Patagonia Pensive

Dec 19 2019

By Annelise

As of this week, we have been traveling for three months, every day together. In three weeks, Mark will be back in Seattle and I will continue on with the kids to adventure through more cultures and continents for another half year or more. In the vast landscapes of Patagonia where I feel at once lost in time and feel it’s immensity, I realize again that this time together is truly precious and something I do not take for granted. Looking forward I am not sure if this will ever happen again for the four of us. Never again will we be able to spend nearly every moment with each other for this length of time.

We have had a lot of fun and new experiences through Central and South America -thrills of surfing, ziplining or encountering new animals and foods; goofy moments when we completely miss the mark. The beauty and otherness are stimulating and at times over-whelming.  Not all the experiences have been pleasant, and we have had grouchy, frustrating and wits-end moments. I realize though that the low points, though intense, are just that, points or moments; they are not the arc or thread of our journey.

An apt quote I remind myself of; “A Journey is like marriage. A certain way to be wrong is to think you control it” John Steinbeck, Travels with Charlie. We are learning more about each other’s tempos and temperaments and how to foster individual and family flow. Just as we can’t make is stop raining so that we can experience the breathtaking views of a mountain peak or color of the water, we can’t control individual weather patterns either. There is a balance and tension between the comfort of routine and structure and the ease of spontaneity and taking things as they come. Too much of one or the other and the journey would not move forward.

As if a metaphor for personal growth, traveling through Patagonia takes time. Not just that the distances between parks or towns are immense but also the roads are not always paved, even the main highway in places. There are not many benchmarks or signposts. The map of southern Argentina is denoted by one vast ranch after the next, as we drive there are hours where we barely see any structures at all other than fences. One evening we saw a rancher out fixing a fence post. It must have been one of nearly a million lining the borders of his ranch. How did he know to address that particular one?

We see Nandus (ostrich like birds), Chilean flamingos, black necked swans, brown foxes, armadillos, hog nosed skunks, guanacos, so it is clear that this landscape of volcanic mountains shaped by glaciers over millenia is enough different from familiar territory of the Pacific Northwest. Here it feels like the US Southwest and Northwest combined in the sense of human scale and geologic time. The territory is familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

Places like this help me not take myself to seriously. I feel rightfully like a spec in the universe. Some wonder why I would want to leave for a year of travel. Leaving one rhythm behind to try to find a new one. Not really. I think it was Confucius how said, “wherever you go, there you are”. You take yourself with you when you travel. For me I would say that getting out of my patterns and environment helps me see and feel more clearly who I am at this time. I am developing a better sense of my strengths and weaknesses and how I want work with them as I navigate forward as a person and parent.