A few nights ago in Mindo, the moon was full. That night, in the tiny jungle-town in the clouds with its streets crumbling, children playing on dust piles with wooden crosses, huge colorful birds painted on every city wall, the people danced in the streets under the moon. Kathleen, Christen, and I were dragged by our taxi drivers and zip lining guides from party to party, but for some reason I kept getting caught dancing with a sixteen year old who wouldn´t take no for an answer. This has become a joke that doesn´t get old. We danced until midnight and drank firewater out of a plastic bottle but were home like Cinderella at midnight. NOTE: ¨uno mas¨does not mean ¨one more¨. In Ecuador, it means ¨infinity.¨
The children here are inspiring. The next night, Christen and I decided to eat Ecuadorian food while the others had pizza. We turned down the market street to find a random bonfire ablaze in the middle of the road under the stars hidden by Mindo clouds. The artisans of the village were playing the flute, the drums, and some kind of plumbing pipe. The music seemed to incense the children to be daring and fearless; the game was to jump over the flames as many times as possible without getting burned. They were laughing and squealing with the kind of fear that is also exhiliration---the kind of exhiliration I felt when I hung upside down on a cable that connected two mountains while my arms dangled into the ravine below. We watched the children dance with the flames for 30 minutes until the fire turned to embers and smoke. Then we ate rice, beans, and yucca till our stomachs were as full as the moon.
The night of the street party, someone sent me an email, imagining how we were both sharing the moon from very different places, wondering if I were feeling as full as it was--full of inspiration, full of happiness, full of myself. Reading her words days later, my experience that night was suddenly enriched with the thought that we had shared that night, defied separation and sewed distastance together with that night-light in the sky.
In Mindo, our casts sewed together our experiences over the past three weeks ---into two short performances. We created something general out of something specific, stories full of details that would never have existed without support, without an impulse, without desire. A question was raised in one of the pieces: why share these specific experiences? Will anyone but us get it? I wondered briefly if my blogs might evoke a similar alienation.
The Yellow cast´s piece ended with words that made me cry, for it justified precisely why sharing this adventure is important. The final words captured precisely why I am here in Ecuador, why I am blogging and why the moon deepens our collective nights:
¨. . . in those quiet moments when we are alone together there will be more life between us, more shared understanding to tie us together and we will no longer be solitary beings walking around stuffed with their own memories, but rather people who are attached . . .¨ -Regina GibsonWhen we share our experiences via the details, we share the moon. We can feel connected to each other on a night that might easily be a lonely or solitary one. When we choose to share our moments and adventures we braid pieces of our lives together. We can never share one life completely with another person let alone with everyone, but by sharing when we can the details, by telling our stories, we enrich our love for and understanding of each other; we create a moon of our own.
Juliet says the moon is inconstant. I think rather it is perfectly constant--a constantly changing constancy. The Blue cast´s piece (our piece) explored a woman´s desire for a life of her own, permanent impermanence, passion, and freedom. Emerson said that a ¨zig zag line of a hundred tacks¨ is straight at a distance. We will all change. We will all grow, and we will all die. Who knows what beyond that. I think we continue to evolve. I think we enter another phase of the moon.
I leave Ecuador tomorrow morning. I have exactly 15 hours left in Quito, and yes, I am choosing to blog. I feel inspired by this country and you. Yes, all of you who read this and follow along with me, those who have directly and indirectly made this incredible journey what it is and what it will be as I take so many habits, lessons, ideas back to New York, where after a month or so the moon will be full again. Who will share it with me then?
Sheila Kelley's S Factor New York
