Precious Words

I have precious little time now, and time is precious (perhaps that is where this expression comes from?) but I felt the need to post today, to send out a few little words into the cyber void, for the sheer joy of saying something to somebody. I am very lonely today. An odd thing to say, I guess, while traveling with 17 people. Not that the observation that being alone and being lonely are very different things is a new one, but it does seem pressing at the current moment. I hold no grudges against the people I am with, I get along with almost all of them, like a number of them, and even a little more with one or two... but as I sat on the bus (from Uyuni to Potosi) today, rounding mountain corners which make one very aware of their own mortality, driving straight through half-frozen rivers, it struck me this feeling stems not so much from being with others or on your own. What's hard --the sting of it-- is being away from people who know you, and to whom you matter. I have never been good at keeping things or people present when they are not, and all I can do here is flip through my Friends/Family photo album, page by page, and think ¨These are my people. And they are still out there.¨ I guess when one is not lonely this does not seem as important. But I am lonely. Thankfully, tomorrow is laundry day, and few things cheer up a traveler like clean clothes...

Must run. Bus to Sucre in 20 minutes!

¨Good night, dear void!¨

N.