to settle/afincarse

Here I am--day one on this Dominican odyssey--ready for a million more days, but I will settle in tightly for 36.

It is a breezy, cool evening in Santo Domingo and the smell of a well cooked dinner is distracting me from the computer screen in front of me. My roommate and film making partner cooks! Our home for the next five weeks has high ceilings, white walls, well placed art, a balcony where I could waste away my life listening to the waterfall outside our apartment, and a rooftop pool that offers relief from a sweltering Dominican afternoon. Today we passed la tarde caminando por la ciudad. As I floated on my back in the pool this evening, staring at the same stars I see at home in a different alignment, I am once again overwhelmed with my blessings. Thank you to all who have helped me be here enjoying this moment.

It has been a day of settling into the rhythm that life will hold for the next five weeks.

My aunt helped me pick out this really special book during my time in Chicago before leaving called Life is a Verb. I have only started to explore the lessons it offers, but today I am taking from it the idea that to be engaged in life fully one must look at every day as a moment for action...today's action word is SETTLE, afincarse.

Today I arrived to this gorgeous apartment and began settling around 12:30; I was ushered into DR by Ezekiel, the airport pickup from my language school. He was the angel holding my name thus rescuing me from the cart of luggage and camera gear that has traveled with me from Indiana. I never knew how many conversations an oblong bag (suspiciously denoting film work) can bring to travel moments. As great as those random talks were, I was happy to see a friendly face willing to share my load. As soon as we got in the car, Ezekiel asked me, "Bachata o Merengue?" My response... "Me encanto los dos!" We spent the next 30 minutes driving into the capital singing along to the enticing cadence of these Latin rhythms...I felt my students with me as a belted Bachata lyrics I know mostly due to their influence in my life. He turned down the music only to point out the monument erected to Cristobol Colon...with a grimace he pointed it out to me, waiting for my response to this historic spot. I, in turn, asked this new friend what he thought of the father of the el mundo nuevo. What ensued was EXACTLY why I am here--honest, profound, off the cuff conversations with people who have something powerful to say about the continents we call the Americas. Ezekiel will be one of our first interviews...so I won't ruin his story by divulging too much in this post.

I took that encounter as a good omen, telling me that there is a story to tell. A story I have prepared for years to record.