Much of this journal writing is about psyching myself up. If I don’t cheer for me who will?
Time to leave the laments over holiday indiscretions behind – too much alcohol, gluten and diary, not enough peace, love and family understanding – and re-enter that dreamy space.
Reading Jonny Copp’s journal excerpt (Patagonia, Thanksgiving 2006) on the puddle jumper outa Peoria, I am transported to a different place. From the flat barren farm terrain and rheumy winter skies of the US Midwest to the rugged outback of Argentina – and further beyond that to the life and mind of my cousin.
He reminds me of what I already know: life itself is a journey, if you take it that way. Or you just take what comes; and even that can be its own kind of adventure.
I would like to have known him better. I know little about climbing, tried it once on a wall in a gym in (aptly-named) Rockville. But Jonny’s journey (and journal) go beyond the physical sport to the mental and spiritual, the real limits we reach for inside ourselves, in the boredom of base camp rituals.
Don’t get me wrong: his goal was clear, and that chispa, the spark to get to the top was alive inside him. The peak of San Lorenzo, though physically obscured by the ‘domed-out giant turbulent cloud mass’, was ever present in his mind’s eye.
I have ‘turbulent cloud masses’ that block my way too. One’s been hovering before me for two weeks, in the midst of family holiday joy and trauma. I haven’t been ready to ice-axe my way in the dark slippery mist to get beyond and through it. So I sit at base camp taunted by questions that obscure my path: Where IS this story leading? What AM I trying to say? And who REALLY cares?
‘Here,’ writes my cousin, ‘there is always the potential for being ill-prepared for the extraordinary. If you don’t believe it can happen, it probably won’t, for you.‘
Domed-out days like these, writing about and around the writing rather than writing, I pray for the sky to open up and the ideas to blow in on a sudden high. But more often than not, I have to gather the courage to head into the unknown, feeling around in the dark for the thread of my story, grasping at whatever nub of rock I can hold onto and propel myself onward.
Whatever nub.
Ahh, today it’s Rioverde Arrival, the beginning of my real Peace Corps experience, bonding with my host-family, trepidation at the thought of being stuck in the middle of nowhere rural Mexico for two whole years – and my drive to be accepted so I wouldn’t feel so lonely.
It’s a slippery nub; I feel the resistance rising up in me to reveal the painful truth, my hopes and the ambitions for a ‘successful service' luring me into some suspicious waters.
'I awoke to my host family’s orange truck starting up each morning and fell asleep to the sound of Mexican CNN playing on the flat screen at night. Saul’s brother got the orange business and Saul got the Rainbow Restaurant and Hotel. Another brother ran the eco-tour company and the sister managed the clothing boutique in the Centro. My host family was high-up on the Conquistadors’ pecking order which revealed 88 shades of a Mexican. Light-skinned, the Flores family came from Spanish blood. They were land-owners and merchants, educated and sophisticated; and I felt comfortable in the relative sameness.
'They even spoke a little English; they had an 'American family' in Kansas whom they visited on occasion. They believed in cross-cultural exchange; thought it educational for their young son. And they talked about bringing the American ways to incite change in their community. They hoped I'd help them regain control of their Agenda 21 initiative.
'Was this the ‘something bigger than me’ to which I aspired when I started the Peace Corps process almost a year ago? Seeds of doubt continued to germinate. Was this too comfortable? Living and working with the entitled, was I likely to lose perspective? Fall into the trap of ‘perverse paternalism’ that Professor Gamboa warned of on one of our pre-service training lectures? Time would tell. And I had all the time in the world, if I could only be patient.'
Doubt inside the slippery writing doubt...is that what I want to say about my Rioverde arrival? Is that the best place to begin? It doesn’t matter; it’s enough to buoy me, re-ignite the spark to get this Mexico adventure story down on the page – like Jonny’s urgency to climb, infused in his journals, watching, waiting, assessing the chances to make it to the top, and sometimes entering the void against the odds.
RIP Jonny Copp, 1974-2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r52qft0OX4w --> In memory of Jonny Copp and Micah Dash, from "The Sharp End"
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