visceral emotions

Not much going on these days. I think I needed a break from writing after finishing my last paper – just to be with the kids and go to sleep before 1am (wow. that’s all i can say about sleeping 7 hours/night. wow.).

I read a beautiful post the other day from Wylie Kat (note: still need to learn to do the links when I get bored of sleeping 7 hours/night) about camping and seeing the night sky. It brought me back to those weekends when we used to stay in our rustic little home in Mineral de Pozos, Guanajuato. Pozos used to be a wealthy mining town decades ago until the flooding of the mines and the fighting of the revolution drove out most of its inhabitants. Nowadays, this small desert town is beginning to draw an artist community as San Miguel de Allende becomes more and more commercialized. It was still pretty wild when we were there a few years back. Sometimes we’d wake up and open the front door (we always opened the front door during the day because, well, our yard was the desert!!) to be greeted by a stray horse or goat munching away at a tiny spot of dry grass in our “yard”. During the rainy season there, the endless desert fields of dry corn patches, ruinas and cacti transform from a dusty pale yellow to a vibrant green, speckled with wildflowers and fragrant herbs. Talk about seasons and drastic changes, from daily dust storms to lush and pungent greenery…. everything begins to smell so good, one almost expects to see thin scent clouds wafting about the desert. But regardless of season, the night sky there is always breathtaking. There is something about seeing all those constellations and shooting stars, it’s like Wylie Kat says – you almost want to whisper. I wonder why that is – why does such beauty make us whisper… in respect, in awe, in wonder? Maybe it’s a reminder that there is so much more to this life than we usually see or fathom. I feel small and I’m amazed. The universe (or the little that I’ve seen from a little cabin in Pozos) is gorgeous. And, somehow, remembering that sky makes me think of a baby’s fingerprint. Isn’t that a weird connection to make? Or is it? A stirring of the spirit perhaps.

This isn’t my video but I found it on Youtube and enjoyed seeing those ruinas again:

because my littlest birds sing the prettiest songs and i am longing to wander

Well I feel like an old hobo, I’m sad lonesome and blue
I was fair as the summer day now the summer days are through
You pass through places and places pass through you
But you carry ‘em with you on the souls of your travellin’ shoes

Well I love you so dearly I love you so clearly
Wake you up in the mornin’ so early
Just to tell you I got the wanderin’ blues
I got the wanderin’ blues
And i’m gonna quit these ramblin’ ways one of these days soon
And I’ll sing

The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs…

Well it’s times like these I feel so small and wild
Like the ramblin’ footsteps of a wanderin’ child
And i’m lonesome as a lonesome whippoorwill
Singin these blues with a warble and a trill
But i’m not too blue to fly
No i’m not too blue to fly cuz

The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs…

Well I love you so dearly I love you so fearlessly
Wake you up in the mornin’ so early
Just to tell you I got the wanderin’ blues
I got the wanderin’ blues
And I don’t wanna leave you I love you through and through

Syd Barrett

What I look forward to…

I was thinking about how much I really wanted to work abroad but don’t see it in my near future, and I still don’t. When I was pregnant with David, I did get a small taste when I did some work for Becas Vallarta. No room for politics or debate, just a whole bunch of kids who needed scholarships to go to high school (and never enough money to send all the kids). I guess the urgency of the work is suitable for someone who thinks too much.. no questions, no permanent answers but undeniably a lot of work to do. I miss that.

Today I had this image of myself as a little child… there’s so much I still can’t see and understand. I can’t see the big picture and I feel like I’m on the brink of something new, something different. But I just don’t know. Sometimes I’m a mama and sometimes I’m just a little kid wondering what I’ll be when I grow up. And most of the time I feel like a big kid trying to be a good mama.

Things I miss

I’m here because I miss writing. There was no preceding “Ah-ha!” moment with a great idea to share… only a little ache to write something down. How strange. I’m sure there are so many others out there who know exactly what I mean. I suppose that’s what Karen Connelly meant when she titled her book, “The Small Words in My Body”. Except her words came out so beautifully while mine are all trapped and warbled like an endless pile of Scrabble letters waiting to be deciphered.

There are others things I’ve been missing and aching for lately:

Thinking I know everything. (I know, that’s so un-wise to say, but I do miss that feeling right now)

Having a clear passion in mind. (Since I have kids, I can’t go join Doctors without Borders, and thus the confusion sets in)

Constant Sunshine

Warm pools and pushing my body down to touch the bottom (That feels so good on a hot day)

Feeling great about running off to a foreign land and not worrying about one of/both my parents. (Seemed so easy to leave when I was younger)

Reading a book from cover to cover and then sleeping in the next morning.

Riding on Chucho’s motorcycle.

Dancing.

Experiencing the good in people because I allow myself to see it everyday.

That’s about it. Now I feel a little knot in my throat. Missing things makes me feel like I’m growing up (which is good and bad, I guess) and, well, it kinda makes me miss stuff. I am feeling way too much responsibility as of late (hey, that was much more fun that just writing “lately” (oh, it’s always the little things)).

the watermelon, the breeze and the desert

I miss the sound of the earth crunching under my shoes.

Brisa emailed last week to remind me of our pilgrimage to Wadley. Twenty hours on the train… first, on two seats looking out until there was only desert, then later, looking out from the caboose as we entered into and exited from a series of dark tunnels – watching reality move backwards away from us, and, towards the end of the trip, hunched on the floor with chickens, people snoozing, and men with bloodshot eyes drinking beer from bottles.

The train only pauses at Wadley station for a moment so everyone headed there must quickly scurry to the tiny balcony and prepare to jump. It was crowded… and as I stood there waiting and wondering and so excited, I felt a hand stroke my behind. Revulsion. Even in the desert night where the sky becomes an ocean filled with frothy waves of stars (some still, some blinking, and many many shooting), even in this magical land where one can see the end of the rainbow reaching back into the earth beside a lonely cactus – ugliness and the urge of vomit is here too.

We stayed in a little room in Wadley (a one street town at the time), and trekked out the next morning with some oranges, buns and water. After walking for eight hours, we finally found a bony little tree with just enough branches to give us the illusion of shelter and decided to make camp. Brisa tended to a dancing and crackling fire all night long, keeping watch over it like an old witch hunched over her cauldron. How can one explain a night in the desert? Enter through the closet into Narnia.

The next day, we walked back into town but got lost along the way (for some people, there actually was a way but it was just a vast endless desert to us). It was unforgivingly hot. We found a big mud puddle and giddily tossed our sandals off, ooh-ing and aah-ing as we fell to the ground and dipped our feet in. Lying there in our mud spa, we looked for animal shapes in the clouds. The simplest and grandest of pleasures.

A couple hours later, we were still walking through the desert when we spotted a tiny cluster of buildings. A few modest homes and a little store in the middle of somewhere. The tiny town was dead quiet in the afternoon. Siesta. An awakening of technology and a return to reality as a bread van rolled in creating a cloud of dust around us. Clarity was momentarily lost once again. We were offered a ride back to Wadley, as well as anything we wanted to eat from the van. Mmmm… I had a donut. The simplest and sweetest of gestures.

I forgot my boots at this train station when I left Wadley (many other burdens were left in that desert), and used my sandals for the remainder of the trip. I learned to love walking in sandals. Sandals remind me of Jesus’ feet.

Sometimes I very gently undo the red satin ribbon and open up this little special box of memories to remind myself that the ugliness is such a small part of the journey. When I remove the clitter and the clatter, I can see the ocean of stars, rainbow endings, acrobatic flames, and pleasures and gestures. Burdens are not tackled with over and over again, but simply left behind, in passing, and quite nonchalantly.

“When will we see each other? When will we return to the desert?”, Brisa asks.

Skimming the surface

Sometimes it’s so much easier to live life just on the surface of things. If I may spend my time thinking about the deliciousness of foods and the warm satisfaction of red wine. If I may pass the days reading books about the thrills and tragedies of others, slipping in a bookmark when I need respite from emotion. But somehow life, my self, something other than my self calls me back to the excavation of the mind and heart and soul. Delve deeper, continue on, don’t give up. Keep seeking.

So here I am, back again without much to say… but still longing.

Thanks for the reminder, Felicia. Your turn.

Roads travelled

I was thinking about San Miguel de Allende today… My friend Brisa and I had hitched a ride, and San Miguel was the closest town the fellow was driving by. I had never heard of it (Ok, I had never heard of any of the towns I ended up visiting during my crazy trek around Mexico). When we arrived, this is what was going on when we hopped out of the car:

Oh the foreshadowing.

Edited to add: I was trying to remember which parade this was, and it dawned on me that it was El Desfile de los Locos… er… um.. that’s translated as The Parade of the Crazy People. Yah. Okay then. I don’t think we need further elaboration here…

I’m sure if I was still there, I’d be longing for the explosion of cherry blossoms lining the trees of downtown Vancouver right now. However, it still doesn’t negate the longing for roads such as this one:

Can you believe I walked nonchalantly down this little cobblestone road almost daily… One day I’m going to take my girls back there and say, “Here… here is where you were born. We used to eat ice creams and buy balloons in the zocalo. I tried to be a good mother in these small winding roads. I got lost a lot but it was beautiful.”

Today

This Easter I am thinking about Jesus. Sounds logical for some, but Easter has come and gone for more than a decade with probably more thought to the Easter bunny. But somehow this one is different. I feel a blanket of peace over me… what is this warmth that seems so familiar. I pull it up to my face and breathe in… there is a lingering scent of a time past when I was young and innocent. This smell of innocence brings tears to my closed eyes. So long ago.

This Easter I see myself in doubting Thomas… asking Jesus if I can touch those wounds. I want tactile proof. Maybe I don’t need it. Maybe I just long for it. I don’t know. Jesus, how it must have been to have seen you – the respected prophet of Islam, the rabbi of Judaism, and the incarnate of God of Christianity. I have a strange longing this year to be one of those who sat at your feet, with my legs criss-crossed like a child, gazing up at your face to hear you speak of love. How you must have spoken. I want to travel with you with my wandering heart, to understand how to belong anywhere and everywhere. I want to follow you and watch you walk so humbly confident, above and apart but among the people. I want to see you in flesh, the one from whom nothing can be taken because everything is given away freely.

Prodigal longings….

Let go

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. I guess with moving back, there are so many plans in progress, but not much materialized. Plans are exciting when you are young, but when you have three kids, plans can be quite stressful. I look back on the journey of that very lost person (some former version of myself) and I sometimes wish I had just followed my doctor’s advice and taken some anti-depressants. I like to look back and say, “Hey, I worked it out on my own”, but sometimes, I wish I’d have just taken the medicated route, and maybe I would have felt better so much faster and my plans would have materialized by now.

It’s ridiculous to think that way, I know. I don’t usually. I’ve lived fully, and the beauty of it doesn’t escape me. And I guess I got through because I was strong enough to do it on my own. Anyways, all this backpedaling is just counterproductive, isn’t it? But just once in a while, the thought seeps in. Usually when I’m worrying about how we’re going to pay for three kids and myself to go to University in the next 10-20 years. “Lady, why did you have to take such a scenic route to get here?”.

The last week I’ve been thinking about how the big things in life always require some letting go. Love, Birth, Death. So much of embracing life fully requires release. I think it’s what Buddhists call detachment, and Christians call Grace. I don’t know why my brain always comes up with images from two religions but whoop, there it is. I guess in our physical beings it’s embodied in breathing. Embrace, Release, Repeat.

Sometimes I’m not embracing or releasing though. I’m just a tight grip. I want to put my doubts, my worries in soft, cupped hands, in offering. Unclenched hands. Let go of the past, let go of anxiety, let go of future do-or-die plans. Let go, let go. Peace for the weary misfit.

No Baby Here

Well, I think my baby’s not so much a baby anymore. Nope. Instead of crying from the bed when he wakes up, he now calls out, “Mama!! Mama!!”. Quite nonchalantly too, I might add. When I let him down in the park, he basically runs off like he’d never ever clung on my neck for endless hours just a few short months ago. Food used to be a big battle, but now when he eats something he likes, he takes a big bite and says, “Mmmmmm…”. And the killer, sometimes when I ask for a kiss, he just looks at me and turns the other way.

This is of course just giving me that twitch… it’s the baby twitch – when I start staring longingly at other people’s babies. I miss my sling. I miss that little whiteness around their lips from nursing. I miss how their necks smell. Sigh. I’m insane. Exhausted but still with energy to pine for another little baby. Insane.

But nope, nada, no more for me. Zilch. The end.