The Roofs of San Fernando

On Saturday night, at about 7pm, I went downstairs to hang my laundry out to dry. As I pulled the wet clothes from the washer into the basket, Cali's celebrated evening breezes unceremoniously blew the back door to the house shut with a crash of finality.

"No."
"Way," I said out loud to myself, staring at the locked door.

I was the only one home. All six members of the family that live in and own the house (most of whom tend to be at home around 90% of the time) had just left to celebrate Biviana's birthday across town.

After a brief pause of disbelief, I carried on hanging my clothes up to dry and tried in vain to think of a way into the house. This is Colombia, so there are bars on all the windows making it impossible to enter that way. I absurdly considered trying to pick the lock with some wire hanging by the door. I kept my mental fingers crossed that my dear friend and housemate Corinna would miraculously come home from vacation a day early or Clara, who I tend to see about once a week because she has such a busy nursing schedule, might turn up. No such luck, and I didn't have any other ideas.

When the clothes were hung, I walked out into the dark yard to contemplate my predicament. I turned around, looked up at the house, and saw the light from my room illuminating the Tibetan prayer flags dangling in the open window. I gasped and thought, "I bet my house key is sitting right there on the desk inside my window."

My eyes scanned from the window, down along the first floor tile roof, to a place a few feet above the corrugated awning over the laundry drying area, and landed on a limb-y little tree that appeared to be suitable for climbing.

I had a plan.

Despite having given up rock climbing in favor of salsa dancing over a year ago, I still know how to stem and mantle and test holds and use tiny nobs for feet and such things, so I managed to hoist myself up through the tree without (much) fear. Once on top of the corrugated awning, I discovered that the tiles on the roof of the house were not fixed, so I crawled over them gingerly on all fours, breaking at least 1 or 2 on the way to my window where - Yes! - my key rested in easy reach on my desk.

The moment I grabbed the key, it suddenly occurred to me that a key for entering through the front door might not be particularly helpful for opening the back door. This realization stunned me for a moment, but all I could do was climb back down and find out. I tucked the key into my bra and headed for the ground.

Upon reaching the corrugated awning, I scrambled delicately across it to the brick wall that borders the property to see if there might be an easy way for me to reach the front of the house along the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. There wasn't, so I returned, and shimmied down the tree.

When I tried the key in the back door, I couldn't even get it in at first. Then, it suddenly slid home… but  it wouldn't turn. Darn!

Ok. Execute Self-Rescue Plan Part 2.

Reconnisance had already shown me that climbing forward on the wall would be difficult and probably not very fruitful. I needed to find my escape toward the back, where the top of the 10 foot wall surrounding the yard was flatter, and I wouldn't have to climb over more tile roofs. I wanted to get onto the wall via the little storage shelter built in the back corner of the yard, but this time there was no convenient tree that I could use. Instead, I found a heavy, ancient, metal exercise bike discarded long ago in this forgotten corner of the yard. I dragged it over to the bamboo post that would need to support my weight and went up with one foot on the seat, the other on the handlebars.

As I paused in the darkness to consider whether or not this semi-stable structure would hold my weight, the risk of getting injured, and the potential consequences of trespassing in the Colombian night across the roofs of unknown strangers, big white fireworks started to go off in the distance. I smiled and took it as an affirmation to carry on, so with a little hop, I landed my torso on top of the plastic roof.

Immediately, I realized there was no going back. My dangling legs could no longer reach the stationary bike, and the position I was in prevented me from being able to see below to find my way back down. I was committed to going up or nowhere. With the plastic roof popping and cracking underneath me, I pulled myself on top of it, somehow avoiding the protruding wires and nails all around me, and made it to the wall with flesh and spirit intact.

I walked carefully and occasionally crawled on all fours along the walls and edges of rooftops, passing by a few patios and open windows, hearing voices coming from several buildings, and wondering if I should call for help. I made my way out to the edge of the entire building cluster and realized I was about three stories up, now. I sat for a few minutes watching all the Saturday night activity going on in the park below before I decided to return and call down for help into a patio I had passed earlier.

"Alo? Alguien puede ayudarme?"

I was looking down into a small patio with nice tiles and landscaping, connected to a recently renovated building. The people inside heard me, and after a few moments a man in his 30s with longish wavy hair and a button down shirt came out and looked up.

I explained my situation to this person, who I determined right away to be a relaxed, kind soul. He immediately began to give me a gentle lecture about how risky it was for me to go crawling around on the rooftops of Cali at night and demonstrated the seriousness of it all by showing me that he had grabbed his handgun before coming out to see who was yelling from the roof. The lecture continued intermittently as he and his friend figured out how to get me down.

They brought out a ladder, and nice man number two climbed up onto the sturdy roof of a storage area in the patio below. Wavy hair passed the ladder up to him. He brought it over to my wall and climbed up to meet me. Standing on the very top step of the ladder he told me to put my arms around his neck. That did not seem like the world's greatest idea, so after a little negotiation, I got him to step down and just help me to get my feet onto the ladder.

I was back on solid ground pretty quickly, listening giddily to the rest of wavy hair's lecture about how the police run the building between my house and their office, and how most people have guns in their homes, and if you're on someone else's property they have the right to shoot you, and how I was lucky they were in the office because it's rare for them at such a late hour on a Saturday, etc. I nodded and did my best to look contrite while inside I was glowing with the glee of escape!

They let me out their front door, and I walked home to my front door, key in hand, savoring the secret of the adventure as I passed through the Saturday night streets.

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.