The last day of 2010 started as a cold morning. My Mother watered her plants and listened to the radio out loud while I tried to write a few meaningful lines. “How do you imagine yourself in ten years from now?” she asked me but I couldn’t answer. Ten years ago I was in San Francisco with Pico. We bought red wigs and painted our nails silver to receive the New Year in style; I remember he was wearing a shirt with cow prints. After more then a year of leaving art and creativity behind, 2001 was a meaningful year of creative and self-rebirth, and Pico was a catalyst. That was the year I decided to move to New York, my last full year in Guadalajara. Today it’s been two weeks since I arrived home and I already feel a little nostalgic about leaving to New York on Monday. For some of us who live between two places, saying goodbye is the unforgiving routine that makes us question why we left, knowing that our innate need to satisfy the curiosity to explore a greater world and life, wouldn't have allowed us to stay. "You should consider getting married before your time is gone," an uncle said to me during Christmas, "you can't keep traveling for ever." What if I want to have both; is it possible? Life is too short, regardless if you decide to settle or not; regardless on how you spend it. Now, as 2011 starts, I try to guess where we’ll be in ten years, wondering if ten years ago we pictured ourselves as we are now.

Everything will be fine. I have a strong faith for even numbers.

In Loving Memory

"The day I met Brenda I was wearing my white boots and my hair was dyed; that is why she wanted to be my friend," Pico would say proudly to others. I choose him as a life mentor, and we were very close friends for over ten years. To him I was Princess Brenda, for me he was Pico Cometa. His studio in Alabama Street, at the Mission District of San Francisco, became one of my favorite places on earth; a place I always go back in my dreams. "He painted a blue shape on the courtyard's floor to resemble a swimming pool", I told my mother today. He will play his LP collection in the evenings and leave his door open for everyone to come along. I use to sit at his studio while he cooked pork-chile tacos and shared all his stories as an art student in Mexico City, his years in Wisconsin, his yearly travels to Quintana Roo and how he decided to become an artist. From him I understood the importance of being authentic and coherent. "Pico, whenever I have children, I want them to spend their summer vacations with you, I want them to learn from you there is another way of framing life, of living." The last time I saw him, me, my friend Helena and my colleague Javier went to his studio during a work trip to San Francisco and he played his collection of french and salsa records for us. The last time I talked to him was in May, he called one evening. "I found your phone number while cleaning my drawers and decided to call you Princess," he said, "you should come to San Francisco soon; there are many new stories I want to share with you." Pico knew how much I loved him and how important it was for me to have him as a friend. He showed me to see life in multiple colors, and for that I'll be forever grateful.

The big-city girl is dreaming about suburban life with chirping birds and fresh cut grass. Do you feel like pecan pie? A ride in the woods? The asphalt never touching your shoes? Wooden houses, autumn leaves, college football, shopping strips, silent nights and unlocked doors. Can we live our lives sitting in the porch?

Betsy, Pamela, Michelle, Connie and Marcela have asked me how I've managed to balance my life with so much travel. Colombia, Japan, Alabama, Washington DC in one month, with new possibilities for travel emerging each time I open my inbox . "You need to be somehow flexible to adapt to all these different contexts in such a short period of time". I do. A week ago I was flying back from an incredible and intense trip to Japan and now I'm in Alabama working and sharing life experiences with women from very different backgrounds than mine. As a "collector" of stories, I seldom get bored. Visiting a mall with Connie, drinking ginger tea in the porch with Pamela, or going to a spinning class with Betsy bring on their own, new perspectives to my life. "Didn't you get bored at the mall with Connie?" her husband, John, asked me over dinner. "I actually enjoyed it", I replied to his surprise. The only thing I didn't mention is that I felt homesick as I walked past the kitchenware section. Neither I mention that I had to call my mom to ask her if she thinks I will ever have a real home, a family, and a kitchen to buy dinnerware for.

"Look! That is the most beautiful color of tiles I've seen!" I exclaimed to Capuchi as we were exiting a subway station in Kyoto. "Why can't we have this color in the New York Subway?" Our guess was that in New York functionality rules over aesthetics, or even beauty. After spending some days visiting Japanese Buddhist temples I reaffirmed the idea that beauty and good design is not, neither has to be, superficial. Form is meaning coming to surface and the environment shapes your state of mind and being. "For a strange reason, we usually don't have good design in America", Capuchi concluded after taking my picture by the lilac-tile wall.

"Did you ever imagine we were going to be drinking a beer in Japan?" Capuchi asked me as we had dinner in Nagoya with partners from the Pacific Island States.

I didn't. Not even in my wildest dreams.

There is a giant water-bug in my bedroom but I'm too tired to even try to kill it. I started packing for Japan and still need to read a few scripts before going to bed and certainly before a meeting with the Alabama team tomorrow morning. I told my psychologist that life sometimes feels like a roller-coaster where new events keep happening one after the other without time to digest, reflect and fully absorb them. Victor came to visit last week; we went to a Roger Waters' concert, a half-marathon in Staten Island, a few dinners, brunch and spend some time staring to the ceiling in silence. Quality time. I also got promoted last week, opening the opportunity for growth and brining new challenges at the professional level. Doin' Time from Sublime is playing on Pandora, and as the with experience of watching Pink Floyd's The Wall live last week, it reminds me of where I came from, why I took certain life decisions, and how much I have grown in the past 10 years. Things, and we, do change.

I'm laying on bed recalling the ad-hoc party we organized at the grocery store in Anolaima, Colombia last week. We were back from an activity where the production team and actors of the radio drama collaborated with local authorities to clean a nearby community. The production team is very diverse, farmers, youth, local politicians, community leaders and children. We were all tired but nevertheless found a pretext to have a beer, dance to salsa and vallenato, celebrate the success of our cleaning efforts and the progress of the radio drama production. I had the chance to dance with Felipe, an eleven-year old boy from a nearby community who is by far my favorite child in the whole world. He is astonishingly smart, positive, and has the common sense of an octogenarian that has gone through it all. If I could make a bet on someone, he will be the one.

I'm now back in New York after working ten days in Colombia and spending the last few days with Santiago in Bogota. It is awesome to know that some friendships keep growing ad evolving even with time and distance. I'm also back in my house and bed after more than two weeks of couch surfing. There is still lots of fine dust all over and it will take a while for my room and house to look homey again.

Pieces of Bogota

Eating almojabanas and drinking panela after Sunday church.

Rainbow after a rainy afternoon as we drove to Usaquen.

Santiago's animation project, El Pequeño Tirano, on sale at local bookstores.

Daniel and I are watching the US Open men's final match between Nadal and Djokovic as we wait for Belen to arrive; her flight should be landing around 10:30 pm. I've been couch surfing for the past four days, and will continue to do so until I leave to Colombia on Friday. I feel bad for Belen as she'll be forced to couch surf with me even when she'll be getting the true New York-chaotic experience. "There is an age when couch surfing is no longer fun," Jorge told me during our production meeting today. My house is a mess, so I rather swallow the shame to ask my friends to host me for a few days. Holes in the walls and ceilings, and fine dust covers every surface. Last night as I was riding the subway to Capuchi's house carrying my bags wet from the rain and covered in white dust, I smiled to a man carrying a fishing pole and a bucket full with fresh fish he had just caught in Long Island City. New York is the kind of place where you can never go wrong; there will always be someone odder than you getting all the attention.