keep the wild inside

a correspondence about wilderness and art

Amazonia Americana

Alone.

In a small town at the confluence of river and border. Colombia, Peru, Brasil. Amazon water and Amazon flower and Amazon vine.

For one of the few times in my life, I am not marveling at how I got here, but thinking furiously How will I get out?

Arriving was innocent enough, since Manaus is a spellbinding and beautiful place. Even in the rain, even with the foul image of Herzog's movie 'Fitzcarraldo,' which cannot help but tint the place with madness and greed, and desperation. I met mad people, and jealous people, and desperate people in the Opera City, but two weeks there could not compare with the 48 hours I will spend in Tabatinga, the melt of river and border, the molt of law into survival. 

In my hotel room I read on the wall above my bed an account by a traveler named Julia who survived sexual assault the night before but thinks she may have broken her arm in the process, and now writes on the wall to warn anyone reading never to take the advice of her friend Wayne, who exulted about Tabatinga and the confluences in the jungle, and reading this now a year after she wrote it and carefully dated it on the wall leaves me more agitated than I was when I landed at the airfield and saw the holstered gun on every hip and the lack of smiles on every lip.

How do I get out? 

coming AUGUST 15