En Route

Thursday 2/8

We left the Alzar campus at 8:00am this morning. We split up, half on united, half on delta flights. I remember dreaming of this day. I’m flying above red rocks and mesas of the Colorado Plateau, my friend it’s been so long and I’ve never been so close to the Sal’s. I remember them, but only from a distance.

I am currently on a four hour flight to Atlanta, listening to seeing white, a podcast about white culture in America and systems of oppression. I’m anticipating the topics thinking I know a thing or two but I realize I benefit from some systems of oppression as well and seeing that in our day to day lives and how important it is to talk about them. I hope to inspire these kids to challenge themselves like that.

A full day until Chile, and daylight to spare for my goodbyes to some temporarily and some permanently.

Flying over Texas now… scanning the landscape for mountains.

Like Abbey’s seat from his shed in Arches

I see a meandering Colorado

snaking through mesas

The Sal’s are waiting like Buddah’s

A mobil being - moving

-Lauren

The blue is almost indigo, as it fades into green

The horizon is blurred, no shapes, just colors

Frosting the plains of Texas

All the way into the south

Sectioned off

Ownership is so easy to see from a birds eye view

The circumference and diameter of your power, your crop

I’m jumping into history

Cloudy milky yellow, lacking in sweet honey

The bees are searching for flora

But windmills and monoculture occupy these espacios

The land does not move in these geometric ways

But we continue to make lines – trails

-Lauren

10:36 pm Eastern Time

We’ve only been flying for a cumulative 6 hours but our flight to Santiago is 10. I’ve been reading a lot of poems from Neruda’s book of poems from Laura. A lot of them are about stones and I find my self gawking at the way he speaks of Chile and it’s stones. I’m ready for Chile.

El cuarzo abre los ojos en la nieve – Quartz opens it’s eyes in the snow – Neruda