12.31.2010

Give me that eraser

On my flight this evening from Puno to Juliaca, Peru, a million thoughts came at me. Bombarding me with all the force that my little brain could muster. Such thoughts as: What the heck am I doing flying through the air? Really, flying? How can this huge chunk of metal filled with people be soaring through the air? What kind of age am I living in? Profound, I know. But then something else started to hit me. I allowed myself to remember back to all of the sights that I had seen, just days before. The ancient Incan ruins of Machu Picchu and Ollantaytambo. The little village on the island of Taquile in the middle of Lake Titicaca. The floating island people of Uros. The faces of the locals came back to me. I remembered the hut that was so dark and smelled like a bale of hay. I remember watching the woman in the hut embroider a pillowcase that she would later sell - her only source of income. Her hands and feet were extremely swollen for the fact that she lived on a floating island and it was so humid.  I asked if I could sew some stitches. My fingers fumbled with the needle. So ungraceful compared to her nimble and skilled dedos. She smiled at me through her gums as I attempted to stitch with the same ease as she did. The thread came out of the needle. Failure.
The thoughts kept coming. This time, deeper. The ones that cut straight to the heart and make you question everything. Why are there kids sleeping on the cold streets of Cuzco? Why do they just wear sandals when it is freezing cold outside? Why am I sitting in a nice airplane right now being served orange juice that tastes like Tang and a rubbery meat sandwhich? How did this turn of events come to be? Why I am in the position that I'm in, and they are on the streets?
The answers came slower than the questions had rushed in. They came, but resembled the process of trying to get the last bit of honey out of the bottle - slow. Painstakingly slow. But nonetheless, they came. I am where I am to do something. I was given all that I have to give it to someone else. I was born to help. WE ALL WERE.
If I don't help? Failure. Just like my dumb fingers trying to sew.
I'm still trying to work out the details of how to go about this. Like I said before, the answers are just dripping like honey. Slowly, and just one drip at a time.

3 comments:

  1. good. keep those answers coming.

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  2. Maybe you were also born to write...you have an undeniable talent

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  3. I wish you would blog more often.

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