The Walk Project
Chapter One: Peaks and Valleys
Not even a couple of weeks ago, the last one before Christmas actually, I found myself on a quick but amusing business road trip. We had to drive about 100 Km south of Lima to a popular beach town where my client, Jaime, who was behind the wheel, was soon opening a new location.
He hired me to quickly design and build this store and so, we were on our way to visit the space and get a feel of it, how beat up it was, what could we do.
You see, in Peru everything is done very quickly, projects definitely feel rushed, last minute deals and they kind of morph and grow as they move forward. What we could understand as erratic and systemic changes of direction, here are rather accepted as the natural way a project matures. Which in a way is how life behaves right?
Well, that late afternoon we were only two in the car, Jaime and me, and we had to really carve those 3 hours away from a busy and very short week.
While most people we knew had begun relaxing and indulging in the preparations for Christmas and New Year’s, we were both trying to see if we could just fit one more bag of cement on the truck, knowing that in just a few days we would be compelled to stop and somehow focus on finding a way to enjoy the quiet times. Which we always do, but still, always salivating for that green light, the moment to saddle up and head for war.
I think men… we are all somehow designed to go to war, to bleed, to fight for our loved ones, for what is ours and for what we want. I think struggle itself… it’s quite a gift. A gift heavily undervalued, a gift that paradoxically holds the key for individuation.
In a way, Jaime is much like me, a workaholic juggling life and businesses as much as he can. Now, these incandescent souls perpetually feeding from adrenaline, these I can vouch to you, are the kind of people one must definitely gravitate towards. Those terrified of the center of the pendulum, those that are rarely seen wearing khakis.
Me… I choose to burn the boat when I hit the shore Alberto!
Jaime said out loud and immediately laughed to himself, grasping the wheel with both hands. We were already on the highway and we had started talking about our year. There’s no other way man. You have to burn all the boats, it’s the only way to truly move forward!
Very true brother -the stupid scientific in me replied- and as it happens, all previous boats are always burnt, since we are subjects of time, and time you know, it only knows forward.
He looks at me, like you would look at whoever says that the music is too loud or… guys, come on, enough with the drinks and let’s get some coffee, you know… and quickly asks me about my year.
So how was yours? How was 2022 for you?
Oh that question… how would I ever properly answer it and for how long it will be turning inside my head.
Between us, truth be told, when I left Montreal back in late December 2021, the 27th at 9:45pm to be exact, a year and change ago, I had a hunch that 2022 would be an extremely challenging year. To be slightly more honest, I was not even able to sleep for a week before that trip. I was deeply scared of wat lied ahead of me.
I had never imagined I would dare to take such a leap of faith, I had never played lottery in my life and I frankly despised the principle of chance, but I still found myself pushing all my chips into the triple seven.
Yet what 2022 shaped to become cannot be rationalized, quantified or even explained. It can only be felt running in unison across the mind, the heart and the body… and believe me I am, by far, the least hippie guy I know.
My son, Alberto Jr. (henceforth known as Albertito, the sweetest 17-year old dude, blessed with such a big heart) and I jumped together into the precipice of the unknown, since it’s apparent darkness held the counterintuitive but theoretical promise of hope.
Today I think, or I know, or I feel that just because we did it with from the highest purity one can summon -the invincible bond of love- that the sequence of events that we begun on the 27th, gave birth to the most fantastic domino effect I could have ever imagined… and I must confess, I do have quite a fertile imagination.
The jump that begun our walk became our sacred enterprise, one with such a sheer amount of magnetism that we drew in the full torrent of life, in all it’s true colors. The colors I sincerely wish everyone would experience.
How was my 2022 Jaime… I can tell you we didn’t burn a boat, I had no boat to burn, all I had was hope. We jumped from a plane without parachutes; trusting that as long as me and my son would held hands and never let go, the mechanics of the Universe will bend in front of us and show us our path.
Jaime… 2022 brought to me the peaks and the valleys.
If you ask me to measure this year by units of life, I think I just got them all.
I’ve experienced the summit of pure and genuine exaltation, as much as I have felt the cold breath of death on my neck. I have understood that they are both intertwined; that the beauty of life is walking its circularity while holding the hands of those who are ready, in need or willing to do so.
For me Jaime, it has been the year with the highest range of life… and then I stopped talking, now deep into my memories of 2022.
Peaks & valleys… then musted Jaime, interesting way to see it he said.
And we continued driving forward quietly for a while.
Minutes later Jaime honked and screamed… To the peaks & the valleys!
And we both bursted laughing. Windows down, the refreshing breeze of the sea, music on the background.
I then took a large sip of coffee and smiled.
2022 was almost over, but the mighty 2023 was just around the corner.
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And I am writing this on another weekday, when the workday is over, alone in my office, savouring the past and patiently waiting for the Sun to fall sleep and let the Queen inundate our hearts with her beautiful spell.
And only then I would start to capture images of my new light sculpture, The Courage Totem, which has been solemnly standing right in front of me all this time, while I’ve been listening to hypnotic shamanic drums, hoping they could help me elevate towards deeper states of emotion… or zoom me down into the contours of every letter I am writing now.
I know for a fact that the beauty of life is always on the extremes.
Who knows… maybe for a second or two I could become the zigzag of the “W” or even better, maybe submerge myself inside the quiet vastness…
of this last peaceful dot.
Visit the Walk project here.
Breakfast in San Bartolo, circa February 2022.