Oh colombia.
How little do I know u but oh Colombia, how good you are at leaving an impression.
This conference, a gathering of powerful women and colored eyeglasses, no not just colored but every structured, as though one should start at the eyes when breaking through paradigms.
Oh Colombia, I spend hours upon days wishing my ass away… until I visit u, where having an ass is a thing. I fit right in, my shirt gets shorter, my jeans, always tight, feel like they are supposed to be.
Ur clothes.. patterned, vibrant, flamboyant and loud like your people sometimes.
This is the land where I found my first and only pair of zebra striped dress pants. I was brave enough to wear them only three times in my life. My mother, with dementia, sends me the picture every week and reminds me that it is her favorite one.
My taxi driver, hot on his horn today. Neither I nor the older man on the motorcycle who is now lecturing him in the window, can figure out why. The kid doesn’t bother to respond, a mix of youth angst, insolence and assurance emanating from the low on his ears black gangsta hat, slitted eyes and permanent scowl.
The green, forever green of your streetsides and mountainsides. Today I marvelled at the grassy river walk as we barreled along the highway, although my wonder was interrupted twice by men’s backsides peeing in the trees.
Amor, linda, mamacita, … how many ways can i be called love? Modern feminists might suggest that I am being minimized, objectified or some other version of less than, but I just feel a little welling of sweetness when a random person calls me by loves’ name.
The fruit. An embodiment of the country itself; abundant, of every kind, colorful, surprising.. Even when issuing warnings to keep your cell phone hidden, “no das papaya” they admonish me. It is the fruit that you use to symbolize your richness.
Oh Medellin, how far you have come. To imagine that only 20 years ago it was impossible to walk your streets and be sure to come home alive. Today, French croissants, Italian pizzerias, and digital nomad cafes on every corner. I notice the difference in muscle memory in certain people, the locked gated entry to the papeleria. It seems oddly overdone in this tourist happy place and yet, who are any of us to know how it was? The vibrancy lost, now regained, I wonder about the resiliency of your people to have stepped through such a moment and into this present one.
Oh Colombia.