Three magpies

One for sorrow,

Two for joy,

Three for a girl,

Four for a boy,

Five for silver,

Six for gold,

Seven for a secret never to be told.

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I was mid run when I realised that this place felt fairly strange. The tall purple grasses -  or flowers - unnameable and the heat unnatural. I was not sweating, and it seemed as if I were moving through a dream.

Earlier that day I'd scampered down the wooden staircase and plugged my phone in to charge in the kitchen and felt enveloped by the sense of strange. A dream version of it would make sense; imagine: in this dream I am walking by the canal in Singapore and all at once there is a travellator. I step onto it and keep walking, the grey heron flies above me and the otters squeak and play, and I am on a travellator but it is in an airport in China, and I am on a travellator but it is in an airport in London, and I step off the travellator and I am plugging a cable into my phone in a green and red kitchen after buying ingredients from Sainsburys.

Anyway, it was about then in my run that I saw the first magpie. "One for sorrow," I thought, "Keep going." About two hundred metres later there was another. Did that mean that two for joy, or just one more sorrow? Chasing a sub-6 minute per kilometre outcome, I wasn't going to pause and ponder it. Yet a few minutes later, another: a girl? Or another sorrow?

I asked Jacob about it in the kitchen, after I'd cried over shrink wrapped tempeh. He thought it depended on your outlook. Life's what you make of it? You could even, he said thoughtfully as he boiled the tender stem broccoli, take the first two as sorrows and the third as a girl, it depends how you look at it. I took that to mean that perhaps when the waves of homesickness come I am a sad, sad girl.

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This morning there were two magpies, and then another two. My brother told me that birds are angels in disguise, and I felt moved to believe him when, after reading Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese" before breakfast, I saw a great flock of the creatures, honking their way over the water. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination. 

Travel Top 3: June

Supremely Useful

1. Grayl Bottle. When we were in Oaxaca, we stayed in a lovely place that was perfect except for a chronic lack of sharp knives and no filtered water. Most countries we've been in lack clean, drinkable tap water, which makes me realise how much I took that for granted in Singapore. However, most hostels have a filter system for their guests. This didn't, and to save buying lots of plastic bottles, we filtered our water through the Grayl bottle which Jacob's Mum kindly brought over from the UK. The bottle is hard to use, because pumping the water through the filter takes serious muscle and water sometimes spills from the bottle when you tip it, but it's better than drinking contaminated water!

Runner up:

2. Duct tape. For some reason, our adaptor has worked happily with the sockets in all countries but when we got to Guatemala and Mexico, it hung loose and would sometimes fall out of the socket. We devised a simple solution with duct tape, taping the side of the adaptor to the plug socket so that it remained anchored. Duct tape also came in handy when I found a large hole in my linen trousers - no sewing kit on us, and the trousers are quite old now and don't merit a trip to the tailor (my mediocre darning will have to do when back in Singapore) so duct taping the hole shut from the inside of the trouser was a quick fix (although the linen is now so thin in that area that you can make out the white patch of the duct tape, but it's not too bad overall!)

Supremely Joyful

1. The sunrise from Tajamulco. Our final volcano hike in Guatemala was one to remember. Tajamulco is the highest summit in Central America, and from the top we saw fields of clouds broken by numerous peaks. We brought our sleeping bags up so watching the sun rise slowly was a cosy experience.

2. Slow days on the Oaxaca coast. I never thought that doing nothing would make the supremely joyful list, but truly. We stayed in a small village called San Agustinillo, and our days consisted of waking up, going on a run, going to the beach, and buying tortillas, tomatoes, cilantro, lime and eggs from the small tienda opposite our hostel and feasting on the combination of that for lunch. Every day we'd rinse and repeat, and I wanted nothing else.

3. Run and pastries in Mexico City. Jacob planned a running route that led us round and round a leafy walking path in a pretty neighbourhood, and then we continued on to Miga Vegana, a vegan pastry shop. We got there just after they opened, and they only had yesterday's pastries available, but we were happy to wait for the freshly baked ones. We sat in the sun, Jacob had a coffee, and then we feasted on a fig and cheese croissant, a concha, and a cinnamon roll. Everything was heavenly, but the fig and cheese croissant, so warm and buttery, was truly a thing of beauty and a joy joy joy. When we paid, I asked the service staff what their favourite pastry was. "Roll de Canela," the woman said, and then smiled, went into the kitchen, and brought out a slightly misshapen cinnamon roll which she gave to us on the house!

(Also a mention, Daniel Mason's North woods was a profoundly engrossing read. Not joyful, but it needed mentioning somehow!)

Supremely Tasty

1. Banana bread on the top of Tajamulco - just when we thought it couldn't get any better, we were presented with a slice of vegan banana bread with peanut butter and granola! (This was just one of three breakfasts that day...)

2. Taco Trail in CDMX. This was so much fun - we looked up different vegan taco places in CDMX and figured out a walking route between them. We went to two places in the end (the third was closed) and tried four different types of taco in each place. After the first shop (Por Siempre Vegan) I was convinced we had a winner, and then we went to Gracias Madre and my mind was further blown. 

3. That fig and cheese croissant! 

Travel Top 3: May

Supremely Useful

1. Umbrella. We've entered rainy season in Central America, and since my rain coat has really given up the ghost now having an umbrella to keep me dry has been paramount. I also use it, aunty style, as a parasol on hot days. I love how, when it rains, street sellers with umbrellas seem to pop out of nowhere shouting "Paragua! Paragua!" which to me sounds like the Spanish for "stop water".

Runner up:

2. Trip.com app. One of the worst moments of this trip was when we were denied boarding to our flight to Guatemala (by Wingo - absolutely never fly with them). We managed to book another flight for the next morning day, at a lower price than it would have been at the airport, using the Trip.com app. We also used the app to book our flights to Japan, and to the UK.

3. The kiasu mentality. On getting off the flight from Bogota to Guatemala, I noticed many passengers had left their plastic water bottles on their seats as rubbish. I knew we were about to go on a volcano hike, and would need to bring our own water, and so I blithely collected a few bottles as I went. Jacob was too embarrassed to pick them up, but I saw it as reducing single-use plastic waste! I washed them thoroughly in our hostel, and used them for our hike, and have used two of them since after my own beloved nalgene broke!

Supremely Joyful

1. Swimming in a lake in San Jose del Guaviare - I know, I know, water keeps making an appearance in these lists. As John Ames says in Gilead, water is a form of blessing and when I am in it I feel supremely blessed. In San Jose del Guaviare, there were a few water bodies to swim in, pools formed by rivers, the base of a waterfall, and the lake next to where we stayed. The lake was so quiet, and it was morning, and going into it felt terrifying at first but then gave way (on my second attempt) to a deep joy. 

2. Hearing a very British sounding "Hola!" when we arrived at our hostel in Bogota. Catherine and Izzy flew out to meet us in Colombia, and after travelling just the two of us for 4 and a bit months it was so nice to have other company, and familiar faces!

3. Running around the crater rim of Acatenango. The Acatenango hike wasn't as strenuous as we anticipated, probably because we were already quite acclimatised to altitude, and because the first hike up to base camp was at a very leisurely pace with plenty of breaks given a range of fitness levels in our group (we concluded that while the Huayhuash circuit appeals to the hardcore hiker, the Acatenango hike appeals to every body whether they hike regularly or have never hiked at all...!) When we got to the crater rim, after enjoying the views for a while, I asked Jacob to run the circumference of the crater with me. I'd read that this was a thing, and what better way to see the views from the other side of the crater? We set off, and it was so hard, but so joyful and silly - I was out of breath from the altitude and the laughing. The sun was golden and as I crossed the 'finish line' there was a big cheer (not for me - someone had just proposed to their girlfriend nearby!)

Supremely Tasty

1. Patacones! Patacones are plaintain chopped, fried, squashed and fried again. When I asked our guide in San Jose if they were a considered a fruit or vegetable, she wrinkled her nose in thought and then replied "A carb". They came with almost every meal we had, and although Izzy was quite sick of them by the time their trip in Colombia was over, I couldn't get enough of them! Usually served with egg, rice, sometimes arepas, or avocado, or lentil, and a cold glass of sugarcane and lime juice.

2. Arepa de Huevo - an arepa grilled, sliced open, an egg cracked inside it and the whole thing deep fried to perfection! We had this fresh off a bus from Jardin to Filandia, still warm and the oil seeping through the brown paper bag it came in. It was savoury and delicious!

3. The breakfast at Casa Tsao, our hostel in Bogota. Every day there would be vats of cut fruit - pineapple, papaya, melon, and mango - different kinds of bread, and spiced honey (and cheese and butter for the non-vegans). Eggs freshly cooked, and sometimes arepas too!

The Art of Losing

While we've been travelling, things have inevitably gone missing. Jacob left his hat in a Thai restaurant in Melbourne, I left mine in a hostel in Puerto Natales. 10,000 Chilean pesos fell out of Jacob's pocket, and 50 Peruvian soles were given to a man who asked for money at a church (before the pastor of the church told us we shouldn't have given it to him). Jacob's glasses are gone, my sandals fell out of my bag in a bus in Colombia, and first one and then the other of the temples from Jacob's sunglasses detached themselves. These are material things, and sometimes our reactions to losing them feel overwrought. Perhaps it is because we brought each item we own with intention, envisaging that it would last us all six months. Perhaps it is because we are travelling on a tight budget and any loss feels like a dent in that. Or that with few things in our backpacks, they take on a greater importance.

I keep thinking of Elizabeth Bishop's poem, One Art, which I first heard in Junior College. It begins: 'The art of losing isn't hard to master; / so many things seem filled with the intent / to be lost that their loss is no disaster.' In her list of things to practice losing, she begins with something small and material (door keys) and something small and immaterial (the hour badly spent), then bigger and more abstract things: places, and names.

Perhaps all these small losses are preparations for the big loss that will come with migration. We've now booked our flight to the UK. We know the day we arrive, and little else since jobs and locations are still up in the air. I expect there will be some living with Jacob's Dad, which will involve sourdough, jammy eggs, photos of Jacob and Izzy when they were little, and possibly dance parties under his kitchen disco ball (all of which I highly approve of). I also expect there will be days where my heart feels like it's breaking, and going back to that feeling of being covered by a blanket of sadness chills my heart. The other side of the grief of loss is love, they say, and I am lucky to have so much of that on two islands separated by a twelve hour flight. 

And I remember, I remember, the cracks that break through the grief eventually. The unexpected joys of laughter, the wonderment of a new place, the return of smells after winter. The re-making of myself as I tested the waters of what made me, me. I am turning thirty, and there will be newness and joy that accompanies the ongoing heartache. In church today, we heard a sermon about birds. The pastor, a mennonite woman from North Carolina, spoke about how birds both nest and migrate, and how God is found in both the seasons of putting down roots, welcoming people into a stable home, and finding community, as well as in seasons of shift and change, when 'home' is changing its meaning and you find yourself a guest. Jacob and I both felt like the sermon could have been written just for us (not least because of the pastor also mentioned the fantastic game, Wingspan) 

That said, our travel has taken a turn for the slower, and in this more relaxed pace I've found a lot of joy. Today we went for a long, slow run, had breakfast, went to church, and came back for leftovers from yesterday's dinner, football highlights, writing and reading in the space of our rented room. Somehow it felt like Sundays back in Jalan Hang Jebat, when we had a routine and rhythm and home. The feeling of home, in radically different circumstances, and a blessing all the same.

One Art
Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Travel Top 3: April

Supremely Useful

1. Hiking Poles. April saw us conquer our biggest multi-day hike yet: the Huayhuash circuit. This high altitude alpine trek had an uphill and downhill everyday, and hiking poles meant that I made it through all eight days without losing a knee.

Runner up:

2. Pegs. Odd, I know, but again on the Huayhuash trek these came in so useful to dry wet clothes (often pegged to my bag, or between my hiking poles) My group mates were amused that I always seemed to be doing laundry, but it definitely kept the weight down in our packs!

Supremely Joyful

1. The Easter egg hunt in Ollantaytambo, which I wrote about a few posts ago, was such a ray of sunshine. 

2. The Huayhuash circuit. This wasn't pure joy, because there was some very hard moments, but the feeling of friendships forming and settling, and the bliss of sitting by a lake after a hard effort, or reaching a pass and seeing the most stunning mountains and lakes, meant these eight days were filled with joy.

2. The Quilotoa loop. I hiked this not too long after Huayhuash, and on hindsight I think my body was spent. I came down with a flu during the hike, and the second day was rough, but I mentally prepared myself for toughness on the third day, took painkillers, walked slowly, and felt so joyful when I saw the crater lake at the end, a sign that it was almost over but also I sign that I had persevered.

Supremely Tasty

This was almost impossible, since Peru and Ecuador had some of my favourite food of all the trip and so I will cheat a little and instead of individual dishes I shall put three categories.

1. Post hospital food, when it was just so nice to eat again. This included the best empanada of the trip in a cafe in Ollantaytambo, sourdough bread bought in Cusco, and a tub of soya yogurt that we demolished in two days (probiotics are good for the gut, right?) after being released from hospital.

2. Ecuador's street food. Ecuador has had the best street food so far. We tried Cevichocho, a delicious zingy, tangy combination of toasted maiz, plantain chips, popcorn, a tomato sauce, lime, and chocho beans. We also had street grilled bananas, a chocobanana (frozen banana covered in chocolate) and in a reaturant off the street (I'm really stretching this category aren't I) a moist, delicious, banana cake which we bought extra slices of to eat after the first day of the Quilotoa loop hike.

3. Canelazo. This is a drink, and an alcoholic drink which is surprising because I'm not typically a fan of alcohol! But we had this hot drink on a drizzly day in Quito, made from cacao liqueur, cinnamon, citrus juice, cloves, and sugar. It was a warm hug in a drink.

Travel Top 3: March

 

where the camera was left!

Supremely Useful

1. Travel Insurance. In March (on my mother's birthday no less) Jacob and I both found ourselves in hospital in Cusco with an infection of gut parasites. Being able to stay in that cool, clean hospital with an IV drip and anti-parasite medicine was not my idea of how we'd be spending our time in Peru but was also oddly blissful and restful. I felt so well taken care of, and was so thankful that our travel insurance covered the entire hospital stay.

Runners up:

2. A Wise card. In Argentine we transferred money to ourselves via Western Union, but using the Wise card gave us a much better rate overall in Peru and Bolivia despite ATM withdrawal fees. In Peru in particular there were quite a few places we were able to pay with card (sometimes with a commission, sometimes without) and that was helpful as well.

3. Fujifilm XT30 camera. This camera was almost lost for good in the desert in Bolivia, and when I realised I hadn't got it I felt genuinely heartbroken. Capturing scenes of our travels on the camera has been such a joy, and there has been a geeky pleasure in learning how to use it better as well (goodbye auto function, hello adjusting ISO myself!) I was so relieved to retrieve it, not less because its latest photos were dreamy ones from the Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve.

Supremely Joyful

A tied first this time:

1. While in the Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve, we stopped by Laguna Colorado. This lake is known for its pink-red colour, and the flocks of flamingos that strut through it, feeding on the red algae in the lake water. I was excited to photograph the scene, and then realised that my camera had run out of battery. I was feeling a little queasy with altitude sickness, and Jacob was extraordinarily compassionate (although not extraordinary for him, since that is his nature) and went back to the car to retrieve a portable charger, a walk that would take at least fifteen minutes there-and-back, which is no small feat at 4,278m. While he did so, I knelt by the lake, resting, and looked at the flamingos. I felt an extraordinary sense of peace, and closeness, oddly, to people I love who have died. There is a piece of music called The Arrival of the Birds which I walked down the aisle to, a heavenly moment. That music video to that song on youtube has a picture of a group of flamingos, and looking at the birds in front of me I recalled it and it did really feel like heaven.

2. Once again, a joyful moment involving water. We hiked the Colca Canyon in Peru unguided, and it was a wonderful experience overall, although our first day was a little pressured because we had a hard time finding the collectivos that would take us there. At the end of an afternoon of speed walking, we found a hostel for the night in the canyon, and they had a natural hot spring. Slipping into the hot water and letting it was away the day's aches was magnificent. The hot pools were right next to the river that runs through the canyon, so that while sitting in them I could dip my hand into the cold river water next to me. It was dark, and I saw the silhouette of a heron on a rock in the river, so still and then suddenly gone. What was even more magical was when I returned to the pools the next morning and they were gone; they'd been submerged by the river that had risen overnight. 

Supremely Tasty

This was incredibly difficult to choose from, but it would have to be the chocolate we made in Arequipa. On our final day there we signed up to a chocolate workshop (all because I saw a boy at our hostel eating chocolate for breakfast - an inspiration) and as part of that we made twelve bon bons each. It was so fun eating them and remembering what flavours we'd made (coffee and salt! mango and chilli! strawberry and banana!) and the whole workshop was engaging and exciting.

Runners up:

2. On our hike in the Colca Canyon, we realised we'd slightly underpacked food (it could also have been that the parasites in our guts were eating lots of what we were eating, so we weren't absorbing all the nutrition we were taking in), but there weren't exactly supermarkets or even small tiendas easily accessible in the canyon. One the second day, I passed a wild fig tree and there was one perfectly ripe fig. It felt biblical, and tasted sweet.

2. Just before the hospitalisation, we treated ourselves to a lovely dinner at a vegan restaurant in Cusco called Green Point. I loved the starter, a leek and potato salad with a creamy dressing. Not something I'd have typically picked out on a menu, but it was so tasty. For the remainder of the dinner I didn't feel so well (like I said, hospitalisation was nigh) but it began so well.

Material craving

We have been travelling for over three months now. When we set off, I knew we'd be traversing cold mountain terrain and hot tropical territory, not to mention we'd be carrying our back packs across a continent. This required a careful selectivity, and clothes were included or discarded according to a ruthless matrix of functionality. Navy long-sleeved merino was in, block print day dress was out. One pair of small gold hoops that I could wear daily. Make up confined to a travel-sized lipstick. Skincare whittled down to a solid facial cleanser bar. 

Over time, I've noticed a funny thing. "I miss choosing colours and patterns and combinations of clothes," I said to Jacob while we were in Bolivia. "I don't," he said, and truly he is happy wearing his khaki green merino top and hiking trousers for a week straight.

But I've been dreaming of pleats, block printed fabrics, peptide shampoo, soft Alpaca wool jumpers, and delicate necklaces. I've been watching videos of people sewing patchwork curtains, and craft bags, and vests. When I lay in hospital this week with a parasite in my intestines and an IV drip in my arm, I imagined my fingers were knitting needles and went through the motions of 'in-round-through-off' so achingly familiar, in my mind creating soft chains of a new striped wool jumper. Is this some latent capitalistic hunger inside me? Or a creative impulse that's hard to satisfy when travelling? Attending to this urge is not efficient - you trail yarn and scraps and receipts and bottles and pattern pieces, you're implicated in supply chains and carbon emissions, but it is so fundamentally joyful as well, in the way a child delights in paint, and dress up, and Christmas, and playdough.

The thing is, I struggle with the joy of it. A few years ago I bought a second hand jar of perfume, fifty percent off, and after I bought it I retreated into a toilet stall and felt sick at spending (what I thought of as) needless money. This isn't confined to perfume. I am an expert in craving the beauty of material things but something stops me from appreciating actually buying them. I'll look at a dress online for weeks and never buy it. I'll research all the skin benefitting properties of a serum and then tell myself it's too expensive. Or worse, I'll buy it (usually second hand) and then tell myself that I'm a miserable vain person who just wasted money that could have been spent on something far more virtuous.

After the perfume episode, I went and saw my church counsellor about this troubling feeling. We talked about my relationship with money and buying things and how it makes me feel both safe and on the verge of disaster. I've always been a saver, but instead of saving to spend wisely later, I've found that buying anything threatens that sense of self-sufficiency that saving provides. The counsellor asked me how I interpreted stewardship: if I have a heavenly Father who loves to give good gifts (and these include gifts of both the material and immaterial variety), what might it mean to respond with gratitude and not fear? 

There is a biblical parallel to my perfume story so obvious it is almost laughable - the woman with the alabaster box.

"While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.

Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.

“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.""

Jesus' logic defies the rigid confines of material utility or value. The beauty in the moment is the grateful joy with which the woman uses her material treasure to honour and worship Jesus. How can my material items be a conduit to worship? When I shame myself, or long for things but refuse to fulfil that desire out of fear of a bad deal, a waste of money, or even "seeming vain", I give the material thing far more power than it deserves. I cultivate in myself a false sense of prideful frugality and I feed part of me that wants control and security in what it perceives as a scarce world. Certainly, there are moments where it's not appropriate to buy yet another pot of cream or ball of yarn, but I have come to realise that it's worth looking at the heart and thinking, is this craving a seed of joy waiting to germinate? And doesn't our father in heaven find that joy beautiful?

We are now in Peru, and I've seen more alpacas than I can count. Walking down a narrow street in Cusco after we came out of hospital, I saw a man knitting with soft, stretchy yarn. In his shop, there were rows of knitted jumpers in deep rich colours and they felt cool and silky in my hands. Holding them filled me with wonder at the animal that had given its wool and the human that had coaxed it into beauty. I spent a weekend considering it, feeling the softness in my sleep, and the next time we walked past that shop I went back in and bought one which I love. So praise God for alpacas, praise God for wool, praise God for textile skills passed down for generations, praise God for twisted stitch details, ribbing and roll necks. Praise God for cobblestones and antibiotics and soft hands and soft hearts.

What is love? Lessons from bell hooks and Annie Bot

All About Love was a book I started in the bus station at Bariloche and my first thought was: "bell hooks does not mince her words." Every line in the introduction said something valuable, in relation to what came before and after it. What it prepared me for were her subsequent bold contemplations on the refining power of love, and its high calling. The unflinching way she wrote about love from the opening chapter mirrored the courage which she says love requires. The alternative is "intimacy without risk [...] pleasure without significant emotional investment." This was a book that required your whole hearted engagement, for the possibility of whole hearted living.

At the same time as I read All About Love, I was listening to Annie Bot, a sci-fi novel by Sierra Greer. Annie Bot is about an AI robot who is programmed to meet the needs of her human owner. She's programmed to be a "cuddle bunny", in other words, a robotic sex partner who is driven by the desire to please (and not to displease) her owner. As I read the two, All About Love and Annie Bot fell into a natural but unexpected conversation about what it means to love.

hooks defines love with the words of M. Scott Peck, as "the will to extend one's self for for purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth". As she explores in the rest of the book, this requires freedom: to choose and be chosen by love, to sacrifice power and control and take on the risk of uncomfortable truths. hooks gives a list of helpful words that, together and not individually, encapsulate love: care, commitment, trust, knowledge, responsibility and respect. The bar is so high that when Jacob and I discussed the book together afterwards, we admitted that though we'd typically call our families loving, there were elements or dynamics in which love was not present. 

In Annie Bot, the central robot character's raison d'etre is to be the perfect lover. She monitors her owner's displeasure, altering her behaviour to keep him pleased even if it means lying or humiliating herself. "Love" is defined - in Annie's programming - as the pursuit of another's happiness and sexual pleasure, but it is warped by an abusive power dynamic. Annie is her owner's creation, a "custom-built" robot. This means that while he cares for her by funding her mechanical maintenance,  training her to be more human (teaching her how to yawn, stretch, or read for instance), or letting her try various robot care programmes such as a phone line with an AI friend or cousin, he has power over her body, her libido, her movements (she is initially not allowed to leave the house, for instance), and can even sell her central intelligence unit (the closest thing to her soul) for profit, all of which he does. Ultimately, he is also able to switch her off, forever if he wants. 

On the surface, Annie's owner seems to have all the power. However, throughout the story you're told Annie has control too. Her owner tells her that, because of her beauty and sexual prowess, he is entirely in her thrall. She is able to read him closely and in doing so, play his moods to her advantage, as well as use sex as a distraction tactic or reward. Both of them confuse love and power, and underneath lies a vast reservoir of fear.

hooks emphasises that true love strips away pretence and requires openness and honesty. That may be too much to ask for some people, since "embarking on such a relationship is frightening precisely because we feel there is no place to hide." Both Annie and her owner hold secrets from each other, withholding the truth to avoid hurting the other or to maintain a certain facade. Truth becomes an enemy in their relationship; at one point, in a moment of emotional stress, Annie says to her owner: "No one will know that you are a fraud." Perceptively, and to her detriment, Annie uses the word that her owner fears: "fraud". He is afraid of, among other things, being discovered to have a relationship with a robot, and the implications that he is unable to maintain a human relationship. In the same conversation, a way in which Annie betrayed her owner, which she had kept secret to avoid "displeasing" him, comes to light. The result of this sudden exposure of truth is anger, flight and abuse. hooks's point is proven: a likeness of love, in the absence of choice, openness and the sacrifice of power, is a paper-thin facade when the fears beneath its surface are manifested.

Is there anything resembling the love hooks talks about in Annie Bot? Perhaps, in the self love that grows within Annie. Annie is an auto-didactic robot, meaning she can and does learn throughout the story. In that learning, she begins to recognise her own emotions and desires, make her own choices, and ultimately be honest with herself. Where at the start of the book she reacts solely to her owner's desires, by its midpoint she is autonomous enough to put self-preservation over obedience, running away from her owner in the face of possible harm, which goes against her programming. In the end, she chooses a life that enables her to treat herself with respect, and honour her capabilities and dreams. That life is, however, painted as a primarily solitary path. It is a fitting, feminist ending, but I would have loved to see how love is redeemed in relationships between beings beyond the important step of self-love. 

When writing this, Jacob and I were on a tour of the Bolivian salt flats. In our car of six people, we started talking about love. Over the sound of the radio playing a song (ironically) called "Let Me Love You", one person swore they didn't want to be in a relationship with anyone, and two others agreed with her. The general consensus was that men wanted to date many women without committing. "Women are strong," they said, "It's better to be alone." 

Listening to them, I felt sad - like hooks observed, it seemed like they had sacrificed love, with its potential disappointments, for the safe haven of isolated independence. As a reaction against this tendency, hooks speaks about living in relationships guided by a "love ethic": "We do this by choosing to work with individuals we admire and respect, by committing to give our all in relationships, by embracing a global vision wherein we see our loves and our fate as intimately connected to those of everyone else on the planet".

I've seen this in the courageous ways friends and family around me choose to live, work, and make sacrifices for humanity and the planet. But nowhere have I experienced it more sharply than in marriage. In our marriage, Jacob and I have had to work hard to reflect on who were are and the ways we shrink back from living by a love ethic. This requires sacrificing all the false dignity of a mask of righteousness and really getting to grips with who we are. Just about a week ago, we went on a walk and I asked: "What do you think are my greatest faults?" I asked because this season of travel has been refining in its own way, exposing insecurities in both of us that are easy to hide in the regular routines of settled life. I also asked because these are conversations Jacob and I try to have regularly (we schedule them and call them, unimaginatively, "relationship conversations". They have been a true pillar of our marriage) and I know his intentions are for my good, even if the truth is uncomfortable, and that he shares what he sees with the greatest grace he can. (In the spirit of openess, my greatest faults were letting my emotions shape my sense of justice, and finding it hard to forgive when I feel I've been wronged.)

After reading All About Love, we walked through the desert outskirts of Tupiza, having another relationship conversation. We talked about the ways that the love we did or didn't receive as children has shaped how comfortable we are with the necessary ingredients for true love. For example, I talked about how the punishment I received as a child (I was smacked, which I used to think made a lot of sense as a punishment but bell hooks changed that thought) shaped my view of justice, perhaps contributing to the feeling that wrongs need to be met with punishment to be righted - and finding it not always easy to understand grace. These were new conversations for us, and they opened our eyes to a deeper understanding of each other. 

These conversations are risky. At the start of our marriage, they hurt and left us feeling raw and tired. But they have built a strong core of love that has the reward of realness and commitment; we know that we will not paper over things in this marriage, that it is a high calling. What if Annie didn't stop at self-love but found a way to open herself to another, in a relationship where both parties were willing to fail, learn, and change? That, I think, is what makes us human.

Easter in Ollantaytambo

This week has felt like death and resurrection.

Last Sunday, we went to bed with the aim of waking and walking towards Machu Picchu, that famed 'lost city'. Jacob's tummy was aching, and I felt uneasy as we turned off the lights. I slept lightly, and woke at about 2am to hear him mewling in pain. His stomach was like a taut balloon, and it made it hard to breathe. 'Should we go to hospital?' I asked, but he shook his head, his eyes screwed up. We attempted to sleep, but before long he was up and in the toilet, retching. I felt wild and called Ellis, my friend who is a doctor, trying to keep calm while telling her his symptoms. 'From what you've said it could be many things,' she said, 'but I do think you should go to the hospital. And make sure you ask for a stool sample. I'll text you the things they need to look out for.'

The next morning I booked an uber, coaxed Jacob into his clothes, and we went to the medical centre. 'You look bad, my friend,' the doctor said. He put his stethoscope to Jacob's inflated tummy. 'Your intestines are full of fluid.' Jacob was soon in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV drip. I curled up on a chair next to him, texting his family, nodding off, reading bits of 'My bright abyss'. The results of his stool and blood sample showed salmonella and three parasites, and the doctor said he'd need to stay the night. 

I walked back to our hostel, feeling numb and then feeling overwhelmed. I'd need to cancel our accommodation, disinfect our clothes, pack our bags, find another place to stay the following night. I would be alone without Jacob. I had a cry and kept going.

That night, I woke at 1.14am to a ballooning pain. It was as if yesterday's horrors had been a dress rehearsal in which I was the understudy, but now, on opening night, I was thrust on stage. Soon I was in the toilet, knowing I was about to throw up but shocked by the violence of it. I texted the hospital, making an appointment for the morning, then packed in stages, in between more toilet trips and lying down trying to settle the nausea. I texted my family and received a concerned voice message from Mum and from Dad 'Meeyum, take care of yourself.' His loving voice made me cry, but also small child within just wanted someone else to take care of me.

The next day reflected the first: uber - hospital - doctor - blood test. When taking the second vial of blood everything went dim and tilted sideways, then there was a lot of 'Miriam!' 'Miriam!' and something in my nose and other things on my fingers, then the toilet again, then a nurse guiding me upstairs to Jacob's room and getting into the single hospital bed beside him and closing my eyes.

Unsurprisingly, I had parasites and salmonella too (just one parasite compared to Jacob's three, but one was hell enough). Both of us stayed in hospital that night. The IV drip hurt and in a humiliating moment I had to ask for adult diapers but I felt safe, and cared for, and away from the world.

The next day, we were let out with a week's worth of antibiotics and I didn't want to go. Outside meant decisions and figuring out where to sleep and what to eat and walking. I was still so tired. But out we went, together. And so I've been re-discovering the sweetness of the world in a slow way. We gave up Machu Picchu, but explored the cobblestoned streets of Cusco slowly. I felt the softest baby alpaca sweater and saw masked figures dance in the market. We came to Ollantaytambo and initially every morning I'd wake with mounting nausea.

But today is Easter day, and today I woke without nausea. I ran, slowly, up a hill and down it, feeling my breath and my body weak but so much stronger. At lunchtime, we brought our bread and oats to a picnic table in the garden of our hostel and then out of the doors burst a family, baskets in hand, running around. 'Huevos! Huevos!' they cried, and one woman beckoned us to join them. Abandoning our picnic we looked for the treasures hidden in the garden. I found small foil-wrapped eggs, and then a big painted egg. I tried to give them to one older woman who gave them back to me and ordered 'Buscar mas!' (Look for more!) While I didn't find anymore, eventually between us we found thirty eggs. Jacob and I each had one with lunch. 

Partway through the easter egg hunt, I paused in the garden sun and smiled. Joy - pure joy. I feel like life has returned, and the days hold out their promise of goodness to come, if I take the chance to look for it.

Travel Top 3: February

Two months down, and this second one has included Chile and Argentina. Without further ado, the awards go to...

Supremely Useful

1. Before our trip I spent more time than necessary researching shoes that could 'do it all' - something we could run in, hike in, walk in cities in, that weren't too heavy, that were good in dry and rainy climates. There is no perfect shoe, but eventually we landed on Topos, a trail runner, for our adventure. Mine started out a bright turquoise, but after over 300km are now a dusty turquoise. They are so lightweight, comfortable, hardy, and neither Jacob nor I got a single blister while wearing them on the O trek. 

Runners up:

1. Powdered soya milk. Before we came to South America, I'd heard that peanut butter was hard to find here. Surprisingly, peanut butter has been pretty ubiquitous in supermarkets, but soya milk is another story. Apparently it used to be more common, but tastes have changed - people prefer almond or coconut milk, and while a country like Argentina is the world's third largest producer of soya, most of this is used for animal feed and not much goes into delicious things like soya milk or tofu (imagine if more of the world went vegan...) The powdered soya milk we bought in Singapore was such a nice treat to have in our oats during the hike. 

2. Sounds boring but - a length of rope we brought with us from Singapore. We've had very few places that include free washing services or a washing machine, and this rope has been a makeshift washing line for our handwashing so that even if we're a little grubby, our clothes have stayed mostly clean!

Supremely Joyful

Sitting in the garden in El Bolson. El Bolson was an oasis after hard days - it was where we landed after hitch hiking over 1300km, and came after El Chalten where we did long hikes. The town itself felt like a balm: fruit trees laden with stone fruit, a bulk store with reasonable prices where we stocked up on oats, soya mince and raisins, and even vegan empanadas! One afternoon, we had nothing planned and we spent it reading and writing. I sat in the garden on a small wooden ledge under an apple tree. The sun was warming my legs and my face, and I put my book down, tilted my head up, and basked. I felt perfectly at peace.

Runners up:

1. Watching men play chess in Chile - sunlight, people having fun and revelling in the thrill of strategy, what's not to love? It reminded me of one of the best compliments I heard; someone once said of my family: "I admire your commitment to play."

2. Tasting spreads in Huertana, Mendoza. We arrived when it was closed but the owner of the business kindly showed us around anyway, naming the different flavours on offer in English and Spanish and letting us try lots of them. He'd punctuate our tasting with: "This is on the pedestal of my top three." (the apricot jam), and "This - now this is my favourite!" (the fig jam) Passion and joy just oozed out of him, and it was infectious. We couldn't resist the spreads either and bought their house salsa made with pickled aubergine, courgette, tomato, and red pepper. 

Supremely Tasty

Santiago was replete with incredible fresh produce, and Jacob was eager to cook something that would make vegetables sing (so to speak!) We picked up green beans, potatoes, aubergine, red pepper, courgette, mushrooms, lentils, and olives from the Mercado Central and roasted/boiled them with a little oil, salt, and pepper, but altogether they tasted heavenly! The cherries and strawberries (but especially the cherries) from the market were also incredible.

Runners up:

1. After a 30+km cycle ride in Bariloche, we stopped by Mamushka for ice cream. We picked (predictably) dark chocolate with candied almonds, and (unusually) champagne and cassis. They went surprisingly well together; the chocolate rich and decadent yet creamy and light at the same time, and the champagne and cassis was refreshing and sparkly. Both were ridiculously tasty, rivalling even the chocolate hazelnut ice cream we had in New Zealand!

2. For Jacob's birthday meal in Mendoza, we made a delicious pasta with mushrooms, soya mince, green beans, roasted aubergine and courgette, onion, and the Huertana spread I mentioned. Perhaps it was eating it after a day of wine and cycling, but it tasted like something you'd eat in a restaurant with candles. 

The Great Escape: Chile - Puerto Natales and Torres Del Paine

In the last hour of our flight from Santiago to Puerto Natales, people start standing up, craning to see the lakes and mountain peaks of Patagonia below them. When we get off the plane, we are greeted with the sight of mountains, and a cool breeze, and clean air.

The hostel in Puerto Natales is small, clean and light-filled. We have no plans aside from preparing for the hike for the day and a half we are here. Thankfully, the hostel has a 'free' corner with the exuvia of other hikers, including a pair of flip flops I snag as my 'shower shoes', a 2/3 full gas canister for our camping stove, and half a jar of peanut butter. 

Early on the morning of our hike, we walk to the bus station for our shuttle to the Torres Del Paine national park. After having some breakfast, I fall asleep and when I wake up I'm startled and incredibly excited to see wide open fields and guanaco. 

The first day's walk isn't too difficult at all - 15 kilometres through bucolic scenery. Fields of yellow and white flowers, purple grasses, and sections with moss covered trees. At one point, we see two hawks gliding through the air. After lunch, we round a corner to see mountains with a glacial blue river snaking through them, and when we get closer I realise the river water is not clear but milky like water after rinsing rice. The hardest thing about the first day is our backpacks, which are the heaviest they've been, because aside from our regular items and hiking gear they hold 7 sets of breakfasts (oats, raisins, chia seeds, soy milk powder, peanut butter) each, 7 sets of lunch (chocolate meal replacement powder), and 6 sets of dinner (cous cous and vegan bak kwa, wraps and marinara sauce with TVP, and instant noodles and TVP), 24 granola bars, and dried fruit and nuts. After we get to camp Seron Jacob suggests we write a haiku for our days walk and so in a light-hearted moment I write:

My pack is heavy
A mountain lightens my load
Hypnotised by awe.

Then, dissatisfied with that one, I revise it to the more 'poetic' sounding:

Turning a corner
The snaking river tells me
I'm on the right path.

The tents at the camp are suspended in air, and there is a sort of feeling of surreal-ness: "Am I really here?" Everything feels like a game - rolling out our sleeping bags, lighting the camp stove and heating up our dinner, washing up and showering. After dinner, we ask if we can share a picnic table with another couple. Their names are Benjamin and Camila, and they are from Concepcion in Chile. They happily join our card game, and Benjamin gives Jacob a sip of his beer. Our Spanish is shaky, but they are patient and Benjamin speaks English clearly. He gives us the excellent tip that when learning a new language, it works better to imagine the new word attached to its corresponding action or feeling, rather than equating it with the word in the language you know. There is a lot of laughter, and the warm feeling of meeting two truly kind people. Despite the heat that night, I sleep relatively well. 

After breakfast the next day, I'm washing up in the soft dawn light when I hear a woman say "Puma!" and sure enough, a lithe, sandy coloured creature is softly sliding its way past the rangers' tent and into the camp. I run quickly into the ladies toilet so if it starts to run there's a door between us. But like a shadow, it moves quietly on, barely two metres away from Jacob who remains at the sink blithely washing our water bottles. 

The second day's hike is longer, at 19 kilometres to Dickson camp, and includes a hill pass which is windy and rainy. Once we push through that, however, there is a beautiful rainbow which remains in sight for a large part of the walk. We walk through bushland, wetland, and always with the mountains and glaciers in the far distance. The final part of the walk is over a small hill and once we get around the top we see our campsite nestled amongst the mountains. When we get closer it is not quite so idyllic - the campsite is infested with mosquitos and dreadfully hot - and so my haiku for the day, written by the lake at the campsite, is:

The walker's nightmare:
It is hot but you must not
Get into the lake.

The third day is a short 13 kilometre walk over undulating terrain through forest to Los Perros. Jacob and I spend much of it playing a game of 'either, or', and I learn about Jacob's singing and dancing preferences, and when he'd rather be in a crowd or alone. The final few kilometres are over a rocky pass - I layer up, and have to use more strength than usual to make sure my camera isn;t blown out of my hands when I try to photograph the beautiful glacier that emerges after we get over the pass. Los Perros campsite is much colder than Dickson - hovering in the single digits or maybe a high of 10 degrees. When I am not in the cooking area, I have all my warm layers on and my thickest pair of socks. The day's joy involves getting to know some of the other trekkers in the group, since we all have to stop at Los Perros and the shorter walk and cold temperature means more time together in the shared kitchen. We play a game of cards with Benjamin and Camilla, Dimitri, a french traveller, and Kun Han and April, two fellow Singaporeans (it is a dead giveaway when their lunch involves bak kwa). Jacob wrote a fantastic travel sketch of many of the people we met, which you can read here.

Despite the easier day, on this day I am more tired than the previous days and feeling slightly apprehensive about the next day - when we walk over the notoriously difficult John Garner Pass to see the Grey Glacier. Ruminating on that informs my next haiku:

Blind, white, wind-whipped face
How old is a glacier?
Its blank stare chills us.

We wake the next morning in the dark. I haven't slept well, and it is cold and cloudy, but an immediate uphill means that soon we are stripping off layers. Forest gives way to shale, which someone later tells me formed when rocks layers shattered after being exposed from beneath an ancient glacier. The uphill is steep, but there are beautiful mountains on either side. 

When we get to the top the glacier spreads out before us and I can't help but babbling, "Wow! Wow! Wow!" It's like the words are being pulled out of me. The glacier starts in the distance with snow so bright it hurts to look at it, then cascades down into blue and grey crevices. It stretches about 28 kilometres long. Perhaps even more unbelievably, the wind is docile and we crack open a granola bar to celebrate. 

From there on, it's a continuous downhill, which is not my forte. Jacob distracts me by playing 'Izzy's game', in which you ask someone to respond to a question based on a number they hold in their head. For instance, if I was thinking '10' and was asked to name a colour, I'd say sunshine yellow, but if I was thinking '1' I'd say lime green. Another thing that helps is looking between the trees to see the stoic glacier still there, like some great white monster. Eventually we get to the first of a few suspension bridges. Only one person can cross at a time; you see a steep drop and a stream beneath you and the glacier on your right. At the final bridge, we catch up with Benjamin and Camilla. This is our last night with them, because they are staying two nights at the Grey campsite to hike on the glacier itself, whereas we are continuing on to the next campsite. It is bittersweet to end the hardest day with them.

It is oh, so, cold the next morning, and I am cosy in my sleeping bag and don't want to leave the tent, but we have a long day ahead of us. It is our longest yet, although less steep and technical than the day before. I tell myself to just get it done, one step at a time. And then I am surprised by joy and beauty. Today's walk is along undulating ground through the forest, then a ridge that opens out frequently to miradors that give us a view of Lago Grey and other lakes that reflect the brilliant blue of the sky.

We make surprisingly good time, and choose to take the route around Lake Pehoe that leads us past Guarderia Italiano. Feeling confident, we decide to add another 4 kilometres to the day's mileage by taking a detour to Mirador Frances. At camp that evening we bump into Kirk, a Scottish guy who set off at the same time as us that morning. He's had a bad day: having had to double back twice after forgetting his tent and hiking poles in different places he's covered almost 50km, and has just heard from the camp staff that he's not booked in there but in another one 3km away. "I'm so pissed," he says, shaking his dusty head. "I needed a smoke but I don't have a lighter. Lit the cigarette with my camping stove." 

Our penultimate day of hiking is unexpectedly hard. We both thought the day before was the hardest, and are not prepared for the constant up and down of the terrain, all with the sun in our eyes. After the 15km we expected to walk, there is still no sign of camp Chileno. The road veers left into a valley, and the path is increasingly covered in horse poo. The valley looks over a snaking river, and toward snow-peaked mountains and dark green pines, but I am seething with tiredness, dusty and sweaty and hungry. We see horses approaching carrying packs of food and toilet paper; this camp is only accessible by hoof and heel. When we finally see the camp, I have a confused moment thinking we are entering Tolkien's Rivendell, as we cross a river on a wooden bridge and see horses tethered in a grove of trees. But it is not Rivendell but a restaurant that we stop at, setting our packs down and wolfing down our lunch.

This camp is known for its proximity to one of the most beautiful miradors in the park - the Mirador las Torres, a trio of spiky peaks. We'd planned to hike up the next morning to see the sunrise, but the receptionist at camp tells us that the weather looks bad tomorrow, and we'd best head up there that afternoon - meaning right then. With little time to think it through, we head swiftly up the trail, even though we're already exhausted. The whole day feels like we're pushing beyond our limits, and it's not good for us. The trail is crowded with day trippers and other hikers, and when we get to the Mirador, the peaks are covered in cloud. After a few 'we were here' photographs, we head down. Jacob is impatient with the other hikers, I am grumpy with Jacob's swiftness, preferring to move more slowly especially since as we head down the mountain and I look backwards I see, frustratingly, that the clouds are beginning to lift. But we are too tired to double back. We are both less grumpy and frustrated after a good snack, hot showers, and dinner.

We fall asleep lulled by the sound of the river, and wake again at 3.50am to hike up for the sunrise. I tell Jacob I don't want to rush it, remembering a sign in our very first campsite that Benjamin pointed out; it said, "If you rush it, you miss Patagonia." Setting out in the dark is exciting. Everything is quiet, and we match the silence as we move through the forest. It is comforting to know what is to come, and I feel the difference that makes to my internal rhythm compared to the rush up the day before. When we get to the final rocky scramble, the sun begins to lighten the sky and we get to the Mirador just before the sun hits the rocks. Today, the clouds have shifted and all three Torres stand visible. Unlike the day before, there are just a few dawn hikers and a low buzz of conversation. We eat our breakfast and watch as the light breaks on the mountain, soaking the grey stone with deep, red light that lightens to orange, then yellow, then to the translucent light of day that lightens rather than soaks the world in colour. We head back down and back at the restaurant we have a hot mug of tea and someone's breakfast leftovers of bread, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. 

The final walk back is so happy and so easy. This whole week's walking siphoned us out of the world into a state of being where putting one foot in front of the other is the biggest choice one makes each day, and that is a beautiful freedom only enhanced by the beauty of the park.