A World of Change
Lima, Peru
There are times when the beginning of a new adventure to an unfamiliar country are full of excitement and saturated with anticipation. Such were my early travels to distant places like China and Japan. I remember being undaunted by the 56 hours it took to get to Beijing some years ago, notwithstanding the detour including an unexpected night in Hawaii, followed by the fourteen hours in a shared overnight train car with complete strangers smoking and playing mahjong through the late hours to get to the remote mountains of Shandong province.
Other journeys begin with the ease of slipping into a favorite pair of socks. These are the recollections I have of my many comings and goings to Costa Rica, where the tranquilo energy of the pura vida way of life met me upon my arrival at the airport. Soaking into a simpler rhythm of life was almost instantaneous.
My recent arrival into South America and Peru at dawn on New Year’s day was a bit more abrupt and jarring. Maybe it was the multiple brushes with death in the Uber ride from the airport into the chaotic Lima traffic. I have experienced culture shock many times in my life before, going all the way back to my earliest experiences in Southeast Asia where I spent a summer living and doing mission work. Washing laundry beside a river while dead animals float by is one form of culture shock.
Latin America is no exception. For some reason this particular arrival into Lima at 5 am on the first day of the new year was particularly abrupt and disorienting. I am only beginning to slowly find my balance and return to my center after three weeks since arriving.
Perhaps it was due to the four months I spent enjoying all of the modern comforts of life in the U.S., the comfortable bed, the warm showers and all the familiar foods I began to once again get just a little too fat and used to were suddenly stripped away in the blink of an eye. In one overnight flight I went from all the modern conveniences of the first world to the contrast of daily life in South America, a place where the vast majority of people struggle just to get by from one day to another. I went from being surrounded by Teslas in traffic to children walking up to the car to sell candy for a coin or two.
Although my re-entry has been a challenge to my sensibilities, it could be argued that this sense of jarring disorientation is now the world that we all live in. From my experience, it is all once again a transformation of perspective and this is where the real growth always takes place.
As many are now being forced to learn, especially those of us who are Americans and have grown accustomed to living the good and easy life, through jarring and abrupt changes the perceived reality of the world we knew has been an illusion all along and our idea that we once had of the world is being dismantled right before our very eyes.
This is what my travels and experiences of other cultures has shown me again and again.
As the world now changes rapidly before our very eyes, perhaps moving through the world lightly with my handful of possessions is the most peaceful way to travel.
Along the journey, I always carry hope.
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Zen and Ink Journals represents hundreds of hours of writing over the past decade, sometimes from a train in remote China or a coffee shop in Kyoto, a hammock in Costa Rica or a simple cabin on a mountaintop in Boquete, Panama , Ciudad Colón or Cusco, Peru.
On these pages, I share my observations of kindness and beauty from my adventures in the world and invite you to listen quietly for the call within you to explore the places that beckon your soul.
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