireworks begin to burst.

Everyone around me begins to kiss and hug each other. The group of friends Rosa and I are staying with had been studying abroad in Chile together all semester. So, as I stand with a feeling somewhere in between the collective heart of their welcome and my innate outsideness, I am reminded of a moment earlier that day. I had been sitting on the roof of the apartment. The roof is a special place; it fumbles its magic from the blushed stains of colorful houses and the belted sea. I feel that this roof is special, but I also know that this specialness is not mine. The specialness is that group of friends and all those whispered conversations between confidants and fast-spent months of sunbathed quirks. I think that’s the beauty of specialness though- it can be lent out to those in need of it. Magic specialness always murmurs itself beyond the tyranny of being permanently owned. I was let into this specialness for just a second, and so I began to memorize it. An orange house plants itself in the top left of my vision. The ocean stretches across it all. Two industrial skyscrapers hunt the middle space. My eyes hang there. Don’t you ever wish you erase a skyline and then draw it for yourself? I would take a big rubber eraser to that skyline and edge away the industry. I think it’d be nice to let the ocean win for once.

I am reminded of this moment during my first seconds of 2015 because I am again borrowing the specialness welling up in the hugs and kisses around me. I stand in a land unknown, but I think that’s okay. I clutch my box of wine tight, waiting for someone to flock to me….

A lady sprays silly string in my eye and the fumes leave me hacking like an undone puppet. So everyone kisses while I hack and try to blink out this chemical shit in my eye. 

I think my pupil is gone.

(Side note: Just so you don’t worry too much about me, I did receive a New Year’s kiss a few minutes later. Two in fact. I told you, my body is really sexy right now.)