Abstracts from Argentina, chapter 2

In the late morning of our last day in El Bolson we paired off: Lewis and Christy together, Joel and I together. We were decidedly going to hitch to Esquel (180km south). Without too much trouble Joel and I shuffled between the beds of pick up trucks, and in a few, short hours we were there. As we sat, watching Patagonia fly by at 100km´s an hour, we sat in disbelief at our situation. While icey peaks stood tall above us, blooming trees and flowers protested it was in-fact spring. The whole situation felt right. I thought to myself: maybe this is what I envisioned for this trip?
After making some quick friends in Esquel Joel, Lewis and I were playing on an indoor soccer team. We played from about 12am to 2am. Then it was over to someone´s place for some beer and chips. Needless to say we got back to our tent around 4am, tired, and a little queasy from all the activity and grease. Esquel was a fun place, but it again made me wonder what did I envision for this trip. I mean it has been almost 6 weeks I should have something to say of some merit or resolve. I came with the intention to slow down, learn from a new culture, learn a new language, and talk about life with some good friends in a thought provoking and different place. What I got was, respectively, a lifestyle slow enough I sometimes never left my campsite, my ass kicked in soccer, confusion and reward, and a never-ending, vulnerable discussion about anything and everything that comes to mind. I wanted to focus inward and call it progression, or to paraphrase Kierkegaard: to pause and call it movement. It is like I´ve been playing Super Mario my whole life going from level to level getting coins and stars and such. And I just hit the pause button to think about the levels I´ve accomplished, which warp tunnels I want to take, If I want to run fast through levels or stop and get every coin, or if the princess is really worth all this trouble. (I just use this metaphor so I can be ´first-player´for once in my life. Younger brothers never get to be the first player in video games). I do not think I am here to figure anything out and come home with any answers. I did not come here with specific questions to be answered. I only wanted to pause the game where I am and feel the questions I am in. I just want to feel the dimensions around, that is the questions that surround my life.

Now in Calafate my life is a lazy stroll and a hectic rampage. Each day is its own. Some days I do no more than read, write and drink tea, while other days I take in so much newness it is exhausting. It is kinda-of a funny thing: learning a language in a place that always uses it. It is like studying for a test, but then having to take the exam each time you walk out your front door. At times it is all a bit much for me, and so last week´s escape into the mountains was wonderful. I hiked for five days around the base of Cerro Torre and Fitz Roy. These massive, beautiful peaks, under girded by raging glaciers was unlike anything I´d seen. At the foot of Cerro Torre I felt en-couraged, built-up, like I feel sometimes after reading an inspiring poem, or hearing a favorite song. On the edge of the glacier´s lake, stairing into the glacier base with Cerro Torre sitting on top I took down some notes about the day there, sitting on a grey stone in a place where you could recline on the wind:

Glacier everywhere. Every few moments: thunder. Crashing in the distance. Soft and melting at my feet. Winter´s corpuscular glow lights the page. Happy and content I sit, comfortable in the midst of ancient power. God. The Glaciers are alive. They never stop moving, melting, crashing, constantly. Everything else is so still as if the glacier, so vast and unmatched in power, was watching over everything around it. Cerro Torre stands open-faced, and untouchable, displaying its allegiance to God-un-high. Its not unlike a finger. The scene is picture framed by close-by rock faces and spires, and now more rumbling. The glacier sounds like a thousand shuffling feet.

I then realized, almost being blown over by the wind, I had slowed down enough. I had, had enough time slowing the car. I now required something more. My type of reflection was changing. I had enough pause. I had recouped from a year and a half of working, and I am now constructing again. I must pause still, but the pause is different. Kiekagaard was right, but could have been more right. there is a time to pause and reflect so as to know the past and be [still] with it, and there is a time to pause and reflect so as to construct something. To know the past, or rather to know yourself, and then tell your feet where to go. Determine your future. Stop reflecting only on who you are, and start saying: "so..." "I must..." "then..." The first section of my trip is over. It existed to slow me down, teach me the basics of spanish, and get me comfortable here. Now this second section is all about application.

Phil.

Laurel: It is awesome to know you are reading.

Steph: Thank you so much for the encouragment.

Chestnut: So fun you are coming down here. I wish I would still be here. You will love it.

Paul: Work sounds crazy. I am so glad that you were able to get a week off and head home for thanksgiving. I hope work never gets in the way of life for you again. I miss you so so much.