Torres del Paine National Park awoke splendidly to the new year. Fairytale cloud castles, and lo! the towers. It's been such an honor to live in the shadow of these iconic granite spires... Today they appeared to me as the sweet craggy cores of carrots, but then they morphed into opaque amber, then pencil lead. There are a shit ton of poems in those hunks of rock, and you can't help but be a little reverent.
Christmas has passed here in the park, and now the new year too. On the night of Christmas Eve a crew of Chilean search and rescue workers yelled, "Gringos! Vecinos!", invited us to partake of their wine, and smashed a birthday cake (which they just happened to have with them) into my face. It was beautiful. The sun beat down on my tent on Christmas morning, we played cards in the grass, and since then the universe has given me many presents.
My last week of work in the park has included a disproportionate amount of time wearing a jumpsuit and a Santa hat. We've sung carols about the principles of Leave no Trace to passing hikers, decorated a Christmas tree, made wooden signs that tell people not to feed the marauding foxes, dug trenches, and moved boulders. For the new year we painted silly masks orange and told one another beautiful stories of 2010 (popcorn style). A small herd of sheep was crucified for the consumption of the hotel staff, I laughed so hard I cried as I helped wash dishes in the kitchen, and I proposed to a cloud.
We the volunteers decided that our motto for 2011 is "It's gonna be fine." Because it will be. The unknown course of my life can be terrifying, but there are moments when I love the panoply of possible futures that I might one day call mine. So ring, 2011! Ring! There's a whole year to live before the apocalypse, and it's gonna be fine.
Tonight, at 11:11 PM, on the night of 1/11/11, go out and ring a bell, or sing a song to the stars. I will, too, and I will think of you.
ReplyDeleteLove, Grandma Peggy