Does the person create the journey or does the journey create the person?

My passport finally arrived in the mail today, complete with a visa from Brazil. I am leaving in five days and only now does it seem real. For anyone who does not know, the fact that Brazil granted me a visa is somewhat of a miracle. In 2002, I was given 90 days in Brazil, which I renewed for another 90 days, which went all too quickly. Soon I was racking up a fine, somewhere around $3 a day, until I hit the max around $220. I left the country via a very small town on the Paraguayan border, called Ponta Pora, after almost a year in Brazil. The man who stamped my passport asked me to pay the fine and fill out some paperwork. I explained that I was a poor artist and of course, did not have the money, so the man had me fill out the paperwork anyways and told me I would need to pay the fine if I wanted to return. Well, I did return, but I never stopped in immigration, and I stayed almost another year before returning to the Paraguayan border. One unseasonably cold morning, I walked to Brazilian immigration on the Ponte da Amizade (ironically enough, the Friendship Bridge) with a "floating" passport (I hadn't technically been anywhere for a year). The officer fumbled with the computer, which apparently refused to turn on, then looked around for other officials, opened my passport and gave me 90 days in Brazil. I walked away as quickly as possible. Low and behold, the 90 days were soon up and the immigration officials in the north of Brazil refused to renew my stay for another 90 days, so I was soon racking up a second fine. When I did leave the country, on an airplane to the United States, I was greeted by a border agent who quickly noticed my situation. I begged for him to please just let me go home, that I had no money. The man looked at me, standing there with my cello in a state of disarray, and shuffled me through, explaining that I would need to pay the fine before I returned. So when I sent in my passport for a new visa, I wasn't sure what I would get back, but I figured it might be somewhere along the lines of a bill and a giant red REJECTION stamp in my passport. And yesterday, six days before I leave, my passport arrives in the mail with a brand new visa, valid for five years. Sometimes, you just don't know what might happen. Just goes to show that you can't assume anything.

And now... I pack. Packing is a strange task. It takes me through a process where my life becomes organized into a small bag; all the fluff gets left behind and everything that comes along means something. Four months, one bag, one cello, and who knows where I might end up. And I stopped to think about the question: Does the person create the journey or does the journey create the person? I've been imagining this great, yet somewhat vague, itinerary in my mind of the places that I would like to go on this trip, and in the past days I've been watching a story unfold about conflict in the Peruvian Amazon, one place I had hoped to visit. The government is selling sacred land, the Indians protest, the government kills the Indians, and transportation across this part of the country is cut off. A tragic story, really, but a very real daily struggle for people who live off the land in Latin America. And I realize that I am but a speck, and I have very little control over what happens on a daily basis, much less what will happen on this journey. My left brain says that neither the journey nor the person or created, because nothing is ever created or destroyed. Things are shaped, they evolve and as a human, we react, change our perspective, adapt our actions. And that is the beauty in the journey... the unknown, the mystery that greets every day, a person who crosses your path just because you forgot something and had to turn around, a smell that your nose chases across town, a hummingbird outside the window. Sometimes, when life starts to get monotonous, easy and predictable, that beauty goes unnoticed or unappreciated. Strangely enough, that is also when it is hardest to leave, but when the rewards are greatest.

It has been a crazy year in the States... I finally graduated from college after a challenging semester of little sleep and student teaching and then I got to spend some much needed time with my sister and brother who live on the other side of the country. I guess I just want everyone to know that I leave here all the time because the challenge of being somewhere foreign, on my own, allows me to learn new things about myself and life that I couldn't necessarily learn here at home. I do love you all though, and all the people that I spend time with have an important role in making me who I am. So, if you think I'm totally crazy for leaving all the time, or even if you are just curious, I recommend that you come visit, see a different world firsthand, put yourself in someone else's shoes, dance to a different tune, breath different air, and just notice how grand the beauty of the human spirit truly is. And if you can't visit, I hope that you'll at least keep up with my posts, which I will try my best to keep up to date, and send me a note from time to time. Just remember, a lot happens in a day, often so many things, or such indescribable things, that this is only a feeble attempt to leave you all with a small glance...

And on that note, here are some beautiful moments from the U. S. of A.