The Land of the Free

"Because you get what you pay for. Pay a lot of money and you get an expensive life. Take what's free and you get freedom."

- Off the Map, Crimethinc

As plans often do, the idea of staying in Chihuahua to start a Food Not Bombs group changed.
I found myself pulled once again towards the North, in what felt like a long, confusing Dejavu.
Partially, my coming back to the States had to do with a movie project. My friend Jack and I have been writing a feature film for a year now, and we celebrated our creative partnership in Memphis, working hard on putting together a bunch of documents to start applying for funding. We are hoping everything will come together next year and we will be able to make this dream come true.

But really, what has been mostly going on in my life is a love story, and although I usually don't write much about that, I couldn't possibly start writing about my time in the States without a proper introduction.

I met Adam on November 2nd in Coban, Guatemala. I had gone to town that day with my dear friends Maureen, Sam and Brian to get supplies and indulge in some Babylon's pleasures, but we ended up getting stuck in town looking for some rope and mats to set up our camp at Rainbow. So we decided to stay for the night in the Fire Station, as I always do. Walking around the street of the city we met an American girl and an Argentinean guy who looked like they were also going to Rainbow and have them join our crew. We sang songs loudly, navigating the streets looking for food and celebrating the official beginning of the Rainbow Gathering.
Right when we were getting ready to go to sleep we found Adam, a barefoot gringo with dreads and toe tattoos who looked absolutely lost: totally! Another Rainbow kid! The seven of us slept in the fire station and the seven of us hitchhiked together back to Rainbow land the day after.
I didn't hang out so much with Adam during that gathering. He was intimidated by the fast speaking Spanish of the Spanish School Camp and although he grew up in LA and San Diego area, his Spanish was absolutely disastrous. He would still come over and sit quietly with us, making a big effort to understand when Alejandra and I looked at him and asked slowly: "¿De dónde eres?"

I left the gathering in Guatemala for a short visit in Mexico City in which I met up with Jack to write our script and attend to a movie premiere.
I broke a personal hitchhiking record, from La Libertad (right by the border of Guatemala and Mexico) to Mexico City in just 36 hours. Around 900 km! The trip did require me sleeping on the cold concrete floor of the machine room of a gas station in the State of Puebla, and after that cold, cold night and such an exhausting trip, I got terribly sick. My friends Ximena and Jack took wonderful care of me, and in the short periods that I could stay awake we would write. My body was in absolute pain, not allowing me to even move my neck. I didn't want to eat anything and I had fever. I thought maybe it was malaria, but the fever was not bad enough. Jack had a ticket to go back to New York and I really wanted to get better, so I decided to try to take an antibiotic. It was awful. I hadn't taken any medicine in years, and my weaken body broke down on uncontrollable shivering and I puked. My friends decided I had to go to the hospital, but I refused. I would see no doctors. They finally convinced me to go to the acupuncturist, which sounded a bit more acceptable. The acupuncturist asked me a few questions about my family and after I relaxed enough I told him about not talking to my father in such a long time and missing my mom, but seeing her rarely. He put the needles on me and told me I was about to start a very different stage in my life, but before starting, I really needed to go back home and thank my parents for the biggest gift I had ever been given: Life.
I didn't think i felt better after the needles, but I still didn't want to go the hospital, so I begged Ximena and Jack to just take me back home and let me sleep. That's what they did. I slept for a few hours and woke up feeling well, a lot stronger, and even decided to go out to the premiere of Post Tenebras Lux, Reygadas' new movie, which Jack and I had been talking about for ages.
The day after I wrote a long email to my dad.

After that week long visit to Mexico City, Jack flew back to New York. I met up with my sister Minerva for a few days, did a little film gig, and met a hitchhiking partner to go to the Rainbow Gathering in Palenque. While I was in Guatemala I told everyone I didn't want to go to Palenque because it sounded like a crazy touristic end of the wold mess, but while in Mexico City I felt so called to go back! In my fever deliriums I would listen to the food circle songs and dream of all those paited faces dancing by the fire.

When I arrived to the gathering the only familiar face I found was Adam's. He had a red dot painted like a third eye in his forehead and his big, clear blue eyes opened wide when he saw me. We embraced and talked for a few minutes.
Since that day, we kept running into each other at the gathering and we started spending more and more time together. We fell in love under the stars, listening to the Hopi prophecies of the New Era and looking at the star that shinned blue and red close to the horizon.
We slept together under a tree in the rain and held hands while Oming our way through the gathers of the ruins on December 21st. He told me about being sick with the same symptoms than me, at the same time, when he was in Guatemala, and having a strange vision about going to China, changing his life and shaving his head.

A few days later he flew back to California for his mom's wedding and he promised to come back down to Chihuahua a month later to see me, but we were both left with a taste of uncertainty and I repeated to myself one of my favorite Camus' quotes: "There is no noble love but the one who recognizes itself to be both short-lived and exceptional." Oh well...

After the gathering I left with a hitchhiking caravan of 15, but found myself a few weeks later traveling only with my friends Sam and Arianna, who are truly my family at this point.
Together, we crossed the whole length of Mexico in a month.

February 1st came, and my hopes of seeing Adam again where starting to die that night, but then the phone rang and I heard his voice saying that he was in Chihuahua and he wondered how could he get to my house. Sam, Arianna and I went to meet him up and I haven't spend a single day away from him since then.

His traveling style is a bit new to me. He loves ridding freight trains and even though I have camped out many times before while traveling, I always had a tent. Adam considers tents unnecessary and thanks to his confidence I found myself truly sleeping in the street, truly under the sky for the first time, and I was amazed by the experience. We are really living in the world! Waking up and having no walls around us was surprisingly liberating. I rode my first train with him from New Orleans to Memphis, and I found myself constantly amused at his ability to always find good food for free. Nothing could stop this kid. He has been doing this since he was 16.

As usual, the States brings mixed feelings in my heart. On one hand, I constantly find people who are like minded, resourceful and motivated. On the other hand, the laws are beyond ridiculous and continue to get worse. Am I breathing too much air now? Oh, what do you mean I'm not allowed to sit on the sidewalk? Getting kicked out of places is common routine. I remember how Sam walked barefoot around Morelia and got many curious and weird looks, but we never got kicked out of anywhere. In the States most places will kick you out for not having shoes. And even if you're not doing anything wrong, even the concept of the "No Loitering" signs at every corner blows my mind. The basic idea seems to be: if you have no money, if you're not consuming, we don't want you to exist around here. It's hard for me to understand how this country prides itself on the slogan "Land of the free, home of the brave." Free... free food in the dumpsters! Free consumerism! So much consumerism that it allows even the homeless to be consumerists. I thought about that when we found 60 pounds of donuts in the dumpster and I realized... We are getting greedy! Definitely taking more than what we need.
People see two kids with backpacks sitting on the side of the road, playing guitar and we find ourselves a few dollars richer, well fed and ready for the next town. It's really interesting.

After hanging out in Memphis for almost two weeks we left towards Georgia to do Vipassana again. We crossed Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, facing storms, floods and even Christian concerts. People were almost always curious and friendly, and we had a really good time. And then the big surprise came.
Three days before starting Vipassana we were in Perry, Georgia and we found out we are going to have a baby!
Of course, it's a huge shock, but we are both happy and excited. These news bring a lot of new questions to our lives and as we sat outside of a Wal-Mart with our instruments, hugging each other and crying of happiness and confusion and excitement and fear, the whole world felt like it was changing around us.
Doing Vipassana after just finding out about my pregnancy was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. How can I focus on the moment, right now, when for the first time in my life I have to start thinking about the future? But it was definitely the best thing that I could have done at that moment. It helped me calm down, look inward, and allow my feelings to ripen in solitude and quietness.
Everything came full circle all of the sudden. The acupuncturist words, all the talks about the uprise of female energy in the new era, the random palm reading Adam and I got by a friendly Honduran in Katy, Texas, the Peace Pilgrim Pamphlet I found in New Orleans, Letters to a Young Poet... I don't remember exactly where I had just read about observing nature, and how the caterpillar never craves becoming a butterfly, but when the time is right, it just does. That's how I felt. Before going to Rainbow, the thought of having a child terrified me. My mind was full of impossibilities. I thought I would definitely have to stop traveling and I couldn't imagine raising a kid in such a confusing, crazy world. But then I met Meadow, a little 5 year old with a brilliant mind, who travels with her mom around the world. I also met Cornelia and Dennis, from Lithuania, who were hitchhiking with their 2 year old daughter through Cental America. And many other children and parents who were beautiful, smart, free and inspiring, being raised outside of society's conventions.

I realized the time is right now, and I although Adam and I might not have many material possessions or economical stability to offer a child right now, we can offer the freedom that we have gained in the past years, the freedom that comes from trusting the universe and knowing that despite the news, despite civilization and war and fear, there is still so much goodness, kindness and abundance out in the world. We know it's not gonna be easy, and we know many big changes will come, but we see it as a huge growth opportunity. We are gonna have a new little teacher.

We are making a lot of important decisions right now and we are happy to have each other and the many friends we keep finding on our way every day.
We are planning on getting married around August, probably in Montana, and we would love to have as many of our friends around for this celebration. So to all my dear, dear, dear friends around the world, if it's possible, I would love to see you guys at the end of the summer.