Whoa

Wow, OK. So I’m not really sure how to start today. First, sorry I’ve been gone so long! I’m hoping to post every couple of days but this week has been NUTS. Nuts, really… and every time I started to write it just couldn’t come close to what I was feeling. Yesterday marked exactly a week since I arrived in Santiago. Besides a long spell of loneliness yesterday while I was sitting all by myself on a perfect afternoon in a beautiful old park while pairs of friends and lovers and the cutest families walked around me (blah, that sucked), I've been feeling really strong and even kicking butt a little bit.

I went into commando-kelly "survival" mode last Monday… intently searching for a temporary space to unpack my bags for a couple weeks, scouring for a more permanent one to start building a little life here, trying to buy a cell phone (an absolute essential here), buzzing off to meetings at the NESsT office to finalize my responsibilities, sifting through the sea of Spanish schools, orienting myself to the Metro and trying my luck on the Micros (deathbuses – yikes!), and more than anything wandering around the city hoping to find a tiny glimmer of where exactly I might find MY place in this humungous metropolis.

I am a huge HUGE believer in vibe - in that gut feeling that you cant describe, even to yourself but for some reason things are RIGHT. I can think of a hundred examples but you know what I mean, right? Like all these pieces that are floating around in the universe suddenly slide into place and BAM it’s all very clear. And it’s just good. Serendipity, Symmetry, Fate. Whatever it is, I’ve tried very hard to surrender to it… not in a hippie weirdo way but when I let go and just let things happen or take a leap in the direction that FEELS right (thought not necessarily the easiest way to go) it works in very magical ways. Which makes me think that there is some method to the madness and randomness of life but that’s a whole other discussion. Probably a whole other blog.

I’m not sure if I can explain it very well but... from the beginning my move to Chile has felt much different from all of my other travels. I think its been a long time coming and once I put it in motion and decided I was going to go for it - more than a year ago now - incredible doors have opened (sometimes with a little more force on my part ☺). It has felt like a big wave, building and gaining an incredible amount of energy as it all comes together piece by piece. There is something inside of me this time that has been very still, very calm and focused and unafraid, not even nervous, really. It’s a great feeling, not one that I’m used to – this “calmness”. But I’ve decided to trust it and plow ahead, pulling on the small threads that seem right even when the minutia seems to not be working.

So getting to the point of this entry (I hope you don’t mind we took the long way here) today has been one of those BAM! Whoo Hoo! YAY! days. I’ll explain… I’ve been doing a lot of “wandering” as I mentioned before – checking things out, let it all sink in, trying to keep an open mind, putting my feelers out. My third day, I stumbled upon this great little neighborhood called ‘Lastarria’ which is tucked in between Parque Forestal (Forrest! Yay!), Museo de Bellas Artes, 2 Universities, and has so much personality – little street cafes, Turkish bakeries, winding pedestrian walkways that dead end into gardens, music clubs, eclectic record stores, old bookstores, tons of tiny shops with shiny, funky stuff, young fun interesting looking people walking in the street. Over this week its become almost a sanctuary for me… trees, dogs, bicycles, people doing that crazy Brazilian capoeira thing and playing music in the park… but everywhere – EVERYWHERE - I looked (and I was being industrious as hell) it seemed impossible to find any kind of room rental anywhere close to this special place. I was bummed and thought maybe I should go door-to-door and shop-to-shop to see if anyone knew of a room because THIS place was IT. I never got up the nerve to go that far but I might have… IF TODAY IT HADN’T LANDED IN MY LAP.

I was on the internet at school after my first day of Spanish classes (which were awesome) and searching AGAIN for housing when one of the teachers, Christian, asks me to hang around for a bit because he knows of a girl looking for a roommate in the Bella Vista neighborhood. Bella Vista, I thought… not what I want, but I had seen so many CRAPPY rooms for way too much money, I figured I’d wait 20 minutes and if she didn’t show I’d hit the pavement again. Suddenly this beautiful girl comes blowing down the hallway and into the computer lab and exclaims “Kelly!” I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before but it turns out she overheard me talking to Christian last week about my apartment search and asked him about me. We went to talk about the flat she was about to move into, and it just so happens she is looking for a third roommate – her excitement about the place was contagious and it turns out it wasn’t in Bella Vista but the EXACT street that I had been so drawn to in Lastarria, a barrio of a couple square blocks and the one place in the city (of 5 million people and infinite geographical possibilities) where I got the best feeling – that “vibe”. Craziness. I visited the building today – which is beautiful – but wasn’t able to go up to the apartment because the current tenants weren’t home.Tomorrow I have an appointment to go up and actually see it.

There’s more, but this is getting really long so I’ll save the rest. And I’ll let you know how tomorrow goes. Keep your fingers crossed!

Lots of love. K