A rainy day in Cusco

Tired. Ever so tired, and I’m not entirely sure why. Shall I justify my lethargy? I think I shall, because many people don’t seem to understand my world that I like to think of as tranquil. They like to think of me as unexciting, but I like to think that I live in a mellow world that doesn’t require lots of excitement to keep it moving. The fact that I’m in Cusco right now is enough for me. I can look out of my window right out onto Inca walls. Granted, they’re not the amazing, perfectly fitted stone walls that are to be found in Machu Picchu and in the Plaza de Armas, but it’s enough. It’s enough to be able to learn Spanish here. It’s enough to walk to school every day on ancient cobble-stone streets. Even if they weren’t ancient, it would still be enough for me to walk on the modern-day cobble stone streets amidst the adobe houses, down the narrow passageways behind and in front of modern-day Incas. I can see beautiful cathedrals with a bloody history attached, can witness the current results of the conquistadors, see the poverty that straps so many people. I am molested by these people on a daily basis, people who want to sell me watercolor pictures, postcards, handmade dolls, jewelry, chullos, massages… “Lady. Lady. You want massage, lady?” “Hey lady. Watercolor. Look at my pictures.” I constantly try to ignore the catcalls, vacant staring, not-so-vacant staring of the men who seem to be re-struck with awe every time they see another blonde woman. I try to convince myself, each and every time, that it’s not in fact a novelty. That I’m normal. That I should be able to meld into the crowd without a second glance. But this is what I wanted, right? I wanted to go somewhere where I’m not normal. Where I’m the minority, where my culture isn’t the norm. Of course, my minority is one of a completely different sense than it is normally construed. There is no oppression. I am certainly targeted by vendors and thieves of all types. But I am not oppressed, no one tells me that I should be like them. Unless, of course, you include the travelers who stare at me wide-eyed when I say that I stayed in Lima for two and a half months, or that I don’t enjoy jumping about from city to city like your typical traveler. I am a traveler, yes, but I long for normalcy—for a regular life, for a routine, however different it may be from my life in the US. Meals at set times, each and every day. An ever-delicious, freshly blended juice every morning for breakfast. A heaping, over-filled plate of food every day for lunch, precisely half an hour after I finish my Spanish classes. A lunch that fills me most definitely over the brim, so much so that I am often unable to eat the bread or crackers with jam for dinner. I love to sit in my room, watching the clouds roll by outside, the weather in Cusco ever-changing. Sunny, so hot with the sun beating down on your skin to the point where you have to delayer your clothes, you having dressed in order to prepare for the rain. Clouds will roll by, partially obscuring the sun leaving you with a substantial drop in temperature, so much so that you need to put another layer on. Then more sun. But as you look at the sky, you see that amidst the sun, there are white clouds and gray clouds creeping in. Rain is imminent, you just don’t know the exact moment it’s going to strike. And all of a sudden, while waiting to see what the weather is going to do, you hear rumbling. Is that thunder? Or is that the rustling of the tin roof up above caused by the wind? Could the roof blow away? Wow, a three-story house that is topped off with tin siding. A finished roof is a rare sight here in Peru, anyway, since people have to pay taxes after they’ve finished the construction of their house. The norm is for the house to have rebar and cables sprouting out the top—as if the owners had an intention of finishing the house (which of course they don’t).

More thunder. “Rayos!” (Lightning.) The favorite exclamation of my Spanish teacher Dany. And then an actual bolt of lightning, I can see it in the 14 inches of my window that actually consist of sky (and not hill). You know that’s close. Five minutes later, lightning so close that it sets off the car alarms. I jumped. That thunder is loud! The battery sign on my computer just popped up, which must mean the electricity went out. Best to unplug my computer anyway, I don’t need to run the risk of an electrical surge. The lightning is so close, and who knows if the electricity could jump through the computer and give me my own little shock. (Like the one I got the other day in the shower while trying to adjust the shower head—once again, my house has no shower curtain, and I was trying to minimize the amount of water that I was spraying all over the toilet, floor, sink, with little streams of water flailing out in all directions. The water heaters here are quite stunning, shall we say.)

People outside seem to be disregarding the rain, thunder, and especially the lightning. Walking along, without a care, coat, or umbrella. Nor a hat, for that matter. How silly I often feel, typing away at my computer, watching the world pass by outside my window—Cusqueñans going about their daily lives, to and from work, their homes, school. Earning money, maintaining. What do I do in the meantime? I sit and relax, writing about my feelings, trying to validate my idleness. I’m taking a year of vacation, I should be able to spend it however I please. But what did I really do that afforded me this year of travel, this year of broadening my horizons, this year to live in another continent and learn another language? What did I do to deserve this? Do I deserve it? Why do I get to do this while the people who are actually from the country I’m visiting struggle to make a tiny, tiny fraction of what I earn at home? Why do I get to do this and not them? Is there really anything I can do to change these circumstances? And not just for maybe one person (a person who could steal away my fortune or a person I could choose to bestow some of my savings), but how do these people advance? Will they ever be able to have a life like that I left behind? A life I will return to after this brief break from “normal”? Are there things that these people have that I don’t? They lack a quarter-life crisis, that’s for sure. : ) Do they have more love in their lives? More family time? Fewer psychological issues? Less self-doubt, more confidence? Less indecision and anxiety? More trust? Does a person perhaps have a greater degree of happiness with seemingly fewer options? Sometimes I feel that way, that maybe I would have less self-doubt and anxiety with a narrower selection. Maybe that’s why I’m sitting here, recording my thoughts instead of exploring the city or venturing off to pueblos outside the city. Maybe I would wander if I had a person to wander with. But that was also part of my trip, to better learn how to be alone, to prepare myself, just in case, for a solitary life. Tonterias, I say. I’m preparing myself for the worst, while still hoping for the best. Where does that put me? Somewhere in the middle, with a strange balance between two polar opposites. But why even try to put myself through the worst (preparing for that sad, lonely life) when I know that I, as a human being, have the potential and competence, the capability to weather through the worst of conditions, to persevere, to learn and grow? With the deepest sorrows come the greatest joys. I believe. Or so I believe it has been in my life. Is this true for everyone or do I sit and theorize endlessly based on experiences that are so uniquely my own that they can’t possibly compare to another person’s life? Although I make it a point to try and learn from the lives that surround my own, is this a common pratice? Are there any other people that actually try to do that, try to learn from my life? How strange that would be…And yet no more strange than my invariable observations of other peoples' lives.

Here I sit. Trying to finally observe my own life, which seems to be much easier when I let myself out on paper. (Or on a computer screen—I’ve finally begun to enjoy the speed with which I can pour out my words through a keyboard, rather than the physical catharsis I find through pen and paper.) Maybe, at least I hope, that seeing the words that stream from my brain, through my fingers into each individual letter and finally onto the screen, and reading what comes out through this process, will help me to become more conscious of what’s going on in my head and heart and maybe I’ll enlighten myself with the thoughts that are composed. Maybe one day I’ll come back and read these paragraphs and have a sudden epiphany resulting from this entry made so long ago. Or maybe these words will just float away into oblivion without another thought.

Sometimes I like to think that my blog entries are wonderful, completely novel and enjoyable. Other times I think that they’re completely unoriginal, that scores of other people have gone to the places I have gone, experienced the things I have experienced, and had the exact same thoughts that I posit. (And these people, quite possibly, have also recorded these thoughts that have then been read by others.) Then, in the classic Tina approach, I decide to rank myself somewhere in the middle where I’m liable to fall on either side of the coin. I have yet again prepared myself for the positive and the negative. Hmm. Smart approach or not? I’m not sure yet.