Divided Heart

Last Sunday, on the bus to Pance, I turned to my best friend, Sita, who left England 8 years ago and has lived abroad, all over the world, ever since, and I asked her, "Do you ever get over the pain of living in multiple cultures?"

She replied directly, "Naw, mate. Never."

As we spoke, I looked out the bus windows toward the hazy blue mountains in the distance, feeling comfortably at home in the landscape. I'd been mulling over the unstable romantic relationship I'm involved in while at the same time acknowledging the fact that I love it here, when suddenly I realized that the slow, churning, dull stab of pain in my gut was the presence of two loves struggling with one another.

My dear Spanish friend Paloma came for a visit a couple months ago. She lives and works in Brussels, Belgium where the offices of the European Union are located. Her words to describe the situation we're in were equally blunt: "Once you go ex-pat, you're fucked."

I ended up here due to a heart-expanding experience of love. I dropped everything in my life: my job, my yoga classes, my house, and most traumatically, my partner of 10 years, because a romantic Mexican man swept me off my feet and loved me so much that my free sprit was irrepressibly reborn.

Even as I fell in love with Vlady, I didn't fall out of love with any part of my past, and I realized deeply and powerfully how vast and capable and inclusive our hearts can be. Love lifted me out of Santa Cruz and, over the last year and a half, lead me to Joshua Tree, Hawaii, Santa Fe, Panamá, Colombia, and yes, back to Baja Sur, Mexico. Everywhere I go, I freely tie my heart to the place and to the people I'm with.

Now, my heart is strewn across the world, and I feel a bit unhinged by all the distance.

Meanwhile, Cali is a big city. It's dense and urban and full of relentless energy. It's noisy and difficult to settle down enough to really connect with people or with the moment. I've never lived anywhere like this before.

As a backpacker, I always avoided spending too much time in large cities due to the stresses of traffic, concrete, air pollution, noise pollution, and human density. About a month ago, I suddenly realized, not only am I surrounded by a huge city, but also, I'm surrounded almost entirely by city people. These are not the deeply laid back folks you find on beaches, in the mountains, and exploring the jungle when you travel to exotic countries. These are competitive, fashionable, talkative, technological, opinionated people who don't spend much time slowing down. Ever since that slow-to-dawn realization, I've enjoyed a fervent longing for the solace of quiet redwood trees and the sound of ocean waves.

Gratefully, I'm in touch with most of the Santa Cruz people I feel closest to, however there are five things about life in Santa Cruz that consistently plague me with longing.

• Nature - Particularly, the redwood forests and the ocean.
• Having a yoga teacher - I've been on my own here, teaching and practicing alone. It's difficult to maintain discipline and inspiration, but I'm doing it. Just barely.
• Upper body strength - I was a strong rock climber when I left Santa Cruz. Now, I'm constantly faced with the weakness of my arms and hands as I try to pick up heavy things that once would have been effortless for me to lift.
• Salsa by the Sea - Dancing in my home culture, outdoors, next to the beach, at sunset. Ahhh.
• Meeting Mosi - I left before Rachel brought Mosi into the world and have missed the profound transformations that have come with him. Ack. Sob! < clutches heart >

However, ironically, once I'm reunited with all these things, estaré a falta de the special aspects of life in Cali: communicating in Colombian Spanish, taking salsa lessons with Carlos, eating sancocho (Colombia has mastered the art of soup), dancing Cali-style salsa with Orlando, Alejandro, Carlos, Ricardo, Sergio, Javier, Wilber, Jazon... teaching yoga to people from all over the world, the cool, gentle breezes that come down off the mountains in the evenings, running my fingers through Renato's hair (soft, beautiful, black ringlets... swoon), and the sheer quantity of celebratory human energy that's always rippling through this place.

Typically, wherever I am, there's no one around who can truly share in the daydream of these other places. I hold my distant loves alone.

So Cali and Santa Cruz are wrestling with one another over my body, mind, and heart, and it's literally causing me physical pain. Not to mention that another part of my heart is waiting for me in Baja and that my heart vision for the future takes me to Israel, Europe, and beyond... suspira.

I've planned a 2 month trip back to the US with a short week in Baja Sur before I return for another semester of Spanish at the University here in Cali. Having this trip ahead of me triggers many emotions. Sometimes I feel done here. Other times, I can't imagine leaving. All the time, I feel like I'm getting older y que no quiero perder mi tiempo.

So, the last several days, I've been doing a lot of breathing and listening, feeling into the confusion in my body and in my heart, and giving my attention to the conflicts. Ultimately, I trust that love led me here, and that if I keep listening, love will continue to lead me where I need to go.

Rituals & Connections

One evening in Canoa, Ecuador, I watched fishermen returning to shore on a sturdy little motorboat, plying through the beach waves and onto the sand. Once they landed, two of the men carefully removed the outboard motor from the back, and one of them hoisted the obviously heavy engine up onto his shoulder. Then, at the end of his day, he gathered muscle and bone to calmly and carefully carry all that weight safely up the slope of sand as the rest of the crew, in a well-practiced sequence, rolled the boat across a pair logs to a resting point above the high tide line.

...

Ronald and me

One of my Caleño salsa teachers, Ronald Parra,
recently moved to Quito, Ecuador to work with Estudio Nacional de Baile, a dance school and professional performance team started by Caleños from the Swing Latino dance company in Cali, Colombia. When I visited Quito, Ronald took me to see the team training for the Cali salsa festival (coming up August 2nd-9th).

As we arrived, the team was refining the details of one section in the dance. Each couple practiced individually, then the director would run the whole group through that section together while he sang the music, then they would practice individually with his instruction, then run through it, etc.

After about half an hour, the director finally put on the music and they danced the whole performance, beginning to end.
Cali style.
At high altitude.
It was amazing.

Estudio Nacional de Baile - Quito, Ecuador

They nailed the routine until about 2/3 of the way through when, one by one, the dancers started falling apart. Steps started to falter. Couples stopped here and there to breathe then jump back in when they could. Once smiling faces began to show anguish and fatigue as  willpower struggled to move muscles and bones to the relentless rhythm. Voices rang out to encourage one other: "Venga! Venga!"

When the music ended, they all hit and held their marks for a moment. Then, in the silence that followed - I wish I had a video - each dancer turned soundlessly away from the dance floor, scattering in every direction, into postures of fatigue: hunched forward with hands on knees, faces lifted with hands pressed against sweaty foreheads, gasping breaths. Some sat on the floor, others gulped water, and all retreated into themselves to recover from the exhausting demands of the dance.

Eyes wide, I covered my face with my hands, deeply moved by the power, grace, and commitment of what I'd just witnessed.

...

Whether it's fishermen returning to shore at the end of the day or a group of dancers preparing a performance, some of the most beautiful and important things in life require teamwork, discipline, and a sense of responsibility to one another. I yearn for the meaningfulness of such connection and commitment in my own life.

I would like to join a dance team again some day. I miss tying into a rope and climbing up several hundred feet of rock with my life in my buddy's hands. I long for the powerful yet peaceful energy that arises in a room full of people, who've shown up week after week, year after year, to participate in the ritual of yoga together.

...

So, where do I find this type of connection in Cali?

Mostly, it's in little interpersonal things. It's in the silent communication I have with a friend when we cook together. I find it in salsa lessons, cooperating with my teacher to work out new moves. It's there in sweaty dances at the discoteca when my partners and I listen so deeply to the music and to one another that creative new movements begin to occur spontaneously. I feel it in the presence of people who, for some mysterious reason, bring out the Spanish speaker in me, and the language flows though my lips like water. I see it in the grateful faces of new yoga students from all over the world as they discover the practice with me here in Cali, Colombia. It's alive among the extranjero community as we help one another navigate the foreignness of living here. I even find it on Skype sometimes, when a dear friend from home reminds me that I have deep, meaningful connections with people all the time.

(He's right. I do.)

But Cali salsa clubs have their own special ritual that brings everyone together: At some point in the night, the dj switches the music from salsa to a short set of Musica del Pacifico and funky Colombian pop songs, and everyone line dances. This would seem silly to me in any other setting, but here, it turns a night of paired off couple dancing (that not everyone can participate in equally) into a unified, group experience of rhythm and movement that anyone can join. We sing along with the lyrics, follow a couple of folks at the front, and get all funky together. It's fun to join in, and it's equally fun to watch. Tourists always break out their cameras to capture it.

I loved this group dance the first time I saw it, and I still love it even though it's the same songs every time and the same repetitive steps. For me, this part of the night holds a deeper meaning: it's a sweet reminder of our togetherness and an expression of our equality. On the map of the world, this unique ritual pertains only to Cali (as far as I know), and it's another piece in the puzzle of my love for this city.