I miss Laos. I missed it since I landed in Bangkok, and I've been missing it ever since. "It is hard to pinpoint what it is precisely," I tell my mother over the phone, "but there is something about Laos that makes it a beautiful and special place. I want to go back."  It is possibly a combination of the gentle nature of its people and the accidental landscape. It is the frugality combined with a clear sense for beauty. It may be the communist - buddhist way of living. Or the sight of people riding motorbikes as they hold colorful umbrellas; or the intense green of the rice fields; or the incense burning at every temple as monks dressed in orange clothes take care of the shrines dutifully; or the spicy meals combined with tam-tam-"ing" with Beer Lao and Lao-Lao. It is probably that during this trip and work sessions I laughed more than I have laughed in months, and that our partners took great care of us during our stay. Since my return to the US I have asked everyone the same question: "Can you believe I let a stranger take my passport from Xieng Khouang to Vientiane to process my Thai visa?" I guess in Laos I learned that you can actually let go and trust that things will be alright;  my passport was there a week later waiting at the Xien Khouang airport right before our flight. How can you bring some of what you have learned into your life? Do you think that the actual experience is enough to internalize and absorb the new perspectives? "Do not underestimate how much you actually learn or grow after each trip, even when you are not able to articulate it," I repeat to myself.  One insight after this trip - that I can't yet dare to mutter - revolves around the idea that probably living the simple/frugal life is the way to embrace complexity. As I struggle to write this coherently I remember how Khamdee, Sinthone and Mr. Maus taught us how to dance to Lao music.  Actually, who cares about complexity when you can dance and bump your hips once in a while.

- Where are you from?- Khamdee asked me to inform the waiter.
- I'm from Mexico- I replied.
- Is that in America?- the waiter asked; - is it part of the United States of America?
- No- I replied. - It is the country right below the US .
- Oh! I understand - he said before continuing with his duties.

I'm watching Cartoon Network in Thai even when I should be sound asleep by now. It took us 24 hours to get to Vientiane and now we are 12 hours ahead of our circadian cycle. "It is interesting when traveling this far feels so natural," I told Sean as we boarded the plane from Bangkok to Laos. Just a few moments earlier we bumped into Will at the airport on his way to Laos from Indonesia. A few months ago we also bumped into Will in Amsterdam when we were traveling together to Nigeria. "Laos will be a very unique place, a bit untouched by modernization" I recall reading a week earlier. "We are going to get noticed, in a good way," Sean says as we find our sits on the plane. "Do you think I might pass by Laotian?" I asked knowing the answer.  "We also eat spicy food in Mexico," I told Khamdee - our host - as we ate sticky rice and spicy sauce for dinner, but the concept of a Mexican or Hispanic identity means almost nothing in this context.

How do you choose the right words? It has been so long since my last post that I feel responsible to write something worth of such a long silence. It is not that for the past month nothing worth sharing happened. On the contrary;  it is that sometimes you just need a time off. Summer isn't over yet so I'm sweating as I write, which is a little unnerving.  I have new roommates at home and I met new friends, so as always life and who you share it with keeps changing. My Mom came to visit and for ten days we talked endlessly. "We should stop analyzing everything," she concluded after one of our lengthy conversations. "Can we just relax and let life do its part?" Immediately after we spent another hour analyzing why we were so analytical.  Truth is we sometimes force ourselves to have total clarity on what to do, where to go and how to do it. Total clarity is a myth. Is it? As I'm struggling with words here, Polina has brought her notes to the dinning table and is now working on one of her projects.  She sings without knowing that I'm writing about her singing; without knowing that for a moment her humming becomes the piece of inspiration.  Am I being too hard on myself by trying to write even when I don't feel like it? Or is it necessary to keep the writing going as an exercise of persistence and discipline. See? I'm already analyzing something that is not even worth discussing, not when I'm so tired and my only real inspiration is to go to bed.

A "beet-ing" heart

"No one owns an umbrella in Lima," I recall Javier saying long time ago. It is true. In Lima there is no rain, they have never experienced a thunderstorm, and they don't know what it means to hear the windows rumble to the vibration of thunder. "That is why no one cares to clean their rooftops," Johnny exclaimed as we stood by the window at Javier's apartment overlooking Callao. Humidity turns into garua, a permanent drizzle that penetrates your bones during winter time. Lima's grey sky lasts from March and until November when the horizon starts turning blue. "We say our sky looks like a donkey's belly; a solid grey," Javier says without any concern or apology to the sun-lovers. There is of course a romantic melancholy to this monochromatic state. As we drove from Callao to Miraflores we could see the islands that spread along the coast almost fade in the backdrop as the surfers along the beach were getting ready to ride the waves. In Miraflores all the high-rise buildings were covered by an intense fog and I couldn't stop singing that famous waltz inside my head. Déjame que te cuente limeño, ahora que aún perfuma el recuerdo, ahora que aún se mece en un sueño, el viejo puente, el rio y la alameda. For a moment I wished I had a story with a scent, a dream and an old bridge slowly covered by this fading fog.

Paula and I met at a gallery in Chelsea last week. Her work was selected as part of an art exhibition in which all pieces were produced in ceramic. “The curator owns a ceramic factory in Mexico, he called artists to submit ideas that could be produced in that medium,” she said while strolling around the gallery holding a glass full with tequila. After the opening we had diner at the classic New York City dinner on 9^th avenue. It’s been quite a few years since we last met; and even longer since we had a proper and inspiring conversation. Our most recent encounters had been mere coincidences, bumping into each other at art galleries and coffee shops in Mexico. Paula was my production and project-planning teacher in college, and since then our lives have been intertwined in all sorts of ways. She produced a documentary about Javier -my ex-boyfriend- and me as an example of a creative couple; the quasi-ideal love-work relationship, that broadcasted nationally in Mexico. “Am I crazy or I saw you on television?” Fidela asked every time I visited her at my grandmother’s house. Paula moved to New York in 2003 for six months to support my television project. In 2006 we stopped talking after she got into a relationship with Javier short after we had split up. It was by chance that in 2008, while in transit returning from London, we met at a waiting line at the Kennedy airport and were forced to face each other. No apologies were needed; at the end we both understand life as a complex network of lives and stories. I’ve always admired Paula’s devotion – almost obsessive – towards art and beauty. “These days I’ve been fully dedicated to Le Porc Shop,” she said before getting a piece of meatloaf into her mouth. A few years ago she created a furniture brand in an attempt to save the family business; her father had owned a furniture factory for years but cheaper imports from China consumed his market share. As Paula goes deeper into her mashed potatoes I think this is a kind of poetic redemption; all the unsold pieces at the factory are now being transformed by Paula and guest artists. “We are recycling all the unsold furniture and creating new designs,” she says in her melancholic voice. “It is my duty, to keep the family factory running and reinvent it.” After dinner we headed to the after party for the show at Wooly’s in Tribeca where LCD Soundsystem was supposed to be playing. “All the current great Mexican artists are here,” Paula said not counting herself in, “some of these people don’t even talk to me when we met at exhibitions in Mexico.” From my standpoint Paula is a much greater artist, and I believe in a few years someone will say the same about her, without the pretentious part. “Look, that is the guy from LCD Soundsystem,” she said. “Really! We were accidentally rubbing elbows for a few minutes!” I exclaimed in a clearly starstruck moment.

Sylvia and I left the airport before sunrise towards downtown Santiago knowing we had to be back at the airport at 11:00 am. Our flight to Bolivia was cancelled at the last minute, so we had to fly to Chile and catch a plane to La Paz. Four hours don't seem enough to get a sense of a city, but we were eager to get as much of it as possible. The airport bus left us at Estacion Central, were we took the subway towards downtown, getting off just by City Hall. "Do you think Michelle Bachelet is already there?" I asked completely forgetting that Sebastian Piñera has been in office for more than a year. "She is probably sleeping," Sylvia answered. We walked by the Cathedral and the main city buildings while early commuters were rushing to and from the subway stations and as local coffee shops were setting their tables at the Plaza. "What are a Mexican and a Colombian doing in Chile?" a police officer asked flirting; we just smiled. We had a hot cappuccino to fuel us and kept our freezing discovery walk through Bellas Artes, Brasil Avenue and Concha y Toro in the Republica neighborhood. "Look!" I exclaimed, almost speechless. The winter sunlight had discovered the Andes framing the buildings in the background. Sylvia and I shared our curiosity for graffiti, as in a way it helped us unearth or decode some of the spirit or the untold stories of the city. As we rode the subway and waited for the bus that would take us back to the airport I asked Sylvia if she considered this as a real visit. "We read the newspaper and talked to the locals, I guess that counts," she answered as two fat stray dogs approached us. Just in case, we bought a box of Chilean alfajores and a Condorito comic book at the airport before boarding the plane that would fly us through the Andes into Bolivia.

I'm melting in my living room, ready to pack for Bolivia, drinking coffee and eating half a bagel. The pre-summer sweat has started but we know the real humidity is yet to come; are we going to survive it? I turned 33 and celebrated for the first time in Mexico in 8 years. My Mom baked a chocolate cake and Victor organized me a party at his house by the lake. It's hard to come back to New York after being so pampered. In New York, as it has always been, things change by the season. Spring has brought me a new group of friends with whom I feel at home, and Oscar is moving out of the apartment to live with Troy, his boyfriend. Life as always is complex, hectic and beautiful. In the midst of the craziness of on-going travel and getting new roommates, we had the luxury to spend all day yesterday drinking mimosas and having brunch at the boathouse in Central Park. We talked about quantum physics, fetichism and dating - all with equal depth. "What a beautiful Sunday!", we all expressed at different moments with a sigh. "Where are we going for dinner?" Alex questioned as the sun started to sank behind the trees in Central Park. I love to be with friends that want to stay together from breakfast until dinner. "Anyone wants to ride the Vespa with me?" Pepe asked and I volunteered without hesitation or minding my high heels. I've seen New York from all sorts of angles, but riding down 5th Avenue and uptown on Park during a sweet Spring Sunday afternoon has been so far one of the most beautiful sights of the city.

I've been looking for rainbows since I moved to New York in 2002. Now, after 9 years, the first one appeared.

It felt like a beautiful statement.