who are those people that want everything to stay the same

Part of it is because we haven't been able to make the whole "lets live in the jungle" thing work out as well as we would have liked. I mean, it works, and it doesn't. Namely, we haven't been able to earn a living outside the US.

So he is there and we are here and I'm back in the homelessness mix. Again. It's like Groundhog Day, like I never left, and like I've been gone a long, long time.

So we are building a house in the jungle and earning a living in the States. There's a computation error there somewhere, the addition is more than the subtraction. Or something. People are starting to ask that question, the what the hell are you guys doing question. I'd be asking it too.

And yet still somehow it makes sense. Hope, see. We haven't yet given up on hope, on the fact that we can make it work in a way unclear to us now. That by throwing in the whole towel we'd not have learned what we have. That drumming under a full moon in the jungle is really awesome, or that there are excellent doctors in rural parts of the world, or that survival can actually take up 32% of your day, every single day. Or that bugs aren't really that scary. That the sounds of the jungle can soothe you, that you can do most things you set your mind to. That you can grow a butterfly tree. Or that you can be really, really hot and still actually maintain a pulse.

That the whole experience may stretch you in places you need to grow and still not know the way. That the way is the way, not that sign up ahead.

Now if I can only believe it more than 32% of the time, every time.

Oh, and I miss blogging. Especially now that I'm back on the street.

the kumbaya of women

I've been single parenting for awhile now. J's been in the jungle and we girls in the States, working here to pay for the house building there. It wasn't an easy decision and there are hard days, bad skype connections and a missing so deep. A wondering of what the hell are we doing and an excitement underneath because we are creating this place in the middle of nowhere, from near and from far. We are still committed to this thing.

So it's mostly been me and my girl, made possible in part by the flexibility of friends and women who have become friends. Like my boss, who when it gets late in the day she says oh i know you need to go get your girl and she means it and it's okay. Or the friend who takes my child about once a month, out for lunch and a movie so I can run errands or simply do nothing. Or my mom, who we visit when we can and who will take completely over, leaving me behind in the best possible way.

But mostly it's just been me and my girl, something I thought would be harder than it has been, we have good days and not so good and I occasionally beat myself up for not doing a better job and sometimes I'm a slacker and sometimes she talks back but mostly we do just fine and while we miss the third leg of our little stool I also realize how precious this time is, the ease with which we move through our day, the simple routine of two. The bond we share and now share even more.

On a bad day she might look at me and tell me she thinks I'm being mean because I miss daddy and that's okay but I don't have to take it out on her. Or on a good day she'll call us sisters and hug me tight. Or today, she handed over the contents of her piggy bank so we can buy anti-malaria nets for kids who need them, or yesterday when she told me my outfit looked really, really bad but in a really nice way. And through it all, distracted or not or busy or not I look at her and I watch in wonder, because I can't believe how lucky I am and how much I adore her, how amazing and brave and nimble she is and how we are in this together, laughing and stressing and hugging and teasing and learning and crying our way into what comes next.

40

I'll have to get used to it, this leaving my 30's and entering my 40's. It's only been about 9 hours and it's already starting to roll off my tongue a bit easier. 40.

40.

For some reason, this number, this big 4 ish number, it always felt so damn old.

And yet I sit, 40. I tried to hide but you came anyways, you came and you found me and relentless you arrived and so I will greet you defiantly, I will embrace you and love you and I might even kick your ass. 40. So you watch out sister, because I'm coming into my own.

happy birthday to me.

see saw

My life is so weird. My partner is in another country. My kid and I are living here. We want to be back in the jungle. We don't know how long it will take. I am enjoying my work here. M continues to thrive. Everyone is healthy. Things are okay.

Things are okay.

I can't keep putting off blogging till I have it all figured out. Otherwise, holy shit.

So I'm getting used to here, and part of getting used to here is getting used to M's school here. It's a great school, clearly more well rounded than the jungle and yet something is also missing. M thinks the kids here are meaner, she complains that they keep telling her what she cannot do, what they can do better. It's like that here because we thrive on competition I try and tell her but it makes little sense to her. To her it's just mean. But the jungle had it's issues too, like the time she came home with sentences to copy and I kid you not, the sentences read:

He is tall.

She is fat.

No kidding. She is fat. So that gave me chest pains too, and I spent the night making her write

He is tall.

She is smart.

over and over and over instead and talking quite a bit about why I didn't like the other sentence. So here the homework is clearly more politically correct. And clearly More Political.

We were given an assignment last week to get a big piece of paper and 100 pieces of something, and our job was to glue those pieces on the paper and write each number. Easy, I think and me thinking I'm clever get those little candy hearts and we sit and glue and label and glue and we look at ourselves and we smile and we call it One Hundred Pieces Of Love so we bring it in and then we notice all the other projects, some in 3-D, others will all sorts of bells and whistles, fantastic designs and over-the-topishness that defines parenting today. As we gaze around the room our One Hundred Pieces of Love seems inadequate, what made us giggle the night before makes us self conscious today, M gazes around and looks at me If Daddy was here our project would have been better she says and my heart hurts and at the same time I can't help it because I know she's right.

You are right about that Baby Girl, because he's the creative one. But if he was here he'd have made you make it out of sticks and leaves and rocks, and then you wouldn't have gotten to eat the leftovers. And she tells me it's okay in a way that she probably doesn't really mean and I love her for it and I give her a hug.

And it hurt a bit more when the teacher hung hers way up out of the way to make room for all the really cool ones, something I would have done too, probably without even thinking about it but when it's your kid's project that's in the nosebleed section you notice. And then you blame yourself even if you truly believe competition is silly. Because if daddy was here it would have been better. Just like nearly everything else.

So you hug your kid again and you tell her we'll do a better job next time and she pats me on the back it's okay mommy I still like ours and I wonder again what I ever did to get this lucky.

hip hop you don't stop

So, she says, do you wear the same four outfits every week? I laugh a little and say I do. And in cubicle world I am sure it gets noticed. But you know, still. She cases me a little so, is what you have on one of your outfits? I'm wearing jeans and a shirt and after 12 hours I'm sloppy. After 2 hours I'm probably sloppy. Yes I say.

She runs up the stairs and comes back down. She's holding two dresses. I don't wear these anymore she says and hands them to me. They are lovely and casual and nice all at once. Really? I say and she smiles. Try them on she says. She hands them over and I understand again how you never really know till you know. How every day is a series of little gifts and sparkly rainbows. Of tears and longing. Of realizing how alive you are in the presence of others and outside of your usual routine.

And this is how it's been, this new world of couch surfing and depending on friends, of catching cabs and flights and morphing one world into the next. Of the kindness of strangers and also your friends. I'm busy and I'm lonely and I'm full and I miss my family and I like the work and I have fallen asleep on the floor and guest beds and once a bit tipsy after a long night of red wine and the most delicious chilean sea bass I've ever tasted.

I miss my home. I desperately miss my kid, a few weeks away from her has been like a gaping wound that no amount of skype or phone calls can cure. I miss her smell and her giggle and I miss the jungle and even the dirty heat. I feel like I'm the worst mom in the world. I fall in love with her father all over again without him even knowing it.

So I'll zig to my zag, this brave new world we've created, one foot in the first and the other in the third, there is no playbook for this and so we go day by day wondering if this is right or that is right or what it all means and in the end it means we are still living, one of us hasn't left the jungle and two of us have gone back and forth and the third, the girl third has been back and forth for two months now, an upside down sort of something that feels shaky and stable all at once.

So the radio silence has been just that. Of not knowing what to say and of having to say too much.

bob marley has definitely left the building

This country is so lax about so many things, roads and stoplights, electricity and more and as such its been quite a shock seeing the seriousness with which they take their schools. All of the schools here are run by the catholic church, so certain things were expected like churches on site at each school, uniforms and prayers. But I didn't realize the full extent of things until yesterday at our first parent/teacher assembly.

We gathered right after lunch in one of the classrooms, the same stifling heat-filled rooms where we expect our children to learn. The heat and the lack of air circulation has been on my mind all week, M will come out of class with her face sweaty even though she's sitting still. There are ceiling fans in the room but the teacher is afraid to turn them on, they are so rickety she's worried they will fall down on the kids.

The principal runs the meeting, starting of course with prayers. She then goes over general rules (rules! lots of rules!) about things like mandatory pleats in the uniforms (there must be TWO! Not ONE. Not THREE! TWO!) and about how the kids can never, ever be late to class. I can't help it and I start to giggle and J looks at me sternly once or twice but I can't help it, the anti-authority vein in me takes over. Besides, it's very, very hot.

One of the other moms asks about the heat and what the school can do and unfortunately they can't do anything, there is no money and the catholics don't come back till January to do repairs. I mentally tick off the months in my head and realize we can't wait till then and we'll have to do something about it now. The principal ends by reminding folks they have stopped corporal punishment and I thank all that is holy because this principal scares me in a good way and I really don't want to have to fight with her but I would have over this.

After the meeting ends we walk outside and climb in the car. Let's go into town and buy a fan for M's classroom I say and J says right now? and I nod. So we head into town and I'm still giggling, we debate who is going to have to go to mass because we just learned we are supposed to go every week, something that god bless them I just don't see myself doing and wonder what the consequences of this inaction will be. Maybe the fan can serve as our advance penance but J just laughs, he was bred in parochial schools and if anything I think he finds all of this rather familiar and relatively okay.

We buy the fans and decide to get two, realizing the unfairness of things if I were to ask the teacher to only put a fan on M's side of the room. As we are driving back I wonder if this is going to make me seem like an asshole, the only foreigner in the school is already inserting herself in things and J says but that's exactly what you are doing and I agree and decide it can't be helped.

When we pick M up after class she's chattering happily. She actually loves her school and her teacher and is already starting to make friends, this first week has gone better than I could ever have imagined for her. She climbs up on the stool and watches me chop onions and asks me to look at her and she stands at prim attention and makes the sign of the cross and I look across the room at J and he starts to smirk. What's that baby I say It's the sign of the cross mama, I am Catholic now and I slowly and quietly rest my head on the table rocking it side to side. It's okay mama you can be Catholic too and I look at her and smile and I remind her about all the worlds religions and how some people are catholic and some are christian and some are buddhist and some are muslim and I remind her of people in her life who are each of these and she smiles and does her cross signing once more. I know mama but I want to be catholic.

And I know in this moment that I'm not anti-any of this but I am pro-openness and awareness and personal choice and I disagree with having things forced on her or anyone else and I realize that right now my ass has just been kicked by a force much bigger than I am, that unless we take her out of school completely this is just the way it's going to be and all of a sudden I realize how much more complicated things become as she gets older, how this is just the first of a thousand million things and how once again when you are a mother there is simply no going back. So I decide there will have to be some balance, a third pleat if you will, a way to calm the tide or at least slow it down long enough for her to find her own balance and for me to have time to continue to grow up.

torn between two lovers feeling like a fool

Ahem

(taps microphone softly)

(glances around, considers running away)

It's been nearly two weeks since I've posted, I think a one plus two record. I may have been serious when I said I forgot how to write.

I'm back in the jungle. We are back and not only back but my baby, my sweet, delicious, tiny girl child started kindergarten today. I quite tearily dropped her off and left her and picked her up afterwards, my amazing most beautiful kick ass kid. She did it, she did it with only a few tears, sweating in the heat, she came out smiling and even complaining that there wasn't very much learning going on around that place which I've decided to chalk up to first day settling in and not as an omen of things to come. She even wants to go back tomorrow. Score one for jungle school.

I've been a whirlwind of planes and work and heat, my project isn't winding down so I am due back next month, a blessing and a curse, a paycheck and a long distance road. I am really walking the line now, unsure of where I am supposed to be and even more quietly, where I want to be, unsure of a lot and confident in the rest. Somehow this is sort of what we planned and yet somehow when it's actually happening it feels a million times strange and a bit teary, I get a bit of a rush and I am in some ways proud of myself. I already miss my child and am not sure what kind of mother this leaving again makes me.

We talked about it quite a bit me and her, debating whether working every day all day and being apart in that way is better than being together constantly for six months and having two weeks apart. She's decided the latter is better except for the part when I'm gone and I completely agree. The career part of me feels so thankful, I've somehow landed a gig that suits me perfectly, working with non profit types instead of inside of them, helping things work themselves out. Being in the States meant a few other things, besides gaining a few pounds I reconnected with old friends, several of whom took me in and for one fantastic weekend, M and I both. We couch surfed and ate too much and drank in the luxury of being around people we love and who love us and we laughed and hugged and maybe cried once or twice.

And now we are back and feel fortunate again to be met with hugs and squeals and catching up with our new friends, the ones we've come to love here who are now part of us too. Down here they chide me for going up north to the unreal world and nod with understanding because they know why I must. The mothers here promise to help J and M any way they can because they know and we all know there is nothing like having a mother in the home and for that I am happy too. The village circles it's wagons once more. And I spin right round baby right round.

fencing

Man, it's easy to get sucked in. You with your roads and your stoplights and your miles of produce all neatly stacked in rows. You with your convenience and your hot water and your surety that when you flip the light switch the light will indeed come on.

A week and a half to go and then I'm back in the jungle but the project will continue a bit longer so I'll be coming back again soon. I'm grateful and I am lost, I am straddling two sides of a very different fence and one is seductive and one is real while the other is seductive and the other is real.

I weave anonymously through the crowd both sure and unsure. Office politics make me giggle and I laugh in the elevator. I miss the sky. I can't hear the birds. I drink your wine and I sit in your comfortable chairs. I order a sandwich with the ease of someone who hasn't forgotten how. I'm soft in the middle. I'm using my brain. I like the project I'm working on but my life doesn't feel real.

I've forgotten how to write.

culture clash

Four airplane flights and a week of work under my belt, I'm starting to see how this might work over the next couple of months. The pace I'd expected and the entire thing is a blessing beyond words, being able to come back to my old life while in an entirely different capacity still feels familiar. I am in an amusing position, being brought in by The Boss to work on Special Projects, an out of the box type assignment that has the regular boxers on some sort of alert. But I am happy for it not only because of the work but because the special projects are for my old community, tackling the same problems from a different angle with hopefully some success.

I join the masses on the downward plunge on the midday elevator, groups of people fleeing incubation for the street. Every day I feel near hysterical in a manageable sort of way because this whole thing is so bizarre to me and I will never understand the culture of this type of place. Once the doors open and I'm out in the sun I inevitably stop and tilt my face towards the sky. I am here and I am not here and it creates an invisible barrier, my months of jungle village stay with me as I manage not to become swayed by the creatively lit restaurants and fast cars. Cubicles. I am not here for this.

I am walking down the street when I see him, he's manning the corner with his cup and his sign and I see the folks before me swerve around him as they go. As I approach I slow down and he shakes his cup at me and I start to laugh which gets his attention so he actually looks at me and breaks out in a grin. Girl! Where you been? and I tell him and we talk for a minute about how things are still rough and how there is still hope. I want to talk to him more, I want to bring him into one of those restaurants and buy him lunch and really hear how he's doing and catch up not only on the street but the heart, the news on who has found a place and who's been locked up, the cycle of poverty hasn't skipped a beat.

I tell him as much and he is in agreement. I want to hear all about this crazy jungle thing and next time bring pictures of your kid he says so we agree that next week I'll find him and we'll go have some lunch and he smiles broadly and he gives me a hug.

And in that moment I am back all the way, amidst the suits and the blackberries and the well stocked stores and the high speed connections I found my soul and I'll savor it, as I walk away I feel more sprightly as if all of a sudden the ground I am walking on makes a little sense after all.

just like that

It's surreal. I'm back and within being back 48 hours jumped in full time at work, I'm sleeping at a friend's house while M stays with her grandparents. J is still in the jungle so like a little triangle we make three points on a map with she and I reuniting on the weekends and I already can't wait.

It's strange how we envisioned doing exactly this as part of the way we make the jungle work and I am grateful for every moment of it but it's still very, very strange.

I'd bundled up my work clothes and stowed them in a box in the jungle six months ago and last week I opened them up and realized I had no shoes so I went shopping the day after we arrived and got a kicky pair of heels. Ruby slippers M calls them and I wore them on my first day and within a half hour I was nearly crippled, blisters and suffering and now that I'm out of the jungle and even the shelter it's harder to walk around barefoot and so I suffered all day until the second it was time to leave.

As soon as I walked out of the elevator the shoes came off and I walked city blocks barefoot and as I did I noticed suits glancing down amidst the after work rush. The urban jungle makes me smile, I feel the rush of the bodies and the go go go and I smile at the man on the corner with the big sunglasses and the boombox on his shoulder, Cruel Summer blaring out of it with satisfying irony and I dance a little as I go.

art, dengue and leaving on a jet plane

Our little jungle art class has been going on for three weeks now. I have wrestled with what pictures I should post and after careful consideration it feels unfair of me to put ones of the kids themselves without asking the parents permission. So instead I'm posting a couple of pictures of the art that's coming out of the classes. I want to repeat again that every single bit of the supplies we are using were donated by the blogosphere, and without you we wouldn't have had a class, no class at all.

The first picture was taken from the first class. Each child got a large piece of paper and six colors and after a long discussion by the famously amazing artist jungle queen the kids were instructed to close their eyes. Then the teacher turned up some music and the kids went at it. Believe it or not, the below was done with eyes closed by a 12 year old. I like to think of it as a ceiba tree's roots with a sun in the sky.

The second class consisted of the kids learning about dye and how it works with fabric. Then the teacher led the kids through several exercises using the dyes in different ways. That pink and white one in the middle? Yep, that was M. She's dye-natural. The kids spent a few hours figuring it out in preparation for working with larger fabric and t-shirts.
At the end of each class the teacher has each child sit and write in their art journals. Each child has been given a sketch book and they write or draw their thoughts from the class. M always draws a parrot and writes the word THE. Am not sure what THE is about but she does it every time.

The kids made t-shirts and sarongs yesterday but unfortunately I missed the class. One of the other kids in the class was sick yesterday and since we've had a dengue fever epidemic raging through our little village we have been especially watchful. Since the mom didn't have a car I offered to take her and her daughter to the doctor while the class was in session. When I got back the kids were done and my eyes near popped out of my head in amazement. I forgot my camera so will have to take some pictures later but their work was gorgeous. Using the previous class to show the kids how the dyes worked and get them comfortable with it really paid off. We are still waiting to hear if the child has dengue. Dengue sounds like a horrible thing and it can be but generally folks fare okay after a rather nasty illness. So far 300 or so people have it and only 1 has died. I watch our mosquito bites and I say silent prayers every five minutes that the bastards that have bitten us are not the ones with the fever.

There are two more classes but unfortunately I'll be missing them since M and I are returning to the US for a few weeks. We fly out tomorrow and I start work on Monday so it'll be a whirlwind and also a blessing, this job has given us all a sigh of relief. But as the clock ticks I am on one hand happy to be temporarily leaving the land of dengue and on the other rather nervous about re-entry. Y'all move so fast up there and things all of a sudden seem very loud.

I've been absent lately due to a weeklong visit from my mother in law, a woman who has never left the US in her entire life. I was rather worried about how she'd feel about all of it but I can honestly say I am very proud of her, she's taken everything in stride and has really seemed to like her visit. I overheard her saying to J you know I thought I'd hate it but I see why you moved here, next time I come I want to stay longer and when I retire how would you feel if I lived here three months at a time and I smiled because she's our first, our first family member to see this place and somehow she gets it, in a short little span of time she's understood what we've done.

I'll see you on the flip side, friends. Back to the land of high speed internet and fast food. Of first rate hospitals and groceries. Of freeways and stoplights. I'm hoping that once I'm there I'll have time to write more clearly about some things that have been rattling around in my head for awhile. Because still and after six months I am still trying to make sense of it all.

american me

Being here for six months now has made me more deeply love and simultaneously more frequently shy away from America. It's odd seeing the random bits that are filtered through here, living without TV but still able to read news online keeps me plugged in in a way that is probably both good and bad. Those Birthers for example. I mean, that's just embarrassing for everyone. And is tonight's Beer Summit a real thing? I kind of like that one actually. But I digress.

There are many things I've developed a deeper appreciation for since moving here. Health care, although we've been extremely lucky and in fact probably have a MD who is equally or more astute than any MD we've seen in the States, especially given his lack of equipment (he routinely uses a magnifying glass which makes me think of a mad scientist but yet he seems to use it well). Roads are another one. Damn, America, you have roads down to a science, generally pothole free and labeled so nicely with stoplights that work. Public services in general, the safety net of those three little numbers is something too easy to take for granted till they are gone.

There are some things that I enjoy but are obviously unnecessary, such as convenience. Being able to go to one store and get what you need instead of six stores and still coming up zeros, places to get a decent pedicure and of course, a variety of food choices.

But then there are some things that distance has allowed enlightenment, things that frustrated me when I lived there full time that I find even more annoying now, like the media. It's salaciousness, it's need to grip onto a subject and shake it like a dog with an iguana (oh, just trust me on this) until nothing is left and everything smells like shit. And one that has been particularly annoying is the boohooing over gas prices. Simply put, until you routinely pay the equivalent of $5 US per gallon (and that's on a good day) you can't realize how nice 2.87 or even 3.42 actually is. And imagine doing that while living on substantially less income. Perhaps that's why public transportation, as rickety as it is here, effectively makes the world go round. And the thing is, I never hear anyone complain. That's the thing that strikes me the loudest. There is markedly less complaining here.

And that can be both a good and bad thing. One of the reasons America became so great is because people DID complain. They stood up, they rallied, they cried out when things were unfair. This form of protest has brought a host of important changes to America, from the obvious civil and gender rights to all sorts of other issues. But sometimes, America me thinks you doth protest too much. Taxes are okay. Higher gas prices are okay. The former gives us the roads and the public services and many other things. The latter...well, the latter is a problem no matter how it's sliced. But keeping people and big business happy comes at great costs, doesn't it?

I write this with trepidation. The last thing I want to do is to sound critical or cavalier, I am sensitive to both and to be honest, feel more American now than I probably ever have in my life. I am proud of it and honored by the opportunities it has afforded me. Grateful that I've had the privilege of growing up well. But one can't see that without seeing the excess. Everything see, is a blessing and a curse.

Here, people live on very little. They eat the same foods every day, day in and day out. And when you ask them what their favorite food is they will tell you it's what they eat every day. Even the kids. Beans and rice. But what if you could have anything you want I ask them and they say without a hint of irony beans and rice. Here working hard and spending time with your family is a measure of your life. It's smaller and to those of us who've grown hungry it's often hard to fathom. That this could be your life in it's entirety, travelling very small distances and living as generations before you have lived with of course, small and large advances like electricity or running water or now, the internet. Being able to sit for hours in the evening simply being still.

Imagining our lives like this is easier for me now and harder still. I am aware of the separation, of what having some money and a passport can do. How lucky I am and yet also aware that if the shit really hits the fan these folks in all of these little outposts all over the world will probably survive a lot longer than most of us domesticated types. They know hand to mouth existence. They suck it up every single day. It's just how it is and yet there is a great joy entwined inside of it that has touched me more deeply and has made me think harder than I'd ever imagined. I thought I understood poverty before coming here and perhaps in in the States I still do but here, they've got nothing on folks here and these folks have nothing on folks in Africa. It's all relative I suppose. It's harder and easier. It's scarier and safer. It's just different.

I write this also because I am coming back for a bit. I've gotten a consulting gig in California, something very important to our family's ability to survive here and so in a week or so I'll be returning for a few weeks or maybe longer, back to the land of More after finally getting used to the world of Less and I'm a bit scared, scared that my soft white underbelly will show itself and I'll quickly forget all I've learned. That I'll wander the big grocery stores and buy more than I need. That I'll take luxury for granted. That I'll like the order of stoplights and exit signs and affordable gas prices more than I should. That I'll forget how to sit still.

recorded for posterity

My kid is really funny. I know all kids are really funny but this one's living here with me and I'm keeping her alive till she's grown and ready to do her thing so you know, she's special. And if I don't write it down somewhere I'll forget. Nearly five years old is a fantastic age, isn't it?

Proof positive:

M: Mama, do you still hate John McCain

Me: Well baby, I don't know that I hated him...

M: Oh, yes you did

Me: Bygones. Whatever, I don't hate him now.

M: So do you want to invite him to the jungle then?

Me: It's probably better we keep our distance honey. No offense to him.

M: Well, would you want to marry him then?

Me: What about daddy?

M: He won't mind.

Or this:

M: Grandma and grandpa love me a lot. I think they love me the most besides you and Daddy. I hope they never have their own daughter so they keep loving me best.

Me: Um, I am their daughter.

M: Oh, yeah. I forgot about you.

And here:

We were driving and discussing for the first time that Mommies and Daddies Sometimes Split Up M is watching it happen to a friend in the village. I am gripping the wheel tightly, thinking we are going to have one of Those Defining Moments when it dawns on her that this is something that can happen in the world.

Me: Well honey, sometimes mommies and daddies decide they can't live together anymore so they agree to live apart. But no matter what they love their kids and it has nothing to do with your friend.

M: So sometimes Mommies and Daddies stop living together?

Me: (heart sinking while puppies everywhere die) yes...

M: Well, if that happens I'm definitely going with you. Can I have some ice cream?

And my personal favorite:

Mama, when I grow up I want to work in a Pizza Parlour.

Me: That's great honey. Make sure to tell daddy, he'll love that.

neighborly

We have a new neighbor, a retired American guy who has chosen this place like many who seem to be choosing this place as their new home. Feeling neighborly I invited him to dinner, remembering my first weeks of lostness and oh my god what the hell have we done. A major news flash I haven't yet mentioned is that I now have a working oven, not one we bought but one that was traded out of another house, my jedi patience paid off. So friends, I'd like to proclaim loudly: I can bake things. I can cook without using the top of my stove.

Not that I'm much of a baker. But still. And I had a precious tub of ricotta, one I found the same day I made my vegetable discovery so I figured no better way to break in the oven than to make a lasagna. Anyways, this is all rather boorish so let's get back to the new guy.

One of the things I've been startled to find here is that some of the expats I am meeting, (generally the older ones) have actually left America because of their disgust with the increasing liberalization of our nation. They have nearly exactly the opposite politics as I do which is often a conversation stopper and one I cannot reconcile in my head but hey, to each his own.

So when our neighbor came over, beers had been cracked and conversation started he began telling us about the things he's bringing down, from a big TV to a fancy BBQ. As he looked around at our sparseness he issued an invitation to come over anytime and watch TV to which I said well TV isn't really important to us but yes occasionally I'd love to watch CNN and was going to finish the sentence with when Obama is giving a speech when he interrupted me midway with ah so you like the Communist News Network and so I of course my sentence was left dangling with J smirking in the background. Being unsurprised at this point I started to laugh, look at us, neighbor, you can't imagine we'd be anything else, and since it's safe to say our politics are at opposite sides of the fence we should probably agree to disagree up front and he laughed and nodded and I couldn't help adding but I generally prefer baking lasagna for socialists and there was a bit less laughing that time (I never quite know when to stop) and the conversation moved on.

Over the course of a reasonably pleasant non-political evening I was struck by the mirror our neighborly neo-con held up for me. Newly here, he was trying to make this place like the place he is used to, a place this will never be. He wants the bugs gone and the electronics in. He wants it to be orderly and he wants it to be cool. I had different wants but I had wants all the same, the skittish what the hell have I done sort of thoughts that leave you with nothing else to do but try and find what you left. I didn't realize it until after he left, this thing he's doing that I did and everyone probably does and how it's just something he'll have to reconcile or he won't be able to stay.

And I was happy in realizing that while I'm nowhere near assimilated I am coping much better, I have stopped freaking out about bugs and am growing used to the heat. I find marvel in the rickety bits and find absolute glory in the length of the sky. I am calmer here.

Because when you strip away all the distractions, the TV and the restaurants the commerce and the convenience the hustle and flow you are left with more time to think about who you want to be and how you might find ways to find stillness in the rush. It's all a part of why we came but I lost that for awhile because one can lose herself when she's feeling lost and now I'm finding I'm slightly more found and no matter what comes next this place is starting to change me in ways that I suppose I expected but like a new coat you have no idea how it will fit until it's actually on.

And on a totally unrelated note: No Baby Yet!

I am here

One of the things I thought I knew but did not realize the weight of it was how disconnected I would feel from all of you. I realized nearly a month gone that I have been blogging for three years now and it's more than blogging, it's chronicling, it's sharing, it's give and take. It's Just Posts and new babies and BlogHer and travel and heartache and tears and joy and laughter and love.

You see, I consider you real friends of mine.

And here I am sweaty with jumbled Internet that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, that crashes for no reason and that takes terribly terrifically long to load.

I read your blogs in my reader but how can you know it if you can't hear me speak? If blogs are read in the jungle do they make a sound?

They do.

But how would you know that if I can't tell you. night I spent an hour and was able to comment on just four or five blogs and I gazed at my reader like I'm about to split Cain from Abel not knowing what to do. I miss you and I miss all of you in this way, this proving I am here this standing in your cheering section this raising the roof like the littlest Who in Whoville I Am Here I Am Here I Am Here I Am Here and for some reason it feels lonelier to read about your babies and your families and your struggles and your joys without telling you I was there and I send you love across the water and I wonder if you feel it or if you think I've just stopped coming round.

I still come round but I come round different. I am different somehow here and now, me and yet not me, me yet not knowing who I am. Seems like the time a girl needs her friends the most and she can't she can't she can't let them know unless she does something like this.

She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes (when she comes) there are no six white horses but there's me and I see you and I hope you know I do.

getting by with a little help from my friends

I have a new friend, one who has lived here all her life and has a son M's age. She's married to an expat, so in the many lines that are drawn and dotted here she straddles a number of fences, she's risen out of poverty but she hasn't forgotten it, she's familiar and comfortable with some things western and she's also deeply ingrained here. She's honest and she's unassuming and I like her very much.

We've agreed to get out of town once a week in pursuit of other scenic vistas, determined to show our kids more of the country and allow them to experience new things. Our first outing was today, we'd decided to go to an eco-park where the kids can play and swim. She offered to tack on a grocery shopping trip at the end of the day since we were close to the City and I happily agreed because dusty shelves filled with vienna sausages and pork and beans lost their appeal months ago.

So after a day of sun we headed into the City and parked the car. We walk across a busy street into an old garage, a dirty nondescript place where she promises we can get the best produce in the country so I follow her laughing inside because I'd never have even come close to this place on my own nor would I have ever had the slightest idea there was anything inside. So we walk into this dark and dirty place where a couple of guys are unboxing fruit. They nod at us and she heads back to a walk in freezer, a big one and she moves the log that was bracing the door aside. We walk inside and I realize suddenly it's my mecca, all the produce that never makes it to the villages is sitting on the shelves. Boxes of yellow peppers and baby carrots, heads of romaine and cherry tomatoes. Green onions. So I look at her and she's going through the boxes and taking out things she wants and making a neat little pile on the floor so I figure I will do the same and so I peek inside a box and then I see it, I see bundles and bundles of asparagus, something I've missed so much and have never once seen.

I grab a bunch and I must have squealed because she's looking at me now and she's laughing it's like the angels came down and shined a white light down on your face when you saw that asparagus and I started laughing too but not before I started singing hallelujah and gently caressing the lovely green stalks against my cheek. This makes her laugh even harder and I am pretty damn happy and even as I realize it's silly and these vegetables cannot possibly be local I still make a little pile for myself. Oh my god, I see blueberries.

I forget we are in a dirty nondescript little garage and when we emerge from the freezer I realize I have no idea what to do next but there's a guy there who weighs each thing and writes it on a scrap of paper with a total and we pay and as we pay we are still laughing one because I am such a giant dork and two because we are both happy with our bounty and our day and the knowledge that we'll bring these things home to our families and enjoy their wide eyed appreciation. This is followed by a trip to a real grocery store, one with real food on the shelves where I bought ricotta cheese simply because a lasagna has been a long time coming in this land of rice and beans.

My other happiness has more to do with realizing this is one more thing I've figured out, in a country with very few addresses or stoplights or signs but plenty of word of mouth I found a little treasure and amidst all the change and poverty and adjusting it's this, this way of digging deep and figuring out and being off autopilot that I appreciate the most. Well that, and a well stocked walk in freezer in the middle of nowhere.

first baby firsts

Our village friends are having a baby in three weeks or so. Since we've been here I've spent time getting to know the young woman and her boyfriend is a good friend of J's. They live with his family in a small concrete house with many other family members and assorted animals. The woman is very shy, she speaks spanish much better than english but her english is also pretty good. Occasionally she has babysat M and she taught me how to make the best tortillas in the world and I've brought her baby clothes and special chocolates from the States. She's never gone to school beyond age 13 but she's smart as a whip and can cook me under the table any day of the week.

She's quiet and beautiful, she's scared and she's brave, she's resigned and she's looking forward. There are no baby classes here, nothing about breathing or labor or what to expect when you are expecting. There is just day in and day out, one step at a time, doing the best you can. So we've spent some time talking about how babies change everything and how mamas need to find ways to care for themselves because soon it will be all about the baby and to be honest when you live here like she does it's never been about her anyways, every day is already a struggle and a baby will just mean more.

As we were talking one day J overheard us and spontaneously said you should get a massage before the baby is born and she looked at him and at me I've never had a massage before so I asked her if she'd like to try it, a way to reduce some of the aches and pains the last month of baby brings and she nodded her head.

So I called a friend of mine here, a wise old beautiful crone masseuse and we agreed on the day and time and I picked my friend up and drove her 20 minutes over bouncing dirt roads to our destination. As we drove I asked her if she knew what happened during a massage and she shook her head no so I asked her if she wanted me to explain and she nodded her head. So I told her everything I could think of, from deciding if she'd want to take her clothes off to how wonderful my friend is to how massage is safe and all about her. She's quiet so we drive on and I tell her if she doesn't like it all she has to do is ask for the therapist to stop. Her eyes got wide at the naked part and otherwise she just smiled and once we got there my friend immediately embraced her and shooed me out of the way. About an hour later I hear giggling and I see them walking arm in arm down the path to the lovely veranda where I am sitting and I look at her and I swear it's the face of an angel, all sleepy and beautiful and glowy and I smile and ask her how it was and she says Oh Jen I loved it I loved it so much and she hugged me and I hugged her and we talked for awhile and then drove home.

On our way back we stopped at another friend's house, he has a absolutely amazing home with a pool. Pools are the lap of luxury here, every time I see one I literally start to salivate so when he says feel free to jump in I do. I look at my friend and she's watching and I reach out my hand, come in and float, you won't believe how nice it makes your belly feel having it in water so she does and she lays her head against the edge and smiles big. We chat a bit and we get ready to go and on our way home she looks at me I've never been in a pool before and I reach over and grab her hand it was a day of firsts for you then and she leans her head back and smiles and doesn't move till we reach her house.

As I drive home I wonder what having these sorts of things introduced in your life really means, whether never knowing means less wanting or knowing means you are a bit wider because you've filled yourself with new things and I hope it's the latter and am conscious of not wanting to be the former, the person with big ideas that don't put food on the table or a roof over your head and to be honest I still don't know because most of the world gets along fine without all the extras every day all the time no matter what and we folks with our fancy ways show up and tilt the scales.

this land is your land

Come out with us to the land J says, you never come out and I think you'd like it. It's hot and dirty and it'll be good for you. He's right, I spend most of my time doing other things equally important but still. He's right. So M and I head over in the afternoon and join J and the two guys who help out and we are promptly put to work.

J hands me a bucket, the size paint comes in and points to an enormous pile of rocks ranging from the size of a small dog to the average kind that fits in your hand. Those rocks need to be moved over there and he points across at least half an acre. You can use the bucket.

I look at him thinking he is joking but he's not. I grab the bucket and walk over to the rock pile and start to fill it. It's only half way full and I can barely lift it so I stop and carry it the long distance to the other side. On my way I am cursing, in hellish moments I always silently pretend I am arguing my case in front of a jury but you see my friends I used to run a multi-million dollar non profit and it's clear that hauling these rocks must be some mistake. Anyone who knows me would clearly agree. As I walk back I say can I do it a different way or am I actually being punished and I hear the other guys start to laugh. Of course not babe, do it however you want so I look around and realize there is nothing else to move these fucking rocks but oh wait oh holy mother wait I can use our car.

So I grab the keys and back the car up to the rock pile and open the back and start loading them in and I hear the guys laugh again that bucket was bullshit I say and I load and load and load and then drive across the acre and unload and unload and you get my point and I do it for two hours without taking a break because after awhile I find the zen of it, the simple pleasure in moving my body and working our land and I realize that this is why J has been pushing me to come. I even find a piece of Mayan pottery something not uncommon here, everyone says if you dig awhile and you'll find some shards but it's the first I've found and I hold it in my hands knowing this has been here for a thousand years and more and I can just barely make out the paint along the edge.

The third hour rolls around and nearly all of the rocks have now been moved and I am starting to limp because I am a wuss and I am not used to working this hard so I tell the guys I'm done and they smile because they started 6 hours before me and they work just as hard if not harder every single day but I don't care. So I grab my kid and my dog and we go jump in the river, we watch an iguana and we see some fish.

So now I'm tired and sore, the good kind that says you did something honest and J asks me if I'll come back again because he has another job all picked out and I can't help but ask him if it involves a toothbrush and tile and he laughs and we laugh but I don't laugh too hard because if the rocks was the ice breaker I am seriously wondering what he'll think up next.

coming

Five days in Mexico, living in a surreal sort of world with clean sheets and hot water, absolutely no bugs and nothing but swimming in the ocean and drinking cold beers.  And then it's over.  I don't think I would have noticed a year ago or even six months ago how luxurious it was but now, given how I am living now, I felt like every moment was a dream, where the buildings and roads and even the markets there far surpassed the place we now call home.

And on top of it I still had to figure out how I was getting back.  I stopped at the concierge on the day before I was supposed to leave and asked for help arranging bus travel.  He looks at me with a contained mirth we don't arrange bus travel from here he says as if buses were leprosy incarnate. Of course you don't, I say but perhaps you could call them anyways. And so he does and I learn I either leave at midnight all night or I take my chances in the morning with no real option for getting the rest of the way home.  So I contact my new stranger friend, the one who'd gotten me on the bus on the way here.  I'll pick you up he says, a journey that would take him five hours both ways.  We settle on a price that is unbelievably affordable and he says he'll meet me at the bus station in Southern Mexico. I just have to get myself there and so I do.  I arrive late and am worried he'll have decided I wasn't coming but there he is, a ragtag sort of guy with a quick smile.  You are late he says with a smile and grabs my bag.  I am so thankful you came and waited I respond and he says the truth I know but remember I gave you my word.

So we jump in his car and he tells me then that he has never done this leg of the trip before and I laugh because he made it sound so easy when I asked him for a ride.  I settle in realizing I am five hours in a car with a stranger who has just done me a really big favor.  There was just no way I wanted M to make this sort of trip and J couldn't come without her. I was nervous and now I can breathe.  

And what unfolded next was almost better than the week itself, almost hard to put into proper words.  This guy and I, we talked.  We talked in depth and length about history and culture and race and consciousness and religion and God and family and poetry and work and struggle and I felt I was sitting alongside some sort of jungle shaman professor who liked to drink too much on the weekends. It is no understatement to admit that I have not talked as long and hard with a stranger like this in my life.  And we laughed, at one point so hard I couldn't speak.  

He's a family man and an entrepreneur, his mind is as complex as I've met and he's hungry for more. If I brought up something he didn't know about he asked a million questions, turning it over in his mind. He's lived in a little town near our village his entire life, his family is all rooted here and this is the only place he's ever been but he's wiser than me by miles. Towards the end of our journey he looks at me.  I'm worried about you Jen, I am worried you aren't going to make it in our country because you will give up and if you give up our country will lose.  I tell him his country isn't easy, that it isn't easy but I knew that coming in.  He slams on the brakes now fuck woman, we spent hours talking and we've connected on all these levels and then you go and call it MY country?  This is OUR country dammit, you are here too and this place can now belong to you.  I thought we were getting somewhere in all this time and I started to laugh, I said that out of respect but he doesn't care. On this he's unmoveable.

We finally arrive home and I unfold myself from a car that signals the end of a 13 hour trip.  J and M come out and J shakes my new friend's hand and thanks him for his kindness and for getting me home safe.  He leaves with promises to get our families together one night so everyone can get to know each other and he drives off.  J looks at me and says so was that okay, that trip?  I saw that guy when I dropped you off and thought he was the janitor not the owner of the transport and I laughed not only was it okay but it was one of the best conversations of my entire life and I told him all about it and as I was falling asleep that night I thought again of appearances, of how things look on the surface and how easy it is to make assumptions and how when we do that we miss out on all the good stuff and how today was a day that I'll probably remember forever, a poet jungle warrior showed me his truth and I showed him mine and it was honest and real and a hell of a good time.  Because while we we have absolutely nothing in common and nothing we've experienced in our lives so far would lend to a common understanding we were very nearly exactly the same.

going

I was supposed to leave at 8am last Monday. But buses just started making the trek again from here to Mexico so things were confusing but the guy who owned the transport assured me they'd show. As it approached 10am I started to get grumpy so I say it right, dude, I need to get my ass to Mexico. I knew I had a good twelve hours to go and I don't really want to arrive in the middle of the night. Fuck it, he says, I'm taking you myself.

We'd been talking for a few hours now and I already liked him, strangers sometimes have a way of making sense right off.  So I happily jumped in his car prepared for the first 5 hour leg of my trip, the one that would take me out of one border and into another with a no mans land in between.  As he's getting gas in his car he gets a call.  He looks at me and smiles the bus just drove past us so we jump back in the car and catch up to the bus which pulls over and lets me on in the middle of the road. He's yelling, my new friend have a good trip call me if you need a ride back.

The bus is full of backpackers, Israelis and Brits and an American or two.  I settle in and pull out my book.  I'm in this thing now and so far I've only got a ride across the border, the rest will still need some figuring out. I read for awhile and fall asleep.  At the border the driver tells us to get out and go through immigration and he'll meet us on the other side.  We do and after the free zone we have to do it again but this time it's Mexico.  Bienvenidos.  

The countries are so different right away, here is all Dos Equis and street tacos and everything is in spanish.  I go through customs and they search my bags and I always, always think of Midnight Express in these moments, like somehow someone stuck a kilo in my bag but of course no one ever has and they wave me through, machine guns at their sides. 

I sit on the curb and it's hot and I am at a border and no one knows I'm here.  I'm on the road even if it's just for a day and it makes me want to keep going, that backpacking sort of travel where things happen and everything unfolds.  I look up at the sun and realize I need to make sure the bus doesn't leave without me.

This transport ends at a bus station and I have no idea when I can catch another bus to go up north.  I learn quickly the next bus doesn't leave for two hours (fabulous) and it's a six hour trip (super fabulous) but it's less than $20 for the whole ride.  So I buy my ticket and wait some more. I'm a dork at bus stations, I am always sure they are going to leave without me and I can't understand a thing folks are saying so I am anxious.  I eat a bad looking taco because I am not sure when I'm eating again.  My cell phone doesn't work and I forgot to exchange enough pesos and I ran out of US dollars a long time ago.  I shake my head.  I wait.

I finally board the bus and it's a nice one this time, air con and decent seats.  I don't realize the seats are assigned so I of course sit incorrectly and am promptly booted but at least he took pity on me and pointed me in the right direction. I read and fall asleep and look out the window and somehow six hours make their way gone.  

I get off the bus at my destination and get in the first taxi I see. I only have a name of a hotel and we settle on a price first because I'm still peso poor.  We drive in silence, I roll down the window and lean my head back and breathe deep, I love the smell of travel, it's intrigue and exhaustion and solitary and a bit on the edge. I'm both sad and happy today is almost over.  

We pull up at the hotel, my friend she has money and insists on staying in nice places and even offers to pay so what the hell, I can suck it up. My dusty flip flops hit the marble floor and a porter dressed in a suit actually wants to carry my piece of crap backpack and I feel embarassed, both for being here and for being me.  They stop me and ask if I am a guest here and I am not surprised in the least. I promise I clean up well I say and they smile the smile that richer people than me are much more used to. Me, I much prefer the dusty road and straight talk, street tacos and a cold cheap beer. All of a sudden I see my friends and they scream a happy scream. I'm finally where I've been trying to be.