Peru on my mind
In 6 days I leave for Peru. 2 and a half months of travel through South America should do my soul good. Get to know me on my own terms. Soulfood, mmmmm! This will be my first long term trip on my own. I figured I need to stop talking and start doing. Soooo...
I am a bit nervous, however it's times like these and days like today where I fall helplessly in love with life. I looked around at the sky and mountains and trees that coat the mossy earth of the eternally drizzally NW and saw so much beauty. I have been travelling the western hemisphere for a couple of years now and nowhere else beats our sunsets, our mountainous backdrop, or the crisp cool clear nights when stars poke their light through a deep black sky. I am truly grateful to be who I am and where I am in this drop of history I am blessed to experience.
I am leaving in a time which comes with great difficulty also. My mother will most likle be dead from cancer when I return in March. She has suffered a long time and unbearable bouts of pain plauge her every second of everyday. I told her I could cancel my airline ticket, and she told me this story. When she was a teenager, she had this great plan to travel about the earth with her friend, Betty. One of the major places she wanted to visit was Machu Picchu, the famous Inca fortress looming at 9,000 feet in the Peruvian Andes. She wound up marrying my dad at 22 and never made it to Mach Picchu. In fact, she never went anywhere she wanted to go. So she takes my hand, staring at me, and with all the strength she can muster, lifts her head up from the pillow and says "Jennifer, you MUST live your life." Then her head plops down on the pillow, the greying flesh around her eyes closing as she lets out an exhausted sigh. Yet the boney frame of her hand still clutching to mine reassured me that she was still here, at least for now.
I realize this journey is not just for me, it is for my mom, it is for all those dreams lost in the hurricane of years of ungrateful addiction that I consumed myself in. It is for all those times I ran away from her, seeking solice on the cold streets of Seattle, only to learn later she was seeking me out to no avail for weeks on end. This sojourn is an amends to my mom. To show her my life is not wasted as I thought it was for years. It is amazing how one sees the humanness in the dying who, all your childhood, appear invincible and indestructable. I have never known my mom well because I was an active alcohlic the entirety of her healthy life. I have only known her with my clear mind as an ill woman. When she does finally let go and pass on, I hope to be at Mach Picchu. I know her soul will come to me there, and in that amazing place I will get to know my mom for the first time as a human being. I love you mom.
I am a bit nervous, however it's times like these and days like today where I fall helplessly in love with life. I looked around at the sky and mountains and trees that coat the mossy earth of the eternally drizzally NW and saw so much beauty. I have been travelling the western hemisphere for a couple of years now and nowhere else beats our sunsets, our mountainous backdrop, or the crisp cool clear nights when stars poke their light through a deep black sky. I am truly grateful to be who I am and where I am in this drop of history I am blessed to experience.
I am leaving in a time which comes with great difficulty also. My mother will most likle be dead from cancer when I return in March. She has suffered a long time and unbearable bouts of pain plauge her every second of everyday. I told her I could cancel my airline ticket, and she told me this story. When she was a teenager, she had this great plan to travel about the earth with her friend, Betty. One of the major places she wanted to visit was Machu Picchu, the famous Inca fortress looming at 9,000 feet in the Peruvian Andes. She wound up marrying my dad at 22 and never made it to Mach Picchu. In fact, she never went anywhere she wanted to go. So she takes my hand, staring at me, and with all the strength she can muster, lifts her head up from the pillow and says "Jennifer, you MUST live your life." Then her head plops down on the pillow, the greying flesh around her eyes closing as she lets out an exhausted sigh. Yet the boney frame of her hand still clutching to mine reassured me that she was still here, at least for now.
I realize this journey is not just for me, it is for my mom, it is for all those dreams lost in the hurricane of years of ungrateful addiction that I consumed myself in. It is for all those times I ran away from her, seeking solice on the cold streets of Seattle, only to learn later she was seeking me out to no avail for weeks on end. This sojourn is an amends to my mom. To show her my life is not wasted as I thought it was for years. It is amazing how one sees the humanness in the dying who, all your childhood, appear invincible and indestructable. I have never known my mom well because I was an active alcohlic the entirety of her healthy life. I have only known her with my clear mind as an ill woman. When she does finally let go and pass on, I hope to be at Mach Picchu. I know her soul will come to me there, and in that amazing place I will get to know my mom for the first time as a human being. I love you mom.