Search for the Mayan Spirit
Antigua's streets are littered with brilliant paint chipped away from plaster walls by endless water and exhaust fumes. And too the once great Mayan people are reduced to beggars and street vendors, selling handcraft, squeezing pennies as tourists dig through their stack of hundreds to make change for their best haggled deal on a trinket everyone will forget about until next spring's garage sale.
A woman sitting legs entwined in faded stitch work, tattered and ragged her hands raised up cupped together. Her whimper articulates the very idea of desperation, denoting that our obligation as citizens of a wealthy country is to sustain her, a citizen of a once great empire. From her glazed over eye her stare sang out a tragic past of bowing down, begging for redemption. To have walked past, brushing her hand away and feeling detached enough to let the impression pass through me is enough to reason that the Mayan spirit was shattered and remains in a state of disrepair as their history becomes tourist attractions sanctioned by Central American governments with little concern for much beyond currency. Hers was a song of displacement and of depravity, longing for a mythical dignity. Rain drops hit my jacket, bead up and splashed on to the ground, echoing my song into the night, solely of the sadness and suggestiveness my western cultivation possesses the ability to express.
As twilight dwindled into black, the realization of my improving Spanish sets in and I felt not a sinking but a recession and tried to ease off the uncomfortable feeling in great burst of laughter through my thickening beard, hearing the echoes against concrete walls, knowing that my travels have only sparked the surface of my understanding of a longstanding social injustice, desire to find the truth of the Mayan spirit, and retain some dignity by doing small bits to see the Mayan people flourish in their communities and hope for their future representation in governments throughout Central America.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
cities and memory
from the twilight of my empire
It is possible to become accustomed to lungs full of the exhaust of exalt:the smells of brake fumes, burning rubber, tar, smoking wood, red dust. The Guatemalan three seats to the right of me on the back of the chicken bus is reading a pocket Bible and I can't remember the last time I was so calm in the face of death. What does it mean that hope is a hollow as fear?
Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don't see the self as self, what do we have to fear? See the world as yourself. Have faith in the way things are. Love the world as your self; then you can care for all things.
All things,including my bulbous insecurities and endless questions and my weakness. All things, especially the vertigo billowing in my stomach as the bus careens sharply around the corners of roads with no barriers, no guardrails, no protection from the sudden and lethal cliff edges and drop-offs, the abyss of mist beyond the rainforest foliage and mountain torsos.
[We might call vertigo the intoxication of the weak. Aware of his weakness, a man decides to give in rather than stand up to it. He is drunk with weakness, wishes to grow even weaker, wishes to fall down in the middle of the main square in front of everybody, wishes to be down, lower than down.]
There is farming terrain in the highlands of Guatemala, on the steep hillsides overlooking the valleys and volcanos... hunched brown-skinned women walking along the narrow roads-ambivalence their survival, worn weaving fingers their livelihood. Everywhere there are tin roofs and stained seeds of humanity. Nothing is clean, but clean has no holds here, holds no meaning. And I am stunned. I am humbled. I have never been more aware of what is real, what is true. Never more alive than I am in this brief instant,
absorbing the wild matted furs of starved, forgotten dogs;
beholding the chipped cemented bricks ground from the clay of cave tunnels and molded into habitations and hearths that glow even through the disfigured, sagging scars of poverty, ignorance, and nonpartisan eyes;
observing the baskets bearing slaved-over vocations and local foods (balanced on skulls that ache with the memories of a people that once beat the rains of corrupt reigns and hardship through aligning each and every point to the Source.)
First to Panajachel, city of a thousand plaited pigments, rises above and along the deep subterranean lake Atitlan, which at its deepest point reaches over 300 meters, or 1000 feet. Mayan culture is embedded deep into the cells of the stretched skin of the Tuk Tuk drivers, and while we struggle to remember, to recall, las cosas que nosotros no podríamos comprender posiblemente (yet), we slowly begin to unravel the mystery of ourselves and one another. It is Panajachel that we consider kayaking in the raging lakewaters while the white caps of rain storm waves roll like the R's of the gods. It is Panajachel that I first began to consider the true possibility that all the glory and splendor I have been exploring so freely and fortunately will all be dust soon.
It is Panajachel that I meet an amazing German woman named Regina (the g in Regina is pronounced like an h)- a woman with bright red hair, glowing blue eyes, and the most calming and joyously genuine laugh to ever grace my ears; Regina, who speaks four languages and travels all over and is good friends with the locals of all towns; Regina, who makes natural medicines and moved her headquarters from an official building to an outdoor gazebo strewn with prayer flags and orange scarves and incense and calla lillies; Regina, who used to be a Mayan priestess, who believes and studies all religions and healed me with her hands through my first ever Reiki session while the Guatemalan rain softly rose and fell in tune with the essence of her movements. I spent much time explaining all of my digestive issues due to my ghost of a gallbladder, all the unexplainable symptoms I once had and still occasionally experience- and because of this, we started our session late. In the midst of the session, when she was working on helping me release my tension and pain-the clotted blockages in my "energy" (however crazy and new-aged ridiculous this may sound, the changes in my body afterwards were no joke)-she spoke a brief prayer out loud that simply stated "We need more time, please," and not fifteen minutes later she received a phone call from her client coming the hour after mine saying he would be late. And Regina, all she said after this phone call was "Sometimes its good when they come later." We later spoke of the power of the mind over the body, and she told me before she began working her magic "From this point on, you will be healthy." When she was finished, my limbs were thrumming with a dynamism unlike anything describable, something that broke over the core of me and my inner linings upon the gentle placement of her hands, the warmth of her pressed palm across my flesh and the wells beneath my skin.
And then, there were hummingbirds.
My eyes were closed, but he saw them...many of them, zooming around the gazebo as Regina taught me how to breathe easy again. And his voice penetrated the hypnotic calm as he watched, rang out to me like a heartsong,
and I knew in that instant that this is it.
And then once again back to Antigua, where we have come to familiarize ourselves; due to our raging digestive tracts and the lack of ability to keep food in our systems (hence:weakness), we skipped the trek up the active volcano in the thunder and downpour and instead chose to celebrate our monthiversary at La Escudilla. La Escudilla specializes in false window walls and windows to the soul, fabulous soups and outrageous corking charges- in other words, we paid extra to bring in our own bottle of light French Chianti, chosen carefully for us budgeting foreign students by the Spanish man in the winery shop who told me my English is clear and understandable....for a Texan. Here the motorcycles, bikes, and mopeds all swerve towards you in the streets, even when you match your pace to the natives', and as the droplets cool the stones beneath the soles silent feuds will erupt on the dimming streets like civil wars; wars that soon quiet themselves as love breaks across the anomalous architecture under the foamy clouds that only show their faces post blue hour, pre storm. The thunder melds into the rumbling of real blood, the blood in our bodies streaming and beating in time, synchronizing and plotting the possibilities of joined forces. One thing is for sure: passion is not lacking this night, in this city,
especially between mi novio y mi.
And upon the dawning of the morning after,
The wind opens up to the Northeast and grows sticky-warm like Caribbean balm-and the sporadic pops of palms and shared milky treats beneath the shade of folded trees means that we're moving on, on the road to Rio Dulce. Our driver speeds through the wild streets strung throughout the mantanas, only one hand on the wheel-other one tapping along to old 90s tunes- as he passes the "inflammable" trucks and buses in the opposite lane. He speaks rapid and amiable Spanish when we stop to sweat and half-picnic, and asked Miguel when we were going to have our first child before he shared his bag of Mexican candy. And now, instead of eating ripe organic bananas from Central Market with Guatemalan origin stickers on them, we are driving with a van full of diverse people who are now friends, not strangers, along a road lined with banana trees:seeing the actual, real thing(s) and beginning to connect the bright saffron fruits with the exploitation of a people that are as timeless as the intangible heritage of humanity.
The Mayans are still tough, thick and richly vibrant like their chattels of cacao cash crops and enterprises of uncut jade-but for the first time in my life, I am coming to understand the dysphoria behind their story and, as a result, respect them with a sincerity and ferocity unlike anything I could have prepared myself for before embarking on this spontaneous adventure with el amor de mi vida. Our monthiversary date and debate was subtly, but beyond significantly, one of the most eye-opening nights of my time thus far, incarnating a slow burn revelation and esoteric epiphany that perhaps had already been birthed, and has now begun stewing in my veins ever since. Afterwards, our stop at Quiriguá (pronounced: kitty-wa) only exacerbated the growing fascination; we wandered among the eclipsed temples, the archeological assemblies and relic remnants, and slowly but surely a spore began fostering life in the conceit of me.
The painstakingly etched stone monuments ached with a primeval wisdom that made the imagined Edens of ancient civilizations rise in my mind like jutting bones on truth that switched my blood's direction. The red sandstone is weather worn and paled with age, now blanched but shockingly moving and vivid regardless; encompassed by shared Connections and Constructions and Cycles and Curiosity's lovechild of apocalypse, the views of the ruins articulate newfound knowledge, transposing views, empirical ideas, regenerated conceptions, virgin beliefs.
The Spanish didn't come to Central America to do labor- and so upon their arrival, the indigenous people were forced to become slaves. However, most of the Mayans were gone by the time the Spanish got here. How exactly they slipped into the great Unknown, unknowingly, quietly and gracefully- that remains a mystery. However, when you walk the streets of Panajachel, or make the hour long drive through the rainforest roads steeply and sharply cutting through the mountains to visit the tightly packed markets of Chichicastenango, the people still speak to one another with evolved Mayan tongue in K'iche', and you see the archaic spirit of their ancestors bubbling- still thickly- among the cluttered street vendors,where you are sure to be pickpocketed by young girls taught the tools for survival from their parents. (Trust my personal experience.) In this city, where we spend two rainy-season nights, the bathroom ants disappear by morning, the drains sound like drums, and as Miguel put it so flawlessly- the locals' only chance to truly be themselves is when it rains.
Today finds us enjoying the consolidated buzzing jungle breeze off the waters of Rio Dulce, our second day on the shoulder blade of the Caribbean, tucked into a hotel that consists of little floating huts in a mangrove swamp teeming with Amazonian insects and wildlife. The market here teems with the local trademark of freshly pulled pineapple, laid beside rows of rainbow fruits with unknown names and vegetables ripe with youth and nutrients;we swat the sand flies and press warm quetzales into the dirty ashed hands of the citizen sellers among the bins of dry beans and nuts of every shape and size. And afterwards, our luggage is loaded into a boat driven by a benign-eyed man named Armando who takes us across the murky teal waters to our temporary homestead in the hidden armbend of the wild.
My skin is nothing but a sheen of sticky- the nectar of sweat, Deet, sunscreen, and the juice of a creamy popsicle laden with shreds of fresh coconut. In these lands paralleling the rainforest, so tremblingly close to God and the fountainhead, as soon as something sweet and fruitful falls, the opulence of energy and breath (Being) swarms and bursts forth in an overgrowth upon it- like a dying pine tree's last hoorah, the final burst of flourish and viability and blooms before it bows out (like the Mayans).
*The last Mayan civilizations fell on their own- they were not overthrown.
Just because you know your time does not make you conquered. You may fall, but that does not make you fallen.
Letting go and giving in does not always, in the long run, mean the disease wins.
Preserved, written in the galaxies' smile and violently beautiful, is the powerful dignity of every enduring population and every invisible city, strength and resilience sprouting from the dirt like the backwards roots of trees that unify ground and sky.
The lands are so fertile here- the soil smells like origins of birth, the earth like true religion.
Today we set out on a boatride to Livingston, a tiny virile and tactile Caribbean town at the mouth of the Rio Dulce at the Gulf of Honduras. The trip took us along little hut villages with wooden bungalows and shanties modestly rising from the depths of the river in the scrub and brush of the jungle. Along the swampy tendrils and vines of river-meets-sea, flowers break upon the water's surface and fruits hang from the branches, sustaining the leaves as the leaves respire and inject the air with virtue. The women walk to the edge of the land to wade the water and wash their family's garb each time the sun calls time, and the men build and bolster the thatched roofs and wooden walls with bare hands unsullied and only fortified by decades of hard labor. We stopped for a quick dip in a natural hot spring, and for the first time I nearly savored the smell of sulfur as the hot-cold layers of liquid shifted and turned over around and embracing my bare feet.
And then a moment in my life I will never lose, leave behind, or forget:back en route on the boat, at one point we slowed our momentum, the fluidity of pace, and suddenly a bare-boned & hollow wooden canoe fashioned out of a tree trunk seemed to appear out of nowhere, being motored forward by a little native girl with smooth skin and hair that were dark and pure as the fibers of volcanic ash. She was wearing modern clothing but had the exotic face of an extrinsic angel; she hardly spoke, only rowed her way up to the side of our much larger boat and anchored herself to the side of us, meeting our eyes fearlessly and ambivalently. In her hands was a small baby turtle, and she held him up for us to survey and study, watching our faces closely. She held him there and sat motionless, one hand holding her hand-carved barge attached to our boat, the other posing the turtle midair, eyes going from her prize to our expressions and back again. Soon two more of the same boats were upon us, the captains bearing an undeniable resemblance to this little goddess- presumably her siblings-and bringing with them in their pitted vessels handicrafts such as shell bracelets, and blue crabs that were still alive and squirming in their small, sable hands. The second arrival brought a boy that was clearly the oldest, and another small native girl with long silky curls as dusky as her swarthy skin that looked me square in my eyes and smiled. They had no shame or apprehension, and possessed not one ounce of aversion or qualm; these children came to us conveying no pretense, nothing even remotely close to insecurity or dishonesty or trepidation. Our boat chugged slowly along, and they drifted alongside for only a brief time, not speaking unless spoken to, and when addressed, responding with quiet voices that sounded like strings of bells and lines of marimbas. When the boat resumed its speed once more and they drifted off, fading back into the floating lilly layers, our voices were lost in the wind but their presence was not, seeming to me to be a reminder from God that at the core of all things is a joy lucid and elementary, a reverence for natural beauty.
The seawater nestled between the rainforest is lush and the depth of its scent prolific- enveloping and calming.
Livingston itself is a quirky and smoky secret jewel of the world- a strange mixture of Garifuna, Mayan, Indian, and Ladino people and culture, the supposed descendants of shipwrecked slaves from Nigeria. The village is Jerry Garcia’s rumored Caribbean seaside bungalow hideout, well known for its warrior dances and drums fashioned out of turtle shells,echoes of an accentedpigeon pidgin English that smacks of Jamaica and and a fabulous coconut Caribbean-Creole seafood soup called tapado .The other side of Guatemala. All the shops and restaurants that line the main streets are owned by Guatemalans... The Garifuna have been relegated to the side streets, the edges of town, they live along the shore. But it’s the Garifuna culture that sells in Livingston.
In the sweltering heat that simmers in the ebony and brunette skin of the residents of this Caribbean community lives Polo, an aging Garifuna rastafarian man with a marred bottom lip and a red muscle shirt made from netting. This man leads the tourists to the boundaries of the town where ocean meets land-which takes only ten minutes to reach- to a small shack of a restaurant with one fan and only a handful of tables, owned by a woman from Mexico named Maria that had learned how to cook as a child and lived in India for many years (specializing in the best curry of your life-and yes, she WILL make you smell her spices, no exceptions). In the kitchen, a dark skinned somber faced woman with callused hands is the only assistant, sweat perspiring under her pink dress as she slaves over the ordered food;and Polo swears this is the best place in the town to get good food, the only truly worthwhile eatery (of the maybe 10 places), a cheap way to indulge in the infamous local soup. Made from coconut milk and plantains and fresh caught shrimp, crab, and tuna- this soup is spoken of widely and turned into words that spread, and the foreign visitors brave and ignore the heat rising from the streets specifically to have a taste.
Here, abused dogs with tails chewed and eaten by fleas and sagging bellies newly emptied of puppies take shelter beneath the isolated and sporadic shade; the children frolic in playgrounds of simply steel and metal, and climb trees behind the cement and wire community washing area. The homes are brightly painted but cower behind barbed wire, and the street tables bear jewelry made from string and the hulls, husks, skeletons of sea...or hollowed out coconut shells now intended to make music or tote food. The women offer braiding services for less than a dollar when they get desperate, after the first few turned down attempts- and its hard to refuse when you see how they hungrily watch you sort out your change after you pay for lunch.
And so here is where our boat journey took us-to this hole in the wall on the seaside, Tilingo Lingo, home of Maria's cooking and "Mexican lemonade"-lemonade made from the fresh puree from whole lemons. We ate salads out of coconut bowls and learned slang from the local indigenous language of the Garifunas, laughing as Polo made fun of the white statue that sat tall in the distance on an island off the shore ("you can't put a statue of a white man in a town of blacks, mon.")
Polo taught us that the Garifuna people were not a seafaring people that crossed the seas to come to MesoAmerica like so many believe- no, they came from the Caribs, not Africans, and they were here already, have always been here, from the beginning. Venezuela was their home base, and when the ships came over carrying the slaves, the Garifuna race was compromised and molded into the misconception and misunderstood breed they have become. He told us that he went to college in Chicago in 72, and Jerry Garcia paid for it, and bought him his first guitar- according to him, they would sit around and "smoke ganja and tie-dye." We spoke of primal music and his hands rattled invisible drum beats as he described to us the rolling bellies and hips and asses of the black women in the village. Much to my surprise, when the much-anticipated soup arrived and was set in front of me on our table outside under the fronds, it contained not only milky sediment and greens and whole shrimp, but an entire, mostly whole dead fish (eyeballs and all) and crab. Each bowl of soup, that is, less than US $ 6 bucks, had a huge fish warming in the broth. Suddenly I understood Maria's broken English from earlier: "90% meat, only 10% bones!" I watched our tour guide rip his fish apart hungrily, break the crab into halves and pull bits of meat and fat from the sea dwellers and although slightly nauseated, I thoroughly enjoyed the numerous bites of the soup I did manage- its only fair you eat like the locals in foreign locations, anyway.
When you first arrive in Livingston, it smells like something familiar- like the childhood nostalgia of sweet bread in Germany, or cinnamon rolls from home- and its only after an older plump Garifuna woman walks by your table and, seeing the color of your skin and the remnants of an opulent spread, offers you still-warm and sticky homemade treats made from honey, coconut, cacao, and ginger (nothing ever free, always cheap).
Sometimes it is only right to give in.
Memory is not a weakness, but living in the past is not the same thing as memory.
Very recently, the person I look up to most told me "Maybe the crossroads is this: either you continue remembering your mistakes or you decide what is important (to you) right now, and act accordingly."
Tonight I will fall asleep in forests brimming with howler monkeys, beneath white canopied beds that attempt (without success) to keep the insects out, and I will dream of the things no one understand yet, of worlds that have not quite been squeezed from between the seams of years. I will rise early in the swamp, before the sun takes its first stretch, to ride horses along bridges while it is still temperate outside, and my contentedness will be as fresh and plush as the bread we will purchase in the market on our way out, back on the road to Flores- where we will spend our last two days in this country-at least for a few weeks-before moving on to the tropics.
Guatemala has unfolded petals upon petals of my heart that I remained unaware of the presence and potential of until this past week, and it dwells within a cave of me I have always kept my distance from, in cowardice and denial and laziness.
The secret lies in the way every gaze skims over patterns following one another as in a musical composition where not one note can be changed or displaced.
Miel
PS More pictures sooooon
It is possible to become accustomed to lungs full of the exhaust of exalt:the smells of brake fumes, burning rubber, tar, smoking wood, red dust. The Guatemalan three seats to the right of me on the back of the chicken bus is reading a pocket Bible and I can't remember the last time I was so calm in the face of death. What does it mean that hope is a hollow as fear?
Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don't see the self as self, what do we have to fear? See the world as yourself. Have faith in the way things are. Love the world as your self; then you can care for all things.
All things,including my bulbous insecurities and endless questions and my weakness. All things, especially the vertigo billowing in my stomach as the bus careens sharply around the corners of roads with no barriers, no guardrails, no protection from the sudden and lethal cliff edges and drop-offs, the abyss of mist beyond the rainforest foliage and mountain torsos.
[We might call vertigo the intoxication of the weak. Aware of his weakness, a man decides to give in rather than stand up to it. He is drunk with weakness, wishes to grow even weaker, wishes to fall down in the middle of the main square in front of everybody, wishes to be down, lower than down.]
There is farming terrain in the highlands of Guatemala, on the steep hillsides overlooking the valleys and volcanos... hunched brown-skinned women walking along the narrow roads-ambivalence their survival, worn weaving fingers their livelihood. Everywhere there are tin roofs and stained seeds of humanity. Nothing is clean, but clean has no holds here, holds no meaning. And I am stunned. I am humbled. I have never been more aware of what is real, what is true. Never more alive than I am in this brief instant,
absorbing the wild matted furs of starved, forgotten dogs;
beholding the chipped cemented bricks ground from the clay of cave tunnels and molded into habitations and hearths that glow even through the disfigured, sagging scars of poverty, ignorance, and nonpartisan eyes;
observing the baskets bearing slaved-over vocations and local foods (balanced on skulls that ache with the memories of a people that once beat the rains of corrupt reigns and hardship through aligning each and every point to the Source.)
First to Panajachel, city of a thousand plaited pigments, rises above and along the deep subterranean lake Atitlan, which at its deepest point reaches over 300 meters, or 1000 feet. Mayan culture is embedded deep into the cells of the stretched skin of the Tuk Tuk drivers, and while we struggle to remember, to recall, las cosas que nosotros no podríamos comprender posiblemente (yet), we slowly begin to unravel the mystery of ourselves and one another. It is Panajachel that we consider kayaking in the raging lakewaters while the white caps of rain storm waves roll like the R's of the gods. It is Panajachel that I first began to consider the true possibility that all the glory and splendor I have been exploring so freely and fortunately will all be dust soon.
It is Panajachel that I meet an amazing German woman named Regina (the g in Regina is pronounced like an h)- a woman with bright red hair, glowing blue eyes, and the most calming and joyously genuine laugh to ever grace my ears; Regina, who speaks four languages and travels all over and is good friends with the locals of all towns; Regina, who makes natural medicines and moved her headquarters from an official building to an outdoor gazebo strewn with prayer flags and orange scarves and incense and calla lillies; Regina, who used to be a Mayan priestess, who believes and studies all religions and healed me with her hands through my first ever Reiki session while the Guatemalan rain softly rose and fell in tune with the essence of her movements. I spent much time explaining all of my digestive issues due to my ghost of a gallbladder, all the unexplainable symptoms I once had and still occasionally experience- and because of this, we started our session late. In the midst of the session, when she was working on helping me release my tension and pain-the clotted blockages in my "energy" (however crazy and new-aged ridiculous this may sound, the changes in my body afterwards were no joke)-she spoke a brief prayer out loud that simply stated "We need more time, please," and not fifteen minutes later she received a phone call from her client coming the hour after mine saying he would be late. And Regina, all she said after this phone call was "Sometimes its good when they come later." We later spoke of the power of the mind over the body, and she told me before she began working her magic "From this point on, you will be healthy." When she was finished, my limbs were thrumming with a dynamism unlike anything describable, something that broke over the core of me and my inner linings upon the gentle placement of her hands, the warmth of her pressed palm across my flesh and the wells beneath my skin.
And then, there were hummingbirds.
My eyes were closed, but he saw them...many of them, zooming around the gazebo as Regina taught me how to breathe easy again. And his voice penetrated the hypnotic calm as he watched, rang out to me like a heartsong,
and I knew in that instant that this is it.
And then once again back to Antigua, where we have come to familiarize ourselves; due to our raging digestive tracts and the lack of ability to keep food in our systems (hence:weakness), we skipped the trek up the active volcano in the thunder and downpour and instead chose to celebrate our monthiversary at La Escudilla. La Escudilla specializes in false window walls and windows to the soul, fabulous soups and outrageous corking charges- in other words, we paid extra to bring in our own bottle of light French Chianti, chosen carefully for us budgeting foreign students by the Spanish man in the winery shop who told me my English is clear and understandable....for a Texan. Here the motorcycles, bikes, and mopeds all swerve towards you in the streets, even when you match your pace to the natives', and as the droplets cool the stones beneath the soles silent feuds will erupt on the dimming streets like civil wars; wars that soon quiet themselves as love breaks across the anomalous architecture under the foamy clouds that only show their faces post blue hour, pre storm. The thunder melds into the rumbling of real blood, the blood in our bodies streaming and beating in time, synchronizing and plotting the possibilities of joined forces. One thing is for sure: passion is not lacking this night, in this city,
especially between mi novio y mi.
And upon the dawning of the morning after,
The wind opens up to the Northeast and grows sticky-warm like Caribbean balm-and the sporadic pops of palms and shared milky treats beneath the shade of folded trees means that we're moving on, on the road to Rio Dulce. Our driver speeds through the wild streets strung throughout the mantanas, only one hand on the wheel-other one tapping along to old 90s tunes- as he passes the "inflammable" trucks and buses in the opposite lane. He speaks rapid and amiable Spanish when we stop to sweat and half-picnic, and asked Miguel when we were going to have our first child before he shared his bag of Mexican candy. And now, instead of eating ripe organic bananas from Central Market with Guatemalan origin stickers on them, we are driving with a van full of diverse people who are now friends, not strangers, along a road lined with banana trees:seeing the actual, real thing(s) and beginning to connect the bright saffron fruits with the exploitation of a people that are as timeless as the intangible heritage of humanity.
The Mayans are still tough, thick and richly vibrant like their chattels of cacao cash crops and enterprises of uncut jade-but for the first time in my life, I am coming to understand the dysphoria behind their story and, as a result, respect them with a sincerity and ferocity unlike anything I could have prepared myself for before embarking on this spontaneous adventure with el amor de mi vida. Our monthiversary date and debate was subtly, but beyond significantly, one of the most eye-opening nights of my time thus far, incarnating a slow burn revelation and esoteric epiphany that perhaps had already been birthed, and has now begun stewing in my veins ever since. Afterwards, our stop at Quiriguá (pronounced: kitty-wa) only exacerbated the growing fascination; we wandered among the eclipsed temples, the archeological assemblies and relic remnants, and slowly but surely a spore began fostering life in the conceit of me.
The painstakingly etched stone monuments ached with a primeval wisdom that made the imagined Edens of ancient civilizations rise in my mind like jutting bones on truth that switched my blood's direction. The red sandstone is weather worn and paled with age, now blanched but shockingly moving and vivid regardless; encompassed by shared Connections and Constructions and Cycles and Curiosity's lovechild of apocalypse, the views of the ruins articulate newfound knowledge, transposing views, empirical ideas, regenerated conceptions, virgin beliefs.
The Spanish didn't come to Central America to do labor- and so upon their arrival, the indigenous people were forced to become slaves. However, most of the Mayans were gone by the time the Spanish got here. How exactly they slipped into the great Unknown, unknowingly, quietly and gracefully- that remains a mystery. However, when you walk the streets of Panajachel, or make the hour long drive through the rainforest roads steeply and sharply cutting through the mountains to visit the tightly packed markets of Chichicastenango, the people still speak to one another with evolved Mayan tongue in K'iche', and you see the archaic spirit of their ancestors bubbling- still thickly- among the cluttered street vendors,where you are sure to be pickpocketed by young girls taught the tools for survival from their parents. (Trust my personal experience.) In this city, where we spend two rainy-season nights, the bathroom ants disappear by morning, the drains sound like drums, and as Miguel put it so flawlessly- the locals' only chance to truly be themselves is when it rains.
My skin is nothing but a sheen of sticky- the nectar of sweat, Deet, sunscreen, and the juice of a creamy popsicle laden with shreds of fresh coconut. In these lands paralleling the rainforest, so tremblingly close to God and the fountainhead, as soon as something sweet and fruitful falls, the opulence of energy and breath (Being) swarms and bursts forth in an overgrowth upon it- like a dying pine tree's last hoorah, the final burst of flourish and viability and blooms before it bows out (like the Mayans).
*The last Mayan civilizations fell on their own- they were not overthrown.
Just because you know your time does not make you conquered. You may fall, but that does not make you fallen.
Letting go and giving in does not always, in the long run, mean the disease wins.
Preserved, written in the galaxies' smile and violently beautiful, is the powerful dignity of every enduring population and every invisible city, strength and resilience sprouting from the dirt like the backwards roots of trees that unify ground and sky.
The lands are so fertile here- the soil smells like origins of birth, the earth like true religion.
Today we set out on a boatride to Livingston, a tiny virile and tactile Caribbean town at the mouth of the Rio Dulce at the Gulf of Honduras. The trip took us along little hut villages with wooden bungalows and shanties modestly rising from the depths of the river in the scrub and brush of the jungle. Along the swampy tendrils and vines of river-meets-sea, flowers break upon the water's surface and fruits hang from the branches, sustaining the leaves as the leaves respire and inject the air with virtue. The women walk to the edge of the land to wade the water and wash their family's garb each time the sun calls time, and the men build and bolster the thatched roofs and wooden walls with bare hands unsullied and only fortified by decades of hard labor. We stopped for a quick dip in a natural hot spring, and for the first time I nearly savored the smell of sulfur as the hot-cold layers of liquid shifted and turned over around and embracing my bare feet.
And then a moment in my life I will never lose, leave behind, or forget:back en route on the boat, at one point we slowed our momentum, the fluidity of pace, and suddenly a bare-boned & hollow wooden canoe fashioned out of a tree trunk seemed to appear out of nowhere, being motored forward by a little native girl with smooth skin and hair that were dark and pure as the fibers of volcanic ash. She was wearing modern clothing but had the exotic face of an extrinsic angel; she hardly spoke, only rowed her way up to the side of our much larger boat and anchored herself to the side of us, meeting our eyes fearlessly and ambivalently. In her hands was a small baby turtle, and she held him up for us to survey and study, watching our faces closely. She held him there and sat motionless, one hand holding her hand-carved barge attached to our boat, the other posing the turtle midair, eyes going from her prize to our expressions and back again. Soon two more of the same boats were upon us, the captains bearing an undeniable resemblance to this little goddess- presumably her siblings-and bringing with them in their pitted vessels handicrafts such as shell bracelets, and blue crabs that were still alive and squirming in their small, sable hands. The second arrival brought a boy that was clearly the oldest, and another small native girl with long silky curls as dusky as her swarthy skin that looked me square in my eyes and smiled. They had no shame or apprehension, and possessed not one ounce of aversion or qualm; these children came to us conveying no pretense, nothing even remotely close to insecurity or dishonesty or trepidation. Our boat chugged slowly along, and they drifted alongside for only a brief time, not speaking unless spoken to, and when addressed, responding with quiet voices that sounded like strings of bells and lines of marimbas. When the boat resumed its speed once more and they drifted off, fading back into the floating lilly layers, our voices were lost in the wind but their presence was not, seeming to me to be a reminder from God that at the core of all things is a joy lucid and elementary, a reverence for natural beauty.
The seawater nestled between the rainforest is lush and the depth of its scent prolific- enveloping and calming.
Livingston itself is a quirky and smoky secret jewel of the world- a strange mixture of Garifuna, Mayan, Indian, and Ladino people and culture, the supposed descendants of shipwrecked slaves from Nigeria. The village is Jerry Garcia’s rumored Caribbean seaside bungalow hideout, well known for its warrior dances and drums fashioned out of turtle shells,echoes of an accented
In the sweltering heat that simmers in the ebony and brunette skin of the residents of this Caribbean community lives Polo, an aging Garifuna rastafarian man with a marred bottom lip and a red muscle shirt made from netting. This man leads the tourists to the boundaries of the town where ocean meets land-which takes only ten minutes to reach- to a small shack of a restaurant with one fan and only a handful of tables, owned by a woman from Mexico named Maria that had learned how to cook as a child and lived in India for many years (specializing in the best curry of your life-and yes, she WILL make you smell her spices, no exceptions). In the kitchen, a dark skinned somber faced woman with callused hands is the only assistant, sweat perspiring under her pink dress as she slaves over the ordered food;and Polo swears this is the best place in the town to get good food, the only truly worthwhile eatery (of the maybe 10 places), a cheap way to indulge in the infamous local soup. Made from coconut milk and plantains and fresh caught shrimp, crab, and tuna- this soup is spoken of widely and turned into words that spread, and the foreign visitors brave and ignore the heat rising from the streets specifically to have a taste.
Here, abused dogs with tails chewed and eaten by fleas and sagging bellies newly emptied of puppies take shelter beneath the isolated and sporadic shade; the children frolic in playgrounds of simply steel and metal, and climb trees behind the cement and wire community washing area. The homes are brightly painted but cower behind barbed wire, and the street tables bear jewelry made from string and the hulls, husks, skeletons of sea...or hollowed out coconut shells now intended to make music or tote food. The women offer braiding services for less than a dollar when they get desperate, after the first few turned down attempts- and its hard to refuse when you see how they hungrily watch you sort out your change after you pay for lunch.
And so here is where our boat journey took us-to this hole in the wall on the seaside, Tilingo Lingo, home of Maria's cooking and "Mexican lemonade"-lemonade made from the fresh puree from whole lemons. We ate salads out of coconut bowls and learned slang from the local indigenous language of the Garifunas, laughing as Polo made fun of the white statue that sat tall in the distance on an island off the shore ("you can't put a statue of a white man in a town of blacks, mon.")
Polo taught us that the Garifuna people were not a seafaring people that crossed the seas to come to MesoAmerica like so many believe- no, they came from the Caribs, not Africans, and they were here already, have always been here, from the beginning. Venezuela was their home base, and when the ships came over carrying the slaves, the Garifuna race was compromised and molded into the misconception and misunderstood breed they have become. He told us that he went to college in Chicago in 72, and Jerry Garcia paid for it, and bought him his first guitar- according to him, they would sit around and "smoke ganja and tie-dye." We spoke of primal music and his hands rattled invisible drum beats as he described to us the rolling bellies and hips and asses of the black women in the village. Much to my surprise, when the much-anticipated soup arrived and was set in front of me on our table outside under the fronds, it contained not only milky sediment and greens and whole shrimp, but an entire, mostly whole dead fish (eyeballs and all) and crab. Each bowl of soup, that is, less than US $ 6 bucks, had a huge fish warming in the broth. Suddenly I understood Maria's broken English from earlier: "90% meat, only 10% bones!" I watched our tour guide rip his fish apart hungrily, break the crab into halves and pull bits of meat and fat from the sea dwellers and although slightly nauseated, I thoroughly enjoyed the numerous bites of the soup I did manage- its only fair you eat like the locals in foreign locations, anyway.
When you first arrive in Livingston, it smells like something familiar- like the childhood nostalgia of sweet bread in Germany, or cinnamon rolls from home- and its only after an older plump Garifuna woman walks by your table and, seeing the color of your skin and the remnants of an opulent spread, offers you still-warm and sticky homemade treats made from honey, coconut, cacao, and ginger (nothing ever free, always cheap).
Sometimes it is only right to give in.
Memory is not a weakness, but living in the past is not the same thing as memory.
Very recently, the person I look up to most told me "Maybe the crossroads is this: either you continue remembering your mistakes or you decide what is important (to you) right now, and act accordingly."
Tonight I will fall asleep in forests brimming with howler monkeys, beneath white canopied beds that attempt (without success) to keep the insects out, and I will dream of the things no one understand yet, of worlds that have not quite been squeezed from between the seams of years. I will rise early in the swamp, before the sun takes its first stretch, to ride horses along bridges while it is still temperate outside, and my contentedness will be as fresh and plush as the bread we will purchase in the market on our way out, back on the road to Flores- where we will spend our last two days in this country-at least for a few weeks-before moving on to the tropics.
Guatemala has unfolded petals upon petals of my heart that I remained unaware of the presence and potential of until this past week, and it dwells within a cave of me I have always kept my distance from, in cowardice and denial and laziness.
The secret lies in the way every gaze skims over patterns following one another as in a musical composition where not one note can be changed or displaced.
Miel
PS More pictures sooooon
Friday, June 19, 2009
each day is a growing smile
Given the right state of mind, in the progress of life and movement from day to day everyone feels connected to the core of themselves in a more intimate way than the day before. Socrates, know thyself, all that.
Some travel to run away, some travel because they don't know how they're running away, but I travel because I want to examine myself. My hopes are that Guatemala will give me a reason to hold on to the center of myself. In all the times I have travelled before, none have felt so pure as this trip. So with Christina's hand in mine and 7 other Australians and Brits, I want to breathe in every second. To open myself in a new way, to understand the people and origins of culture in Central America. From La Frontera of Mexico to the Aguila Islet, Latin America is one race separated only by the stress of modernization, translated tribal feuds into corrupt forms of democracy, and modern country borders that claim a name rather than an origin. I intend to see the beginning, the source of life in the vast landscape that make up the true and first Americas. Today begins our travels up the Ruta Maya. Today marks a new understanding of why human consciousness has taken such a strange and dark turn away from the simplicity of existing as humans have since the beginning. Today begins the journey to the source of things.
Cuidense,
Miguel
Given the right state of mind, in the progress of life and movement from day to day everyone feels connected to the core of themselves in a more intimate way than the day before. Socrates, know thyself, all that.
Some travel to run away, some travel because they don't know how they're running away, but I travel because I want to examine myself. My hopes are that Guatemala will give me a reason to hold on to the center of myself. In all the times I have travelled before, none have felt so pure as this trip. So with Christina's hand in mine and 7 other Australians and Brits, I want to breathe in every second. To open myself in a new way, to understand the people and origins of culture in Central America. From La Frontera of Mexico to the Aguila Islet, Latin America is one race separated only by the stress of modernization, translated tribal feuds into corrupt forms of democracy, and modern country borders that claim a name rather than an origin. I intend to see the beginning, the source of life in the vast landscape that make up the true and first Americas. Today begins our travels up the Ruta Maya. Today marks a new understanding of why human consciousness has taken such a strange and dark turn away from the simplicity of existing as humans have since the beginning. Today begins the journey to the source of things.
Cuidense,
Miguel
Hold on to the Center
Wake up
Form dawdles, lazily rustling and beginning to come into awareness lazily, leisurely. The city is loud in the morning. The light seeps through the window panes of indigo, periwinkle, moss, and apricot and enter the lines of flesh, eyes flutter open softly to acknowledge the sun's early advent; outside there are clicks of heels, and the chicken buses and clumsy jalopies and motorbikes rumble along the wet stone streets, clattering and blustering and clangoring and hurtling, plodding and blumbering. The constant loud pop of richocheting engines sounds like gunshots, a reminder of the short and dark faced Guatemalan who clutched his rifle by his side within the bank walls the day before. On the other side of the rich and heavily wooded hotel doors, the missionaries are chattering in familiar phrases, chuckles echoing in the tiled hallways and intermingling with the lively bursts of boisterous Spanish. The patchworks of earth tones sewn into the quilt are thin so that skin can soak in,
inhale,
revel in
the buzz of energy in the air, and a lover's even, imperturbable breaths are near the ear, soothing and nourishing as the mind delays the body's rising.
Candid laughter of your paramour is like the music of a Brazilian rosewood guitar, rare and ephemerally beautiful like a particular dying species of tree (more easily attained in these lands then the ones from whence you came.)Your dreams were full of old friends as though your spirit remembers this undiluted joy, sweet like the city's sugarcane and childhood nostalgia. When finally and begrudgingly you climb from beneath the covers, disentangling yourself from the circle of warmth, the tiles are frigid under your roseate toes, but it is a welcome rawness.
In the tiny bathroom in this little stowed away piece of paradise, which is done in all pastel and porcelain peach and pinkish salmon, a woman observes the new waves of her air dried hair; the disparate minerals in the water brought its natural fluidity to the surface like blood rising in the heat of misty nights when the moon is full and voluptuous, glowing hot. The woman could swear her teeth are whiter here, her smile filling the nooks and crannies of her face more fully and gleaming like reflections of neon fish scales in the sea.
You can see the yellows of flowers through the net of teabag, and the scent of roasted beans from a nearby coffee planatation fills the birds' throats with chirps, fills your cup with their crisp and local aroma, the taste of jubilation. All colors are more pure in the early light. The staff is taken aback when they are addressed amiably in their native language, as though they are accustomed to remaining invisible to the visiting patrons. But they are not invisible, or dead. They have whispery voices of warm almíbar, they are beautiful and alive. Two small caniches with fluff of neutral colors pounce and bound through the courtyard, barking and chasing one another around the fountain and clay pots and and leafs of greenery; they war over rubber toys and lie contentedly in the lap of strangers.
The night prior is still thickly simmering in the bellies of companions like the most expensive of Guatemalan rums, aged 23 years (yes,older than they) that they toasted to their new friends and fellow wanderers after dinner; dinner under the sway of a gauzy cloth draped ceiling and light bulbs dangling from wires, on a spread accented by brightly striped woven cloths and ceramic pots filled with coarse salt and pepper. They are rejoicing, in quiet wonder and wide eyed at their untrodden surroundings and at the instinctive and sudden self awareness, the feeling of finding their calling, of taking solace in letting go and remembering what is important. (What is simple, what is true.) The source is here.
Here, there are stomping mules in the streets and cafes with sinks that sit on top of counters near ornate glasses full of dark lavender alagappan blooms; there are delightful market lunches of fresh slices of tomatoes, red and green jalapenos, cilantro, sweet onions, the brightest and greenest avocados one will ever encounter- all spread upon soft and pungent Mexican cheese in humbly miniature and hot tortillas. Diet cokes are called "light coca-cola" and the Brits sitting close by remind you of the backbone of the language you often times leave behind in forgetfulness. You're beginning to think in mixtures of accents and catch yourself nearly speaking aloud with words that are not quite your own- but you are perfectly satisfied with that. There is no toilet paper allowed in the ancient pipes, so it is necessary to retrain your habits and cultural predisposition, to allow for the complete surrender to the phenomenon of revelation in your bones.
-Miel
Form dawdles, lazily rustling and beginning to come into awareness lazily, leisurely. The city is loud in the morning. The light seeps through the window panes of indigo, periwinkle, moss, and apricot and enter the lines of flesh, eyes flutter open softly to acknowledge the sun's early advent; outside there are clicks of heels, and the chicken buses and clumsy jalopies and motorbikes rumble along the wet stone streets, clattering and blustering and clangoring and hurtling, plodding and blumbering. The constant loud pop of richocheting engines sounds like gunshots, a reminder of the short and dark faced Guatemalan who clutched his rifle by his side within the bank walls the day before. On the other side of the rich and heavily wooded hotel doors, the missionaries are chattering in familiar phrases, chuckles echoing in the tiled hallways and intermingling with the lively bursts of boisterous Spanish. The patchworks of earth tones sewn into the quilt are thin so that skin can soak in,
inhale,
revel in
the buzz of energy in the air, and a lover's even, imperturbable breaths are near the ear, soothing and nourishing as the mind delays the body's rising.
Candid laughter of your paramour is like the music of a Brazilian rosewood guitar, rare and ephemerally beautiful like a particular dying species of tree (more easily attained in these lands then the ones from whence you came.)Your dreams were full of old friends as though your spirit remembers this undiluted joy, sweet like the city's sugarcane and childhood nostalgia. When finally and begrudgingly you climb from beneath the covers, disentangling yourself from the circle of warmth, the tiles are frigid under your roseate toes, but it is a welcome rawness.
In the tiny bathroom in this little stowed away piece of paradise, which is done in all pastel and porcelain peach and pinkish salmon, a woman observes the new waves of her air dried hair; the disparate minerals in the water brought its natural fluidity to the surface like blood rising in the heat of misty nights when the moon is full and voluptuous, glowing hot. The woman could swear her teeth are whiter here, her smile filling the nooks and crannies of her face more fully and gleaming like reflections of neon fish scales in the sea.
You can see the yellows of flowers through the net of teabag, and the scent of roasted beans from a nearby coffee planatation fills the birds' throats with chirps, fills your cup with their crisp and local aroma, the taste of jubilation. All colors are more pure in the early light. The staff is taken aback when they are addressed amiably in their native language, as though they are accustomed to remaining invisible to the visiting patrons. But they are not invisible, or dead. They have whispery voices of warm almíbar, they are beautiful and alive. Two small caniches with fluff of neutral colors pounce and bound through the courtyard, barking and chasing one another around the fountain and clay pots and and leafs of greenery; they war over rubber toys and lie contentedly in the lap of strangers.
The night prior is still thickly simmering in the bellies of companions like the most expensive of Guatemalan rums, aged 23 years (yes,older than they) that they toasted to their new friends and fellow wanderers after dinner; dinner under the sway of a gauzy cloth draped ceiling and light bulbs dangling from wires, on a spread accented by brightly striped woven cloths and ceramic pots filled with coarse salt and pepper. They are rejoicing, in quiet wonder and wide eyed at their untrodden surroundings and at the instinctive and sudden self awareness, the feeling of finding their calling, of taking solace in letting go and remembering what is important. (What is simple, what is true.) The source is here.
Here, there are stomping mules in the streets and cafes with sinks that sit on top of counters near ornate glasses full of dark lavender alagappan blooms; there are delightful market lunches of fresh slices of tomatoes, red and green jalapenos, cilantro, sweet onions, the brightest and greenest avocados one will ever encounter- all spread upon soft and pungent Mexican cheese in humbly miniature and hot tortillas. Diet cokes are called "light coca-cola" and the Brits sitting close by remind you of the backbone of the language you often times leave behind in forgetfulness. You're beginning to think in mixtures of accents and catch yourself nearly speaking aloud with words that are not quite your own- but you are perfectly satisfied with that. There is no toilet paper allowed in the ancient pipes, so it is necessary to retrain your habits and cultural predisposition, to allow for the complete surrender to the phenomenon of revelation in your bones.
-Miel
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Under the Shroud of a Looming Central American Winter Rain
Bees fly differently in Antigua than in Texas. Perhaps it's the air, or the sunlight through rainy season clouds. Regardless the reason, something in Guatemala makes its way into the blood stream and flows freely like Spanish off the tongue. Hummingbirds hover over winter flowers and a pair of brown eyes widens with a grin as she watches a tile fountain trickle and drip.
Guatemala is a country filled up with deeply religious taxi drivers, invisible street names, creepy old men who eye my girl up and down when walking past, and curious stray dogs who follow us back to the hostel after breakfast and rich coffee grown in the mountains protecting the city. Volcanos watch over pedestrian shoulders and each passer by politely spits a Buenos Dias beneath a whimsical grin jutted out on a strong Mayan jaw bone.
I have something to find in this place. Maybe a better patience for my scattered mind. Maybe a home to return to some day. Or maybe a piece of myself I have yet to unravel. But with the love of my life by my side and an open mind to myself and the land surrounding us, I am without doubt that my soul will find a new and happy shape here.
The sun always shines through the afternoon rains and the morning always follows long nights of travel and stress. Getting here is gone and I could not be more excited to be exactly where I am and wherever I may go.
Cuidanse,
Miguelito
Bees fly differently in Antigua than in Texas. Perhaps it's the air, or the sunlight through rainy season clouds. Regardless the reason, something in Guatemala makes its way into the blood stream and flows freely like Spanish off the tongue. Hummingbirds hover over winter flowers and a pair of brown eyes widens with a grin as she watches a tile fountain trickle and drip.
Guatemala is a country filled up with deeply religious taxi drivers, invisible street names, creepy old men who eye my girl up and down when walking past, and curious stray dogs who follow us back to the hostel after breakfast and rich coffee grown in the mountains protecting the city. Volcanos watch over pedestrian shoulders and each passer by politely spits a Buenos Dias beneath a whimsical grin jutted out on a strong Mayan jaw bone.
I have something to find in this place. Maybe a better patience for my scattered mind. Maybe a home to return to some day. Or maybe a piece of myself I have yet to unravel. But with the love of my life by my side and an open mind to myself and the land surrounding us, I am without doubt that my soul will find a new and happy shape here.
The sun always shines through the afternoon rains and the morning always follows long nights of travel and stress. Getting here is gone and I could not be more excited to be exactly where I am and wherever I may go.
Cuidanse,
Miguelito
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
la Guatemala fresca
The earth has not forgotten Antigua
Before you can truly shake hands with a city for the first time, you must lose yourself in it, purposely once, accidentally twice (at minimum.) It is also necessary to take the foreign air into your lungs and convert your breath into a reminder that home can be emulated and composed anywhere.
Amongst slow rain, the boxed and barred buildings swell proudly with a past the colors of wilting indian paintbrushes, or leathered folds of aged skin beneath a pair of Mayan eyes.
The people greet you in the streets, the movements of their tongues stimulating the rising of an unspeakable desire that laid dormant in you like two of the three volcanoes that surround the cobblestoned streets strewn with week old maraschino cherries and mango skins. The smell is familiar to him, and his Spanish bursts forth in torrents, a hidden fire that had cowered and smoldered until the perfect moment...
now, falling out of him and building a suddenly fierce fascination and need to copulate with this sensual yet simple culture. My Spanish is broken but eager, the timid toe touches to test the rippling waters; Si, entiendo mas que puedo hablar, pero tengo un magnífico profesor. Cars backfire and echo from the cracks of stiff stucco, packing heat like the rumbling of rocks down the jagged terrain, roughly rising from the catty corners of the outermost boundaries, high in the air and pitched like screams.
The birds sing differently in Antigua; perhaps they are praying for the survival of the skin of trees upon the rivulets of mountains, in case of an eruption as per Volcan Pacaya. It is invierno here, winter, but the balmy and sweat pinched air beads with dust and the sun still beats its drums to a temperate tempo, and the cemented coral fountains sing of (nuevo) Spain.
We have already seen our first hummingbird, chasing our growth, piercing our sense of fortuity, following us curiously like the thin nosed black dog this morning, trotting in search of a gentle hand or a greasy scrap.
Guatemala spreads both upward and descends below, and the hotel we are assigned to for the first night of our journey is better referred to as Villa Posada ("Los Bucaros"), given it's small courtyard terrace speckled with plants and glass patio tables, wrought iron chairs and lamps just like I foresaw in my dreams weeks and weeks ago [read my other blog, the entry titled "deliver me"]. The garden is a tableau of lucid, primitive beauty, and what is most artful about this hidden city is its artlessness- its subtle shades of sienna and jade, the quiet revelry of the sky whose smile predicts rain, the rustle of the laundry on the rooftop lines like the laughter of its residents.
No one's words are like my love,
like his. He is slowly curing me of my fear of flying, and we did not stop touching the entire way to the airport yesterday morning. His hand was there in place of calming drugs, and I happily left the Xanax my mother sent me off with in the plane seat pocket on our last flight (fearing cutoms searches but mostly just aware suddenly of how I never needed it to begin with.) I felt it wash over me while we were streamlining the heights of atlantic altitude above the Gulf of Mexico, and I wondered if he could hear the prayers in my head as he leaned his own against it. Yet my breath was steady by the last of the three flights, and I abruptly discovered a peace nestled within me that has never before shown its face so blatantly and laid bare, contentedly vulnerable and strong, stripped bare of all pretense and insecurity.Para que, y todo, le doy las gracias Miguel.
Someone I look up to once told me that traveling with someone you care about will reveal to you whether or not you can truly stand them, the ultimate compatibility factor confirmation. It will tell you whether or not the other person is someone you want always on your side.
And to that I say-
as we stared across from one another this morning, over a surprisingly cheap yet epic breakfast of crepes filled with pineapple, fresh squeezed cantalope juice, french toast, papaya, and mantaquilla (chamomile) tea-
our silence spoke volumes,
and the gleam in both our eyes said that there are anything but regrets in regards to the decision of how to spend our summer,
and with whom.
Last night we were shuttled to our hostel by a kind faced, bushy eyebrowed Guatemalan by the nombre of Jose Maria; our taxi ride through the wet strung out streets of Guatemala City in the core of evening traffic brought us a new friend. He spoke no English but we still learned about his wife and beautiful kids, he prayed for ("with") us on and off throughout the drive and spoke of the blue of the ocean, the orange land-the world's resemblance to an orange-all these things he knew and wanted to use en/por vida.
Lonelyplanet says "If you want a true picture of what Guatemala is, Antigua is not it. But you still can't miss it."
The native coffee hit my tongue this morning and I have never so thickly tasted the purity of freedom and joy.
And so our adventure begins.
Salud,
Christina
Before you can truly shake hands with a city for the first time, you must lose yourself in it, purposely once, accidentally twice (at minimum.) It is also necessary to take the foreign air into your lungs and convert your breath into a reminder that home can be emulated and composed anywhere.
Amongst slow rain, the boxed and barred buildings swell proudly with a past the colors of wilting indian paintbrushes, or leathered folds of aged skin beneath a pair of Mayan eyes.
The people greet you in the streets, the movements of their tongues stimulating the rising of an unspeakable desire that laid dormant in you like two of the three volcanoes that surround the cobblestoned streets strewn with week old maraschino cherries and mango skins. The smell is familiar to him, and his Spanish bursts forth in torrents, a hidden fire that had cowered and smoldered until the perfect moment...
now, falling out of him and building a suddenly fierce fascination and need to copulate with this sensual yet simple culture. My Spanish is broken but eager, the timid toe touches to test the rippling waters; Si, entiendo mas que puedo hablar, pero tengo un magnífico profesor. Cars backfire and echo from the cracks of stiff stucco, packing heat like the rumbling of rocks down the jagged terrain, roughly rising from the catty corners of the outermost boundaries, high in the air and pitched like screams.
The birds sing differently in Antigua; perhaps they are praying for the survival of the skin of trees upon the rivulets of mountains, in case of an eruption as per Volcan Pacaya. It is invierno here, winter, but the balmy and sweat pinched air beads with dust and the sun still beats its drums to a temperate tempo, and the cemented coral fountains sing of (nuevo) Spain.
We have already seen our first hummingbird, chasing our growth, piercing our sense of fortuity, following us curiously like the thin nosed black dog this morning, trotting in search of a gentle hand or a greasy scrap.
Guatemala spreads both upward and descends below, and the hotel we are assigned to for the first night of our journey is better referred to as Villa Posada ("Los Bucaros"), given it's small courtyard terrace speckled with plants and glass patio tables, wrought iron chairs and lamps just like I foresaw in my dreams weeks and weeks ago [read my other blog, the entry titled "deliver me"]. The garden is a tableau of lucid, primitive beauty, and what is most artful about this hidden city is its artlessness- its subtle shades of sienna and jade, the quiet revelry of the sky whose smile predicts rain, the rustle of the laundry on the rooftop lines like the laughter of its residents.
No one's words are like my love,
like his. He is slowly curing me of my fear of flying, and we did not stop touching the entire way to the airport yesterday morning. His hand was there in place of calming drugs, and I happily left the Xanax my mother sent me off with in the plane seat pocket on our last flight (fearing cutoms searches but mostly just aware suddenly of how I never needed it to begin with.) I felt it wash over me while we were streamlining the heights of atlantic altitude above the Gulf of Mexico, and I wondered if he could hear the prayers in my head as he leaned his own against it. Yet my breath was steady by the last of the three flights, and I abruptly discovered a peace nestled within me that has never before shown its face so blatantly and laid bare, contentedly vulnerable and strong, stripped bare of all pretense and insecurity.Para que, y todo, le doy las gracias Miguel.
Someone I look up to once told me that traveling with someone you care about will reveal to you whether or not you can truly stand them, the ultimate compatibility factor confirmation. It will tell you whether or not the other person is someone you want always on your side.
And to that I say-
as we stared across from one another this morning, over a surprisingly cheap yet epic breakfast of crepes filled with pineapple, fresh squeezed cantalope juice, french toast, papaya, and mantaquilla (chamomile) tea-
our silence spoke volumes,
and the gleam in both our eyes said that there are anything but regrets in regards to the decision of how to spend our summer,
and with whom.
Last night we were shuttled to our hostel by a kind faced, bushy eyebrowed Guatemalan by the nombre of Jose Maria; our taxi ride through the wet strung out streets of Guatemala City in the core of evening traffic brought us a new friend. He spoke no English but we still learned about his wife and beautiful kids, he prayed for ("with") us on and off throughout the drive and spoke of the blue of the ocean, the orange land-the world's resemblance to an orange-all these things he knew and wanted to use en/por vida.
Lonelyplanet says "If you want a true picture of what Guatemala is, Antigua is not it. But you still can't miss it."
The native coffee hit my tongue this morning and I have never so thickly tasted the purity of freedom and joy.
And so our adventure begins.
Salud,
Christina
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