Last Day in Quito

The sky is cloudy this morning - an endless gray cotton that stretches out beyond what I can see. At 6:30 am, the lights in the houses sprawling across the valley have still not died out. The fog has begun to rise above the mountains, leaving thick drops of dew stuck onto the green foliage in its wake. "Winter" here at the equator (or technically slightly north of it) has begun. I definitely prefer it to the ungodly heat and the Equatorial sun beating down on you that we were getting but two days ago.

Part of me believes that the cloudy sky is Quito´s farewell to me. Almost as if it were sad to see me go. And part of me is touched, because I am sad to go too. In my year and a half of living here, I´ve come to appreciate more of it. I´ve come to hate it less. I´ve come to see its other face that it had hidden from me while in high school. It is a thriving bohemian city that is struggling to find its identity. It no longer is the Quito of old - the one that belonged to the conservatives and bigots and hypocrites, but it still wears that mask. And until it can learn to remove that mask, I´m afraid that I cannot live here.

But despite me leaving Quito, I take Quito with me. In the same way that I take Amsterdam, and Qingdao, and even Poughkeepsie with me wherever I go. It doesn´t really define me or even tell me who I am or where I belong or where I am going, but it is part of me.

I´m reluctant to really get out of bed today. Not because I don´t want to wake up or because I´m getting nostalgic about Quito but because I have no desire to begin to face the list of stressful situations the city is bound to throw my way today. Murphy, it seems, has taken up residence somewhere near here and is running amok across town. Why Quito? Why? Why would you prefer that I go around all day trying to solve the issue of my paycheck being incomplete than me taking a stroll around the city center one last time?

Oh Quito...I hope that someday we´ll really understand each other. Until then, I think I´ll wander across the streets of Boston or New York or London or Beijing or Amsterdam or wherever the wind takes me - waiting, for you to grow up.

Categories: Ecuador, Quito, travel