Caminaba con FerDommy por el centro de Asunción sin saber qué nombre ponerle al blog cuando nos cruzamos con un yacaré volador. Nunca antes me había cruzado con un yacaré volador. Pensé: ésto debe ser el comienzo de algo muy maravilloso.
I was naked: no money, no cellphone, no Benedetta, no sangha . There I was again, detached from it all. I had no lover in bed, no children to send to school, my kitchen was empty of any perishables while being on the road, no work to go to, no plants to water. I had a fat, smiling monk ready to pierce my flesh a hundred thousand times with a sharp steel needle that had not been sterilized, with an ink of his own making that included serpent's poison together with a mix of herbs. A tattoo that he would pick in the part of my body that he deemed appropriate. I had no say in the affair. Not quite what my mother expected. Would I ever be able to find my way back into the legion that was at that moment sleeping in Buenos Aires? Maybe I had been cut out forever. Maybe I was awake for a reason larger than a lover in bed and morning coffee. Maybe it was just the flashback. Two years, ten months, and fourteen days. The wiry guy indicated with polite gestures that I should go next. I
I had a three-month window before starting my new job, so I took off to India. My contract entitled me to a miserable fifteen-day vacation for the first five years of employment. I did not fully grasp the grim prospect and the brutal grinding that my soul was about to undergo by embracing the corporate life. Although I had done my fair share of backpacking in Latin America, nothing prepared me for India. I landed in New Delhi in late March to scorching heat and a shared YMCA bedroom with fan. My health deteriorated rapidly. I managed to crawl through Agra and Varanasi to Kolkata. I was feverish and with uncontrollable bouts of diarrhea. I was also determined not to go home. I read Forster's A Passage to India at Varanasi's burning gaths, where I wrote a poem about unrequited love. I arrived in squalid Kolkata in desperate shape and collapsed in a ten-rupee bed in a dormitory of the Salvation Army. An Irish guy sleeping next to me, who must have been the embodiment of
Dejé (otra vez) mi trabajo, puse la casa en venta, repartí los libros y me voy a viajar sin plazo. Cuando tenía veinticinco años y no existía internet viajé un mes por Asia con folletos de las embajadas como única brújula. Y dos semanas de curso de meditación en el Centro Sai Baba de la calle Uriarte. No estaba listo para ese viaje. No estaba listo para nada. Me dí unos cuantos golpes pero también aprendí que lo que había deseado siempre era esa vida de algunos gringos de clase media que se toman un año de viaje después de terminar los estudios. Ese tiempo donde, si uno se esfuerza, el conocimiento aprendido puede estallar y cuestionarse para volver a armar una nueva identidad. Hasta ahora nunca había podido tomarme el año de viaje pero hubieron otros recorridos. Se extendieron de viajes geográficos a viajes internos, como salir del armario gay, el re-aprendizaje de la historia luego de la dictadura, viajes a otras modas, cuerpos y lecturas, a otros espacios de socialización
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