Guilt of the Gutsy Girl

"Every night I ask myself...Am I giving enough? Am I?"

"God, you're brave!"

"I've always wanted to do what you're doing... but I just couldn't."

"You have such an interesting life!"

"Jealous!!"

I hear these phrases over and over again as I explain my experiences abroad, and my new life in Colombia. Because I am unable to fully accept a compliment, my usual reply is "There is a fine line, between bravery and stupidity!" I cut myself down juuuuust a bit by suggesting I may be jumping into something I can't handle. And maybe I can't handle it. I have always fought savagely with debt and loneliness... but that's normal for a single girl in her twenties who foolishly overspent on a couple credit cards, right?

Despite my hesitation in my initial reply, what I actually want to say is "Thank you." I'm flattered to be thought of in this way, and I truly appreciate your kind words. Hopefully my experiences will inspire you to do something you've always been afraid of. Maybe even something crazy like dropping everything you know and moving to a foreign country.

It's clear that fear has never been a factor for me when making big decisions. I Just Do It, Nike-style, and figure the rest out later. Does that make me a grounded, secure, and financially stable individual? Hellllll NO! But it sure does make for a good story. And people love a good story.

I am a self-motivated, go-getter, kickin-ass-and-takin-names-kinda-chick. I have the nickname "Crazy Aunt Jana" for a reason. I do cool things with my life that I've always wanted to do, and I'm inspiring people to do the same!

So... why do I feel guilty?

A couple days ago, my 62-year-old mother was in a terrible car crash. A semi turned on a green light as my mom was driving straight and plowed over her tiny Volvo. The wheel of the semi ended up on her hood, and her airbag deployed, but all safety structures held strong. My mother walked away without a scratch.

This is not the first time I've been away when something bad happened. In fact, I've always been away. When I was in highschool my Grandpa passed away. I was at a showchoir competition for the weekend and only found out after I returned. My Pappaw (grandpa on my dad's side) died while I was in college, but I had just accepted a trip to Stratford-on-Avon in Canada to see Shakespeare with my theatre class and my parents said to go. I didn't attend the funeral. The last time my mother totaled her car was winter 2012. She slid on black ice and flipped her car three times before miraculously walking away. I was in Woodstock, NY with friends enjoying a leisurely weekend in a cabin. As I walked out of work in a small Brooklyn coffeeshop, my brother called me to tell me that my twenty-something Sister-in-Law had cancer.

I am never around. 

My really cool life has me gallivanting all over this beautiful blue Earth, but I sometimes feel I am failing at being a family member. I adore the sense of community in Colombia, but I cannot feel at home in the community where I was raised. I am always drifting, floating, sometimes running in the opposite direction of the Indiana plains, but I know I would be miserable if I stayed in one place. At least for now.

So what's my conclusion?... I'm not sure. I'm still searching. Bad things happen all the time. It is by chance that I've been away for most of them. No one can be there all the time for every person. But am I doing enough?

Look For the Red Door

The wheels stop turning and the dust settles. At first there is panic. Where am I? Is this where I’m supposed to get off? Nothing looks familiar, and I’m the last person on the bus. The driver settles deeper into his chair and moves his toothpick to the other side of his mouth. He doesn’t look at me, but focuses vaguely on something up ahead. The front door snaps open and I gather my bags. My exit is clumsy and my steps are heavy.

As I touch down on this new unsettled ground, I feel something wet slipping around my ankle. It’s cold and grainy and it doesn’t belong. I watch as a strange grey liquid hardens around the empty spaces of my hiking boots. Cement. “How did that get here?” I wonder idly. The cement makes walking difficult, but not impossible. My confusion turns quickly to determination as I seek out the spot I am supposed to find.

I pull out a wrinkled paper from my right pants pocket. The letters are almost illegible, scrawled in a handwriting that is not my own. The paper sticks together from the sweat and humidity of my new environment. Up hill. Turn right at church. Walk 6 minutes until you see a yellow house. Knock on the red door. Ph: +23 945 112 6645.

The walk is longer than I expect it to be, but I eventually arrive at the yellow house. There are three doors in my line of vision. The first is grey and crumbly, sharing a distinct likeness to the material in my shoes. I walk closer to examine the cracks, to feel the rough edge of an old habit. Suddenly,  I feel a looseness in my boots. Small sharp rocks are poking through my socks, but there is space to move my foot. The cement has cracked. I untie my shoes and pour out the remaining gravel bits, dust off my socks, and return my feet to their trusted guardians.

The second door is white and sterile. It reminds me of a horror film wrought with disturbing medical experiments, like making a new body out of old skin. I shiver and try to pass, but before I can reach the third door a voice calls out. “You’re going to the wrong door!” I feel the hair on my arms stand up and take guard as an old man’s voice hisses again, “Don’t go to far. You know you can’t come back if you go too far!”

I can’t see him, but I can feel him. He doesn’t feel right. I turn towards the direction of the place I am supposed to go and smell bread baking. The scent is familiar, delicious and alluring. I follow my nose a few more steps until I reach the red door. I stop to look at a simple design carved into the border. Light curves decorate the frame and are dusted with gold sparkles that shimmer just slightly in the afternoon sun. It’s beautiful, and suddenly I feel like I have been here before. Did I dream this place?

I wrap my hand around the wooden knob and turn slowly until I hear a click. In an instant, all the doors vanish into the same cloud of dust made by the bus. When the dust settles I realize I have returned to my apartment; everything is just as it was, but everything is different.  I recognize the bread smell from the bakery next door, and the sun beams through my open windows feel like a warm embrace from an old friend. My bed is made and my neighbors are listening to music. I take off my boots, and a tiny piece of gravel rolls out reminding me of my voyage. I smile.

I am home. That feels right.



Red Door image found at www.thehomeguru.com

Writer's Block

My writing has been stagnant lately; hard and immovable like dried BBQ sauce on a kitchen countertop. Perhaps it was the vacation I just enjoyed on the Caribbean Coast. Perhaps it's the stress of money troubles (so why was I on vacation?...) or the learning process of my new job. Or perhaps it's just me. My brain sticks to the side of my head like that dried BBQ sauce.

Justin, my best friend and co-protagonist in my article "A Long Goodbye", is also having trouble as of late. Perhaps he too has been enjoying too much sun. Perhaps he's overwhelmed with the duties of a seemingly meaningless temp job in the Hollywood Hills. Maybe the plastic people are suffocating his true creative soul. Maybe he's just drained. 

When one has writer's block the only solution is to keep writing, no matter how dry and sticky one's mind has become. We started writing five sentences twice a week based on a topic of the partner's choice. I've decided to share our meaningless jumbles as a way to distract from the fact that I've got nothing else.

These stories are very real and very much made up. For extra fun, I will not tell you the author of each paragraph. Read on, reader.

POWDER
I'd forgotten I'd put powder in my shoes until I saw the traces of my bare feet on the wooden paneling. I knelt and looked at the blank space between my toes and the sole, the curve to the heel, there on the floor. Just ahead, another foot, and then another - pale, vague reminders that I'd already been through here. Unmoving, I followed one print to the next, across the room, through the balconied daylight, until they disappeared down the shadowed middle hall.

FEAR
I wake promptly at 6:28am, just before my alarm is set to desecrate the early morning silence. My lids flutter to cloudy alertness and I inhale; the breath stretches vertically from my chest to my back. There is no heaviness of commitment, no panic of promise. The fear that once controlled me has been left in the dry, unyeilding soil of The States. There is just me now.

WEATHER
They say people who live here get tired of the sun, grow weary from the brightness, ask for clouds, pray for rain. I haven't found myself doing any of that - but the HEAT; my god, the heat. "At least it's not humid," my mom says, but when it's 105 degrees for a week straight humidity's about as consequential as a bible at a gay bar. I want the sun, but can leave the heat; I may have backed myself into a corner.

BOWL
He insists on ordering our drinks in Spanish but butchers each word, the sounds splattering like a dirty chop job, despite his Colombian background. He thinks louder is better and tries to hold my hand. My cheeks flush with anger and embarrassment as he stares expectantly, smiling proudly. I avert his gaze and instead turn my focus to the stale popcorn in the center of the table. "Anywhere is better than here with him," I think as I submerge my hand into the bowl of cardboard corn.

LOCK
I left him, unslaked and naked, and walked to the door. I threw the top dead bolt back, made for the next one. "...that one's not locked," he said from the bed, and I glanced at him, hardly able to. I opened the door, took four steps outside, and lifted my face to the Yucca Valley sun - hot and dry at 9am; it alone in the sky, me alone in the hotel parking lot - and breathed, and breathed.

Go It Alone

A brave new world presents itself every day. I rise with the sun. The light shines brightly through my new blue blinds and my eyelids flutter to consciousness. My roommate, The Basil Plant, wakes beside me and we both stretch towards the morning glow.

I make my bed (a new habit) and stumble into the kitchen where I cut fresh fruits and vegetables that I use for my breakfast. I slowly open the cabinet where my coffee lives. I am ashamed that it is instant, but have no appliance with which to otherwise make a fresh cup. Two small spoonfuls and a frying pan of boiling water give me the boost I need to start the day.

I gently fry plantains, onions, cilantro and tomatoes in a different pan. Once the plants are malleable, I add one brown-shelled egg to the mix and wait for it to change from clear to white. I scoop the fresh food from the pan to the plate being careful not to break the jiggly yoke.

My masterpiece is complete and ready to be consumed until there is nothing left but the sheen of cooking oil glistening in the morning light. I treasure each delectable morsel. The salt sticks to the roof of my mouth on the way down to my stomach where it is churned into nourishment and released. I reach a comfortable level of satisfaction before 9am.

The shower sputters as steam rises in the small glass cave. Water leaks from the corner, but my new white towel catches any droplets that try to claim space on the grey tile. I keep to my routine; shampoo first, rinse, wash the body, rinse again, condition, shave, and a final rinse. My hair dries with the chill of morning air as I have yet to purchase a hair dryer.

Jewel sings to me as I open my door.

"I break the yokes and make a smiley face

I kinda like it in my brand new place

Wipe the spots up off the mirror

Don't leave the keys in the door

I never put wet towels on the floor anymore cuz

Dreams last for so long..."

 

A Funeral for Jorge

I have been delaying this post for fear of belittling the situation. I am sorry if you were expecting to hear from me sooner, but I have been trying to figure out how to put this into words while at the same time showing my utmost respect.

The death of Jorge Ivan Cruz Gonzalez evoked something of a trauma in everyone around him. There was no time to prepare, and only two days to say goodbye. Jorge was the Philosophy Professor at Universidad de Caldas in Manizales, Colombia. He had a following of adoring students and forward-thinkers. He had a family that doted on every quiet word he spoke. And he had the right to be heard, however quiet and slurred, because he was brilliant.

I met Jorge on a sunny Tuesday afternoon in August. He had taught in the morning and promptly purchased a bottle of Aguardiente to celebrate the hours after twelve. I had just finished Spanish lessons with his daughter Paula, my now friend and roommate. We were drinking wine and whiskey "porque es martes!" and decided to meet at his favorite tienda near Santander and Carerra 23.

The first time I saw Jorge, I wanted to hug him. He was so incredibly sweet. So honest. He reminded me of my grandpa. I imagined myself sitting on his lap while he told me stories of heartache and horror and that massive fish he caught in '68. I imagined we'd been friends forever and, luckily, was immediately accepted into his community. The "boys" at the store (all over sixty) listened attentively as I regaled on stories of days gone by in the Big City. They wanted to know the ultimate question... Why Manizales?

"La gente!" I replied. "Como tu!" I spoke the truth. These were the moments I treasured most! Shooting the shit with real Colombians in a small store in Manizales. I felt like I was part of something. Laughter erupted and then was silenced by a crumpled recording of "Nathalie". They stopped everything and listened to this sad, and beautiful song. Jorge cried and took my hand while singing the lyrics. Then, they laughed and squeezed my shoulder while they poured me another plastic shot glass 

of Aguardiente.

Jorge talked with his hands, his wrists making a dance while he explained whatever grand philosophy he was enthralled with at the moment. Unfortunately, my limited Spanish prevented me from fully understanding these beautiful ideas. I wanted desperately to understand. He's written books! I want to read them! But I can't. Perhaps someday...

I spent two days with him in total. A measly amount to claim any sort of "mourning", but I did. I cried with my roommate over the injustice of her father's untimely death. I cooked for her family so they wouldn't forget to eat. I went to the viewing, but couldn't bring myself to look at him. He was so light and funny in our interactions, I knew this heavy cold body wouldn't bring justice to his memory.

What struck me most was his family. They were so close, and now one of their favorite members was gone. They consoled each other, cried, laughed, and stared blankly into the abyss of Jorge's image. They cheered to his memory as they filled a plastic shot glass with Aguardiente. They read his words and wept. They felt his presence leave, and respected the sorrow. They allowed time to grieve.

Here in Colombia, most people are Catholic. The tradition for the dead is very different than that of the United States. There is a viewing, an elaborate mass, and a Noventa. I wish I could research more on the subject, but from what I can gather, a Noventa is nine days after cremation that people can attend and pray for the deceased. Jorge has a crowd every night.

At one point, we were all joking in the tienda. We were drinking and our smiles were freer, our voices more loose. I told Jorge I liked his hat. It was a British-inspired "newsies" hat with little patterns. I loved it. In Spanish he said, "You... You can have it when I'm dead!" We all erupted in laughter. What a thought!

Two weeks later, Paula brought home his hat. Her eyes were red with grief, but her voice was determined. "He said 'You can have it when I'm dead'. It is yours." I took the hat with sadness, and a heavy dose of shame. I knew her words were true, but I felt like an imposter.

I will take your hat, Jorge, but I will think of you fondly EVERY time I see it. I will cook for your daughter, your wife, your sister, and anyone else that has felt your presence. I will never pour a shot of Aguardiente without thinking of you. I hope you're making God laugh. And get him drunk, will ya? He's far too serious...

Here's to you, Jorge.

Dancing By Myself

This is my favorite time of day. Today was gray and rainy, but the sun finally shines in all its glory around 4:30pm. It needs to put on quite a show to make up for the dismal day. That is, until night claims its natural ownership. The sun wrestles with cloud cover and changes hue from white to yellow to orange. It makes the streets sparkle as cars start and stop and honk with the familiar melody of rush hour traffic.

I pour myself a glass of wine and turn on the radio - full blast. Disfruta. Enjoy this time, this sun, this music.

Something in the bass line makes me move, and I start to dance. Then I vainly wonder what I look like. Am I too fat to move like this? But the light is so pretty, who cares, right? And doesn't this dress move so beautifully when I turn?  And no one will ever see it! So I do something extreme... I video myself dancing. In the living room of my apartment, alone. I even go so far as to introduce on video what it is I'm doing. A new low? Or a blatant disregard for my insecurities? I'll claim the latter, por favor. 

And just to top it off, it's now going public. Right here, right now. A little entertainment for your friday... I call it Dancing By Myself.

In other news, I am excited that my writing is going somewhere. I am to be published three times this month by two different publications. That's a big step for me seeing as I have only been published one other time in my life (check out the awesome chick who made that possible). I am proud of my accomplishments. These publications, however, are not able to pay for my work. In all honesty, I don't mind. I know the words are good, and the stories are important. I have enough for the moment to live and eat for the rest of this month (at least).

Last night, an article caught my eye on the value of a "Gift Economy". This man made his entire life's work into "pay what you feel the work is worth". There were no donation suggestions, and no salaries. People could have taken advantage of his services easily (read the full story here), but they didn't. In fact, he got paid more for his work than ever before.

Trusting people. Hmm. Valid concept. I am interested to try this idea as an experiment. I have written a total of twelve blog entries in the last two months (thirteen if you add the one you're reading right now). I have almost 1,000 views. I'm slowly getting my "professional writer" feet wet as I happily work for unpaid gigs. 

However, if you would like me to write something for YOU, email me at janadebusk@gmail.com.

Or perhaps you feel the need to compensate an article or two that you've already read? Sure! I have a paypal account payable to  jana_d2004@hotmail.com. These payments are not handouts and will only be accepted for specific cited work that I have already done or will do in the future.

So, today I wrote a couple articles. I heated up some Ajiaco soup for lunch, and looked for apartments in the afternoon. At 4:30... well, you know the rest. Raise a glass, and have a blast dancing by yourself.

Let Them Eat Cake... I'll Have Chorizo

There is no fast food in Manizales. Sure, you can get comidas rapidas and some damn good perros calientes after a night of salsa dancing and rum-drinking, but everything takes time. Even El Corral, a hamburger joint in the mall (and not a side restaurant, but the first real "food court" in sight at the Cable Centro Commercial) gives out a buzzer. Things just aren't fast here. Tranquilo.

I cook for my roommates every night. It has become a convenient diversion to the fact that I have still not found a steady job. But on the other hand... when have I ever had a steady job? My responsibility right now, while paying $100 a month for an apartment in the best neighborhood of Manizales, is to create. During the day, I write. 

At night, I cook. I have realized that I am very much in love with both types of creation. There are two men in "Man"izales that I am absolutely in love with; Mr. Pen and Mr. Spoon. God, are they handsome.

During the day I focus on articles for various travel magazines and blogs. Every couple days, I chug away at a novel collaboration called Letters to the Working Girl. The book is an exquisite idea and I am lucky enough to be working with a dear friend on the project, but it is a long project with no real end in sight. Speaking of long projects, I'm also writing a musical; I've always loved a good challenge. Today, I wrote a glowing review of Colombia, enhanced by my own blatant love for the country, for my local newspaper. It should be published sometime this week.

But at night... I cook.

Thai Shrimp with Sriracha. American Hamburgers with Bleu Cheese and Sauteed onions. Chicken-on-the-Bone Curry with Sprouts, Potatoes, and Yogurt. My own family's recipe of Homemade Beef Spaghetti Sauce over Angel Hair Pasta. Tomorrow I'm planning (I'm PLANNING my meals, people!) to make "Breakfast for Dinner"; egg frittata with veggies, chorizo, and maple syrup pancakes. My friend and roommate, Julia-from-Arkansas, is fond of breakfast and never has time to cook before running out the door for work.

Cooking is an art. It is creation and whimsy. Smells mix with sounds and precision blends with pure emotion. I am in love.

Great. Now it's one in the morning, and I'm hungry. Tomorrow. I'll write and cook more tomorrow.  Maybe I'll make a cake?