March 23, 2009
I’m sort of a loner.
I’ve lived by myself for the past umpteen years and I like it that way. I like my own space and working on my own schedule (in my pjs if I want to) which I guess is hard to believe because I’m a people person, too. Just not a people-in-my-space sort of person.
So, here I admit it: I was a little nervous about Robin coming. I live in a studio apartment. That’s one room, folks. Even the bathroom is so small that I leave the door open because claustrophobia takes over if I get all closed up in that tiny space.
Now, you take that small space and put two people in it and things can get a little iffy. But the truth is, that week with Robin here was quite possibly my favorite week of the past two years.
We went out to eat every single night and I went to soccer games and finally hiked the Nevado. We sat in our pajamas and laughed for no reason at all and we talked about how life isn’t the way that we planned it, but that maybe that makes it better. We caught up on fifteen years gone by and promised that we’d catch up again before another fifteen are gone. And I’m looking forward to that.
But in the meantime I’ve got some pictures. Pictures of two little girls that are on their way to all grown up. Pictures of two friends that have seen more of the world than most people see in a lifetime. Pictures of long, red curls and blonde ponytails and two pairs of saphire eyes. Pictures that remind me that years don’t matter at all in the company of friends.
Posted in travel 
5 Comments »
March 20, 2009
Tired is a rabid dog and I’m being mauled.
Posted in rambling 4 Comments »
March 17, 2009
My hands are always cold.
I’ve heard it said, “Cold hands. Warm heart. Hot legs.” but I’m not sure I buy that. I just know that sometimes mine are so chilly that I can hardly move them. Especially in the mornings.
So, I generally walk around my classroom and put my cold hands on the warm cheeks of my fifth graders. They squirm and giggle and say, “No, Mees!!” and I move along haphazardly through the desks with my cold fingers buried in my pockets.
This morning I was making the usual rounds as we read together and I stopped behind Camilo’s desk.
He’s the coolest kid in the class and we fight on a daily basis and yes, I always win. He’s not interested in school and would rather be playing golf or chasing girls at recess than listening to what I have to say. He’s smart enough to get away with it and honestly, I’ve wondered if reaching him was in the realm of possibility.
I stood there reading over his shoulder and without thinking put my cold fingers on his rosy, freckled cheeks. He didn’t take his eyes off of his chapter book as he rubbed his own hands together and then put them over mine.
In no time at all, my hands were as toasty warm as springtime sunshine on an open field and my heart was a puddle on the floor.
Posted in teaching 9 Comments »
March 16, 2009
Early on Saturday morning I found myself in the Manizales airport waiting on a friend I hadn’t seen in fifteen years to arrive. I’m still not sure why she chose to come to Colombia of all places, but she did and she is my very first visitor from home.
Her hair is as red and curly as I remembered and her eyes are filled with life just like they were when we had tea parties and danced in sequins on the front porch of a house in a small, small town.
She’s taking it all in and giving her Spanish a test run and she’s sleeping in my one room flat at the moment.
I’ve fed her empanandas and bandeja paisa and postre de milo and I’ve made her walk the length of the Avenida and hike up to 15,000 feet on the Nevado del Ruiz. She’s heard live salsa music and danced with Colombian men in a the early morning hours.
And last night, as we sat in our pjs and laughed like little girls, she told me that if she didn’t leave the apartment again it would still be worth the trip.
I know exactly how she feels.
Posted in travel 6 Comments »
March 12, 2009
Have you ever felt like you said so much
or wrote so much
or prayed so much
that all of your words were used up?
Like every word you had was gone.
And all there’s left to do
is be quiet for awhile.
Posted in my emotional state 5 Comments »
March 5, 2009
He came into the room stomping and swearing as though a swarm of bees were trapped in his shirt.
I called his name gently, but sternly in a way he could not ignore, and he sulked toward me. I asked him to take a deep breath and then to take another. Pieces of the anger left as he exhaled and his head hung like the leaves of a summer flower left too long without a drink.
His head hung in shame.
We stayed that way for a while letting the silence steal the sting and then he looked at me. A ten year old freckled face with sweaty strands of dark hair stuck to his forehead. Two uncharacteristically light eyes.
“Miss?” he whispered.
“Yes, sir?” I said.
“Miss, I am sorry to hurt you.”
He didn’t blink as he said it, and the puddles that sat precariously on his eyelashes told me why he didn’t.
Even little boys are proud.
I nodded, the burn of my own tears having robbed me of any words.
Then, the man who said he was sorry turned and ran like a child out the door.
Posted in teaching 6 Comments »
March 4, 2009
The valley is bathed in yellow morning light.
Snowy peaks shimmer like Africa’s rarest gems.
A coffee scented breeze plays in my tangled hair.
And in the distance there is a picture of a dream.
Posted in writing 3 Comments »
March 2, 2009
My familia adoptiva called on Saturday morning and invited me for a day out with them. They’re lovely and easy to be around and had a plan for us to go to an area just outside of the city that was “a little known treasure” that I needed to see.
They picked me up just after lunch in a Jeep and we drove toward the mountain. In just under fifteen minutes the road narrowed and turned to gravel and we bumped along next to the river. I stared amazed out the window as scenes from movies I’ve never watched passed.
Shirtless men standing knee deep in the water shoveling sand and tossing it into growing piles on the bank. Women sitting on boulders with children in their laps. Houses lined up like matchboxes, clothes hanging from chicken wire outside their tiny windows. An old man ambling up a well worn path with a stick in his hand.
Colombia.
At last we made it to the natural reserve my Colombian mother had told me about. We got out of the Jeep and walked carefully along canals and waterways as the groundskeeper explained slowly to me in Spanish exactly what I was seeing.
“All the water that passes here, my love, goes to the city. The water is pure and cool and comes from high up in the mountains. It comes to this place to run over the rocks, to leave behind the sand, to go to the people.”
I stood there for a while and listened to the rush of the moving water, the sound as loud as a Thursday night on the street and as reverent as a Sunday morning mass.
Soon after, we climbed higher up the mountain our feet gently swooshing as we walked. We stopped for a picnic lunch at a small covered table and ate chicken, potatoes, and arepas with our fingers while the children chased butterflies through the grass. Their laughter danced on the bright, green blades.
With full bellies, we moved along on a short hike with the promise of “a great reward” to come. And a great reward it was.
A small house was nestled in a dip of the ridge and flowers of every color circled its foundation. Blooms as big as dinner plates and a variety that I never could have dreamed. We walked toward the house as though we knew it and sat on small cushioned benches on the porch.
And then, I heard it. The hum of tiny wings.
Hundreds upon hundreds of birds rushed toward the porch to feed on the sweet nectar of the blooms. Hummingbirds of every color and size. Ones with bright purple necks and deep green tummies. Black and white ones no bigger than my thumb. A yellow one with a long, blue tail that shone like saphires. They darted in haphazardly, drank deeply, then zigged away again leaving a sense of magic behind them.
I don’t know how long I sat and watched them play or how many songs their wings hummed to me, but I know that I saw them in my dreams and heard them in my sleep.
That’s what Colombia is becoming to me, I think. A compilation of rare sounds that could easily go unnoticed, but once heard can never be forgotten.
The rush of water. The hum of wings. The laughs of children. The thump of jump ropes. The whoosh of buses. The quiet of morning. The beat of drums. The songs of my happy heart.
Posted in colombia 8 Comments »
February 27, 2009
My friends are perpetually late. All of them, if you can believe it, but especially the Rossettis. And the truth is, it may very well be my favorite thing about them.
There was a package on my desk this morning – one whose return address was stateside. I tore it open like an anxious child and laughed out loud at the “Happy Birthday!” card that sat atop a bunch of goodies. The card played “Brick House” when I opened it and I admit to shamelessly breaking it down in my classroom.
I dug through rice krispie treats, cheeze its, and cereal and I marveled at the way a finger painting by a four year old could rip me wide open.
At last, I picked up the only thing that remained – a compass. The sting of tears almost overcame me as I watched the needle dance toward North.
North toward home, like Willy said.
And I realized then as my tears fell like the Manizales rain, that Ben and Lindsay might have missed my birthday by the better part of four months, but their timing has never been more perfect.
Posted in friendcitos, my emotional state 2 Comments »
February 24, 2009
Sometimes it’s hard for me to get started writing. My brain goes all fuzzy and fills up with nonsense and, for the life of me, I can’t get anything logical down on paper.
I could stress out, I guess, or have an emotional breakdown, but I’ve already had one of those today and two squalling fits in a single Tuesday seems a bit like overkill. So, I just scribble out nothings hoping to uncover a something inspiring eventually.
Some days I’m lucky and I find a beauty like this one and other days I find a pile of worms or worse. But it doesn’t really matter because worms are treasures, too, aren’t they?
They dig and creep and bury themselves beneath the earth wriggling all the while, and there in their tunnels, twists, and turns the soil is richer than when they came.
Posted in writing 5 Comments »
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