a girl in the world

finding beauty, pleasure and grace on the road less traveled

Crashing back down to earth

We spent the weekend in Mar del Plata to visit the boy’s family.  We had home-cooked food, spent time by the sea and generally relaxed for three days.  But my oh my, what three days of pure frustration they were for me.

After 8 classes of Español para Extranjeros, I was feeling fantastic leaving Buenos Aires armed with what I thought was a battalion of new verbs and tenses with which to communicate.  I was WRONG.  Speaking in class and understanding the teacher is VERY different from speaking in real life and understanding people in real life.  Real life doesn’t speak as slowly or as clearly as my professors do.  Verbs don’t conjugate themselves as quickly or as easily in my head during real life.  And nobody is writing me simple tense letters in real life.  Real life español has been a real shock.  I am sad. =(

I don’t know who I was kidding when I thought I could jump into a school and learn Castellano via osmosis.  If I just sleep on the verb book, won’t it all just soak into my brain at night?!  And doesn’t eating Argentinian food – cooking it even! –  doesn’t that count for some form of mercy from the language gods?!  

Oh the pure frustration of hearing bits and pieces of a conversation and not being able to conjugate quickly enough to contribute!  So incredibly annoying!  I know I should look at it as more exciting, and new and fun, but really, I’m tired of not being able to contribute a normal sentence in a very normal conversation!!!

I need a new strategy and I need it fast.  Any advice on how I can learn more quickly?  As in, lightning fast quickly?!  

I am a hermit crab

… for here is Felipe’s traveling gift, his superpower, the secret weapon that renders him peerless: He can create a familiar habitat of reassuringly boring everyday practices for himself anyplace, if you just let him stay in one spot.
– Elizabeth Gilbert, of her Brazilian lover Felipe, from ‘Committed’

After months of endless travel, I’ve definitely felt the need to find a nest.  Camping through Africa, hostel hopping through Italy, budget travel through Asia – all of it took a toll.   Long term, high energy, country-hopping gets old.  After a while, each city starts to feel the same: crowded, hectic, modern.  It stops being fun when you fail to see the magic.  This is why I stopped trying to tick countries off my long list and instead spent weeks at a time in certain cities.  I spent three weeks in Bali in a small cottage in the rice fields.  We played house in Vancouver for nearly a month. And now I’m here in Buenos Aires until mid June.  Sometimes, it takes more than a few pictures, dinners and cab rides to find the soul of a place.  And travel where I can to find the soul of a place has become more important to me.

During my early weeks here in Buenos Aires, before I began to get a grasp of the language, I found myself feeling completely isolated.  We’d walk by coffee shops full of people, gathered for afternoon tea and I’d long for a group of friends to call my own with whom I could socialize over coffee with.  Sometimes home feels so very far away.

But, like a hermit crab, I’ve learned to create a home wherever I happen to land.  Immediately I unpack, claim drawer and closet space, find a cup to hold my toothbrush, fill a bowl full of fresh fruits, search for a favourite music station, buy plants that need watering.  I don’t just stay somewhere.  I move in.

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And this phenomenon of being able to take any place – a hotel room, an apartment, a tent – and make of it a comfortable and familiar home, is an amazing thing.  Human beings are so adaptable and often I forget just how easy it is to find contentment in a place.  I’ve agonized over which city I should choose next, where I’d like to live, what kind of apartment I’d like to rent, what neighbourhood would suit my lifestyle.  But then I realize that the daunting details don’t matter so much.  What matters are a few simple things:

  • The knowledge that nothing is permanent, that all things are temporary, that every moment is an opportunity to take in the best that any place or person has to offer.
  • The knowledge that love is not bound by place or time, and that the people most important to me are just a phone call away.  Love reaches out and gives infinitely.
  • The knowledge that buildings, rooms, houses are just things.  They are hollow spaces that become significant only when we add elements of life and love: a bundle of flowers, a home-cooked meal, a favourite book.
  • The knowledge that the newness, the learning, the discomfort and the joy – all of it – are blessings that can’t be taken for granted.  I am here, I am now, this is where I belong.

Last night, fresh after a rain shower, we bought giant daises from a street vendor on our walk home from Spanish school.  They lean in a giant glass vase on the living room table.  Fresh flowers.  Another small thing that makes a big difference in the life of a hermit crab.

On passion

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders.  Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
– Antoine De Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

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Seth Godin often talks about the importance and significance of tribes.  Macheads are a tribe.  Twitter users are a tribe.  Boca Junior fans are a tribe.  Entrepreneurs are a tribe.  Surrounding yourself with people in a tribe that you believe in or long to belong to is important.  If you want to be a musician, surround yourself with people who long for nothing more than to play music.  If you want to be a writer, drown yourself in literature that inspires you, surround yourself with good mentors, practice your craft.  If you want to be an inventor, seek crazy motivated people who want to make things that matter.  If you want to create a charity to help needy women, give of yourself to the women in your community, see what a difference your effort makes and envision a grander plan.

We are what we think and who we surround ourselves with.  We are the sum of our efforts, thoughts, desires.  And if you’re sitting at your desk doing work that someone else has asked you to do but you don’t truly believe in, the nagging feeling that you’re wasting away hours of your precious life contributing to someone else’s passion instead of yours will soon become a pounding voice in your head that won’t be ignored.  Sooner or later, the truth of your heart’s desires will whisper ever so clearly, asking for the space and time and wings to take flight.  Are you going to listen?

Sometimes, passion is scary.  Sometimes it is our strength, not our weakness, that most scares us.  Why?  Because we fear most what we want most.  Isn’t your greatest desire worth taking a gamble on?

What is my vast and endless sea?

It is the feeling that I am tapping my creative energies everyday, in all I do.

It is the desire to touch others, to help them succeed, to make a difference in the life of one girl, one woman, one person.  And then again.

It is the desire to live in the zone of my existence, with a feeling of constant purpose, goodness and love.

It is writing and finding the truth in writing.  It’s sharing wisdom, it’s sharing inspiration, it’s using the power of words to share a message worth spreading.

It is the desire to build something with likeminded people, with a common purpose, a shared vision.  It is decision making on the fly, it is agility, it is innovation, it is change.  It is working in small teams and doing great, fun things.

It is the desire to find wisdom, courage and grace in every moment.  It’s lending a hand, it’s sharing insight, it’s learning from the now.  It’s giving without the desire to receive.  It’s openness and closeness at once.

It is living with arms wide open.

This is my vast and endless sea.

What is yours?

Hi, I'm Denise. I'm a writer, artist and photographer. This is where I share what I'm seeing, learning and making.
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