¿Cómo se llama la luz?

This is a couple at a bus station in Villarica, Chile. The woman was moving continually toward and away from the man, and the man never changed position, never moved, just stood with one leg up, his head on one hand, tilting his head sometimes to kiss the woman.



I met a little boy named Tomas on the bus to Chile. Tomas is fearless and irrepressible and asked me many questions--the name of my mother and the name of my father, where I was from, the name of the book I was reading. He also asked me the name of the light.
,

depths/puddles

It is rather that I think of the frog as a psalmist. One calls out from the depths, the other from a puddle. But the God to whom eternity is as moment may find a similar lack of distinction between what we call depths and what we call puddles.

Joseph Wood Krutch, The Desert Year, a book about staying still.

...think of the frog as a psalmist

In rainy somewhat southern Chile, I spent an afternoon in rain and hotsprings. And then, hiked into the monkey puzzle forest--which is the araucaria tree. These are two thousand year old creature trees, living in the snow high up above a valley.

Bariloche

Bolson

basura

Bolson

Patagonia is a place for people to disappear. Either madmen or dreamers. I just left that farm, which was run by someone tipping toward the former. And now, I'm traveling with two beautiful, caring, and unrepentant girls, back through Bolson, Bariloche, and tomorrow--to Pucon, Chile. I'm still invincible!

Been planting papas.

I had a dream about a secret town, a bicycle ride away from Gambier, called Granite, Ohio. It had ice cream, a sidewalk, and a swimming pool.

Ate some pig hair.

John Luckacs: Poker: "The game closest to the Western conception of life...where men are considered moral agents, and where--at least in the short-run--the important thing is not what happens but what people think happens."
Book recommendation: In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin: "In my grandmother's dining room there was glass-fronted cabinet and in the cabinet was a piece of skin. It was a small piece only, but thick and leathery, with strands of coarse, reddish hair. It was stuck to a card with rusty pin. On the card was some writing in faded black ink, but I was too young then to read.
'What's that?'
'A piece of brontosaurus.'

Jack: de Don Ken

Cacique y Chamberland

Ofelia

The radio here really is one of the most wonderful things. There's a kid who, every day, talks with his mother and they say the same things: "Hola," how are you? How is your day? Well, I'll talk to you later. And sometimes, people speaking in Mapuche, which is a language with a lot of 'p' sounds. Popetagatpatopatitpaitu. A fellow said, the radio is "como un Facebook de aca."

Every time someone tells me the time, I am taken aback, and I've discovered why. Because we're on the border, some people use Argentina time and some people use Chile time. So, time swings back and forth, an hour here, an hour there.

I'm swinging back and forth between the mountain and the lake.

radio

Tonight, I've been sitting by the stove, holding nervous little cat named Ofelia and listening to other people talk in a language I don't have. Also, somebody around here is watching soccer and sometimes is playing parts of the game on the radio. The evening has been punctuated by sometimes long shouts of "gooaaalll" and cheers and laughter.

Spring!

And we're getting beds--camas--ready for planting. Soon, we're going to plant hundreds of sunflowers--girasols--for biodiesel.

As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean

Not to
Not to
Not to murder a bird.

That photo is of Ken, "Don Ken", whose boat brings people (including me) and supplies over into this corner of the world.

There's a radio in the kitchen here, and it brings a funny mix of gossip, business, and noise. You can hear people looking for the border police, in order to enter Chile from Argentina, you can hear neighbors talking to each other, and sometimes somebody plays a little snippet of music. The border police whistle in code.

buy me some candy

girasol madrugada arco iris vela manzana viento
lombrisa alamo regadera invernaderno bosque
raiz hoja madera fresa frambuesa semilla suelo
arcilla drenaje planta cama huerta

Silence is the only Voice of our God.

"I wanted to speak to Saint-Loup, but he was so full of his indignation with the dancer that it clung to the very surface of his eyeballs; like a subcutaneous integument it distended his cheeks, so that his inner agitation expressing itself externally in total immobility, he had not even the elasticity, the 'play' necessary to take in a word from me and answer it."
--The Guermantes Way

There are three people with whom I spend my days and they are Brazilian. They speak Spanish some and English less. So, I am learning a strange Spanish and learning how not to understand the people around me.




Spanish:
rojo
verde
azul
amarillo

Portuguese:
vermelho
verde
azul
amarelo

Lago Inferior