I can feel it in my bones.

I have never been a dreamer. The more I learn about myself, it becomes clearer and clearer that, though I don't like to admit it, I have a pretty significant pessimistic streak. I've never let myself have dreams because, well, what's the point if it is possible that they won't come true?

Ridiculous, I know.

I am not sure what has changed, but little shimmers of dreams are starting to slip in. And who would've thought it, but dreams don't have to be big, grandiose schemes. They can be small and simple. And these days, I find myself entertaining a few of that sort.

No body deserves to be this content.
Or every body does. One or the other.
Bones are resting in knowledge that,
one day, they will be slumped,
wrapped in beads and cardigan,
wielding spraggled hair of forsythia.
They cannot see the in-between,
but that, dears, is inconsequential.
Consequence is unyielding.
It is the end with which they are
finally able to begin.
They know who they want to be,
and therefore, are.

I'm figuring out what it means to be home, finding out what I love here. Last night, I set up a sewing machine, and I'm teaching myself how to use it. Today, I walked the entire perimeter of the farm -- wanting to take pictures, but contenting myself with looking, listening, breathing. I'm getting ready to go sit in a rocking chair on the front porch and write.

I'm thinking to myself, I want to be old here, but it looks like I already am.

Back from the depths.

In which I make my comeback and hit the highlights of the past two months in Honduras.

Sidenotes:
I realize I need to nail my hands to the desk to keep myself from essentially doing nothing but flinging and flailing for almost four minutes. Ah, well.

Furthermore, I just want to say this: It officially looks like I am going to be a gainfully-employed, contributing member of society. More on this later as details develop.

Think before speaking.

I was back in the United States less than twenty-four hours when my voice started showing signs of disappearing. It wasted no time sealing the deal. Thank you, Mr. Larynx. We've never had any problems before, and now, you think it's cute to close up shop? Now, when I've been out of the country for two months, during which I was generally unable to speak with the people I love? Now, when what I would like to do more than anything in the world is to talk with them for hours on end? You're right. That's cute.

Being the overly analytical person that I tend to be, with a little dash of everything-happens-for-a-reason spice of life thrown in the psychological mix, I can't help but wonder if you're trying to tell me something, Mister. Yes, I am positively brimming with things to say, but we all know that it's best to think before you speak. You know, do a little reflecting before opening the verbal floodgates. It is conventional wisdom. But with all due respect, looking over those words waiting on the tip of the tongue is usually a moment's task. Seconds, at most. Not for me. Not this time. Looks like I have been sentenced to a few days of silence, of captive thought.

When you are away from everything familiar for an extended amount of time, it is easy to forget that the world does keep turning. Life goes on. Much to everyone's surprise (and by everyone, I of course mean me), I am not the only one with two month's worth of things to say. In all this self-involvement, I am very much in danger of not listening, of not allowing anyone else's words to get in edge-wise. So maybe my voice knew exactly what it was doing when it was packing its bags while I was unpacking mine.

So talk to me. I really do want to know everything that happened while I was away. But get ready. When my wise friend Larynx rolls back in town, you won't be able to shut me up.

Saira

I didn't know until about 5:00 this afternoon when I was at Casa Uno, but this morning, Saira left. Carlos Omar came up to me and told me that it was just him and Ricky left. I didn't understand. And then he said she had gone. I asked around. Ricky and others confirmed. So after, Abdul and Cristian Guerra wanted to teach me about soccer. Of course, I couldn't focus on their Spanish explanations of the rules. They had to say them over and over. Finally, for a few seconds, the indistinct shock and pain did disappear into the game, into the gateless driveway that we were using as a goal.

In Spanish, the word for fun is diversión. A diversion, a distraction. And it did distract me from my worries for a few minutes. Of course the kids love to play fútbol, to have fun.

I heard that she ran away, escaped from school during a test. I imagined her, white and navy uniform and all, crawling through the hole near the end of the chainlink fence. Now I know that she left in a car, with her mom. Karla saw her go, said she left with only her plastic, shoebox-sized Ayyám-i-Há gift box in her hands and the clothes on her back.

I think Saira was twelve. She may have been just a mediana, but she was my friend. She taught me the handsong with that really fast part, "Hola, comadrita. ¿Cómo estás?" I taught her how to knit.

The other girls tell me that she wanted to go. That she had been crying. I didn't know. I hadn't seen her for a few days. And I ate with the grandes instead last night. I taught her class yesterday, but she didn't participate. Quiet and invisible. So, the last I really remember of Saira was when we walked back from the terreno together. I got a picture of her swimming that day. She didn't talk much as she walked beside me with wet hair and shoulders wrapped up in a towel. Rosa and I were having a linguistic discussion about words like cheque and masiso. I guess I lost Saira that afternoon, somewhere on the road. I didn't know for how long.

I am asking myself several questions: Was I really her only friend, someone else to disappear? Did she get angry with me after I gave her a pretty stern lecture about how to treat books? Why didn't she tell me she was leaving? Because others seemed to know.

But there is one question I just can't get out of my head.

Were there two wooden knitting needles and a small ball of yarn in that little plastic container she left with?

26 March 2008, 7:23 pm

sitting on the back porch in afternoon

I'm reading in the shade while my clothes, the ones I just worked over an hour to wash by hand, bake in the sun. (So it must be that our house faces east.) The back yard is more of a gulley of dust, rocks, and roosters than a yard. And there are enough banana trees, with their hearts hanging out, to wrap a clothesline around so that it zig-zags once, twice, three times toward the place where we throw our biodegradable trash.

A wind just came through, gusting across the tops of the banana trees, and I worried about my laundry that I can't see. It's blocked by the white wall of the porch, with its garlic growing in cut-off bottoms of plastic pop bottles. But I can see through the break in the wall, where the steps are, that my skirt didn't even flinch at the wind.

As I watch it dry faster than I've ever seen clothes dry in the sun, I remember "helping" Nana when I was a kid, putting out the laundry and gathering it back up again. I didn't know then that it meant she was -- we were -- poor. We might have been saving electricity, but it wasn't to save the environment. No, there was nothing green about us, especially not the insides of our pockets. Green. I guess I was. I just liked running through the damp, billowing sheets, like they were the walls of a palace labyrinth. So we were as rich as I thought we were, as happy and as high as these bananas and mangoes that won't be ready to be picked for another few weeks.

02/23/08, 3 pm