i switched hotels the other day because, well i can do the dorm thing for a while, but after a week or so i need my own space. a space in which only i breathe, only i exist. this i felt i desperately needed to regain my balance.
so i sought out a decently priced private room in a hotel a few blocks from parque calderon. the floor of my room is slanted. very obviously so. kind of funny.
there are many ´things´to do around cuenca, things that tourists do, and i haven´t done a single thing. i just don´t feel like it. i don´t feel like being a tourist. last night i thought, ok, tomorrow i am going to go to that national park, and i had the image of a mystical fog creeping over an eerie blue lake and through ancient trees of wisdom and mystery. yes, this will be a good thing, i thought. i will connect with nature and feel more strongly connected to my spirit. this morning however, i tried to check in with myself, you know it´s difficult though, i never really know what i want to do. but my body didn´t want to move. there was no motion in my mind. after the standard breakfast of fried eggs, 2 pieces of white toast, juice, and lukewarm coffee in the hotel cafe, i stood on the sidewalk, water bottle in hand, watching yellow taxi after taxi roll by, waiting for that thing in my brain to say, hail it! put that arm out! but after a few minutes nothing happened, and i determined that today, once again, i do not feel like doing anything. so i sat down on a bench in the park and watched people for a while.
i thought of all the days at home spent doing the same thing, in the same mood. i am just as absorbed in my innerworld of thought here as i ever was.
if there´s one thing that feels like i´ve been cursed with it´s self doubt. but i think there are some things i do know for certain. although i am constantly questioning the validity of those concepts, i think i know something about what it means to be receptive. this i have learned. and i think i do know, that there is something very real at the core of my being. and it is warm. oh, it is so warm. and it is so powerful. and it is love. i stumble upon it now and then, like this morning in meditation, and it startles me. mabye because i had been doubting it´s existence within me so passionately. maybe because it still feels like foreign territory to me, and i instinctively run away from it. i hesitate in saying these things because i feel like i have done this too often. i think i´ve got it, and then i want to declare something, wrap it up in gold, and then what? oh, nothing really changes, i continue to see my world in that way this familiar to me, i continue to attach myself to every thought that comes pulsing through my mind, and i continue to feel unsatisfied, devising plan after plan to get more, to become more. and i`ve been asking myself, do i actually understand anything that i think i do?
i can sense that there is something wrong inside me, this i do very well. and it could all be my imagination, but this is how it goes. and then i search every moment i´ve ever thought i experienced truth, i try to bring it back to me to cure the wrongness i think i sense, but all i`ve got is words. i´ve got so much good advice for myself that i´ve saved and stored in my mind, really i do, but it´s useless! means nothing in the present moment! i have sentence after sentence that at one moment, now passed, i had created to represent an experience.
i walk aimlessly and disoriented down crowded sidewalks, sinuses irritated and complaining of traffic fumes, straining my neck in towards every store i pass as if i need something but can´t remember what, and i might find it if i see it. and all the symbols i have stored in my mind i bring to the surface in a pool in which all lose their shape, words don´t belong to each other, and i begin to hear my thoughts kind of like this...
the only difference feel the ground in me is a mind that isof all thoughts calm or a i am on a mind that is not calm no, this. breath. beall life is aware not like god`s eyesof everything isyour body. i am spirit beneath let them pass your feet. my eyeslisten to . god experiencing god. spiritual journey. by. spirit. your arelet go .
only less poetic and more annoying.
and i continue to wonder about this thing called fate...why do i let myself worry so much over it? what do i expect to gain from a ´fated´ encounter. what would that even mean? is not every moment a destined one? and why does this idea seem strictly related to other people? as though if i meet the right person at the right time, heaven will flash before my eyes, my world will filled with light, i will suddenly have a clear vision of myself, of my life. everything will feel right, magical. i think of cynthia and all her stories of encounters with others. and the way she held them so close to her heart. maybe this is so important to us because it`s just that we are all connected to each other and each has the ability to bring a sense of magic into the life of another. and we want to feel this connection as a warm sweeping wave over our entire being to touch deeply in us what is often hard to reach in solitude. and the occurence of synchronicity somehow makes this tangible, gives us a sense that life is wonderful, and really happening. what would this life be without the existence of others...


i had a few drinks with helena the other night, while i was still staying at the cafecito. helena is the german friend i met in montanita who is living in cuenca right now. candles flickered on every table, lighting up sharp angles in the faces around me. cigarette smoke swirls in the air, each exhale in it´s own pattern of movement. a group of women are setting up their music equipment up front by the reception for a performane. it´s loud. we were talking about writing and i got stuck on something she said. of her own writing she said ¨it´s a nice thing to write, to be able to see how your thoughts change. it´s nice to be able to read my old entries and see how i´ve changed.¨ i felt a bit like an insect in glue. there was this part of me that felt guilty for not being able to relate. honestly, a journal entry of yesterday looks barely different to me than an entry from the very first journal i ever kept as a kid. i feel like i´ve had only one thought running through my head since birth. hah, i didn´t mean that exactly literally but now that i think of it, yes, it´s who am i? and i feel nothing in my life has ever changed, and that this is ironic because the idea of transformation is what what motivates me to do pretty much anything. and it was what motivated me to travel.
it´s as though i have heard the same line in a song, over and over again. i am aware that there is more, that what i hear belongs to something much greater, a whole masterpiece. i can sense it. i can sense that it cuts off right before the best part, and i hope, every time i hear the bit right before it cuts off, i hope. maybe this time i will hear the whole song. but no!!! it goes right back to the beginning again. and i want to throw my fists in the air and scream!

yesterday i went on a search for a book in spanish i thought i could read with the help of a dictionary to get a better understanding of sentence structure and what not. i stumbled upon a little table set up, just barely tucked away in some kind of courtyard attached to the main sidewalk. the table was piled high with used books and magazines, i immediately recognized the beautifully yellowed pages and dog eared covers. ¨buenas tardes¨ a little man i hadn´t even noticed seated beside the table with a book in his laps and a fleece blanket over his knees looks up at me. ¨buenas tardes!¨ i browse the titles for a moment and realize everything is very old, and probably won´t be of much help in understanding the modern language, but the little man, who introduced himself as jose, engaged me in a nice conversation. he had mysterious eyes, that i couldn´t quite figure out. they were rimmed with a beautiful deep stormy blue, and the insides were just brown. i couldn´t see his pupils.
i understand when old people speak much better than younger people, because they speak much slower, and with much expression. we talked about some of the differences between my country and his. ¨here, we are not lonely,¨ he said, ¨but we have no freedom. in north america, you have freedom, but everyone is lonely. i don´t get lonely.¨ he pointed to the young girl playing with her brother underneath his table of books, who smiled at me shyly. ¨i have the children, they are not afraid. they are my friends. and the people, and ohhohhoh,¨ he makes a funny expression. i did not say much but he made me laugh. i liked him very much. we talked a while longer and i did buy a book, for one dollar. he rose up out of his chair to kiss me on the cheek when i said goodbye.