A Forest Wedding -- Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

I'm starting this post from the Forest office, and am feeling pretty woebegone about the fact that cafe writing is largely inaccessible to me, for the time being. My macbook battery is so old that it doesn't hold a charge long enough for me to write a blog, and the only charger that works with my laptop lives in the office. 

So. I'm here for now. In the dank, dreary space with staplers, schedules, business cards, spiderwebs, and other office paraphernalia.

Which is fine. Just turn on your music and try to tune everything out. Don't resent this cafe-free season. Be grateful for the money you're saving on cappuccinos and that there are no street dogs getting into brawls underneath your table. 

Adam, the new videographer intern sits to my left, editing photos from the wedding that took place at The Forest last Saturday. Nele and Anna hug each other and look at the schedule, planning their next to last week. 

I wonder how I'm going to feel when I'm on my next to last week. I don't think it'll seem real. Leaving this place. This place that feels so much like home. 

It's odd to be the person who witnesses others come and go. During the last six years, I've rarely stayed in a place long enough to watch others pack their bags and continue their journeys elsewhere.

And you know what? 

I hate it. Which could be one reason I never do it. 

We said goodbye to Abi on Saturday. It wasn't easy. 

I'm going to miss her disgruntled glares during yoga classes when I spend too long focusing on core. I'm going to miss her reactions to super hippie things, like when she overheard our meal chant, raised her eyebrows, cast me an askance glance and asked, "Who the hell's Shanti?"

Abi had volunteered at Cafe Circles for a brief six weeks. During which time she managed to turn Tammo, Anna, Nele, and myself into her hippie family, and become a badass yoga ninja (mad props, Abi. Mad props). After which she promptly abandoned us to continue on her merry way to El Salvador. 

The jerk. 

Also, I wonder if this is the kind of space I create in the lives of my friends when I pack Fat Ellie and continue on MY merry way.  

...

Maybe I should eventually consider no longer doing that. The leaving business. It sure doesn't feel very nice to be on this end of things. 

I'll try my six months here, and see if staying put is the right thing for me. Before, you know, I sign a lease and start buying couches and shit. 

I've been at the Forest nearly three months. And staying put feels great thus far (except for, you know, the whole everyone else leaving bit). I haven't bought couches, but Tammo and I have hung solar-powered Christmas lights from the roof of the Submarine, as well as commandeered a wooden crate.

Which I smothered in cheerful red, yellow, and cream paint. Then covered with quotes such as the following: 

"A Balanced Diet is a Cookie in Each Hand." 

"In Beer, there is Strength. In Wine, there is Wisdom. In Water, there is Bacteria." 

"Life is Unpredictable. Eat Dessert First." 

This is my rebellion. 

I've also bought overalls, a beige t-shirt, and a black shawl that makes me look like batman (or rather, I wish it made me look like batman. Looking like batman would be pretty okay).  

It feels nice to buy stuff and to not worry about carrying it. About cramming all my crap into Fat Ellie and lugging it to the bus station the next day. This sense of ease with accumulating things might not be good for a) my future enlightenment, or b) my current budget, but it is excellent for my sense of well-being. 

Which is enough for now. 

My nearly three months at the Yoga Forest has also wrought some pretty significant changes in how I cope with life's stimuli. The majority of the last few years has been spent popping in and out of cities. And I've noticed that city life has the tendency to numb my senses. There's just so much stimuli that this introvert becomes... tough. It's like I walk around inside a giant callous. I can still feel the world around me, but everything is deadened.

But nearly three months here has softened those callouses (I really should have used a more romantic metaphor). I feel everything. Anna was frustrated the other day. As people are. And I absorbed every bit of that frustration. Jonas had a stressful day of adulting. And I tuned into that. Nele wanted to prepare the cacao for Sunday's ecstatic dance in the tiny kitchen with the three kitchen ladies flitting about, and I just couldn't. I spent two minutes in there, then kowtowed to my stifling claustrophobia and fled to the hammock area. 

"I'm sorry... I can't be in there right now. I don't know what's going on..." 

I've become much more introverted than usual.  More reluctant to connect with guests and volunteers alike, because I don't have the energy for such intense interactions. I've become more in need of my own physical space, my own headspace, my own energy-space.

Oh god. What's happening? I guess three months at the Forest has also made me feel like statements such as, "I need my own energy-space" are normal." 

...

I'll just flow with it for now. I'll notice when I become overwhelmed and I'll try to create more room for myself. I'll try to journal more, to paint more, and to not get tangled in other people's energy. Because I like being sensitive. I like being in touch with life. But I don't like it when I absorb everything indiscriminately, take it all so damn personally, and lose my sense of equanimity.

The Forest hosted a wedding on Saturday. The wedding of Jayananda and Saraswati. Or, in layman's terms, the wedding of James and Hayley. 

According to the schedule, Saturday was a day off for me. But as a volunteer, I was expected to help out with the wedding. 

On the one hand, the wedding was absolutely spectacular, and it was a bonding experience for the volunteers. Where we all got dressed up and put flowers in our hair and took an excessive amount of photographs.

On the other hand, it was... demeaning and dehumanizing to feel like I was at someone's beck and call.

I don't know Jaya. I don't know Saraswati. Sure, Saraswati mostly owns the place, but I don't KNOW her. And just being expected to help with her wedding after I've already finished my work exchange hours makes me feel taken advantage of. 
 

Now, if Jonas and Michelle were to get married, I would enthusiastically help with their wedding in a heartbeat. Because I know them and love them and want to support them. 
  

But for Jaya and Saraswati, I would have preferred my help to be asked for, instead of just expected. 
 

But this is one of the freedoms you sacrifice as a volunteer who always lives in the spaces of others. You gain the freedom to leave when you choose. The freedom of a light life. But you lose a great deal of the autonomy that comes along with roots. 
 

But at least at The Forest, I've gained this crazy, funky, hippie family. 
 

A group of people who can make anything fun. Even washing a myriad of dishes after a particularly exhausting pizza night.
 

So whatever challenges volunteer life brings with it, I'm glad I get to face those challenges with these people. 
 

For now, anyway.
 

The wedding ceremony was gorgeous, and I nearly forgot about how irritated I was about being coerced into helping. Mostly because I had so much fun watching Nele cleanse the guests with sage smoke at the entrance to the seating area.

Tammo and I stayed behind after the ceremony to wash the mountain of dishes left in the wedding's wake. Then we meandered down to the reception, where I was disappointed to discover that drinks were not on the house. So we stayed for dinner, the toasts, and then moseyed on back to the Submarine.

Why do I feel so crummy about being expected to help with the wedding? It wasn't such a big deal. Sure, it was my whole Saturday, but it was just one day. 

I think it goes much deeper than that. This feeling of general crumminess has its roots in my need to be treated like an adult with a life of my own. My need to NOT be at someone's beck and call on my scheduled day off. My need to have my time, my space, respected. To be asked if I am willing to give my time, and not just expected to because I'm "only a volunteer". 

In other news, my nose has created an abundance of unnecessary drama in my life. I figured (naively) that the worst part of getting my  nose pierced would be, well, getting my nose pierced.

I didn't take into consideration that my nostrils are about as thick as the "callouses" I built around myself after three months of living in Istanbul.

Which is, err... pretty thick.

The fellow who pierced my nose gave me a nose ring stud and sent me away with a smile and a, "Just make sure to disinfect it in the night and in the morning. Everything should be fine."

Everything was not fine. The ring popped out that afternoon. I gingerly shoved it back into my face, but something felt wrong.

Why can't I feel the ring on the inside of my nostril? It seems like it's not going all the way through. 

Fuckballs. 

So after four days of the ring popping in and out of my nose whenever my nostrils flared (so whenever I walked up the stairs from the Submarine), I decided to take matters into my own hands.

"Michelle? Do you have an extra nose ring I can borrow? One of the circular kinds? I think I need to re-pierce my nose."

I've noticed that I have a very high pain tolerance when I'm the one inflicting the pain. So I went to the shower (which has the only mirror in The Forest), and re-stabbed my nose with a rather dull nose ring.

And now it's gloriously infected, exceedingly sensitive, and thoroughly pissed off. 

 I'm not altogether sure that this was worth it. Blurgh. Will certainly make me think several times before piercing another body part.
 

The Climbing Haven -- Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

I'm starting this post from the dismal, cave of an office at the Yoga Forest. 

I don't know how Michelle gets anything done in here. It's so dreary.

At least this cave doesn't encourage lingering. You come in here, get your shit done, and scurry out as quickly as you can. Like toilets in Nepal. You don't linger. You evacuate the inhospitable premises as soon as possible.

Anna is space-holding in the common area, preparing dozens of blissballs for the owner's wedding this weekend and directing walk-ins towards James' afternoon yoga class. Tammo rummages through a few of the multiple bags that call this dank space home, putting together his climbing gear so that he can join Lucho at the Yoga Forest's new climbing wall before the sun goes down.

During the course of the last week, the Yoga Forest has been rapidly transformed into one of Guatemala's few climbing havens. Tammo (my tentmate) and Jonas (my manager) are crazy into climbing. As in, Tammo can climb all day, six days in a row, have his hands torn to shreds, and still effusively share about his love for climbing when he arrives at dinner. 

I love witnessing people living their passions.

Lucho is a professional Chilean climber. And he pretty much just wandered into the Forest one day, having overheard from some other climbers in San Marcos that we were in the process of, well, wanting to establish some climbing routes. He brought a drill, lavish enthusiasm, extraordinary generosity, and his vast climbing expertise.

Tammo and Lucho drilling holes in one of the Forest's rock walls

Hence, I haven't seen much of my tentmate the last week. We had made the commitment to study Spanish together in the mornings, to read a book called "Sapiens" whenever we happened to have spare time, and to learn some happy songs on the ukulele...

... but whenever my tentmate is not working or sleeping, he's on the wall.

It's like if someone gave me access to a fully equipped French kitchen. Or set me up with a week of horseback-riding through some gorgeous countryside. Or gave me and endless supply of paints and canvas and Tom Waits and red wine. I would be totally captured, enraptured, blissed out. 

And that's Tammo right now. Blissed out. So I'll just be happy for my tentmate and catch up on Sapiens later. 

Since I've lost Tammo, I torment Nele with my Spanish flashcards, and she tolerates me with an eye-roll and her ubiquitous, contagious laugh.

I'm writing here in The Forest office instead of at Circles or Shambala (a new cafe with no dogs, no flies, but crap wifi. Guess you can't win them all. Not in Guatemala, anyway) because my laptop charger has died. Again.

Fuck, I thought, vacantly staring at the dull circle on the charger that should have been lighting up orange. What will I do? It's not like I'm in Italy again, and can just waltz into an Apple store, hand over a ridiculous amount of money, and walk home with my problem fixed. I'm in Guatemala. Where money can't fix everything, because the solutions to first world problems don't always exist in third world countries. 

At least it's a first world problem. 

And I'm resourceful. I'll figure it out. 

But fuck. It's annoying. 

During my two and a half months at The Yoga Forest, we've hosted three teacher trainings, two plant medicine retreats, and are currently hosting a Thai Massage course. Every retreat/training brings with it unique, beautiful, and bizarre people. Hence, I approach each new event with trepidation and excitement.

The Yoga Forest is my home now. Hosting people for these retreats feels like welcoming new flatmates every couple of weeks or so. Flatmates who could be annoying as all get out, or end up as incredibly close friends. Like Nacho. 

The Thai Massage course brought us some particularly colorful individuals. So the Yoga Forest family sat around the dining room tables and laughed about our new...er.... forestmates.

Nele is leaving the Forest in a few weeks (probably because she's getting tired of my Spanish flashcards). And like Kayla did when it finally hit home that she'd be packing her bags soon, Nele pulled out a piece of paper and made a calendar.

A calendar full of whatever adventures she wants to have, whatever she needs to accomplish during the rest of her stay.

The Forest won't be the same without Nele. Without her warm, fuzzy hugs (she's always wearing that fabulous Easter Bunny sweater. When Jonas hasn't stolen it from her, anyway), without that unmistakable laugh, without her sweet, caring energy. 

I might even miss hearing her sing Justin Bieber from the shower. 

Might miss. MIGHT. And if I do miss it, no one will know.

Jonas has been busy the last few days. With adult things that my nomadic noodle can hardly comprehend. Like buying a small piece of lakefront property. Like renting an apartment in town for Michelle to move into for her final month of pregnancy. Like managing the entire Forest on top of everything else.

So he spent a morning letting go of all that adulting, and played on the rock wall.

So that all my photographs weren't boring butt-shots, Jonas put me in a harness and Tammo taught me how to belay myself up the wall.

I do yoga and I think I'm fit. And then I climb and I realize all the places (there are many) in which I could REALLY use some growth. 

Holy bananas. I'm a wimp.

A few weeks ago, the Forest brought Carly here from London. Carly and her singing bowls. And Carly asked me to photograph her yesterday morning. 

"I'd love to. My goodness." 

"I'll pay you for it, you know." 

"I mean, you don't have to. I'm really happy to just take photos," I winced at the thought of being paid for my amateur photography. 

I'm not good enough for that. I just like to play with my camera. I don't want the pressure that comes along with money... I don't know if I'm ready for that.

"No. I'll pay you," Carly insisted with a smile. 

"Well, Tammo and I will appreciate all the brownies your money will buy. Thank-you for supporting my chocolate addiction."

Nele would say that this is part of the flow. I haven't once tried to find work. I haven't once advertised myself. But when I need money, work finds me. Because I'm where I'm supposed to be, doing what I'm supposed to be doing. 

Or something like that. 

I went to San Pedro with Michelle this morning. She was also doing adult things, like getting her blood tested, paying taxes on her new piece of property, and buying training tools (spray bottles) for her recently adopted puppy.

Michelle and Jonas don't mess around.

A newborn baby wouldn't have been enough for them. It would have been, "meh, that's sort of challenging, I guess."

Michelle and Jonas needed a puppy and a newborn baby in order to feel adequately challenged.

...

No puppies. No babies. Ever, Bourget. You will never be adult enough for these things. 

Michelle hurried back to San Marcos after her morning of adulting. To attend the owner of the Forest's hen do.

I stayed in San Pedro and got my nose pierced.

And after getting stung by a scorpion three times, the nose piercing felt like almost nothing.

In comparison, of course. By itself, the piercing still hurt like hell.

My Harrowing Collision with Karma -- Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

I'm starting this post from Il Giardino Cafe and Bistro in San Marcos, Guatemala. I'm waiting for Gigi, my Spanish teacher to arrive. We've been working together at least once a week for about two months, and my Spanish has increased by maybe 0.1 percent (and my frustration by about 99.9 percent). And not because of lack of skill on Gigi's part. More because I just haven't taken the time to really practice the vocabulary she's assigned me these last few weeks. There's always something else to do. Not something better or more important...just... something else. So I've decided that this will be our last lesson for a month or two, so that I can give myself space to actually learn the vocabulary. Part of me (okay, most of me) feels like a failure. Part of me (most of me) is unbelievably discouraged. 

But feeling frustrated and discouraged dosesn't really help me, does it? These emotions... these reactions, they tend to debilitate me instead of encouraging me to try harder. 

So... what can I feel instead? Gratitude that I actually get to live in a place like Guatemala and that I can afford Spanish classes?

Gratitude. I'll focus on that. And try to let the rest just slide off me. 

Dozens of flies flit back and forth from the table, to the chairs, to my hairy legs. I've placed a notebook over my ginger ale, defending my drink from the rampaging, parasite spreading assholes (I have no patience these days).   

At least there are no flea-infested street dogs going berserk, barking their faces off at god knows what, rubbing their sweaty balls on the cushions and dragging their butts along where I'm about to sit. 

What did I tell you? Zero patience. 

You win some, you lose some. 

2018 has been rough so far. New Year's Eve was wonderful, but I woke up on New Year's Day with a raging hangover and a meditation/yoga class to teach. Luckily for me, everyone attending my class was a little tired, so no one appeared to mind a chill (for me) kind of class. 

I spent the rest of the day in a mental fog, working through my headache by moving slowly and exerting as little energy as possible. I did manage to walk into San Marcos, because even a thunderous headache won't keep me away from my cappuccino. But I immediately regretted my caffeine dedication when I started stumbling back up the mountain towards the Forest. 

Blurgh. Head. Why must you pound so LOUDLY? Come on. Inside voices. 

I glanced up from the dusty trail below, only to glimpse two teenage boys rushing towards me, machetes lifted and somewhat maniacal grins plastered on their young faces. 

Umm....

The boy in front ground to a halt in front of me, machetes still lifted. 

"Spanish, spanish, spanish, spanish!" he said, gesturing wildly to my left hand (the one with a silver ring). 

"Umm... Hola," I smiled through the fog of my hangover. "No entiendo, lo siento," I sidled up against the stone wall and scampered past the wayward, machete wielding youth. 

As if a hangover wasn't enough. I also had to get charged at with machetes. Thunderbuckets. 

I cancelled a massage with a lovely lady from Alaska because I couldn't even walk up the Forest stairs (I mean... they are pretty killers stairs. In my defense) without feeling a prodigious pounding in the back of my head. 

Aimee. You are the Forest alcoholic. 

But also. It's New Year's Day. I think you're allowed a hangover. Even at The Yoga Forest.

Tammo and I went to San Pedro (a lakeside village we've dubbed Sodom and Gomorrah) on the afternoon of the second. New Year's weekend had been exhausting for the two of us, as the rest of the Forest staff and volunteers were off celebrating in San Marcos or at Cosmic, so we were left responsible for most of the shifts and yoga classes. Hence, Tuesday was our day to just relax and recuperate. So we relaxed and recuperated by eating chocolate, peanut butter bars, drinking gin and tonics, and then downing some smoothies supersaturated with nutella (see? Sodom and Gomorrah). 

 

Tuesday was a good day. 

Wednesday morning, I woke up near midnight due to a sharp pain in my shin. 

What the fuuuuuck? I thought blearily, reaching my hand down to investigate whatever had just stabbed me. 

"AGGGHHH!" I exclaimed, and promptly evacuated my bed, clasping my left hand in surprise and horror. 

"Aimee? What is it?" my light-sleeping tentmate sat up across the tent.

"I think I just got stung," I moved to sit on Tammo's bed, eyes plastered wide open, panting as if I'd just finished running my first marathon, and clutching my throbbing hand. 

"What do you need?" Tammo asked, sitting beside me. 

"Can you... can you go find it? I don't want to see the thing..." 

Scorpions are so... vile.. I don't want to see what just injected me with its poison juices. 

So Tammo went over to my bed and threw all the blankets to the floor. 

"Do you see it?" 

"Yes, here it is. It's a big one," Tammo brushed the scorpion to the floor. 

"Did you kill it?" 

"Yeah," Tammo brushed the corpse onto a piece of paper. "Let me just put it outside." 

"You killed a scorpion," I smiled. One reason Tammo had been put in the tent with me was because Jonas had started feeling sorry for all the spiders and scorpions I've been ruthlessly slaughtering. Tammo was supposed to save them before they fell beneath my vengeful shoes. 

"Yes, I killed a scorpion. But no one will believe you when you tell them." 

"We'll see about that," I grinned. Or grimaced. Probably a combination of the two. 

I didn't sleep well the rest of the night. Any every random tingle of my skin felt like it could be a new attack. So I watched a few episodes of a TV show and observed the sensations in my finger and shin as they changed. I'd been stung once on the shin and twice on the knuckle of my pinky finger. And the sensations didn't feel good.

My finger hurts so badly that I hardly feel the shin. That's positive, I guess.

So.... what am I experiencing right now? Deep. Excruciating pain. Burning. But such intense burning that it seems to have transcended burning. My finger is simply fire. All the way to the bone.

My hand started to tingle. Then my lips went numb. 

"And I haf to gif a massage tomorrow morning," I moaned out loud, probably waking up my long-suffering tentmate yet again. 

I was tired at breakfast, but the pain in my finger and shin had subsided. 

"My lips are still numb," I laughed to Nele as I told her the story of the scorpion in my bed. "It's so weird." 

Nele, wearing her Easter Bunny sweater, just stared at me. Then went back to doing her makeup. 

Well... now I know that three stings from an adult scorpion results in three hours of horrendous pain and numb lips. 

Could be worse. 

"How are you?" Jonas asked when he came down from Lakshmi, his cabana at the highest point of the Forest. 

"I got stung by a scorpion three times in my sleep," I responded in a rather monotone voice. 

"KARMA!" Jonas seemed jubilant at my misfortune."That's KARMA!"my manager fist-bumped the air. Or Karma. My manager fist-bumped Karma.

Whatever. 

 I went to bed that night feeling a little under-the-weather, but decided it was probably because of my harrowing collision with KARMA the night before. 

I'll feel fine in the morning. I mean, I hope I'll feel fine in the morning. Girl gots a yoga class to teach. 

I was not fine in the morning. If I went to bed feeling a little under-the-weather, I woke up under-a-fucking-deluge. 

"Tammo," I groggily called to my tentmate. "I can't teach this morning. I think I have giardia," I burped sulfur and gagged. 

"What can I do?" 

"Can you go up to Nele and Anna and ask them to teach for me? I'll teach one of their classes later. I just... I can't do anything this morning," I groaned, burped, gagged, and curled up into a trembling ball of grouchy, sick hippie.

"Okay. Anything else?" 

"Bring me a barf bucket? And some water?" 

"Okay," Tammo rushed out the tent and up the million stairs. 

If/when Tammo gets sick, I'm gonna need to take such good care of him. Holy bananas. 

I staggered up to the kitchen area around breakfast, then collapsed onto one of the dog hair blanketed porch couches.  

I want antibiotics. Now, my belly rumbled portentously.

"I can go into town and get the antibiotics for you," Nele offered. 

"That would be so great. Thanks, Nele..." 

"Are you sure you want to take antibiotics?" another well-meaning volunteer crouched beside me. 

"Yes. I'm sure." 

"But do you know what they do?" 

"Yes, they kill all the good stuff in your gut too," I replied, starting to feel that all-too-familiar anger that arises when hippies tell me to lay off western medicine.  

"They kill everything, that's why they're called "anti"," the volunteer continued. 

GOD. REALLY? 

"I know they kill everything. That's why I'm going to take a lot of probiotics to reestablish my gut flora."

"But why not give yourself a few days to just feel the pain? Sit with it. Lie in the sunshine and put your hand on your belly. Try some charcoal and grapefruit seed extract."  

"Here's the thing," I tried to keep my temper under control, "I don't believe in that stuff anymore. Natural medicine has hardly ever done anything for me. And if I don't believe it will work, it's definitely not going to." 

"But sometimes our bodies just need to feel pain. Sometimes we just need to stay with it." 

How dare you tell me what my body needs to feel. You don't know the kind of pain I've stayed with through my life. You don't know how long it took me to decide that I was allowed to NOT feel pain. 

"Your body can heal itself."  

"Not if I'm so resistant to these natural medicines. Which I am. Right now." 

"You're saying you're resistant to your own body. How can you, as a massage therapist, believe that?" 

I mumbled something inaudible, anger and sadness making me mute. 

I just wanted some fucking antibiotics, for the love of all things dairy. 

"What do you think you do when you give a massage?" the volunteer pressed. 

"I think I'm helping people relax and feel better," I gave a curt reply and turned away.

The volunteer left at that point, probably realizing that he wasn't going to get anywhere with me.  

Getting sick around hippies can be the worst. No matter how wonderful their intentions may be. 

...

This reminds me of what happened in Thailand last year. When I was finally diagnosed with chronic sinusitis after eight long months of suffering, was given antibiotics, and then judged by a large portion of my Thai massage classmates for taking the medicine I'd been prescribed. Instead of drinking some traditional tea, or some Eastern herbal medicine like that. 

Nele came back with my antibiotics about three hours later. 

"Did the pharmacist say how to take them?" 

"No, I just asked for eight and she gave me them. She was watching TV the whole time and didn't care." 

Oh, goody. 

So I spent the next few hours running to and from the bathroom, trying not to vomit, and attempting to contact as many of my doctor friends as possible. 

I finally figured out how many antibiotics to take at about three o'clock. And kept the antibiotics down until four thirty. At which point I hurled magnificently over  the sink of a compositing toilet and into the unsuspecting jungle below. 

Crap. 

I went back to the Cave and snuggled up under a blanket on a straw mat around the fire pit. Where I'd been sleeping for most of the afternoon, because it was significantly closer to the toilet than my scorpion infested bed in the Submarine.  

This is normal, jungle life, Bourget. Parasites, scorpions, and toilets that are WAY too far away. Don't complain. If you can't take it, don't be in the fucking jungle. That's all there is. 

I was feeling significantly less like hell around dinner time, so indulged in a vegetarian curry 

"How are you feeling?" Nele asked me. 

"Well... less like being hit like a truck, and more like, have been hit by a truck." 

 I crawled into bed that night (after checking for scorpions), feeling utterly wiped out. 

And it's only the first week of the new year. Holy bananas. I don't want to tempt the universe by saying "things can only get better from here... "

... but I sure hope they get better from here. 

This Year, I Want -- Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

It's 2018. 

Holy bananas. 

It's 2018. 

How did this happen? Where the hell did a whole year run off to?

In 2017, I traveled to eleven countries. I studied Thai massage, picked up my brushes, and started fiddling with an ukulele (fiddling with an ukulele... get it?). 

I learned to make some kickass naan. And while I haven't mastered the fine art of puff-pastry, it doesn't scare the bejesus out of me anymore (puff-pastry is unequivocally scary). 

I had two CAT scans, one surgery, and several well-earned hangovers. 

Have I done anything else? 

Hmmm.... not sure. I... uh... had food poisoning twice, witnessed a solar eclipse, sold milk duds to Christian Bale while volunteering at a film festival... 

Yeah. I'd call it a full year. An abundant year. Full of physical, emotional, mental ups and downs. The highest ups and some of the lowest downs I've experienced in my life thus far. 

For those of you who've ever had a yoga class with me (and survived), you'll know that I love quotes. At the moment, a quote that resonates with me particularly powerfully is one by Frederick Buechner. 

 

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

 

It's all grace. And it's all been important. And I can be grateful for every moment. Even the moment sitting alone in the hospital of Chiang Mai. Even the moment with the creepy dude in Pristina, who only had one couch and no blankets. Even the loneliness. Even the sadness. Even the isolation.

It's 2018. Last year, I spent New Year's Eve in Pokhara with my Kiwi, eating pani puri and drinking cheap Nepali wine on Phewa Lake. This year, I spent New Year's Eve drinking cheap Chilean wine, eating potato chips, and hanging out with my German tentmate on the top of a mountain, watching fireworks explode into dozens of vibrant colors over Lake Atitlan. 

Could be worse. 

Now I'm at Circles Cafe, writing from a hard bench with questionable cushions (that's a lie. The cushions aren't questionable. They're downright nasty. I've seen the things dogs do to them). A family of three reclines on the bench in front of me, man and woman chatting in German (of course) and a small boy playing on his iPHone, wriggling his toes in the speckled sunshine. 

The boy has created a massive, topsy-turvy tower of salt and pepper shakers, a mason jar of sugar, more salt and pepper shakers, then a gum package with a solo dried leaf sticking out of the gum package. 

I would be impressed, if I weren't so nervous that one of the eighteen million dogs living in Circles would barge into it. 

CRASH

CLATTER

Shards of glass scattered all over the wooden platform. 

The parents glanced over from their conversation, seeming to only just notice the fact that their child had constructed a flavorful Tower of Babel on the cafe table. 

The boy didn't even glance up from the game on his iPhone. 

I am never making babies. EVER.  

Last year, my Kiwi and I set intentions for ourselves. I just reread over mine, and the only ones I really fulfilled was to a) do more yoga (but only because I'm currently living at a yoga retreat. So it's hard not to), and b) paint more. 

That's enough. I can be grateful for that. 

This year? 

I want to keep my camera on me more often. Capture more of this year's grace.

 

Michelle is six months pregnant. Anna, Nele, Kayla and I painted her belly.  

This year, I want to work harder on listening. I want to be aware of myself when I listen and am already thinking of my response, instead of just listening and trying to understand. I want to be aware of this, and I would like to stop doing it. Please and thank-you.

"Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don't listen to undrstand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don't listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what's behind the words." 

~Roy T Bennett

This year, I want to practice listening to what's behind the words.

Mama Michelle did Cirque du Soleil for several years. Mama Michelle can do anything. Including effortlessly holding handstands whilst six months freaking pregnant

 This year, I want to prioritize community. I don't want to move with nearly the same velocity that propelled me last year. I don't want to move to see places. I don't want to move to check countries off my "HOLY BANANAS, I'VE BEEN TO ALL THESE PLACES!" list.

After two months at The Forest, I now wear sparkles on a fairly consistent basis and have a feather earring...

 I want to move in order to feel happy and fulfilled. And at this point in my life, some sort of community, some sort of yoga, and some sort of art makes me happy. So I'll stay here until I'm no longer happy and fulfilled. And then I'll move.

Although... seeing new places can be pretty cool, too.

This year, I don't want to worry about money. At all. I just want to trust that when I need money, I'll find a way to make money. I want to trust myself that I have the skills to provide for my needs. So when I want to spend money on a coffee, or a hike up a volcano, or another hippie feather earring, I can. Without guilt of wasting money or fear of running out of resources.

This year, I want to find flow. And I want to be okay when "flow" means staying put.