Cut and Paste

Last night, 

I made a collage for 

an art history class.

This morning,

I was cutting it to 

glue onto a bitácora,

a journal of notes and thoughts

used to track one's progress in 

some of the classes here.

---

as I cut it 

while listening to

a lecture about Frida Kahlo,

I noticed some of the pieces

I had glued on were 

falling

off. 

it 

was 

a little bit 

disappointing;

I mean, 

thinking of all that I had done 

to collect these images 

and cut them 

and rip them 

and glue them 

and move them

and re-glue them

and so on and so forth

I had 

considered 

borrowing glue

from someone

to put the pieces back on, 

but then I stopped.

----------

revealed

 to me

in 

that 

moment 

was the nature

of every

single

collage 

that 

I 

have 

ever made.

. . .

yes,  

I can paste all of these 

little bits and pieces

 and segments of 

color and 

people and 

places and 

things,  

from 

newspapers, magazines,

photographs, 

whatever

they may be,

all together

into a

piece

of

art.

i can 

show it off 

and ponder it,

and value all of those 

possible subconscious meanings 

within those combined histories that it holds,

and when I am done observing it

I can store it in a book, that will act as a

guardian clam for this pearl I made, to open up 

when I remember it at some point in the future.

but every collage I have made has come unglued

at some point when I'm not looking, 

from right when I am gluing down

the each to piece the week it 

spends in a notebook,

to the years it spends

in another.

some pieces stick together more than others,

some fall off almost immediately

some rip, some tear 

some move around

when you aren't looking

into something else.

That is what is beautiful about collages

As much glue as I may put on the back of a magazine clipping,

it will only maintain that placement and color and unique location 

for the time I notice it.  

Eventually, all of the pieces start to fall off, blow into the wind,

get forgotten in the bottoms of backpacks and dust pans,

some held onto for a very long time. 

This is what studying abroad has been for me.

With 9 days left , I am beginning to see the family

and friends and places and habits I had pasted all around me 

flutter in the wind of time, to soon be released from this work that

I currently call my life and blow miles and years away to exist

somewhere that I am not and may be never will be. 

I am infinitely thankful

for my chance to be

placed within

these transient

collages of those

I have met, to be stored

back in the dusty file cabinets

of the memories of one's life, to 

dilapidate over time within the 

never ending abundance of

life time experiences. 

El Proceso de Memoria

I went to my swimming class today.
Every thursday from eleven to twelve,
I swim back and forth

over and

over and


over and



over and







I start out by swimming eight front-stroke.
After that I usually do six breast-stroke.

And during the entire time,
I breathe in.
my head goes under.
I breathe out,
my head comes up.

And there is this constant rhythm of
in and out, up and down,
both in my self and my surroundings.
A constant cycle of
"how many laps do I have left?"
"am I at the half way point yet?"
"how many have I done?"
"I think I've got this rhythm and mindset figured out...."
"No, I don't."

and simultaneously
I sometimes think about people,
places and events from the past,
and I use it to push myself forward.

This is usually when I look under.

And then when I bring my head up, there is this sense of immediate existence,
a simpleness of purely being and moving through space.
A constant mix of memory and self-awareness.

In this normal rhythm of most strokes,
there is one that stands out to me:
the back-stroke.

I have been thinking about it a lot.
It is different than all of the others,
in that you are going backwards
in many different senses.

Your face is above the water,
you are completely drawn into the sky
as your entire body propels you forward through the water.

As you are going backwards the entire time, you are simultaneously moving forward.

This is the process of memory.

Every event we go through,
every face we see,
everything
that is stored in our memory is
as much a part of our past as it is our present,
one way or another.

They are behind us, but they drive us forward at the same time.

This constant cycle we go through in
interlacing and
collaging and
overlapping
our memories,

constantly moving forwards and backwards at the same time,
swimming in the present and looking into the sky of our minds
as we propel ourselves into the future.

and that her flowers may grow again

I just 

got to talk with my grandma tonight. 

She made 

a paper bag apple pie for my boyfriend.

To see

her smiling with caring company,

a

 some

one to

chat with,

share stories with,

joke with,

laugh with,

tell her

l i f e 

to

,

a  n  y  

o  n  e,

REALLY,

pleased 

me.

I 

have felt lonely here,

but she,

there,

at

h

home

homehome

homehomehome

s  h  e .......... s  h  e

l      i      v      e     s

a l l     a   l   o   n  e, 

h  o  l  d  i  n  g   all

O           F

t        h          i        s

 care      love  wisdom

warmth  advice   pain

joy   concern   beauty

longing  anger  candy 

a             n             d 

television with Oprah

Ellen        Degeneres, 

Doctor                 Phil

and    the  local  news

cigarette           smoke 

decaffeinated     coffee

darkness and yellowing

ceiling                    tiles

stacks and stacks and stacks

and piles and piles and piles and piles

and boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes

and folders and files and folders and files and folders and files

of newspaper articles, magazines, photographs, recipes, taxes, rags,

all of these things that constitute who she must be, what world she must exist in

because no one really comes to see her, and what else does she have to work with to 

construct a social life, to understand what life is at this point, to have lived her life all of the

way up to this point, falling in love, moving across the country for him, getting pregnant and having

children, having him leave you for another woman that you have had to see at family reunions for years

now, trying to get things together on her own, going to school and giving up, trying so hard to get back to where she was at one point, turning herself inside-out and upside-down to care for alcoholic lovers that picked away at her,

bit by

b i t    b y

b     i     t           b        y

b        i               t                 b                  y

b                      i                    t                                  b                            y

b                                             i                               t                                               b                                y    

b                                                                                i                                                                               t

until she couldn't recognize herself anymore, and all of that love she had poured out of herself had been snatched as she gave it, and lit on fire to burn down 

every 

last

 beautiful

 flower

 she had planted in her garden

 to maybe 

one day 

sit down and smell 

with someone that just loved her

 and enjoy the sunshine outside and laugh with

but no ones stops to look at her garden now. It has

all been burnt down and all of the smoke from her cigarettes

choke out all of the hopeful seeds to grow a new life she had planted within it.

so she goes out at night time by herself 

when no one is around that she must smile for

and cries into the thirsty soil of her life, 

hoping and praying that 

someone will come 

and that 

her flowers may

 grow again.

All of this.

The most frustrating thing I have come across in life is the copious, vibrant and beautiful tapestries that my mind creates with the possibilities of living. They are always filled with the fluid, electric colors; these mystic individuals I have constructed in my mind look over their shoulders back at me, with eyes screaming at me to come on, to leave everything behind and enjoy and experience all that I can. I get so exhilarated and with all of the strength within me, I jump, so hard, so high, but then my body is slammed back to the ground so hard. Bruises all over my ribs, my hips, my arms and legs, my head crashing against the cold, wet stone floor that I exist in. And none of this room would be wet if it wasn't for my breathing so hard within the anticipation of  breaking this self affixed chain to fly out of here.  The walls get wet from the condensation of my breath, I sit here in the dark, with mold growing on my shoes from lack of usage. And I feel like I'm dying most of the time.

Sigh.

I dropped the ball. I fucked up, whatever your terminology is for it, I did it. Most frustrating of all is that this always happens when I feel as though I finally have things figured out. Just when I get to this stride that feels like progress is being made, out from the ground come rocks, ice, sticks, garbage and whatever else to stop me. It's just that sometimes when I get into the swing of things that are progress, my mind flies infinitely inward and upward. All around within my world and without it. When problems arise, it's so hard to even think about the roots of them, because my mind is perched up at the top branch of the tree all of the time, constantly reaching more and more toward the Sun, away from all that is reality.

     1.

I missed my planned graduation date. As I was busy flying around somewhere else, the graduation deadline approached faster than I could return. If you've ever ran after a bus, you know how this feels. That glorious time-saving opportunity can come and go as it pleases, but it doesn't wait for you. You'll run after it, but it won't see you, and after about a minute of running for your life, you give up because there is no way in hell that you will be catching up with it. So then, you sit sulking in your own stupidity and sluggishness, thinking "if I just wouldn't have....." bitter at first, then sad, and then you just are. You just wait. What more can you do? So, I'll be graduating a semester later. A curse and a blessing, as is everything. 

2.

I've looked and thought about other guys while I am in a relationship. Yes, I know this isn't ideal, but it happened and happens sometimes. It's not something I am proud of, but it is something that comes form my fear of being trapped and controlled and always looking for an escape route when things aren't going as planned in my relationship. Do I act on these thoughts? No. It is my mind taking me to this other, safer, more comfortable place than the present. I tell my boyfriend about all of it because I am honest, but then we stay up talking until five in the morning talking about it. I do a lot to hurt him simultaneously always being honest. I am not a liar and never have been. Just, when one is honest with oneself, any illusions of progress can quickly be destroyed. But I keep trying. I am honest and I make bad decisions a alot.

Beneath all of this, I just feel so detached and disappointed in my time here. I wonder if all I have done has had or will have any real significance to it. All of these times I feel like I am getting somewhere, I keep falling back. I try to establish healthy, productive habits, but they tend to be fleeting moments of beautiful insight as soon as I grasp at them. 

Images swim around on the surface of

 my mind's sea in this golden sunlight that

reflects off of their transient existences

 into the future held in my eyes

of

friends and 

films and 

music and 

traveling and

loving and

learning and

comfortable breakfasts and

moments of insight with

art, love, and food-making

just

doing 

something

with a

purpose unfaltering

and

mountain tops that

have been waiting for

me since I have been here.

And within all of this

I am

never never

never

stopping. 

But then reality hits and I am in a valley looking up at clouds, not mountain tops, trash thrown all around me and that light I had seen within me has disappeared and I am left there walking up a muddy hill in the dark, realizing that I had arrived there at some point as I had psychosomatically descended 

and

fell, 

and

fell 

and

f e l l 

a   n  d

f    e    l    l

a        n        d

f            e            l           l  .

                            \                                                                                                         /

                              \                                                                                                     /

                                \                                                                                                 /

                                  \                                                                                             /

                                    \                                                                                         /

                                      \                                                                                     /

                                        \                                                                                 /

                                          \                                                                             /

                                            \                                                                         /

 to this point. and I always do.

Sometimes I just wish the sides of the valley would flip over into sides of a mountain.

But such is life.

Así Es.

  "That's that." "And so is life." 

 Loose translations of "Así es."

    In being here, Costa Rica, for I think to be beyond the half way point of my stay, I came upon some sort of a revelation. Being assigned a short film project for my filmmaking class, there was lots of going through old footage I have taken in my time here. At first, I had planned to make it about my dark past with an ex, my present confronting problems within myself and loving others whole-heartedly and opening myself up to life, and the last, how I would conquer this in the future.

       However, it has proved quite difficult to attempt to structure the future using videos when all that they are and will be are captured fragments of the past. Over time, video has served me well as a manner of processing events and memories; inserting my present emotions, and allowing me to braid them together with music I have made to establish this core pattern to my work in combining real life experiences with all of the tangled strings of thought and emotion that exist within me.

       So, I had realized in sorting through the past that I had not opened up and allowed myself to experience all that there is, here and there, me and us. It's interesting how much video can simultaneously fool one and reveal to one at the same time. Being here, going through the daily motions of waking up, eating breakfast, going to school, eating lunch, walking home, eating dinner, falling asleep while doing homework, repeating-- I have seen the briskness in which life walks as one ages. When I was just a couple years ago, I wouldn't have thought of anything like this, but coming to college, making bad decisions, getting hurt, standing back up on my own feet, staying late for classes, spending time with friends, working, applying for scholarships, traveling, studying abroad-- all of this adds up and the pace of experiences in my life has increased exponentially. As it is a great thing, sometimes I have forgotten to or been scared of partaking in all of the opportunities around me.

      The realization that I came to is that if I wanted to, I could just stay in Heredia, Costa Rica my whole time here, go to classes, go home, go to sleep, wake up and repeat; close myself off from possible friends because I may label them as "bad people" when I don't even really know them--thinking this whole time that I should structure the world around me, not let in any bad influences. But I've come to understand that if one shuts out any bad from coming into their lives, he or she is also shutting out countless moments of deep, meaningful interaction with oneself, others, and their environment- and at the end of the day, life is what it will be. We can't control it as much as we think we can; either exhaust ourselves from resisting the waves or ride on top of them to somewhere new within and without ourselves.

Así es.

La Fiesta

Today, we are having a party for my host dad, Bernal, and there are all kinds of friends and family here. I just feel so awkward, and am sitting in my room alone. I am so nervous, drinking a cocktail in my room alone. When I have gone out to talk to people, they really don't want to talk very long, so I end up just standing there like an awkward guy. :( I want so bad to talk to people but it is so hard! I hate this. . . .