Birds of Paradise in Antigua, Guatemala

I stumble upon a familiar friend in a secret garden that calls to a street wanderer with its lush green song. "Birds of Paradise!" I exclaim in my head. The last time we met was in a Safeway parking lot in Ventura, California when a kind young man fell in love with my smile for a brief moment and chased after me on his bicycle to gift me this flower to carry with me as I journeyed on. "Como se llama las flores esas, Señor," le pregunte el policia que cuida el jardin antigueño. "Aves de paraìso," me contesta. "Es igual en inglès!" le digo con una sonrisa. I am elated to meet friendly people who tell me stories in this language that is sweet to my ears and delicious on my tongue. It has been three years since I returned from Spain. Three years since I interacted tanto with the woman in me who comes alive in Spanish poetry, street-talk, coffee-talk, music, ambiente. And here I am chatting excitedly with a police officer in an exquisite garden in Antigua, Guatemala and surely he thinks I am crazy for being overly enthusiastic about the birds of paradise that live there. Sigh. "It seems so easy," I say to Rachel. "We simply got on a plane and now we are here, in Guatemala." The convenience of modern day travel is something that takes my head for a spin. It is as if we are sitting on the sofa at home immersed in the most wonderful tale of a far-off land where the people and animals and plants have vibrant names and personalities and suddenly we fall in. Fall in through the looking glass and wind up on the street of a colorful village where women in colorful clothing hope to sell you jewelry and their daughters walk hand-in-hand dressed in their neat and clean school uniforms. I am here. Antigua, Guatemala.

It is a beautiful city. Antigua. When I wake up in the morning to sit, breathe, and open to the day, I gather a sense of the depth of this place. A city that has seen so much -- ancient Mayan civilization, Spanish conquest, the birth of coffee plantations, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, violent eruptions, civil war, death, life, lush green, black fire, red blood, blue tears, and white gringo ex-patriot arrival.

Already, my breath is painted a rainbow of colors from all of the experiences I am breathing in and processing with the greatest care I can offer. The hostel where we are staying, El Hostal en 1a Avenida Sur, is extraordinary with an open courtyard with fountain, garden, free breakfast, hammock, lovely shared accomodations that provide homes for many lucky travelers from all over the world. One of the beautiful women who works the front desk is Aura. She lives up to her name with a radiant smile and cooks us breakfast with love after waking before dawn to catch a bus from her village to Antigua to work all the day long cleaning up after people who are simply passing through. I appreciate the moments I chat with her as I boil water for tea. After a light, made-with-love breakfast, Rachel and I hit the cobblestone streets to walk to Panza Verde, a beautiful restaurant that has an exquisite gallery space that doubles as a yoga studio. During the slow, strong, attentive practice, I feel the breeze on my skin and feel grateful to practice in this peaceful space with a diverse group of folks who are dedicated to the cultivation of peace. The class is led by a Danish woman called Christine who makes her life in Antigua working as a social worker in a Rehab Center and yoga instructor in this beautiful jungle space. She is radiant. We are experiencing a particular side of Guatemala these first days in Antigua. We are living in a world where many ex-patriots come to make their lives and live like kings and queens in a city whose cost of living is relatively low. We are walking through the streets of a town whose livelihood is increasingly dependent on tourism. What comes of this? Both beauty and distress. Both lightness and darkness. Both collaboration and isolation. There are ex-patriots here like the mountain-guide who approached us in the park who does not even speak Spanish and says things like "Antiqua is beautiful because of tourism,¨and "Foreign volunteers are responsible for most of the good things happening here." His arrogance is jarring, abrasive, silencing, causing Rachel and I to take out our journals to scribble the negative energy we feel onto the paper where it can find its way to a peaceful ending. At the same time, there are is a thriving arts community, a fantastic education system, and plent of NGOs who are dedicated to what they are doing, ego and arrogance aside. The world is not drawn in black and white. The world is not written in either/or. Right now, I am an observer, opening myself to what this city has to say. I enjoy being quiet, listening, eating a fantastic lunch at a hole-in-the-wall local eatery whose blue walls are engraved with thousands of memories, sitting in the park with Las Sirenas (from the Odyssey) and imagining what they are saying about all the people who gather around them and talk so much of life.

Un gatito just danced across my feet reminding me that life is happening all around me and I am still sitting here typing this message, not knowing quite what to say and thus rambling on in my way. Thanks for loving me through it all. We are beginning ...