If I could be anywhere...

I've learned more about the art of expressing oneself in words in the last three class sessions of my creative writing class than in four years of high school english. Our professor tells us to keep a journal and write anything, everything, in it at least five days a week. Anais Nin once said, "We write to taste life twice. Once in the moment, and once in retrospection." So yesterday, I retrospected (not a word) and was able to taste Guatemala again. 

"If I could be anywhere…

Antigua. Antigua, Guatemala. (A different Antigua – or perhaps many – exists on this green earth, though I am not sure where).

But back to this Antigua, back to Guatemala. Would I choose it because of the place, or because it was in that place that I was most fully myself? Quién sabe. Probablemente los dos.

Here is what it is about Guatemala: there is a sharpness to it, a vibrancy which very much speaks of blood pumping and mouths eating and ordinary days grown fat and full with satisfaction. Squat houses sit blunt and bright. When I am [insert age/place in life] and have a house of my own, it will be painted balloon-yellow or aquamarine or maybe even orange. Guatemalans don’t fear color.

What else? This place is foreign, but still it holds nostalgia and remnants of home and known things. It is volcanic and it explodes and implodes (here I think literally of the sinkhole that opened itself up this summer). There are cobblestones -- vestiges of Europe -- though these are uneven and ankles are twisted.

Iron bars surprise us on family windows. The town square is misted over – the fountain sprays, the warm rain drips. We wear matching jackets. 

Chicken buses scrabble and people smell each other as they pile, push, squeeze onboard. This bus has a Mercedes hood ornament on its nose. And why not? A hand-me-down American school bus deserves to dress up.  The market is darker yet boasts even more color. Everything is woven, whittled, embroidered, red. Mangos for sale, spice on top, wrapped in plastic, washed in water, we might get sick. Banana bread from the bakery, ice cream with that Central American punch of extra milk fat. Damas y caballeros, ladies and gentlemen.

We hate to leave and the bus breaks down. Perhaps it’s a sign? But a spare tire surfaces and we roll away.

Something beautiful is always overhead in Guatemala. Now thunderhead clouds hold deep connotations."