I apologize, first off, that this blog does not fit the mold – does not really give what many travel blogs aim to give. I really hope to not sound pretentious. Truth be told, I was never really made to blog. I don’t like to write about myself directly. I’d rather do it indirectly, with added fiction. I don't want to just tell you what I’ve been up to and how it made me feel, and so that is not what I have set out to do. I don't expect you to care. It’s my inferior ego, my desire to be humble. I have fear of writing about myself, mainly it just doesn’t seem like my life is special enough to be documented in first person. If other folks want to write about me, in third person and find it interesting, have at it. Maybe I’ll write a memoir someday, or if things go really well, someone might find it worth their while to write a biography, about me. I enjoy reading other’s biographies. I also enjoy reading their memoirs, narratives and blogs. It’s just not me to create the same at this point, capiche?
I love to travel, and mostly love movement. I love movement and connecting to people, sharing and creating stories, and learn what this world’s all about and what I am doing in it. Stories in this blog take place all over and as I continue to travel they will take place in other parts of the world. Maybe some of them will take place in my local coffee shop here in Boulder, or at my parent’s house, but they will be seen and perceived by Agapito. Some will take place in the past, or the future. As for me, my name is Tim, another character – a medium sized, Midwest US-raised, Caucasian male that now lives mostly in Colorado – the one putting Agapito’s eye into words. And this blog is more about Agapito than about me, but somewhat about me, you know, stories and updates for friends, information for fellow adventurers, etc.
Agapito’s a character. Actually a real character – the name and the person were inspired by a donkey wrangler that taught my friend Pepper and me the ins and outs of wrangling that allowed us to walk with donkeys in the altiplano of Bolivia. That’s a true story. I mean, truth whatever, it was something I did with a friend. Most of the stories here are made up. I tried writing narratives, documenting things, and also writing pure fiction, and writing about myself in third person but all these approaches came up short. The tarot cards in the picture placed and read by a Kallawaya in La Paz gave birth to the Agapito of these tales.
I want magic, I want the magic that is present in the world to come through in words but not be limited to the factual. This is Agapito’s eye, what he allows. But I do, however, want this to be as informative as possible for folks wishing to travel so the blogs go back and forth. There’s a mix of fiction and non-fiction. I don’t know yet if this is the right medium for this, and I don’t want to be in a place of talking through the origins of the fiction. I don’t know if a blog can really get at it, but I’m giving it a try. Check back in a year or two to see if it’s working.
So, most of these will be stories. They revolve around Agapito. His stories are inspired by and typically include bits of my personal experience but that is mixed with magic and language and returned in the form of fictional stories. Even the purest fiction can’t be separated from experience so I try to let creativity inform my life and my life inform my creativity.
'Agapito' literally means, “a little bit of god’s love.” I see this as a fitting description of all humans, the way we sort of pop out of the world and then slowly are absorbed back into it. As if the entirety of this love, the love that gives life, is the ocean on which each of us little waves ride. So these stories are happening to Agapito as a sort of target at which small arrows of the truth about being human are shot. Those arrows are shot from various moments in my life, some hit the targets and others may hit the wall or fall to the ground. Neither of us may ever be able to tell the difference.
OK, enough metaphors.
Let’s get to it, to the stories and not the incessant justification. Agapito loves you all just as you may grow to love him.
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