“the
year of letting go, of understanding loss. grace. of the word ‘no’ and also
being able to say ‘you are not kind’. the year of humanity/humility. when the
whole world couldn’t get out of bed. everyone i’ve met this year, says the same
thing ‘you are so easy to be around, how do you do that?’. the year i broke
open and dug out all the rot with own hands. the year i learnt small talk. and
how to smile at strangers. the year i understood that i am my best when i reach
out and ask ‘do you want to be my friend?’. the year of sugar, everywhere.
softness. sweetness. honey honey. the year of being alone, and learning how
much i like it. the year of hugging people i don’t know, because i want to know
them. the year i made peace and love, right here.”-
warsan shire
~
My trip to Chile begins with an ‘almost’ fuck-up, which is
not surprising as I always seem to live my life on the verge of chaos, unclean
and slightly reckless. If you have ever been inside my bedroom, you know this
side of me well. I live amongst piles of things- lucky to see a square foot of
open floor space. It’s probably gross, but there is something about being in a
space unhinged that makes me feel imperfect, and thus, much more human.
My flight from Denver to Houston was delayed, so I have
three minutes to make my connecting flight to Santiago after getting off the
plane. It is my first time pulling the ‘DESPERATE RUN THROUGH THE AIRPORT GET
OUT OF MY WAY I’M SWEATING’ dash, so to get myself through the pain of harsh
breathing and flailing suitcases, I script a movie narration in my head:
*‘The Winner Is’ by DeVotchKa plays softly overhead*
With a body that hosts both chicken-wing dagger elbows and the soft
belly of an all queso diet, the girl
of our story begins her journey in a rush. Sweat pelting her hairline down like
a half-lubed penis, our girl puts one foot in front of another- over and over
her feet pulse forward and through. Here, she escapes the chronic blistering
thoughts we all have in those empty moments, in those times we must remain
still on the border between awake and dazed. She does not know what she is
doing, or really, where she is going.
Out-of-shape puke forms in the belly, and our girl moves forward.
Foot after foot, our story begins.
And this… Well, this is a story of a girl.
I make up fake movie narrations for my life often. Once, I
was able to continue a narration for several months; I would finish one
daydream and pick it right back up in my next dream. In this particular several
month endeavor, I created a boyfriend in my head and for all intents and
purposes, it was a pretty fo-reals relationship. We met in the park, held
hands, had a steamy kiss in the feminist section of the public library. Two
months into our escalating relationship, Wyatt (yes, he had a name) came over
to my house to tell me he never loved me and that he was leaving me for my best
friend.
In real life, I sobbed to ‘Unchained Melody’ by the
Righteous Brothers for a solid thirty minutes before eating a whole Kit-Kat bar
in one bite.
(Am I aware that I made this all up in my head and that I
self-inflicted this fucked ending? Yes. Yes, I am. Stop giving me that look.)
Anyways, I am running in the airport trying to catch this
flight, and I know I must be making the most uncomfortable facial expressions. My
face is an open book- every thought manifests itself in some sort of visible
expression. I can get so lost in my thoughts that I often am not aware of my
facial expressions. Many times, I will be sitting with friends lost in thought,
and someone will interject, “Aly, what is wrong?”. I usually am taken aback,
not realizing such twisted expressions have made their way to my face. I then
have to awkwardly mumble “nothing”, as I really don’t want to get into how I
just had a small life freak out about eggs that crack with a double-yolk (WAS
THE DOUBLE-YOLK TWINS, WAS IT CONJOINED TWINS, CAN TWO CHICKENS COME FROM ONE
EGG AND WILL SOMEONE JUST LIKE DECIDE IF THE CHICKEN OR EGG CAME FIRST BECAUSE
I’M SICK OF ALL THE RIDDLING OKAY).
I make it to my gate and my suspicion that I am wearing a
ghastly expression is confirmed as the guy sitting in the gate next to me hears
my heaving and glances up with an appalled look of concern. I shove my passport
and plane ticket into the hands of the gate attendant with the utmost urgency. Do
you ever expect the world to be at your same level of urgency and then get
ridiculously disappointed when your level of urgency is not reciprocated? I get
this all the time in the drive-through at McDonald’s when I want a McFlurry:
Me, ordering as if this is the last thing I will accomplish on earth: “I must have a large M&M McFlurry.”
McDonald’s employee:
“A’ight.”
This occurs with the gate attendant:
Me, after running a literal marathon 1 minute and 45 seconds to
get here on time: “Did I make it?
Am I okay? Here’s my ticket! (+ !17)”
Gate attendant, without looking at me reaches out: *drops passport and plane ticket*
Me: ….
Gate attendant, after I dip down to grab my things and hand them to her:
“Kay.”
The anti-climatic nature of this is deafening. I find my
seat on the plane and close my eyes.
~
I travel on various planes and buses down to Puerto Natales,
the base city for entering the national park area of Patagonia. During my
travels, I meet a handful of other travelers. To make conversation, we divulge
what has brought us here; most mention something akin to adventure and greater
self-discovery. I listen, but I think about borders as we talk. I’ve been
thinking about borders a lot lately. On this trip, I am traveling to Chile to
hike the W-Route in Patagonia and to later attend a conference in Viña Del Mar.
I will move with ease along the southern tip of Chile- my ‘sense of adventure’
and blue US passport working as justification free from further questioning.
Meanwhile, on countless other borders, fronteras,
borderlands and bordertowns, people trying to traverse land will be
stopped, detained, emotionally/physically/sexually abused, de-humanized and
abandoned.
I can’t help but think of borders. Of the twisted
privileging of my individualistic pleasure over others’ existence and well
being. When I think about borders, I vary my reactions from wordless spinning
to flustered, incoherent rants to my friends and family. Borders and this spatial
abuse of neocolonial power leave me flustered as fuck because the hypocrisy of
borders is just so full of shit. A LOT OF SHIT- just all shit, like that same
shit that names me ‘bilingual’ while
others of different positionalities get labeled ‘can’t speak English’ even though I cannot roll my r’s and a decade of institutional training
has left my Spanish SUB PAR SUB PAR I TELL YOU! Uh, it’s all just one big shit
hole, a big hole with a big shit and…
I can hear Emma Burns telling me ‘to simmer’. I digress.
I finally make it to my hostel, a completo and greasy middle part in tow. After a much-needed shower,
I lay reading on my bed and try to squash my growing fear of hiking the W-Route
alone. I start a mantra to ease my nerves: I
will not fall off a mountain and die. I will not fall off a mountain and die… My
roommate interrupts my growing mantra to introduce herself. She is from Denmark
and is traveling for six months before beginning her full-time job in
September. Within five minutes of talking to her, I have invited myself to hike
with her and her co-worker for three days. My innate witty charm or a needy
desperateness? Not going to question it.
We wake up early the next morning to travel into the park. As
we walk, the small talk quickly dissipates and evolves into bigger wonderings
about the world. This is what leaves me addicted to traveling- the swiftness at
which feelings and big ideas can color a conversation between two strangers. We
hike for 8 hours the first day; of course, there is beauty I cannot begin to
describe. My fondness for my hiking companions is confirmed after two key
events: 1) the male co-worker immediately names us #squadheavybreathing and 2)
we stop for coffee at the hostel on the trail, showing a winding calmness that
warms our journey.
A few days and many conversations later, we reach the end of
the hiking route. My companions will continue hiking another day as I begin my
return back to Viña del Mar. We sit sipping a few beers in celebration and
nursing our swollen heels. By this point, my neurotic, over-thinking nature has
been revealed. Mathias, the male co-worker, asks me more about my plans for
after graduation. Immediately, my tendency to freak out is activated, and I
start spilling over. I spill self-doubt because right now, my self-doubt is the
only thing I am sure of and I feel the need to spit out vulnerabilities.
I have a strong tendency for freaking out- for alienating
myself amongst my thoughts so completely that I disjoint myself from reality. I
don’t see my tendency to freak out stopping any time soon. (In fact, a few days
later at the meet and greet for my conference, I will be overwhelmed by the
prospect of having to meet all new people. I will grab a glass of wine and lock
myself into a bathroom stall to chug the wine as my ‘social lubricant’. Then,
in the sweaty fervor of going to the bathroom and eating an olive empanada, I
will almost wipe my vagina with said cheesy empanada napkin. It will be a
really close call.)
I finally come to the end of spilling with Mathias. He
pauses, a look of sureness personifying his eyes. He looks at me to say:
“Let yourself be insecure, Aly”.
~
So, I am learning to open myself. I am learning to be
uncomfortable. Unexpectedly, I am learning to be insecure- less rigid and more
stable in the unknown. I hope to exist imperfectly.
There is this socialized myth about what it means to ‘grow
up’. It is closely tied with professionalism, so that somehow growing up means
you are less free to be emotionally honest with both yourself and others. You
grow up and you warp yourself into the image of ‘security’. But, I wish growing
up was more about fullness- the fullness of laughing hysterically in public
spaces or of crying in surprising times or of letting yourself be insecure in
the face of vulnerability. Maybe I can still center silliness. Maybe I can be
angry, unfiltered. Maybe I can still feel others deeply. Maybe, just maybe, I
can break the isolation of stoicness.
Away from isolation, I am a feeling being. And so, if I love
you (which I probably do), I have intertwined you into my being. I walk with
you, I experience deep joy with you, I shake with you, I allow myself to be
insecure with you. To be with you is to feel like the turning on of a warm heat
lamp. As I intertwine you into my life and being, we may even develop an usness- those idiosyncratic intangibles
that make us us. Our usness might be
awkward laughing and ridiculous gossip and foggy glasses and sometimes broken
smiles and tell me about your dreams and too much left unsaid.
In the end, I hope we exist imperfectly.
