catch

Seasons. Change. This year has been full of it, a year ago we left the States with little more than what we could carry and we set up a home here in a small village and aside from one scary medical issue it's been fine, it's been fine as spun sugar dripping off the cone. I've learned some things, things I'd never known about heat and dirt and bugs and third world markets, of concrete bungalows with Cuban doctors who fix you better than your doctors in the States. Of hand washing laundry and learning to make do. I've learned about the dark, about the full of the moon. Of community and what it means to look out for one another when there is no one else to call. And along the way we've had a few breaks, a good gig in the US that enabled us to keep on doing what we are doing even if it meant a bit of back and forth for me.

But change is coming, another one thought out carefully and with our goals firmly in mind but require an unconventional situation. One I embrace and one I do not. It's simple really, when the Man offers you a longer gig in what has proven to be a very uncertain economy you say yes, you say yes even if it means that half of us will need to leave the jungle and come back to the States temporarily, for several months in a row. You say yes and then realize you cannot be away from your child so she must come with you. You say yes and realize that you also cannot leave what you've started here. You say yes and realize how much you will miss J. But J will stay and we will go, and he will build our house while we are gone.

You see how this is a good thing, a once in a lifetime sort of opportunity to allow for both income and construction. You see how if we focus, if we really focus, we can maybe actually pull it off. But it means half of us are leaving and the rest is staying here. It's a distance I can't quite fathom, one where visits are already planned and life is already in motion.

But today I watched the toucans and I cried. I listened to the magnificent howler monkeys screaming in the trees and I cried some more. I do and do not want to go. It requires an extra dose of courage and trust to make this next move.

Our friends have come round today, hugs and small tokens and lots of goodbyes. A few months is a long time here, the mamitas in the village have already offered weekly meals, fry jacks and johnny cakes and rice and beans for J. He is awkward in response, he's not quite like the men here, he is more accustomed in domesticity and doesn't need the help but it's touching all the same and it's quite lovely knowing they'll be here just like it's calming knowing our village there awaits, friends and family who support our next chapter have circled the wagons there too, assisting with odd bits of child care and books for M and a warm embrace for me.

So tomorrow M and I will hug J tight and then get on a plane and start something new and we'll do it together and apart and there is grace in that, in knowing that our small family is it's own little village, that we will watch over each other as we go and that in a short while if all goes as planned we'll be back again soon and move into a place of our own.