Last year, I had the privelege of going to Lima, walking along the beautiful cliffside from Barranco to Miraflores. On the other side of the cliff was the Pacific Ocean. Cold and wide. The world is round and circumnavigable and all that, but I don’t see myself taking a ship or a flight from South America to Australia any time soon (it’s cheaper to fly straight from my hometown). So, for practical purposes, the west coast of South America is one edge of the world I live in today. And being there was a special existential experience.
A poet friend of mine had once asked “Who do you want to walk to the end of the universe with?”. Turns out it was going to be a solo trip. Also turns out, I can always go back with somebody. Fun right?
And here’s the poem I write about being there and doing that cliffside walk:
Lima: The Edge Of My World
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I walked on the edge
Of my current existence
Beyond it, a vast ocean
Of emptiness and silence
I'd come to see the
Edge, not the beyond
The latter could wait
For it had forever
But now at the edge
Life was in bloom
Kids walking, Teens surfing
Lovers marrying, Hermits strolling
Life bloomed in winter
Under a gloomy sky
Cold winds from beyond
Met the warmth within
The sun went down
But the edge lit up
The beyond faded out
And the show went on
I’ll leave the poem for you to dig metaphors out of (or Literature teachers 500 years later, that would be an achievement). Except for this one thing: I sat down for ~2 hours in a cliffside park to get a timelapse of the city lights turning on after sunset, and in those 2 hours I saw a couple get married behind me. The bride, the groom, and maybe 3 other people. The groom was in his workout clothes (maybe that’s how they met). I think that’s my dream wedding and it was really fun to watch. And here’s the timelapse: