Flannel shirts, skinny jeans and True Colors

You with the sad eyes

don't be discouraged

5 months is a long time to be away and a significant amount of time to be traveling through foreign lands without stopping for more than a few days. i have been back in my home country for almost a month and am feeling a bit more at ease with the world around me (and my place in it) than when i first arrived. i can walk through a grocery store, restaurant and public setting without a flurry of thoughts and images bombarding my senses. i no longer marvel at the size everything or the quick pace at which our society moves. even my meltdowns or shutdowns, as the case may be, have decreased to a less embarrassing number.

oh I realize

it's hard to take courage

now i trip instead of fall.

it is the so called "little things" that cause me to stop mid-run or stare too long out the window or put down my computer or take a deep breath. it is the push to buy buy buy because there are holiday sales. it is the fear that i am losing my language capabilities. it is the realization that snow is on the mountains because it is WINTER. it is the recognition that i can take a hot shower whenever i want. it is the expectation that a car is necessary in this town.

it is the question, "so you are getting back to real life huh?"

in a world full of people

you can lose sight of it all

and the darkness still inside you

can make you feel so small

missing the act of traveling was expected. the longing to experience new cultures and meet new people continues unabated. the missed connections, phone calls and decrease in email has resulted in the painful realization that the distance, both physical and existential, may deter and possibly derail new found relationships and has led to sleepless nights and the inability to express myself in any language.

but i see your true colors

shining through

i see your true colors

and thats why i love you

so don't be afraid to let them show

your true colors

true colors

are beautiful like a rainbow

there are those who are patient, those who understand or try to anyway. those who see something is different and help me to understand or just be with the difference. there are those who want to hear about my experiences or who want to share their own or who don't want anything at all. there are those who work really hard to connect, sending messages so we can schedule a time to catch up as our lives or timezones don't quite seem to match up. there are strangers who smile as you go by, children who laugh at the wind and puppies that bark at your foot. each instance reminds me of the beauty of the moment.

show me a smile then

don't be unhappy

can't remember when i last saw you laughing

if this worlds makes you crazy

and you've taken all you can bear

you call me up because you know i'll be there

i never thought much about the importance of pop culture in our society; a week ago i realized the 5 month gap can cause a ripple of pop culture-related shocks. all of a sudden the fashion world raided my 10th grade closet and the soundtrack of my adolescence was being sung by a group of tweens awaiting their frappaccinos at Starbucks. it appears the ongoing effect of media on how we identify ourselves, and thus how we relate and live our lives means i missed 5 months of talked about tweets, tv shows, songs, movies, food, material goods, personalities and other topics that caught the attention of my friends and family. my much needed and desired media blackout has some negative effects after all. can i get a pop cultural guidance counselor please?

but i see your true colors

shining through

i see your true colors

and thats why i love you

so don't be afraid to let them show

your true colors

true colors

are beautiful like a rainbow.

Photo of the day...Suchitoto, El Salvador

A small colonial city in central El Salvador, Suchitoto was the little surprise you hope for as a traveler. in all honesty, El Salvador was the greatest surprise of my trip. i wanted to like it, i wanted to prove all those people wrong who told me to avoid it because of danger and history and poverty. what i saw, what i experienced was something very different and i didn't have to work to like it. the country and the people welcomed me and i would have had to work really hard to dislike it, and even then i don't think that would have been possible.

In Suchitoto i found a hostel that overlooked Lake Suchitoto and was run by a friendly local family. ok so the hostel was small and the sleeping area cramped, but the location was great and the owners genuinely want travelers to get to know their city and their country. this sentiment, the hope that foreigners will come and get to know the country and culture beyond the negativity and violence which is presented in the media, was prevalent in almost everyone i met in El Salvador. in Suchitoto, people recommended local artists, a visit to the church, local food, a boat ride on the lake, and a hike to the waterfall.

Ah the waterfall, a natural geometric masterpiece. the basalt blocks are in fact hexagonal and during the rainy season (the time of my visit) water rushed and fell with astounding speed. my pictures do not capture the beauty or power; as was the case throughout my trip, somethings could never be captured by a camera and must be held in my memory alone. as a friend and i walked through the outskirts of the town to get here, we were welcomed and directed by locals proud to help us to see 'Los Tercios'. imagine my happiness at discovering that this waterfall was on the land of a local farmer who welcomed us to walk down to the falls and then walk beyond to a marvelous view of the valley and the lake.

the above photo is from one of the streets off of the main plaza near the hostel, you can see the lake in the distance. this street is typical for this town and there were many others that were nearly identical, they even had horses grazing!

changing of the leaves

the act of running brings me closer to myself than anything else i do throughout the day. it is in that time that i feel most alive and am able to observe the world as closely as i was able to experience it when i was traveling.

as the leaves twist and turn in the breeze, making their descent to the cool, damp grass i am finally able to feel that it is indeed autumn and that the natural world is shifting, preparing for the change to come. my understanding of time changed as i traveled through countries and cultures that measure, follow and play with "time" in ways i had never considered. upon return i struggle to comprehend that 5 months have passed, that i missed the summer and all the activities that come with it. i intellectually understand that time has passed, that i had missed out on aspects of people's lives, and yet it all feels the same. or at least strangely familiar.

i wonder if the sense of familiarity is false. is everything around me the same and i am what is unfamiliar? traveling through other countries it was obvious i did not belong and all things were new to me, i was the outsider; unfamiliarity (is that even a word?) was normal. here in my own country i have never felt i fit in but i was comfortable with that, because it was a part of my identity, an aspect of who i was and thus it was familiar. i know how to function in this western world, where to go to purchase a long sleeve shirt, how to find the nearest bank and how to interact with the barista at the coffee shop...but i have forgotten how to say things in English, my heart races as i walk into grocery store and i wonder how to respond in many conversations. i suppose it is not that i do not know things or at least how to do things so much as i second guess myself now. at times i wonder, am i doing or saying it this way because i used to, because it is the best way or because it is something i picked up the last few months?

it is easy here. ok yes of course life can have it´s challenges and horrible things happen, i am not saying that everything is perfect here. what i mean to say is, one could move through life without feeling that they are LIVING. rather one could go through life as if on a conveyor belt, on a continuous, monotonous loop. i am struggling here to find a coherent way to express this thought and the best i can do is say this: there are so many ways in the Western world to distract and distance oneself from people, events, emotions and thoughts; is that living?

...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don´t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

it is with this in mind that i continue on a few more steps, gasping for cool air and the sight of a blue bird soaring among the trees.