I.
We had stopped our bus for gas along our commute back from sea to city, when I noticed this man just yards from us, staring pensively at the lot from his soot covered shack. I thought it may have been the saddest site I’d ever seen and had to speak to him. The moment he heard my voice, he started laughing. I managed a conversation in Spanish, where he told me his dog had no eyes and his own didn’t work. I asked what he imagines he sees, staring out everyday. He said he knows it’s all cars but likes to think their motors are waves and that he lives in a cabana by the sea.
II.
We kayaked eight hours to reach this woman’s farm at the base of a Chilean mountain, simply to share a maté — a South American tea passed between a circle of friends. She talked about what it was like living completely alone in the world, living off her sheep and garden, and we spoke about our crowded cities. But even speaking the same language, we had only ever known our own versions of life and couldn’t quite find the words to string into a connection. That evening, peeling an orange by the fence while everyone else had begun pushing their boats into the lake, she invited me to live there for a few months and work on the farm, now or whenever. That was four years ago. Any time I find myself wedged in a crossroads — school, family, direction, questions — I often think of the moment I passed on her offer, got back in my canoe and drifted back into the current.
There is an island called Cabo Polonio off the coast of Uruguay with no running water, no electricity, just colorful handmade homes housing hippies who spend their days spinning dream catchers, rolling joints and pressing tropical fruit. At low tide, we trekked over from the mainland from daybreak from our research. We had been gathering data on the locals’ take on their country’s carbon footprint to later pitch to their government. Here, one of the island’s dwellers strokes his face, puzzled at the very idea of energy use.
Mainland, Wind Turbines
