sorry bunny

sorry bunny

Thursday, February 23, 2017

speach

i love being here. mostly because it is new. yesterday the only thing i did was go to lake Chapala and talk to different local people. Chapala is a smaller town. These are my observations abouit it from an outsider{s perspective. It had sort of a beachy touristy vibe, but moreso in a small space and possibly geared towards people who live in the big city, Guadalajara. The houses and building were the style where they are short and connected, made of concrete and beautifully colored. I only walked down one street, and straight to the water. I walked directly from the bust station to the lake. All I did was approach the beach, walk away from the man who was staring at me, and sat in the sand and thought, Why am I here? And of course I didn{t know so I decided to dig my hands into the sand and that lead to making a spiral, as is the theme these days. It's been really cool to construct whole sentences and complex ideas in Spanish. I could meet someone here at the hostel who knows Spanish and would hang out with me, but they just see me as a gringa. In fact last night I kind of told some people off. They didn't know that I mostly understand all the spanish they were speaking, I just have a hard time speaking it myself. so they were making fun of the people at the hostel, and me, in front of me. Which now I've calmed down I understand maybe that's okay, all in good fun, culturally appropiate, but I still didn't like it. I learned a new word, Gringisima. Like the biggest gringa, which yeah is funny. BUt I mean, I think mostly I was hurt because the staff person Peri that I hung out with the previous night sort of acted like we didn't have the deep conversations we had, and was kind of ignoring me, I think by itself would have been okay, but hearing them make fun of me, I just got up and said, "DO you think we make fun of Mexicans in America?" And it was all like.. woaahhh. stop. "we're just having fun" Butr seriously if you were to openly make fun of Mexicans in America you'd be around a bunch of dude bros, and if it was light hearted and all in good fun you'd be in Texas and that would be because you're probably arund people who are part Mexican or have Mexican friends. I don't know I just can't get that good hearted insult thing that people do. I need to get more tough. Anyhow, this morning I spoke to Axel who was there last night, and it was okay. I don't think they're going to hold it against me.
Back to Chapala... Raul and Ramirez showed me their dibujos in their little notebook and their graffiti art, and told me they made raps, and we listedn to music on the beach and we exchanged stories about our life. Then I walked with them down the street because they had to go to work. It was really nice. Because it was completely not what you do when you're alone. You don't just start talking to men or boys, but I do have a sense of you is okay and not. It was the most complicated spanish I've spoken all week. It is so amazing to get this opportunity to practice my Spanish. Such a short trip but already my spanisgh has come back to me so hardcore. I studied Spanish from 7th Grade all throughout highschool, and I studied it for 2 years in college. I've read chunks of 15th century Don Quixote, and none of that has made me better at speaking it. BUT now that I'me here, it's clear I have a leg up on understanding the language. I can read all the signs. I know all the numbers, which helps when you're buying things. And I can say everything I need to at least make it known in terribly spoken Spanish what I want. I took the bus, the city bus for the first time back, I knew 'parada' was stop but had difficulty asking how to make a stop, fortunately I could just say where I was going. I got their local bus app and that really helped last night. Yes, I am completely alone here, and I don't even like walking alon at night in Seattle, so it was awesome to take the bus and not have to walk down this major street that only had industrial supplies (paint, lots of tejas, etc)
Okay back to Chapala, the one street I walked down was like a market street. There were vendors and the sides of the sidewalks, selling corn, and meat, tacos of course. There were stores on the other side. I bought some things because I felt like that was part of the town's economy. There are homeless children here, while I was buying tacos, they came up to me and touched my side and asked for tacos, I bought them tacos, then two gilrs seeing this, asked me for tacos, and I seriously have to be careful with my money here, so I just gavce them one of the tacos I bought. But i felt really bad. LIke these are 5 or 7 year old maybe 12 at max year old children walking around touching people and begging for money. Who knowsd if someone owns them even. I don't know but How can I help people like that? There are too many things to do in the world. BUt i have figured out one thing, it is super hard to connect to people if you don't know their langauge. So I returned... to GDL-

This morning I spoke with Axel who works at the hostel while he finished his tarrea, in Classical Guitar Composition. He has been the only person I spoke to that is highly aware of the political situation in this country and willing to talk to me about it. I didn't find out much, I asked about worker's wages and rights. The biggest situation of oppression here seems to be the life of the indigenous people. It seems they have been severely abused and in some parts are the poorest people in comparison to others. I don't know much yet. Axel told me in chiapas around 1994 there was a Zapatos Army that came up and holds their own government system outside of the Mexcian government. That's very interesting and I'll have to look into that more.

Many people from all over the world come to Mexico to see the marvelous things there is to see here. I am honestly mostly interested in the people. I just want to connect and feel love. I just feel Seattle culture can be so cold and distant, and it is exhausting to fit in. Even though I am entirely separate here, it feels better to be here.

But Edgar said, no matter where you are, you will stop seeing the good positive magical things from the people and life, and you will start to miss them. He said, wherever you live, eventually you start to hate it. And although hate is not what is happening to me, I see his point. Edgar was disgusted by the recent changed in Guadalajara, he said, people just started driving cars all the time, and the traffic just started being terrible. He said people are fat and it's because they now live a sedentary life. I argued with him, that it's okay to be fat. But he said no. He looked over the roof top at one point and pointed to this estate looking building, he said, see how that rich person lives, they have that whole estate. This is a hipster part of town. And he was disgusted by that. But this morning i found out that in fact that building is a sort of museum and they have talks and lectures, it is a building that was built by a famouys archictect. And even though I get his point that the city is changing, it's interesting to note. We all have different perspectives, and sometimes are preconceioved notions block out our eyes from seeing the truth that lies beneath, which is people might just be trying their best. And it's just not real to be entirely negative.

(sorry bout the typos, they're the history of my fingers on this sticky computer)

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Happy Hazardry Not Actually IM SO HUNGRY

How can I excrete when I have hardly eaten? But I do, it seems okay here to eat so little and I have experienced that before elsewhere in hot climates.. Or is it that the fruit I am eating in this large cup, ayer, filled me up truly, but in Seattle it is just not heavy enough? It is a worry for me that I become too light and fly away should I ever touch my own red balloon. But my red balloon darling little Nur, are my feet for sure.
I have only been here 2 or 3 days, this is my third day. Ayer, I pretty much slept in, called a few people, then went for a 5 hour bike ride and wandering around town. Guadalajara, is actually a CIty, it has more than 5 milliones. My intention was to see some of the art museums and that may still be my intention today as mostly I got lost and was enjoying biking on the sidewalks so much that I kept biking past my destination and just not caring and was watching all the beautiful people and wondering, "Will they look at me? Will they notice that I am a gringo.?" Except I honestly do not feel like a gringo. I am definitely a gringo and a person, and also a person who is from a non-gringo culture. And like my father said, to his brother last Winter at Fadi's wedding, there's no one quite like us Bruter. And it makes sense that I say I am a shape shifter this is part of it. I can't really automatically fit or be accepted, I shape myself to hang up in between close-to-you and far-away. It's not like I blend in, because I don't it's just that I can feel comfortable in a mess of people very different from me, because there is always something alien about me, the gauze over my mouth. More and more as I get older, it's hard to feel comfortable around people who have really absorbed the American culture. I wonder if it's because they don't travel and don't have the luxury of having foreign relatives in the US. I wonder if it could maybe also be that they mostly are drawn to white cultures, Germany, France, etc. I wonder if it{s because they look in books for culture, and stay at home. It is interesting to not that I have been slowly increasing my time around various cultures for the past 5 years. It feels like i am changing, and I am being more drawn to non-American mannerisms, and people, and difficulty in communication. Seeking out the difficulty like a magnet.

The first night I was here, wanting to get some beer, but it was dark and I had told myself I wouldn't go out at night by myself, so I asked very sloppily the only other hostel-er, Edgar. "Uhhh Quiero cerveza, puedes ver conmigo? Errr vamos a la beer store?" "Que?" (Here I opened my phone and showed on Google Maps there was a deposito , world beer store, and that I wanted to find good beer for cheaper than they sold it at the bar. (I haven't found it yet.) And would Edgar come with me? And Edgar got up immediately swung his heavy black back pack over his shoulder and came walked with me on the street, we almost salsa danced but I said I was too shy, "No puedo bailar ahora. I am tooo... Como se dice "'shy'?" "Timido." But I'm learning I'm a different kind of shy than I thought I was. I'm sort of like the kind of shy that isn't truly shy, just scared sometimes to use my skills. (For ejemplo i just went outside and spoke Spanish with this guy at the hostel who was in the city to get his VISA to go travel en los estados Unidos. At first I could speak then as my ideas became more complicated I got more embarrassed and started thinking less about my words just to get them out, and fell apart, and came back here to keep writing.)
Anyhow Edgar was really cute and I wished that we had danced or kissed, in fact I had dream that we held hands over some desert mountains and smiled but it was just a good hearted fantasy. Instead he drove me to the supermercado in his Chevorlet Tsuru with so many things in the back seat. He spoke only Spanish with me, and we talked and he told me iot was exhausting to speak with me. But we laughed a lot and I just found it remarkable how lonely and un-fit i feel in Seattle, like even my friends don't laugh with me. And here, I was able to have a good time with a random stranger for like 5 hours. WE fund beer in the maercado Bohemia! And a few of the beers were a 'Weizen' and 5.7% and that pleased me enough. We took them up to the roof and Edgar revealed he actually was fluent in English and French and then we talked for some hours and he told me about his life. He's from Guadalajara but lives in Colima now, and when it starts to get Spring he prepares a new trip for himself. This year he is going to France. Colima is his Winter home, but he explained it's like having a winter home where you're from, he lived there 10 years and 10 years in Guadalajara and I'm not sure if that's when he started traveling. I am six months older than him.

Slowly our conversation de-evolved like the one I just had outside. He ordered papas for me because I just wanted to make sure that they'd understand what we wanted and the delivery guy came on his motocyclico, and I almost climbed down, but actually just walked downstairs while Edgar conversed with the driver from the roof.

Curious side note, I've noticed that people tend to talk with the person serving them while they are preparing food, or performing the service, until they actually leave- But seriously people will longer with their food at the counter to have a delightful convo with the person at the counter, and just linger there even when another customer comes up, and this is not seen as rude or in the way. It seems like it's actually nice to keep the person working with some company.

It was kinda of funn... we asked the driver after he gave us our food, and we paid, we asked him to go get us a single cigarette. And he went off on his moto and came back in asingle minute and handed me a cigarette. I thought it was so amazing and Edgar explained that it wasn't because he just worked, over there, and pointed to a tall hotel like building that was probabaly 2 blocks away. Anyhow Edgar wa exhausted. It's exhausting to communicate wiht such struggle.

The next person I date will be someone who is willing to speak my language con poesia and metaforas, and mixed signals.


I've had many good dreams here, despite a dorm mate snoring pretty loudly every night. When I sleep here it is very comforting to me.

I may go to the woods today but Edgar told me not to go to the desert area I had wanted to go to, because he said it was next to the worst part of town. He said that if I went to the forest it would be much better, and that anyhow the forrest was better than the desert. I said they are just different and neither is better, but he said NO the woods are better and when he lived near Dublin he lived for 10 months in the woods and that's where he really likes to live. He was a little stubborn at some points, in an interesting way. He said when you live somehwere you start to hate it after a while and even somewhere dark and rainy becomes more appealing. He told me I couldn't go hiking unless I bouhg t different shoes, and he was greatly offended when I farted in front of him. he was supposed to bring me with him back to Colima, ya know so I could get somehwere else really quickly, not so I could stay with him, and he warned me, "But only if you do not fart in my car." At that point I sort of lost interest in him. But not really. We went to bed. I wished we could cuddle.

It has been hard to break up with Nigel. I don't have anyone to sleep next to like a regular thing, but he would always try to keep it from being regular anyhow.. I just have been realizing I do not really want to kiss anyone but I miss being held.

I think this break up has been kind of hard on me, and also my friend Kelli has abandoned me, and now is spending all the time she used to spend with me, with Nigel, which is hard to handle for me. Like I lost a boyfriend and a best friend at the same time, and the other thing. Which has to go unspoken. Actually I am glad I do not feel hard abut it as much as I did a week ago. I just feel a bit numb and a bit like, people live the life the way they want to. I feel like I want different people in my life, who treat one another with great sensitivity because I am very vulnerable and tender and soft and I am very upset greater care was not taken with me, because I wasn't using my own hands. And now I am. Standing up to people. Do a hand stand do a dandy stand, be a dandelion. fly away in the wind. The seeds they carry you there with their weight, and on that note, I better go outside and get some wait and see if today I want to take the bus to the museums, and if indeed I'll go to that Silks/Telas class at the circus school I found last night entirely randomly (I just walked by).

OH to get some weight oh to get some weight
to spit them seeds into the ground and wait
to get some galkl to get some gall to fill my belly with beans meat and all and not get too light
sometimes you go no where when you are nothing
and need a heavy belly to take you to somewhere like a target that's an arrow
like the tips of a feather balance out the stem, and together they get carried by the wind.

gotta go eat! Love, Nur

p.s if i were to read Baudelaire what should I read?