A Place Where Things Come Alive

I woke up early on Saturday morning, after ordering pizza in Spanish and going into a carb coma from consuming too much of it, I slept a good 10 hours and my body thanked me kindly.
The beach was fun, calming, good to be in the water, how it calms my scorpio skin and I picked up a slight shade of gold after getting comments from some of my pastier colleagues on how I need to get some sun... I also received one of the nicest comments of my life from a random parking attendant at the beach, Christopher, as the boys called him. He said "Tu es claridad" which when I looked up meant brightness and glowing. How lovely of someone to pick up on that and to once and awhile eminate it to random strangers.

Saturday evening was a wild night, I drank too much wine, received 13 phone calls from a local number, tainted my lungs more than I have since I have been here, had crazy political talks with Chris and Guido about socialism in Venezuela, finished it off with chats about boys with Michael. Thank goodness for friends putting up with randomness. I think being new somehow makes you being a bit flaky and all over the place much more acceptable, but personally, it's somewhat unacceptable and I feel, as much as it's difficult to say to myself, I need to focus.

On a good note, I cranked out some emails to Columbia and University of Wisconsin Madison doctoral program leaders and created a somewhat feasible timeline for the beforeidieiwantto project.

I went to an incredible dance performance last night and although it took Linn and I a bit longer than we anticipated to get there, it was quite magical. The music was progressive and uplifting, the space was incredible, open air with water in the background, a amphitheatre sitting area and being able to sit outside under the stars, with kids playing and laughing happily in the background, surrounded by diverse people into art made it easier to breath. It made me love this city and the walk back to Altamira past Park Del Este where I'd ran earlier on in the day and the perfect 70 degree weather evening after the afternoon rain.. It's a place where even though the government sometimes makes things more difficult it also helps things come alive particularly with art and culture and health. And, coming from Dubai, where there weren't spaces to organize publicly, it's so great

I just keep thinking about the segments from the story that I read to my kids at the beginning of the year "On Beyond Zebra" by Dr. Seuss, how simple stories parallel our lives and should give us the patience to continue particularly when we read them again to laugh.