Journals

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These are some exerpts from my journal when I was alone in Quito (some of it is stream of conciousness, so it´s not all going to make sense)...

FRAGMENTS

The smell of urine and garbage and rotting things, the stench hanging. Dirty clothes out to dry, the mysterious breezes of the city. It seems that there´s all kinds of people in this park. In the distance I see a red and blue pile that I think is people... someone lying down, someone sitting up. The grass is perfectly mowed, with trees places strategically. I like the familiarity of sitting amongst man made nature watching the people go by... wow, a dude just walked by in a baseball cap with baloons in his ass and chest area. He´s sporting a traditional looking bag and walking non chalantly. I can´t help but notice that I´m the only woman sitting unaccompanied here, not laid out with a guy´s arm wrapped around me. Dude with the orange shirt is checking me out for the second time, definitely can feel the need for heightened caution being alone, even though i want to, I can´t just lie down and fall asleep on this grass. Blue jumpsuit man peeing on a tree, glancing around before he finishes, wiping his hands on the blue fabric indiscretely, combing down his hair like you would if you were about to meet someone who wanted to impress. There´s an old woman wandering around the fringes of the park. I can´t see her face, only the way her body hunches slightly when she stops repeatedly in front of the same tree... she stoops slightly as if she´s being reprimanded, shamed or embarassed by something. I just told a man that i did not believe in the bible, he´s moved over to someone else now, book open quoting passages passionately. The guy he´s reading to is examining his fingernails.


I´m in a completely random situation, which I guess is the root of travelling. I´m some house, in a gated community way outside of Quito, it´s beautifully decorated and the people are nice, but I don´t want to be here. I feel like I willingly bussed myself away from the hustle bustle of the city that was inspiring me in the first place. I can feel my eyes in their sockets, aching slightly. They left for the night, I watched the girls get ready and listened as the gates opened and they drove away to the city in a white SUV. What am i doing here? I am now alone in the house, with not another human in sight. In some ways it feels good, but also pretty creepy, being in a ghost suburb of Ecuador with dogs barking and strange noises. This place feels more threatening then many of the crazy markets, or sketchy neighbourhoods I´ve stayed in... It doesn´t feel like people LIVE here, wrather, that they´re buried somewhere, deep within the bowels of identical houses. Who are these gates keeping out? There´s no people in the streets.


A couple sits in the back of a truck, heads crouched low peering into the sun. Her bright colored shawl contrasts the gray of the road, she´s frozen in time with her wistful eyes. She´s been painted before, by artists trying wade through history and make sense of things. She´s a replication, and the passers by can´t tell the difference between her and the others, wearing the same clothes, for many INDIGENOUS is as far as they´ll go. Seeing only what they´ve glimpsed in the souvenir stores. Spanning all cultures and borders is the plight of her people, who line the streets in a variety of wares, sitting in the shadows and underneath buildings, adorned with gold and reeking of Spain. (For anyone interested in some ecuadorian art check out Camilo Egas)


Feeling the free flow of everything that wants to enter. The eyes of the stranger in the bathroom, a brief moment of unrecognizeable terror. I´m asleep with my ears plugged to keep it that way... wake up world. Bright colors peeking out of city streets, dirty skin and bright velvet capes. Fuscha and Emerald like fairies of the cobblestone, descended from the hills and fields of grass. Yelling with voices that spread and seep into the pores of the street, like the echo from a microphone, an external voice recording yelling SANDILLA, SANDILLA. you can´t judge authenticity, don´t box people if you yourself resent the boxes. Everything is authentic. Get up and go from your little houses and sing. Fill the plaza with a noise so foul it crumbles the paint, white and shiny, shimmering in the sun. Make notes obscure and running, running off the pages to another century...where people had power, don´t kid yourself, it was never like that. Look at the water and taste the blood, let it rip through your intestines and knot them up... Insanity, Insanity, where´s your hope? What about all those people who reach out their hands even when they don´t have the time, polishing their shoes with your indiscretion and my love. My love, that hides within a heart that I closed by accident, wandering absent mindedly and leaving the key in the room, it waits on the bed until the day when I remeber how to find my way home.

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