The Start of All Things

6/18/07, 9:47 P.M., Lima, Peru.
The end of the first day feels fine. I'm lying in my bed, exhausted from a day of touring Lima, talking in Spanish, meeting my program directors, and all of the other introductory activities that only Harvard could master.
Actually, I wouldn't expect them to master that at all. They would be horrible, really horrible at it. But, somehow, a few emerged from the darkness to lead us, lead us to freedom. Or just sweet introductory meetings on the ins and outs of Lima. Or freedom.
But as I lie here, I'm just feeling so very good. Expect for my allergies, I have passed through what I was most worried about--making my flights, getting to my host family's house, meeting the directors, speaking my first words of Spanish. All that is done. All things done, as Sufjan says, as he is my Itunes. Yeh, so now my computer is a human, as a result. How do you like that, a little inside information into Peru--computers evolve into human beings here. You wouldn't know unless you came.
It's peaceful, but I'm very tired from Bonaroo, the flight, my allergies, and moving in. But I want to put down my memories from the last few days, beginning with Saturday night. Because, as my mom always says, it is most important to stay focused on your transitions, so you don't lose anything.
Memories, or my passport. With this blog, I'll go two for two.
It began Saturday night, as Clif, Bradford, Mariah, and Mariah's dudimus maximus of a friend, and now our friend, Jordan, went to see Sting.
And let me tell you something, Sting Sucks. Holy crap, Sting is like really gay, like imagine gay, then imagine Troy Murrell's hairy butt, then mix that with a Superhero whose superpower is to have sex with dudes. That's how gay Sting is.
Roxanne, you don't have to turn off the ptttttttttttttthhhhh (fart noise). I send an PTHHH PTHHH PTTHH to the PTHHHHHH.
Sting sucks.
But, you know, I love Sting being gay.
Side note: You know how I know I'm gay?
Anyway, it gave us more time to see the Flaming Lips, but we would have had even more time if Mariah didn't pee on her leg. Eww, DISGUSTING!!!
But we got there, stormed the gates, and climbed over piles of strung out hippy nomads to reach row five at which stage? Which Stage! Get IT!!!??
Neither did we. It was a stinky joke that sucked. Almost as much as Sting.
Slam.
And it was the revolution we had been waiting for. We were abducted by aliens of awesomeness and taken to magical rock dreamland, with Wayne Coyne as a sage and god. He came to us in a shining clear orb, that looked like a hamster ball. And when he sang, "Do you realize?," we felt the transformation, to our future of goodness.
As we all looked at each other after, we were exhausted to the point where all Bradford could retardly stammer out, for 10 minutes as we walked back to camp, was a series of "Sting is SOOO Gay" or "Don't PTHHH, Don't PTHHH so close to me."
But other than these mutterings, we had no words.
It was such an amazing experience, just being there together and loving the music and the performance. As we fell asleep, on my last full day in the United States, we felt good. I felt good. As simple as that sounds, it expresses the sensation completely. It is something we all want to find, and when you do, you cherish it and experience it at that moment. It is nothing more, nothing less. But it is so significant.
It is the beginning of all things.
And it prepared Bradford, Clif and I for our Rock Crusade, our journey to Mecca--Wilco, main stage, Bonaroooooooooooo.
We got to the front of the stage, and as Tweedy grabbed his guitar, Nels riffed to begin "You Are My Face," and I stared up at perfection, we had arrived out our Paradise.
It was continued with the perfect harmony of "Walken", then completed as the first rock riff of "Spiders (Kidsmoke),"played, as Clif, Bradford and I stared at each other then sent our bodies immediately into the air, hair shaking, bodies going locos with momentum, continual energy streaming though each one of our faces, each with a distinct look of euphoria.
We left. We drove to Nashville, with Bradford leading us out in style as he booty-shaked, tweek-freaked, and nasty-danced beside our 'Burban, rolling on twenty-twos, listening to Outkast as a kid walked by in a red t-shirt, stumbling and yelling, "I don't know where I am." The irony was delicious--Bob Weir v. Outkast. Outkast 1, Bob Weir naked and throwing up somewhere in the middle of Tennessee (not Bob Weir, but that kid).
And my time in the U.S. ended in Nashville, as I grabbed my computer, ready to turn it off for the trip and finish packing to catch the 8:00 A.M. shuttle to the airport. But then I saw a note on the desktop. It said it loved me, it said to challenge myself, that growth comes through that alone, and it said to love great.
I wish everyone had the mind and heart that could produce such words.
And I was gone, to Lima, inspired. Gone to catch my flight out of Nashville, to Atlanta, to wait for five hours, to go to Peru, to wait for my bags for an hour, to find Danny (one of the directors who met me at the airport), to catch a cab, to meet my new mom, Elisa, and her husband, the kindest sixty-year old man I've ever met, Hernando, to unpack my bag, to lie in my bed, to go to sleep, to wake up for the beginning of the first great adventure of my life.