My Feet Are Gypsy Wanderers

I am eternally grateful for my feet. After returning from a morning of blackberry picking in a clearcut in Amherst, VA, I sit to pay tribute to the cracked and calloused friends that carry me lovingly through brambles, thorns and beauty. "Can I walk barefoot, Kate?" asks Ru. "I am working on my summer feet." The eight year-old swimming hole seeker braves the gravel with a naked sole, determined to shape his spring-bud feet into sturdy summer companions. "You are exactly like Kate said you would be," he says to me. "You're playful." We approach the water's edge. "Ladies first," Ru motions with his hand. "What a gentleman," I play along and dive into the murky cold without a second thought. "Do you see the scum on the surface?" He laughs. "We will be yellow-green when we get out." I laugh too. "At least we will have our summer feet to carry us home to a hot breakfast and well water for washing."

My feet are gypsy wanderers. I should dress them up in purple robes like royalty. They take me to magical places: sweet blackberry brambles and hidden backwoods swimming holes are milisecond glimpses of the most recent walks in beauty. "I am swimming in love in Virginia," I say when people ask me how I am spending my days. "I am swimming in love in Virginia until my feet carry me to the gateway of the next adventure." I do not know the gate number yet, but I will be sure to wear slip-on shoes so that I can pass through security with ease. In a few days time, I board a plane to Guatemala.

Why Guatemala? Part of me wants to grin, let my eyes twinkle and say, "Why not?" as if the upcoming journey is totally spontaneous and off-the-wall. But that is not true. I have wanted to go to Central America for several years now -- ever since I took Tico Braun's HILA305 Modern Central America course during my third year in college and cried myself to sleep amongst the silent library walls night after night, determined to read every word of the painful stories, human stories, of violence, injustice, inexplicable suffering and the capacity of the human spirit to perservere. I have wanted to reach out and connect on a human level -- beyond empiricism and text -- to connect with a land, a people, a history that has much to share. I have wanted to shed the icky feeling of the armchair anthropologist who sits in her office and theorizes, reads, writes, learns big words and forgets the importance of the warm-blooded human encounter. I have wanted to make this happen -- perhaps a step along the way to "saving the world." Now, as I let go of my attachment to "saving the world" and "being somebody" and realize that being who I am each day anew is the best I can do for any living being ... Now that I realize this, Guatemala opens to me. A window opens, "Would you like to hostess at my restaurant in Antigua?" Kamalesh smiles at my smile as we linger in the Namaste of our final yoga class together. Teacher and Student. Mother and Daugther. "Si! Si! Me encantaria!" My heart does cartwheels in my chest, thrilled at the invitation to fly out the window into Possibility. "You can work there until you get settled and find an orphanage or school where you want to devote your energy. You are wanting to work with children, right?" Oh, she knows me well in just a short time. She plants a seed. I receive it warmly.

Now, months later, I am flying through the open window of a seed planted in the stillness of Namaste. Now, years later, I am reconnecting with the stories from HILA305 and realizing that this journey has always been coming. Now, with a joyous dedication to a daily yoga practice and a steadfast commitment to being a friend to myself, I am living in the Flow and going where it takes me. I am a much better listener these days, now that I am not trying so desperately to "be somebody," "go somewhere" and "do something." I understand the language of the Universe much more clearly since I have released attachment to particular ideas of myself and of the world. Life is unfolding. I walk into uncertainty. I walk with strength, courage and peace of mind into a place that is entirely new to my ears, eyes, nose, mouth, hands. I walk with the willingness to accept that I might not save the world. Or ... I just might, in small ways. I walk with the willingness to accept this, too.

Work. Keep digging your well.
Don’t think about getting off from work.
Water is there somewhere.

Submit to a daily practice.
Your loyalty to that
is a ring on the door.

Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who’s there.

-Rumi

Grounded in a daily practice that draws me lovingly from dreams and opens me to the dawn, I journey forth into the next chapter of my life. Open to all that Is, I go to a land that comes to me in dreams; a land that I know everything and nothing about. I am going to Guatemala. I will write to you from there.