Fatherly advice from a friend, oh shit this is the end of the vacation. The start of life.

It came though the window, resting warmly upon my shoulders. It had grown warmer, each day seeming to last years more, each moment slowly passing with the gentle ease felt in this captivating valley. He sat next to me, his beard allowing thoughts that he might have endured more time than his thirty years. Breakfast rested newly in my stomach giving my legs no motivation to jostle and disturb the internal peace. Spring was over. Summer had forcefully overtaken the cool days and cold nights, and refurbished the climate with blistering heat. We sat with our backs to the large picnic table which sat noticeably in the corner of the log cabin. He sighed and rested his callused hands upon his knees and cast a glance somewhere in front of my feet.

"Well Joncito, Camp Puesco is ending" his gaze shifted to the side of my head. I looked toward the corner of my vision, an uncomfortable gaze of uncertainty.
 "And I don't want you to be completely dependent on me..." he continued his words came with a stalled flow of deep thought on how they should be phrased. "So you now maybe you want to find something else to do with your time here....I am not saying you have to leave, and don't think I am kicking you out or anything, cause I am not.....I am just saying that you should start to make a life for yourself apart from Camp Puesco..." his flow was interrupted by the distant laugh of the others in the cabin.

"Giving your son some fatherly advice?" came the jest of one of the guys washing the breakfast dishes.
"Yeah!" he said, his face quickly allowing a smile to steal his expression. "Get out there boy, and make me proud!"

Three days later I sat in an office. It was cold. She sat across from me dressed in a manner that showed nothing but professionalism. The room was bare except for files, and a certificate hanging in the corner. Void of any small trinket or picture to show a life apart from work. She checked over my paperwork, her eyes moving quickly but methodically. Her questions came suddenly and caused my heart to race, the impression of an interrogation hard to dismiss. I survived the inquiry, I was handed a paper, I was a legal worker in the Republic of Chile.

In the beginning, I was horrible. I stumbled through the foreign words of hunger. I fumbled my way over peoples heads, clumsy hands awkwardly trying not to spill orders. The worry of a contract terminated from my errors stifling my usually charismatic attitude. Two moths have rushed past. The memories they have given swirling in my head. Too many stories to be told, to many moments to be shared, too much change to be realized, and a slight improvement on waiting skills, a minor improvement on bartending abilities.

"How you doing man?" his accented words hit my half asleep ears, my brain furiously working to respond. "I am good, I was wondering if you have space today?" my hopeful words came slurring out. Each day is as though I play slots, pulling the lever hoping the four kayaks come swirling into my eyes, allowing me for a free day kayaking on the Trancura. "Yeah I think so" he says, a friend offering a chance to shoot up, a chance to obtain the fix, to stifle the inner junkie, to feel the current.

My dreams still cause mental exhaustion hard to ignore. I still feel frustration towards those I encounter. I still feel an inner turmoil when thoughts turn to the end, change, love. I still am the person I was, but I know now who I want to be. Who I can be. Who I shall strive to be. The vacation has been over for months now. Working 40hrs a week, kayaking, running, playing guitar, dancing, drinking, and laying in the searing sun on the black sand beaches, has become my life. Writing has become my passion, kayaking has stayed my love, and I still fall for ever girl I see, but as walk home from my favorite bar at 3 in the morning, my steps hardly straight, I smile as I turn onto my street, and close my eyes. Ears fill with the sounds of the night, the drunken Spanish, the yelling of intoxication, the distant rushing of a car, and remember the days of this time last year. I have traveled so far, with ever kilometer, learning something new, feeling more happiness.

This is the last HOLDYOURBREATHANDWAIT for the Summer (Winter if you are in the states) a special thanks to everyone who has impacted my life here.

LJ, Rob and Monica, Rodrigo, Marco, Richard, Todd, Pablo, and all the others friends I have found here.

The impact of Christmas

Everything went calm. The left of my chest ceased the rhythmic pressure of a rapid nature, and slowed to a eerie calm. Whites with deep blues rushed toward the surface, expelling pent up energy then vanishing to repeat the process. The warmth around me betrayed a different season than I was used to celebrating this day on. Christmas was upon my thoughts, the holiday season far from the nostalgia of my youth. A mere couple meters away was a horizon. A horizon I had stared at twice before, with eyes wide from fear, thoughts calculating the probability of injures, lost gear, and anything which might impede future kayak trips. The thunder of the 21 meter drop below was evaporated and dissolved by a deep focus. A focus akin to the ancient struggle between man and the elements, his mother, his brother, and his enemy. My eyes stared at the eternal seam of bubbles, a guide to success. I took a last breath, and leaned to my left, the red of my kayak swerving into the oncoming rushing of water. Eyes locked forward to see the landing, arms moving separate from core keeping the line, body neutral, everything tense with anticipation. I felt the sudden dropping of water into the air, the mixing of the like minded molecules. My body on autopilot, my brain blank, absent of thought. As my landing dissipated from the focused eyes, wrist relaxed and the paddle took flight. I leaned forward abs burning from the strain, fingers clinging to the nose of the kayak, and sucked in the last breath before closing my eyes, and waiting. A horrid sensation overcame my body. The nose of my kayak had lifted from its piercing knife like angle, and now was threateningly flat. Fifty feet rushed by in a second an a half.
Impact.
Blackness.
A gasp of air.
"You just did a 70ft waterfall dude!" came the radio like voice of a good friend to foggy senses. My shoulder burned from the muscle memory of a hand roll. My head throbbed with extreme pressure. I blinked hard hoping to focus the scene around me. My neck felt weak as though it was supporting a bowling ball. I struggled to gain focus. Someone place my paddle in my hands. Someone else shoved a box of wine into my chest. I drank. The fiery blood red liquid seared my throat and stained my lips. The realization of what I had done hit me in one swelling wave. I let out a whoop which was swallowed by the amphitheater like walls. We paddled the run out. I scraped through shallow boulder gardens, and snaked past logs, the whole time a deep cold threatening my composure. I stumbled out of my kayak a few minutes later, shouldered it clumsily, and with the tentative steps of the inebriated started for the road. A mushroom cloud of dust rushed toward my face as I dropped my kayak on the gravel roadway. I unbuckled my helmet and took it off with a grimace of pain. My fingers crept toward my forehead. They came to rest upon a alien bump, the swelling spreading rapidly.
We drove home.
I cradled a beer in between my hands and allowed my lids to slid shut. Outside the window, hidden from my dazed position, the large green mountains watched out return to Pucon, a certain familiarity lost.
The swelling subsided.
The reality of what I had done did not intoxicate my brain, fill my lips with ego, or cloud my judgment. All it allowed for was a calm moment. My eyes relaxed, muscles receded from strain, and my thoughts wandered back to the moment. The moment of release. The moment of commitment, the moment of the absence of fear. The moment of waiting for the impact. The moment of waiting for the surface. The moments for which I live.