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.

El Son de Cali

Sr. Caleño & namer of this blog, José M.

When thinking about starting this blog about living in Cali, Colombia, I asked friends for title ideas. One of my most Caleño of Caleño friends suggested al Son de Cali.

Being new to Cali and having only a semi-decent grasp of the Spanish language at the time, I had to look up the meaning of the word son in this context. As a noun, son refers to sound, specifically to the particular way something sounds, but it can also more generally mean the style or manner of something. It encompasses the sound, flavor, rhythm, and general feel of things, and when it comes to Cali, Colombia, life is full of son.

Salsa Competition, Aug 2012

Different styles of salsa are danced around the world, and Cali has a style all its own. Some styles are elegant and linear, others funky and circular; here in Cali, salsa is fast, and it swings. At the professional level, Salsa Caleña is high energy with fast footwork and acrobatic tricks. Among the people, the basic steps swing side to side with back steps and additional toe taps thrown in on the pauses. In the clubs, dancers sing along with the music whilst whirling around each other on the dance floor. Music and dancing provide the fundamental connection for people in this city, and that foundation influences everything.

The typical Caleño/a (person from Cali) is extroverted, talkative, happy, dances salsa (obvio!), loves Cali, loves being Colombian, likes to travel, and enjoys nature. Caleños flirt freely, laugh easily, tell stories about their lives, are helpful, wear colorful clothing, get excited about food, and kiss on the cheek to say hello and goodbye. Caleños are a party waiting to happen.

All over town, salsa music pours out the windows of passing taxis, homes, and storefronts. Salsa accompanies supermarket shopping experiences, days at the waterpark, and drifts down into our house from the neighbor's balcony on a daily basis. Add to this soundtrack, colorful, creative murals brightening walls and buildings all over town, cars, motorcycles, buses and taxis weaving around one another, their drivers ignoring lane demarcations and traffic signals while cutting one another off in a manner as fluid and certain as river water, and buses packed to the gills with passengers who board and disembark simultaneously at every stop. There is an organic, vibrant, primal hum to it all, but with an easy-going swing in the background that allows life to follow the flow of events rather than the ticking of time.

When I first arrived, I was acutely aware of my own incongruent rhythms of language and culture as I tried to adapt to the son of my new home: to the emotional cadence of the language, the bright energy of the people, the pulse of a big city, and the sultry movements of the dances (mostly salsa, but other latin styles as well). Now, el son de Cali is becoming more and more a part of me. I find myself flirting with whomever I'm talking to, regardless of my feelings for them, simply because the language I'm speaking happens to be Spanish. I get excited about arepas con queso for breakfast before I've even gotten out of bed in the morning. When riding in taxis or on the back of a motorcycle, just inches from the neighboring vehicle, I trust and enjoy the watery flow of traffic, gloriously freed from the inhibiting constraints of lanes.

Aside from the cultural immersion of learning to speak and understand Colombian Spanish, the touchstone of my adaptation to Cali has been studying Salsa Caleña, learning the professional dance from professional teachers. Recently, I've been astonished while dancing in clubs to find my feet flying in complex patterns I've never done before. The movements swirl spontaneously through my hips, matching my partner's lead with quick kicks, toe taps, and cha chas, even though I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing. As I trust my body's ability to move, my ear for the music, and my partner, something authentically Caleña comes through.

Ultimately, salsa me vuelve a bit more Caleña each day as I bring el Son de Cali from the dance floor to everything I do.

House on a Hill

I live near the top of a hill. Most of Cali stretches eastward onto the wide plains of the Valle de Cauca, but the barrios in the west are built up on the foothills of Los Farallones de Cali. Agricultural land stretches north and south of the city and the Cauca River makes the eastern border. I live in the artsy neighborhood of San Antonio, with colonial architecture, safe(r) streets, and a pretty little park where the mountains begin to rise out of the valley.

The view from el Parque de San Antonio, directly across the street from my front door, is pictured above in the "al Son de Cali" banner. On clear days, the ridge line of La Cordillera Central bordering the other side of the valley appears in the distance.

Weekend nights, people come from all over to eat in the restaurants, sell street food or jewelry, and spend time together enjoying the luscious Cali breezes that sweep through the park most evenings. Local folks run impromptu street parking businesses, stacking motorcycles in precarious "if one goes, they all go!" arrangements on the steep street. Our neighbor two houses over, Luís from Honduras, sells  colorful t-shirts depicting cars, robots, deer, Shiva, the Buddha, gigantic headphones, etc., while playing groovy reggae tunes to attract buyers. The park's small amphitheater hosts comedy shows and folk dancing. We can hear people laughing from inside the house.

View south from the upstairs terrace

Speaking of the house: It's two stories with separate entrances, 8 bedrooms, 3 kitchens,  3 bathrooms, a full house in the back, and a garden. The house, like most in San Antonio, is open air with terraces on the first floor opening to the sky. From the laundry terrace upstairs, we have another great view to the south.

"We" is a lot of us. La dueña de la casa, a flight attendant for Avianca, lives in the separate house at the back, and most of the rest of us are extranjeros. We have a retired English gentleman, the hilarious young German-Caleño couple, my salsa dancing friend Sita, the sisters from Wyoming, and the dread-locked, hula hooping, Southeast Asian-looking, actually German with a Chilean mother, Daniela. Silly Sam from England and quiet Arturo from France just joined us, as well.

Sombra de la Calle

The most important resident, however, is the house dog, Sombra. She's a medium sized, black lab-ish mix, with a floppy ear, a sweet spirit, and a nervous system that's a little out of control. Once a street dog, now that she has a home, she defends it from the constant threat of construction workers, house guests, cats, inaudible sounds, and little old ladies walking by outside on the street. She's not a biter, but her bark is fierce, and the hair along her spine stands up when she's agitated. It's really embarrassing sometimes, but we love her.

I teach yoga in the house two nights a week by donation. I never know whether I'll teach in Spanish or English (or both! ack!) until I see who shows up. English is always easier, of course, but I'm starting to be able to express the poetry of the practice in Spanish, too.

It's a great house. It's one of the most beautiful, biggest, and most comfortable in San Antonio, but despite the hot, daily, uphill pilgrimage of the homeward journey, it's not always a sweet sanctuary. At 36 years old, sharing a house with 10 people and all their vistors in a city full of extroverts can be a little overwhelming for this only child. So I am always seeking refuge: in my practice, in the garden out back, on the terrace upstairs, at a friend's house around the corner, and lately, in my own room, with the door shut, music turned up, dancing my heart out, and feeling free.