"He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed." -A.E.

There's a twenty-day void on this blog of mine that I can't really explain. The void, though in a sense, accurately reflects this past month for me here in the D.F. I've been distracted by memories from back at home, by people, by the news... of a collapsing economy and a country seemingly unraveling before everyone's eyes.

***

I'm physically here but my mind is thousands of miles away and years ahead of the present. At any given morning or any given evening, when I'm skipping class to sleep in or avoiding my homework, I'm pissing away my last semester at Purchase with my friends, I'm working at a Hispanic support org. in Westchester, I'm in the middle of my Master's in Social Work in Puerto Rico, or I'm married with a cute little wife and two children with traditional Spanish names.

I can feel my life being re-routed in a direction I know will make me happy but I'm so impatient that I'm not paying attention to the road or the directions or signs or anything. I just daydream about my final destination.

***

A couple weeks ago I was at a beautiful little hacienda in Morelos for the weekend attending job training and orientation for my camp gig in October and last weekend I was in Gaunajuato for the Independencia break with friends. Both trips were oppurtunities to wake up without the blarring car horns honking their way through D.F. traffic. Both trips were oppurtunities from me to make something happen.

I feel like 'mI squandering my chance to do something drastic while I'm here; I feel like I'm playing it too safe and lack ambition or the ability to abandon my caution. I don't know what I want to happen though. I feel like I'm loosing creativity in my life.

***

I haven't yet opened up the window in my room today. It's been gray and overcast all morning and into the afternoon but the bloated clouds haven't given way yet, they haven't let loose all that tension which makes them swell and hang heavy in the sky. That's how I've been feeling, swelled and heavy with so much pent up tension I'm not able to release. Sexual tension, creative tension, etc. To steal a line from the movie "9 Songs," the D.F. is a city where "claustrophobia and agoraphobia are in the same place, like two people in a bed."

***

Last night I had a dream I won't describe here about a friend that died a couple months ago. I'm still somewhat in denial about the seriousness of our friendship but I haven't forgiven myself for loosing touch with her during those two years before the accident. I told myself that I won't loose touch with friends like that again but it seems kind of unavoidable. Chance can fuck your life up so quickly and I guess all you can is prepare for the worst.

***

I've been retreating into my own mind lately when I should be doing everything but. I have a little over two more months left here and I should work toward what I want rather than just waiting for it to happen.

I'll work mornings and you can work through the night...

Against Me!

It was a birthday gift
of a Mexican Telecaster
And from this day on I will play along
to all my young pioneers records
And there will be a poetry
spoken silently between me and the stereo
I'll work mornings
and you can work through the night

Mary, there is no hope for us
If this GM van don't make it
across the state line
we might as well lay down and die
Because if Florida takes us
we're taking everyone down with us
Where we're coming from (yeah)
will be the death of us

And I cannot help but hold on
to a handful of times
when what was spoken
was a revolution in itself,
and what we were doing
was the only thing that mattered
And how good it felt
to kill the memory of nights spent
holding your shirt for the smell
I heard you used to cry
when you made love to him
but this band will play on
Because all we can do is what we've always done.
And on and on and on...

Mary, there is no hope for us
If this GM van don't make it
across the state line
we might as well lay down and die
Because if Florida takes us
we're taking everyone down with us
Where we're coming from (yeah)
will be the death of us

***

I've been giving very little attention to my school work down here. I skip whole days of class and give it little thought. I used to be a good student with a GPA bordering a 4.0 but my average starting slipping during Cape Town. I lost confidence in higher education and lost interest in becoming an academic or an intellectual. The lessons of reality aren't learned inside a classroom but outside and around the world.

None of my credits matter here so I've decided to do things at my own pace and live rather than keep myself cooped up reading academic essays all semester.

Fuck that. I want to see the Americas through my own eyes, not through the "supported standards" of scientists.

***

The political environment back in the States is getting pretty tense and I've been obsessed with the news coverage on it.

Some times, when I hear about the people resisting in that hostile environment, I wonder why I'm here, why I'm running away to where its easier. I'm on vacation exploiting the position of a developing country while many of my countrymen and contemporaries are trying to prevent their home from collapsing in on itself.

I want to be able to reject the specialization of knowledge but I always find myself retreating back to it like a safety net when I'm too scared to just pick up a leave.

I came to Mexico but I rationalized it with academics. That's always the excuse when there shouldn't be a need for one.

I should really be stepping out of this box that's looking more and more like a cage.
I shouldn't be running away from responsibilities at home and I shouldn't simply be relocating my cage to somewhere with a nicer view and cheaper drinks.

***

When I got back from Africa I had already made up my mind to leave the U.S. and live my life in a location with stronger ties to the international community and the people of the world who don't seem to exist to most of North America. I was going to do a 180 with my perspective and turn my attention to the greater world and leave the U.S. to rot. I was under no delusion that I would totally block out any influence, relationship, or news from home but I thought I could at least begin a new life as a sort of voluntary exile.

But while I still plan to leave the U.S., I feel like my initial instinct to get the hell out as fast as possible is misguided, irresponsible, and even selfish. Because as a citizen of an empire, an exploiter, and an insider, I should be reeling in the overextended power of my country from where it is most effective, from its heart.

I want to know the the U.S., cuerpo y alma, before I leave it.


Walking is still honest.
So I will walk the world.

***

Against Me!

Dear mother,
This is just survival.
Cannot promise your children everything,
But you would lie so they can sleep tonight.
Defeat tasted nothing like you said.
Still 22 days left till the end of the world.
My legacy was making you a man
For a justice I could not change.
This is one voice not to forget;
"Fight every fight like you can win;
An iron fisted champion,
An iron willed fuck up."

Can anybody tell me why God won't speak to me?
Why Jesus never called on me to part the fucking seas?
Why death is easier than living?
You can be almost anything
When you're on your fucking knees.
Not today,
Not my son,
Not my family,
Not while walking is still honest,
And you haven't given up on me.

Dear shithead,
This isn't happening;
The sky is really falling,
The paint's all made of lead,
There's asbestos in the walls,
Hell's coming to rip off the doors
To your priveleged heaven.
Do you want to love and feel it?
You can look but you can't taste it.
You can reach but you'll never have it.
We are untouchable;
Untouchable is something to be.

Can anybody tell me why God won't speak to me?
Why Jesus never called on me to part the fucking seas?
Why death is easier than living?
You can be almost anything
When you're on your fucking knees.
Not today,
Not my son,
Not my family,
Not while walking is still honest,
And you haven't given up on me,
And you haven't given up on me,
And you haven't forgotten me...