With my daughter’s permission, I reprint below the beginning of a series from her blog. I think you will like this series over the next couple of days as much as I have. It will give you an insight into the land where we lived for a decade and where our daughters spent a good part of their childhood.
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The Call
The following is a reprint of some of my writing from years back. I was very homesick at the time and it turned into a series of short snapshots. There are a couple of installments, I’ll post them bit by bit. Hope you enjoy!
Shhh… can you hear it? They’re calling. Be still for a moment… can you feel their call pulsing through your blood? Like a heartbeat foreign to your own, on it’s own steady rhythm, millions of years old, it’s calling you back. Pulling you in with a string that was attached without your knowledge, it will catch you at a time when you least expect it. In the middle of your busy life, with all the sounds of your hectic existence going on around you, pause but for a second and all of a sudden you will realize the pulse is there.
Their call is like a live creature, it has a mind of its own. It lurks in the background, waiting for you to realize that something is there, and once you have, it pounces. Stronger and stronger it grows, singing through your entire being, vibrating, twisting, pulsating, showing you everything that could be, that was, and that you no longer have, making you wish you still had it, or that you could go back. Be careful where you pause, the call has never bothered with decorum. It will leave you aching and despondent in the middle of a meeting, a class, a date, a walk, or just in the middle of your room. At the same time, what a glorious call it is! I should warn you, the ache does not come from this pulsating creature, but from having to deny it. So again, be careful where you pause.
But what is this? You say you have never heard this exquisite sound? Perhaps you have never been close enough for the string to be attached. Or perhaps no one has brought the string close enough to you. Close your eyes… shall we travel? I will take you to this far away land from whence originates their call. Pause from your daily life and settle down for a moment. Put aside all your busy chaotic thoughts and come with me to a place older than old. Close your eyes and let me paint you a picture.
Halfway around the world lays a land that laughs at us. Laughs at creatures who think that two hundred years is a long time. That in two hundred years you can form greatness. What are a paltry two hundred years when compared to thousands of years? What kind of culture can you form in two hundred years that could stand up for one honest moment against the intricate beauty of one that has been in formation for more than 20 times that length? A simple wink conspires to be greater than a gaze. Beauty against grandeur. Will you not laugh too?
So let us begin our journey to this enchanting land… Let us go to this place where the exotic is an everyday experience and every day experiences are exotic. Let us go to this place where the ancient and modern worlds meet and coexist. Stop the clock and relax. For just a moment, let us become someone we are not, or in some cases, become again that which we are. Can you hear the drums? Can you hear the reed pipes? Can you feel your blood begin to stir in response to them? Close your eyes… let me paint you a picture of South America…
[Part two is “The Mountains”. Meanwhile, may I suggest this group?]
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