The darkness

"Art comes from joy and pain... but mostly from pain." -Edvard Munch

I find this to be true whether the art form is musical, visual, or -- in my case -- written. And so, from the darkest I've felt in our time in Chile, I resurrect por fin my long neglected blog.

I write from a place of loneliness, this an attempt perhaps to connect in a way that I haven't been successful at in my adopted country. It has been difficult to put delicately in words exactly what is driving me right now without sounding like I'm complaining-- I'm not aiming to blame anyone or anything, but the truth is that our lifestyle is deeply unstable and makes it extremely difficult to sustain connections with anyone or any place. A great deal of this is owing to the geography of Chile: because everything has to happen in Santiago and our home is not in Santiago, it requires frequent trips into town. Because getting anything done is an exhausting and tedious task, trips tend to be overnight or longer. And because these trips happen with relative frequency, we generally don't sleep in the same house for longer than a week at a time.

In an attempt for greater stability, I've tried minimizing my trips into Santiago but that has led to the isolation which I now am currently facing. Wake up, become slave to three-year-old, wave hello to the husband who passes through between work and bed, sleep, repeat. Business has been incredibly stressful. Imposing a 180 degree change on an industry is no small task, not even counting the whole doing-business-in-a-foreign-culture thing. Nick and I both have found it difficult at many times to understand why business works the way it does here and to stick with our guns in insisting we want things done our way. Being in charge and being change is isolating itself.

So, dear reader, I reach out to you. Let me connect, let me show you, let me hear you.