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
I mostly dont have words for your brilliant writing and describing, scenery, feeling, emotions. I just hope you come back, love ya mucho, MD
ReplyDeletePoppa said to tell you that we would like to see your face in one of the pics, MD
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