-Torres del Paine_

Greetings, hugs, kisses, smiles, and light from Puerto Natales!! (a small coastal town in southern Chile)

I should state that a few months back I did an exercise in happiness, whereby I wrote down all the things in my life that really make me happy. And low and behold, Numero Uno on this happy list was…… ¨friends and family!´´ So why, I have exactly chosen to be away during this season of coming together, this season of family and friends, this season of eggnog and Hanukkah candles, latkahs and dradles, biblical men dressed in red suits and romantic notions written by twenty three year olds in lime green internet cafes with neon blinking signs that we ´´We’re open´´…… to sleep in a tent with a smelly artist, to walk too many miles, to take on hypothermia and blisters, nonsensical mental chatter and sun burns, tasteless oatmeal and too lightly salted peanuts….. I do not know! But maybe I’m moving through this mental topography a bit too fast and I should slow down my run/on/ing sentences and back up a bit.

2 days before CJ and I left for our 8 day wilderness adventure I did a small mediation where I saw that it would be important to watch my pockets in Puerto Natales.. Arrogantly, I assumed the message was for the artist who pulls money from his short shorts like moms who fumble for wadded tissues. Well, the next afternoon I lost my wallet. The artist smiles. Without having much time to deal with the situation, I retraced my steps- no luck-, reported it to the police, and headed off to Torres del Paine national park with the intention that my wallet would be waiting for me when I got back.

Why anybody, voluntarily, would carry food for 8 days and walk 90 miles with a 45pound pack, I’m still trying to figure out. Yes we did see amazing things, like the rosy frozen moments above, but don’t let those fool you, those are moments! When your own armpits nauseate you, when your shoulders burn and your feet itch, when on day 2, you ask yourself for the 45^th time why you decided to do this for another 6 days, you start to wonder if you loosing it….and you are.

….. …… Time Passes ……. and … .. ….. We ..C..hA.nGe …. …..

I remember waking up on day 4 and just being motivated to walk; it was as if someone, or something, turned on a switch and I was able to enjoy myself and the surroundings. The work was hard, but the immediate stresses (thoughts of my wallet, thoughts of faraway friends and family, thoughts of my life and its difficulties, ad nauseam) lost importance. Different things came into focus and made me happy: a conversation with a new person, the taste of a small piece of chocolate, a moment of rest – it was as if I was starting to understand that the stresses I perceive were more internal responses than external realities. I was learning about focus and focusing, feeling versus creating. As Kurt Vonnegut says, ´´and so it goes.´´

Before I make you feel that I am depressed (which is not true), overly enlightened (which is also not true), or too self indulgent (which may be true), I shall just say one last thing. My wallet was waiting for me in Puerto Natales.

With light,

Simon