Chispa de Rebelion

The eyes are closed. Let the music talk to you. Let the cards your dealt determine what you do. When the game relies on luck. No use in trying to control it. Just respond. Don’t think outside the square. There is no square. Just paths. Sons. Daughters. Lovers. Haters. Money is a tool. Use the right tool for the right job. Sometimes things break. Sometimes we laugh. Sometimes we get frustrated with people we would thank god existed if we believed that god existed. The waves turn the ocean from a deep blue to a bright white when they smash against the green coast. The bus makes more noise than the view ever could and the trees flick the sun on and off. The ocean through the trees. I like this. The volcanos look like shark teeth. White. Against the blue. A backdrop for the road. The clouds hang around the lakes waiting for permission to leave in the afternoon. Black asphalt and yellow paint snake through all of this. Our contribution to this landscape. So we can see it from car windows like television screens. A landscape cut in two. Contrast. Good and evil? Sometimes. I see it, but I don’t understand what I am looking at. Peso’s are spent and forgotten. We backtrack to find them. In the process we spend them again. Time is wasted if your unconscious. I’m trying to keep my eyes open. Blinking clears the dust from the streets of roads that are unpaved. It feels late in life, but I look forward to the second wind against my face. History that’s not mine. It’s theirs, and it might hurt. I wouldn’t know. Twelve executions in a town that everyone has forgotten. Spark the rebellion Neltume. But that fight is over. Another one will replace it. It always does. It might have already started, democracy works for both sides. Fighting? It’s not worth my front teeth, but is it worth someone else's? I’m lost in translation. Lost in Chile. We didn’t even know what was at the end of the lake. Nothing. An abandoned hotel. Elevator shafts survive the decay. I asked about ghosts. There are none. No story, just a bad investment. When you need help, people help. The police become taxis. Drive us out of the country. Very seriously. Without words. Straight police faces in a beaten up police truck. I smiled for the two of us. New countries, new people, new colours, lakes and the other side of the Andes, new accents. Same prejudices. Lack of understanding. Fear. Finally hatred. Dislike. Negative energy. Poor people are lazy and should work harder. Like us. Yeah. They should also choose richer parents. A higher social class. They should also choose privilege. This attitude like a cancer. I’ve heard it every country. Everywhere. On the road. On the road. Card games and bus rides. Small towns and big cities. A bag full of things I don’t use. But refuse to let go of. I do miss the place where I was able to disappear. Even if I left because I was vanishing.

The Courtyard

The courtyard becomes a different place with your eyes closed. The creaking of my fingers against the side of a coffee mug as birds sing to one another. Backwards and forwards. A split second delay lies between them. It doesn’t sound like a song. It’s broken. A conversation. They talk about their day above the city. Their song is as beautiful as the city must be through their eyes. Theirs is a place beyond the noise and madness. Maybe cities make more sense from up there in the sky? Humans built this city and while we made these buildings and these roads we can only participate in the unknown that brings the life to this place. We can’t create that knowingly. We are vital but we don’t see the forest from the trees. The birds will educate and entertain anyone who can hear their lectures. I hear them everyday. But I rarely listen. Maybe I should start. After all they see something I don’t so they know something I can’t.

Behind the birds comes the dull hum of traffic. Consistent and steady. A car horn sounds. Aggressive. Upset. It signals the beginning of the cresendo. A bus roars. More horns. Only this time playfully enjoying the show. A motorcycle engine tries to cut the tension and weaves through the movement but the horns respond with rapid fire and it all fades into the distance. The crescendo continues down the road, but for me, it is over and the symphony returns to a hum. So many people in a hurry to be somewhere else. To do this. To do that. To do nothing. Something about it doesn’t make sense. I’ll ask the birds. The opera interrupted by a conversation behind me. Spanish is a passionate language. More often than not spoken by passionate people. The sheets in the spare bedroom need to be changed. I am implicated. Guilty. I repent. Beg forgiveness by righting my wrongs. My blind show is over for now.

As the shops close and the schools end and the offices turn out their lights the music will grow louder. Until the birds find a place to vanish and the people get home carefully placing their instruments away in garages and car spaces the show will go on. Tomorrow morning the birds will return to the trees, to the sky and we, the composers, will return to the stage. Be it the metro, the buses, or the road. Our lives are lived somewhere between the symphonies.

2 minute friends

You see someone interesting you ask if you can sit next to them. They think your talking Spanish. You reply in english ending the confusion. You get to talking and you make a new friend. In a few hours they become a close friend. In a few more hours they´re gone. You become an expert at making friends, and almost more importantly an expert at saying goodbye. The golden rule of backpacking remains. Don´t bring anything you can´t afford to lose.

killing time...

Being the last week of term four with Christmas just around the corner the school is a ghost town. Leaving teachers with the opportunity to wrap up this year and start preparing for the next. I've spent the time between meetings and supervising student activities packing up my desk. It's been as therapeutical as it has been sad, and not to forget a bit daunting. I've got a few more things to do before the end of the week, but not enough to occupy another 3 days, so instead I'll make use of this renewed webpage.

I was thinking about the title of this page. Why i named it this, what i meant when i did and what it was to be "out of context". At the time I created this blog I had this romanticized idea that when you put yourself in new surroundings with new people you learn more about who you are (At the moment I'm happy with the title, since it offers me a lose excuse when what I've written is taken "out of context"). To an extent i still think that this is true. Your always in control of how you act and what you do, but i feel that traveling is a good opportunity to see how I adapt to a change in environment.

Context is overrated, and the more i think about it the less i think we are ever in context. I started reflecting on what it was to be out of context, which was a question i found hard to address. Instead i started to think about existing IN context. Again an idea that was extremely hard to get my mind around. I've always felt the need to 'flee' my current 'context' when things started getting too much, I was getting bored or i had that constant underlying feeling of dread that i will die with regrets. Suddenly it dawned on me that maybe i was never in context, and perhaps we never are. Life isn't set out like that. As soon as we developed consciousness and the ability to make our own minds up context flew out the window. We go where we want, we do what we want, we are who we want. Obviously some people are products of their environment and that has it's own library of literature and ideas, but on this forum i only speak from my own personal position where i have the freedom (and support) to put all aspects of my life under my direct control.

So here i am, flawed titles and all, in context, out of context, it doesn't matter. The idea now is to experience as many contexts as i can, and see what I can learn from them.


This is a photo of me two weeks ago at the Buddhist Temple in Pattaya Thailand. Am I out of context? You decide...