How Mirabai Happened

The pains first started on Friday at two in the morning. Courtney was up reading A Streetcar Named Desire, so to pass the anxious hours we took turns reading scenes to each other like the locos we are. You should hear Courtney’s Blanche, though.

And then, after four short hours, everything stopped.

Saturday was relatively uneventful, and on Sunday we hiked to Tzununa, a neighboring town, while the sun set on hillsides of brilliant yellow wildflowers. During the night the contractions began again at 2am. They seemed as though they would continue, so we called our midwife, Antonina, from Xela, two and a half hours away. They did not continue, though – four hours and out.

This cycle of four hours of labor continued through Wednesday, during which time we became excited, disappointed, frustrated, nervous – a huge bellyful of mixed emotions. One day was filled with relaxing meals and swimming, the next with tears and an interminable sense of limbo. Courtney took to walking at night, and one time was even surrounded by eight dogs in the barrio, barking and nipping at her – I imagine it was quite a sight (I was in bed).

Feeling something drastic was needed, something to clear the energy, we sent Antonina back to Xela where she was needed. We decided that our midwife here in San Marcos, Jenny, would be perfectly sufficient. This was the turning point.

Two notable but unrelated events bookmarked this decision. The first was on Tuesday night. Althea came home for a moment to check in with us during another bout of seemingly futile labor. While walking out on the street, she had come across a baby hummingbird that appeared to be hurt. She recounted her experience with the tiny creature: “Papa, I held her in my arms and I was worried about her, so I said a prayer for her and sent her my energy, and in the next minute, she started to move, straightened herself up and flew off. I think it’s a good sign for the baby.” Precious, no?

And then on Wednesday night, Courtney, Althea and I were visiting Rebecca (who would unexpectedly end up assisting at the birth) at Hotel La Paz. As we left the garden gate at the hotel, we heard a cat calling up in a tree. She was calling to us. We looked closer and realized that it was our old cat, Luna. We inherited her at the school, and she gave birth to our other two cats on our bed while we lived at the school. She took off shortly after Leroy arrived, about a year and a half ago. But there she was, still alive and well, up in a tree on the other side of town. We called back to her and she came down a branch and let us pick her up. A man approaching on the path soon scared her and she was gone just as quickly as she appeared. But we took that as another good sign. Oh, and that night was the luna llena – the full moon.
Courtney did not sleep much that night; she was up pacing the house, meditating, watching the moon, eating, singing all the kindergarten songs she could remember, and bouncing around as she slapped her belly and sang commandingly, “come on out now / stop being lazy / you gotta get your little butt out / so I can be a good mama to you.” Or something like that.
When I got up the next morning, she was at the kitchen table throwing down castor oil cocktails like only Courtney can do. She read in one of her birthing books that it speeds up labor. And it did. Wow. Like gasoline on a fire.

By 8:30am she was frenetically rushing Althea out the door. By 9:30am her water broke, and we started chaotically calling our midwives. We couldn’t reach Jenny for some reason, and Maria (our third back-up midwife) was stuck on the other side of the lake due to a landslide. The water was out in town. One thing after another. Finally we got Jenny and she came running up to the house. We called our friend, Rebecca, to come and help at the imminent birth. She was not expecting this, but she came quickly.

The labor was fast and furious, and by 11:45am I watched our baby virtually fall out of Courtney onto our kitchen floor – right in front of the refrigerator. She was caught by our midwife, Jenny.
We – and it seemed like nearly everyone else – were almost certain that it would be a boy. Althea, however, never tired of correcting us when we spoke of the baby as “he” or her little “brother.” She was insistent that this baby, whom she had brought about with her magic wand, special-ordered for this very purpose, was a girl. No doubts about it. When she came into the bedroom and saw her little sister, she looked at us with an ecstatic smile and knowing eyes. She graciously spared us those four patronizing words that are the due of the vindicated.
Mirabai Remedios Wilson joined us on Thursday, 13 November at around 11:45, weighing a solid 8 lbs.

She has already brought a little bit of heaven into our lives.

The Magic Wand

They say time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana. Time certainly goes by quickly, but I think fruit flies are faster. We’ve been eating beaucoup banana for the past several months. We cut the bunches off our organic trees and string them up in the kitchen at the school. Everyone at the school loves to sample the selection, and kids are always coming by and asking for bananas. Our harvests have been bountiful and delicious, and though we eat them voraciously in all imaginable manners (in bread, as pudding, with yogurt or solito), the fruit flies still get their share. Five entire bananas can virtually disappear overnight, leaving nothing but a small strip of blackened peel. I find them quite the admirable adversary, really. It’s a sort of friendly sparring that reminds you just how good the bananas truly are.

The last three or four months have been full for us. After coming off a rough spell of it in October and November, we spent most of December trying to relax and vacation a bit. We went to the beach here in Guatemala for the first time and had a wonderful time eating fish, swimming in monster waves and releasing baby turtles (you can see pictures in our Picassa albums - "more pics" link at left). Christmas here was a welcome change from the consumer chaos in the US. Here it’s a big party, with everyone sharing tamales in the street and lighting off fireworks. At midnight on Christmas Eve, each town around the lake lights off the biggest fireworks display they can muster, and from our house we had a spectacular view of three different towns’ shows. Right after Christmas an Italian friend of ours celebrated a surprise birthday party on a chartered boat. We spent the day cruising around the lake, eating on a beach, swimming out in the middle of the bay of Santiago. It was a magical day, filled with friends and fun.

In January we went back to work and formally launched the first full academic year for our school here in San Marcos. After the back-to-school craziness settled, we set straight to working on our accreditation with the Ministry of Education, planning for the construction of our next classroom, searching for new teachers for next year, and fundraising with gusto. It’s a lot of work, but it’s exciting to see the kids everyday and feel the rhythmic heartbeat of this school in its infancy. You can read more in our updates at the web site: www.EscuelaCaracol.org

Courtney's parents came to visit for the first time in March, and we enjoyed our Semana Santa vacation with them (Easter week). I think Guatemala made quite the impression on them.

We’re currently conducting a search for our grades teacher for next year as well as a new kindergarten teacher. After this year, Courtney is going to step down as our kindergarten teacher. The reason is, well, really it started with Althea and a magic wand that she requested for Christmas. A friend of hers said that she was getting a magic wand for Christmas and Althea asked her if it would work to wish for a baby sister. Soon Althea had us writing a very important letter to Santa requesting the wand. To our chagrin, Santa delivered at the last minute. Two months later, late one night, as Courtney and I peered over the results of a cheap Guatemalan home pregnancy test, Althea listened slyly from her room where she feigned sleep. When she heard us laughing with near astonishment over the significance of two lines, she began to giggle with uncontrollable glee, chanting, “you’re pregnant, you’re pregnant!”

Althea takes full credit and responsibility for this turn of events, and she is quick to assure us that she’s on diaper duty.

So, yes, we are pregnant and expecting another child during the first week of November. Althea and I have a friendly dispute going over whether it’s a boy or a girl. I want a boy, personally. It all seems to be happening so fast. We’re just trying to keep up, roll with the punches, and enjoy the bananas as much as we can. In that way, sometimes, the keeping up can be its own reward – it keeps you in the present moment.

61 Steps

It’s not so much the steps that get you as the long inclines without steps. They can seem so exponentially steep. Sometimes it helps to alternate between accenting the use of your thighs and your calves, and if you’re carrying something heavy – like a book shelf or a hundred pound bag of cement – then the trick is to walk diagonally from side to side. Althea sings or counts incessantly to forget about her legs. That’s how we know there are 61 of those winding stone steps. And really, we have it pretty easy, since those 61 steps are only about one-third of the way for the rest of the people living in the barrio.

It’s been nearly a month since we decided to rent a house up in the oldest and largest neighborhood in San Marcos. Its official name is the unimaginative Barrio Uno (“Neighborhood 1”) a bureaucratic scheme probably influenced by the progeny of conquering Spaniards. The Mayan name for this predominantly Catholic barrio is Xenimab´aj, but very few people now know this. Across from Barrio Uno, on the western hill of San Marcos, lies Barrio Dos (“Neighborhood 2”), a smaller and largely Evangelical neighborhood. In the valley between is Barrio Tres (“Neighborhood 3”), where we have been living and where the school is located.

We decided to move out of the valley of Barrio Tres (or Pa Cheb´en) for a number of reasons, chief of which was the desire to separate our work and home lives. This is an important rule to live by, especially when your whole family is involved in the same work (in this case, starting a school), and even more so when that work happens to take place in and around the one-room stone-cottage-with-an-outdoor-kitchen you call home. Don’t get me wrong – I love our little cottage and outdoor kitchen. It was just a bit much with the work and the rain and the three of us (plus all the dogs and cats). [Schoolhouse construction at right.]

It was a step of both principle and faith to make the move. To be sure, the timing, the absence of furniture and a proper kitchen in the new house, and the uselessness of moving vans in this terrain have definitely posed their share of challenges, not to mention the additional expenses that come along (yes, we’re still eating on the floor). Nonetheless, it seems to have been the right decision. The distinction between work and home now allows us to effectively “turn off” when we come home. Courtney is particularly relieved. Our enchanted garden in Barrio Tres is now commonly understood to be the school, Escuela Caracol, which has gone a long way to establishing the school’s burgeoning identity within the community.

There are also some very bright perks about living up in the barrio. For one, we now have a lovely view of the lake and the valley, which previously was only to be had by climbing a jocote tree in the garden. Watching the rain roll across the lake while listening to the light din of town noises below has become a favorite pastime of ours. The social aspect has been refreshing as well. Barrio Tres is the municipal and commercial heart of San Marcos, but residentially speaking, it is more or less known as the “gringo” barrio (though the distinction is not without exception). Given our desire to bring together the children of both Maya and international families, we felt it important to live closer to indigenous families. Our new house is right on the path and also at a convenient resting point, so we get to “stoop-sit” and chat with passers-by a lot more than we did before. People in Barrio Uno are rather surprised by our desire to live up there, joking that now we’ll get our exercise on those 61 steps, but at the same time they have been remarkably welcoming to us.

We did have one startling night this past week, though. Sunday was an election day in Guatemala, and the mayoral race in our little village was hotly contested. At about 2:30 am on Monday morning, I was awakened by a rather frantic call from a friend, asking what all the racket was about. At that same moment, we became aware of the curious ruckus in the town below. It was then we realized that a portion of the noise was getting closer and closer, until the sound of a mob was right outside our door, banging on our roof and shaking our gate. Within a couple minutes, they were gone.

Over the next hour we learned that small-scale riots had broken out following the announcement that our mayor had been reelected for his third term of four years. A large group of people went and broke into the municipal building and burned all the ballots, and this group was returning when they passed our house. Perhaps there was some confusion with one of the mayor’s seven large houses that are above us, or perhaps some association with a former treasurer who owns the house we’re renting, but in any case they backed off shortly. We were fortunate not to be near the more serious chaos that surrounded the mayor’s actual residence, where a small squad of riot police were called in and broken glass still litters the streets. Quite a strange turn of events for our normally tranquil little pueblo. Now there will be a second election in November at the same time as the presidential run-off, so all the commotion of campaign songs, marches and bombas (bomb-like fireworks without the pleasure of light and color) will commence again until November.

But up in our little house on the hill in Barrio Uno, our family feels safe and secure from the threats posed in the valley by too much heat from elections, too much stress from work, and too much water from hurricanes. 61 steps seem to be just what we need.

Viaje Norte

Last you heard from us, we were back in Guatemala and determined to stay forever, right? Well, shortly thereafter, the plans that had been marinating in the folds of my mind finally got to cooking. Ironically enough, they led straight back to the US, though this time I was flying solito – well, without the family, at least. Yes, only days after our two new puppies were delivered to our door – and only days before our two new kittens were to be born – I left the wife and kid on their own in Guatemala. Madness, I know, but such are the ways of our dreamlike plans.

To my credit, there was a dual necessity that this trip resolved: what to do with the van, and what to do with Leroy. If we were going to stay in Guatemala and make a go at “stability,” then a camper van was rather an incongruous luxury. The transition from four wheels to four walls was nearly complete, and we no longer had need to drive. What’s more, selling the van would provide much needed cash to replenish the gaping whole left by a long hospital stay. So selling the van made sense, although the logic had its tragic dimensions.

Then there was Leroy – that big beast who’d been passed around like a huge hot potato from Virginia to Florida, all the while with the promise of a reuniting, dim as it seemed. If we were truly going to make a home at the lake, Leroy would be required to make it feel complete, to bring closure to the epoch voyage, to appease our guilty consciences. This meant a trip to the US to fetch the old boy. Selling the van in Guatemala was not a bright prospect due to monstrous import taxes, so the plan became clear: drive the van to the US, get Leroy, come home. Oh so simple.

The only hitch was finding a co-pilot, as Thea and Court were committed to the homefront, and I was not interested in driving Mexico alone. So I cast the net out to a bunch of folk who all had too many obligations to jump into what I was billing as a self-styled Latin adventure. Finally I wore two people down at the same time and ended up with a co-pilot and a flight attendant.

The day after the Spring Equinox I set out on my last voyage in Catarina with my old friend Simon and my new friend Will (aka, Chivo). We cruised across Guatemala, through Belize, and up into Mexico, roaming about Mayan ruins and swimming in a different body of water each day (at least that was the plan). We drove nearly everyday, but still managed to take in our share of waterfalls, hot springs, lakes, and beaches. Simon’s mania for “new water” every day even led him to hitch his way out to the waterfall at Misol Ha just as night was falling. He had to sneak his way in to get to the waterfall, then later talk his way into the guardhouse to arrange a floor on which to sleep.

Semana Santa was fast approaching, and our goal was to get to Texas before everything in Mexico was either crowded or closed. We were almost stalled by a huge electrical storm when we were only one day out from both the border and Semana Santa. Though it gave us a fright, the water and sand fortunately could not match Catarina’s all-terrain tires.

Our first day in Texas took us to the home of the world’s largest biscuit (big as your head!), a fortress of a mansion outside San Antonio where we dropped off Will, and finally to the Gillette homestead near Austin, where Courtney’s sister and her family warmly welcomed Simon and me with horseback riding and three amazing meals a day. We also got the added bonus of visiting with Courtney’s parents, Jerry and Gloria, for a bit. It was a healthy dose of in-laws that defied the much maligned stereotype. The time there passed all too quickly, as Simon returned to DC and I moved on to Melbourne Beach, Florida.

I landed at the McKinley’s the night before Easter and found Andrea making two wool bunnies while Zach fed two real bunnies. Before long we found ourselves discussing the pros and cons of presenting the rabbits to the kids by releasing them in their room while they slept. The next day I was privileged to join in the Easter festivities at the elder McKinley’s house, where I met Zach’s parents (and Andrea’s parents), his siblings, his aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces. There was a strange comfort in the markedly Southern character of the event that I was not expecting – the chicken casserole (just like mom’s), the “y’all”, the dirt bike, the granddaughter everyone called “lil bit.” Tones of Alabama, I guess.

During the week that followed I spent my mornings hanging out with the kids, my afternoons reconnecting with Leroy and making preparations for his trip to Guatemala, my evenings fishing on the beach, and my nights roaming Melbourne Beach with Zach on bikes. All of this was continually punctuated with great meals and good conversation. I was, however, going on week three away from my family, and this was starting to take its toll.

Arrangements for importing an animal into Guatemala are actually rather straightforward. A form is circulated from the vet to numerous officials and back again---involved but clear. Arranging a flight for an animal is another matter all together, especially when that animal is just shy of 150 pounds. On top of that there are only two airlines that fly four-legged creatures to Guate; they’re expensive and won’t book a reservation until within three days.

So I found a cargo company out of Miami that was much cheaper and somewhat more convenient, or so it seemed. The only catch is that the two flights a week left at midnight and arrived in Guatemala at 5 am the next morning. Andrea and Zach kindly offered to drive Leroy and me down to Miami in their truck.

So there we are in the pick-up rolling down 95, the wind flapping in Leroy’s ears and the cell phone rings. Leroy’s flight is cancelled.

We pulled over to think it through, and I started to scramble. I called kennels in Miami – all full. I started calling other airlines. My ear was burning from hours of cell phone calls. Then another call from the cargo company: the flight is back on. Wait, hold on, no, maybe it’s not…call back in 15 minutes.

We decided to go straight to the offices for a face to face, but when we showed up no one was there. Now things were getting weird. Ah, wrong address. When we arrived at the correct location, they told me that the flight was a go – they were going to make a stop in Guatemala just for Leroy.

Once Leroy was checked in and secure, we went off to have our little night in Miami. We roamed South Beach for quite a while, navigating the zoo of restaurants and bars, dodging the myriad Vegas-esque food displays, and noting the people dining on either side of the walkway. We wondered who exactly was on display. When we finally settled at an outdoor club with black-clad waiters serving mojitos over mediocre salsa music, we found ourselves saying over and over again, “this is just like being in Miami.” I guess that’s the South Beach experience.

When I arrived in Guatemala the following afternoon, the trauma of Courtney’s Guatemalan bureaucratic nightmare had started to wear off slightly. She spent three and half hours going back and forth between various offices and corridors of offices and checkpoints where you fill out a form and leave your ID. One guy made an issue of a two pound difference between Leroy’s cargo weight listed on two different forms. Another guy sent her to an office that was mysteriously vacated. And yet another demanded her Guatemalan ID number, which she was forced to make up. Finally, she was faced with an “official” who told her that Leroy was too big to be released in Guatemala without authority from the Ministry of Agriculture, which was closed that day. Courtney realized it was time to either pay up or tear up. She chose the latter (to my great satisfaction), and Leroy was released to her within minutes.

Now Leroy is safe and sound and enjoying retirement. He spends his days off-leash, hiking mountains and swimming in the lake. He’s even stopped shedding, which I never imagined possible. He’s getting along reasonably well with the two pups, though the male tends to annoy him and often steals his bed. The kittens, however, are his new obsession. He will follow them around all day sometimes, just watching. They’ve learned that if they don’t run, he won’t chase them.

And us – we’re doing well. We’ve gotten through feria (the noisy, trashy, weeklong birthday of the town – Saint Mark’s day), the month of May (and the ubiquitous illnesses referred to singularly as “mal de mayo”), and the start of the rains, which brought about a number of suddenly imperative home improvements. We’re getting into the flow of rainy season now, which means getting up early to enjoy the sun and cozying up somewhere for the afternoon rains. And we're starting to get a great pitaya harvest.






We have also thrown ourselves headlong into starting a small Waldorf-styled school at our place. Right now we have a kindergarten that meets twice a week, and we’re planning to formally expand it to five days a week in January. It’s an exciting project, but the amount of work (and politics) involved is sometimes daunting. I think back a lot to the hike that Simon and I made to the top of the San Pedro volcano just before leaving on our trip north. The volcano is some 10,000 feet high, a long and terribly vertical hike – definitely the most difficult of our lives. At many times I found myself saying that I was going to blow it off and turn around. Then somehow we’d just keeping moving. Often I had to literally move my legs with my arms, just to make a step. In the end, it was worth it though, as we were treated to one of the most remarkable views in the world. The lesson I took away from that experience – which I remember in my mind as well as my body – is that when you are climbing what feels like an impossible mountain, you must simply keep your eyes three feet in front of you.

[check out more pics, if you want, by following the link above in the "links" menu at left.]

One Year Out

When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.

Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

18 February 2007

It's about 8pm and I just finished washing the dishes in our outdoor kitchen. Standing in the spotlight of a single 60 watt bulb, I scrubbed a stainless steel pot. But not just any old pot—one that has survived the entirety of our 8 year and 2 month marriage. With shiny zeal, it braved the early years of spaghetti and burnt rice. It now boasts a savory Thai curry coconut dish, and most recently it's been flavor central for the boiled delicacy of Guatemalan chipilín (a stemy plant with small green leaves and miniature yellow flowers). As I stood there at our concrete sink and looked out at the banana trees, which keep a centurion watch over a small grove of coffee plants, I placed my pot to dry anew and remembered packing it for the first time in the compact kitchen of our van.

It was on this day a year ago that we set out on our so-called suburban exodus. The cold gray morning was punctuated by the garish-orange of a dreaded last minute trip to Home Depot. Still I remember asking Josh if he had found a cargo net and he telling me that the well-informed clerk responded to his inquiry with, "What in tha hayum sayundwich iza cargo neyt?" We got out of there with our plywood as quickly as possible. The clock was ticking, and our plan to leave by 11:00 am was pushed back to a 3:00 pm deadline. Josh and his dad crafted shelves for our 2ft by 1ft "pantry," and his mom and I sifted through the last of the things to go. Our friend, Mary, stopped by to deliver two containers of the meanest, most magical salsa. It made it all the way to Alabama. My sister kindly and creatively crafted a bag of Whole Foods booty, which we didn't exhaust until we were well along Mexico's Pacific coastline. And Althea still talks about the granola bars and oranges that our neighbor, Milka, sent along for the journey. Between building, packing, and visiting, our afternoon slid on and so did the sun. It wasn't until about 8:00 pm that we finally loaded up Thea and her panda bear, hugged our kin with tear-brimming eyes and closed the door on life in suburbia.

We headed out into the dark, frigid night with a dreamlike determination wherein the certainty that so characterized the preceding months melted into a misty haze. From McLean to Roanoke we drove shivering, somewhat stunned. I kept asking Josh if he felt mildly traumatized, because I did. And somewhere between Baton Rouge and Austin we grew weary of explaining to everyone our utter uncertainty of where we would end up and how we would support not only ourselves but also Althea. It became easier to have in hand a final destination, and so we threw all of our chips in on Belize. We've been there before....we have friends there....it's "English-speaking".... and the biodiversity could leave one wide-eyed for a long lifetime. But as we approached day 40 in Belize with still no prospect of a mechanic, still no clear picture of even a short-term plan, we came face-to-face with the fact that the fit just wasn't right for our permanent residency. Stunningly beautiful as it is, Belize was not to be our “promised land.” It was time for us to forge ahead. But to where? And then what?

To cure our case of brokedown blues and wilderness wanderings, we made our way to Belmopan's finest Chinese establishment for some fried chicken and French fries. This had become an almost weekly ritual, sometimes accompanied by a plate of steamed broccoli to ease our conscience over the amount of grease, starch and hormones we were ingesting. As always, just as the food was being carried hot from the kitchen, Althea expressed her dying urge for me to take her to the bathroom. Such are children. Staring at the faded walls inside the tiny and less-than-sterile cube, I decided to return to the table with a mental exercise. "Josh," I asked, "If you could paint the picture of your ideal living situation, what would it look like?" To which he replied, "What in tha hayum sayundwich izahn ideal living situation?" But the sarcasm faded, and a moment of genuine visualization ensued. We agreed that we both needed to be near a body of water, but also not far from the mountains. We desired elements of rural, off-the-grid living, but accompanied by the cultural perks of town life—and without the incessant driving. We both wanted Althea to learn to speak Spanish fluently, but we also preferred a multicultural atmosphere. We were inclined to a somewhat progressive community, but at the same time we liked the idea of being close to traditional indigenous culture. And, of course, I had my own extravagant addendum that there be some decent yoga instruction. What would we do for a living in this tailor-made utopia? At the time, that seemed beyond the reach of our collective imagination. Besides, our plates were empty and our bellies full. We paid the bill, each wishing we hadn't eaten so much, each wondering how hard reality was laughing at the audacity of our reckless dream.

This line of questioning and envisioning, however, proved difficult to arrest once set in motion. What were we doing on the road anyway? What was it we left in search of? What did we expect to find? Were we simply seeking some distance from the corruption and darkness of an imperial throne? Reprieve from a culture on the brink of suicidal madness? A warmer climate where we could live closer to the earth? A sense of clarity about our roles in life? Well, yes, it would seem that, at least subconsciously, we indeed crafted this journey—this suburban exodus—in the mould of a wistful and naïve search for ourselves and our place in the world. How terribly hackneyed and sentimental of us. And now one would expect that, a year later, after suffering the trials of disappointed expectations, unexpected appointments, and even a hearty dose of calamity, the hazy dust cloud of disillusionment would settle and we would graciously resign ourselves to the elusive yet seemingly noble truth of acquiescence. One would expect that we would come to terms with the subtle and understated verity of all journeys—that the goal of the journey is not the destination, but rather the journey itself. It would seem that we didn't really have to sell everything, leave home and travel some 10,000 miles into foreign lands in order to find ourselves and our place in the world. But to this austere and academic view proffered by the self-proclaimed men of quiet desperation, I, Josh, must interject: that's pretty much what happened to us.

When we imagined our "ideal living situation" over fried chicken and fries, it was primarily an attempt to alleviate our despondent confusion. We hadn't a clue that such a place might actually exist.

And now, here we are in San Marcos la Laguna, a small town in the mountains around Lake Atitlán, where it's springtime year-round—never too hot, never too cold. The community is mostly Maya, but with a significant international contingency, and Spanish is the lingua franca. In town there are a plethora of restaurants and numerous centers for alternative healing. Workshops, classes, concerts and celebrations of every sort are frequent, and yet, at night, the town is not filled with lights. It gets very dark, and the stars are brilliant. We walk everywhere and never drive, environmental consciousness is growing, composting toilets are common, and solar power is actually quite practical. What's more, the town even boasts outstanding yoga instruction. No, it's not perfect. It has its share of problems, but it's more or less the place we unintentionally set out to find. Each morning we awake, we continue to feel that assurance, which brings with it a sense of gratitude we try to carry throughout our day. So, yes, we're going to stay here for a while, sell our wheels, settle in, and root down. Which is to say, our suburban exodus is coming to a close.

And what are we going to do with ourselves? We thought you'd never ask….

suburban reprise

After six months and six thousand miles of roaming the southern portion of the northwestern hemisphere we found a place we want to call home.

After five hours, two complimentary glasses of orange juice from concentrate and two bowls of warmed mixed nuts we landed in place we’ve always called home.



Like fish out of water we experienced the odd sensation of being plopped on suburbia’s unsympathetic shores—our gills gasping and heaving for the restorative waters of Atitlán. After waking for the first time to the intermittent soliloquies of the central air and the side-by-side refrigerator/freezer, I (Courtney) shared a moment of empathy with those who claim to have been abducted by aliens. This is, of course, a characteristically drastic overstatement. But those of you who are bracing yourself for one of my over-the-top-can’t-take-a-breath rants on the ills of modernity, alienation, waste and consumption epitomized by shopping centers and planned developments, you may now release your grip and observe the blood as it flows back to your knuckles.

In fact, I am learning to be at peace as I drive down streets with misnomers like “Lakeview” and “Hillcrest.” And the bumper-to-bumper traffic has certainly given me a new appreciation for taillights—they are virtually non-existent in Guatemala. I’m no longer afraid of automated checkout lines at the grocery store. I even find myself humming to elevator music during phone conversations with computerized ladies who send me through endless mazes of button pushing.



The truth is that our suburban reprise has turned into somewhat of a suburban sabbatical. We’ve been basking in the comforts of warm showers, Cherry Garcia and a real mattress. Josh is recovering rapidly and enjoying the fit of his new skin. We are grateful for your prayers and words of inspiration. They have certainly sped the healing process. Suburbia just might be teaching us that two homes are better than one.



We’ll be venturing back to Guatemala in January, but in the mean time we have a small request to those of you who have made it this far . . . Many of you are well acquainted with our great Clifford-of-a-dog, Leroy. We are planning to bring Leroy down to Guatemala, but we need a few months to work out the details of this transfer. So, we are, once again, in search of a temporary home for him – maybe 3-4 months. If any of you out there could possibly host Leroy for just a few months, or if you know of anyone who might be willing to accommodate our large loveable pup, please email us at thosewilsons@gmail.com. Even if you have no interest in this matter, we’ll still look forward to hearing your comments.
Finally, happy early Thanksgiving to all of you residing in the States—we hope your cornucopias will overflow with love and peace.

baptism by fire

It was the third day of my twenty-eighth year, the 229th day of our suburban exodus, the twenty-sixth day of the lunar cycle, the sixth day of my fast, and the fourth day of my vow of silence. I was feeling strong, in tune with myself, clear-headed, and inspired. The life direction I had set out to discern was almost palpable. I felt intuitively its plain presence just around the corner, awaiting my imminent attention, which was approaching with a slow, transcendental certitude. Worries and anxieties about life and its “decisions” were an impassable distance from the tranquility of my mind. My soul seemed at peace with the invisible and inevitable unfolding of my life in that moment; I was living in the inert and infinite instant of a destiny seized, wherein the singular moment holds all others in its flow, and simply being is both possible and sufficient.

So it wasn’t entirely unnatural for me to interpret the unconquerable burning sensation all over my body as a spiritual baptism by a fire from the heavens—a sort of initiative experience to culminate my concentrated sojourn into the soul. Or perhaps it was a final grand test for the overcoming of my insatiable senses—because this fire was beginning to really hurt. I mean, to call it blistering would only begin to describe the appearance of my skin. The wool blanket with which I was covering felt like needles, and the immense swelling was starting to make movement quite difficult. I cracked and cheated a little, taking some ibuprofen, and tried to trance my way through the rest of the night in a modified and alternating fetal position. Two tedious hours passed along with two more ibuprofen and two aloe branches, all to no avail. My stomach was beginning to pang in a way that led me waddling as fast as possible on my heels to the bathroom. My knees and ankles were so red and swollen that I had to trust-fall back onto the toilet seat (thank God it was sturdy). I continued to hobble out a cycle of bathroom, aloe, water, bed, until the vomiting began and at last I felt forced to concede that my severe dehydration was bound to impair this attempt to triumph over the senses. The universe may indeed be mental, but only a fool traverses it without the realization of its relativity.
Determined to stay within the bounds of my silence, I quickly scribbled out an explanatory note and started my stumbling and confused descent from the mountaintop at three in the morning. My fatigue and haste made the essence of the note abrupt and I suppose rather alarming, such was my once tranquil state of mind. It read: “I am in horrible pain and dangerously dehydrated. Please help,” at which point I intended to lift up my shirt and display the amphibious-like mess of blistering red flesh. The plan was to make my way down the mountain and up the valley in the dark to the home of a local nurse, Cindy, bang on her gate and plead for her assistance in my own silent way. Owing to a false sense of courage and a genuine pride, I did not want to go to Courtney, as I felt this might arouse the tragic sense of fear and pity in her. My subconscious had different designs, however, as my route to Cindy’s took me directly by the house where Courtney and Althea were staying. As I approached, I came to terms with my feeble condition, physically and mentally, and proceeded to knock on the backlit door.

Oddly enough, Courtney was stirring. She had just finished an herbal bath with ruda (rue in English), and was making some tea as she sat to read. The knock was probably half as startling as my presence in the doorway. I handed her the note, bared my gruesome chest, and collapsed into the nearest chair. The following hours were filled with scribbled notes, homemade electrolytes, and continued applications of aloe. Courtney called Cindy, who suggested that I might want to call the ambulance and get to the nearest hospital, an hour away in Sololá. It wasn’t until dawn arrived, with the tripling in size of my blisters (some of which now resembled grapefruits), that we finally called the ambulance.

When the ambulance arrived in town, my blisters were too big to put clothing over, so my grand exit shamble up the stone path in underwear was to the fanfare of dramatic stares and gasps from the indigenous Maya in the midst of San Marcos “rush-hour.” The confounded looks I received from the medics were soon confirmed by hap-hazard movements to and fro: the fumbling out of a WWI relic of a gurney, the dealing of gauze across my body like a hand of poker, the crazed search for the antidote—a half drank bottle of agua pura under the driver’s seat—and the deft sprinkling of these remedial waters from what I assured myself was a highly sanitized hand. Fortunately we brought our own supply in a Nalgene bottle, as it was soon called upon. The drive up through the mountains was long and arduous, filled with flooded roads, detours, and two stops—one for a phone card and the other for one of the medics to alleviate her car-sickness on the side of the road. The intolerable bumping and turning, coupled with the occasional fall of a medic on top of me, forced me to resign myself to speak and break my vow of silence, and not in the most sanctimonious of fashions.
Arrival at the public hospital in Sololá was uneventful, as was my short stay there. After several attempts, they finally secured an IV, and told me I had bad burns that would take several days to heal. I could go home or be admitted to the hospital. Seeing as I wasn’t about to get back in that ambulance, I asked to be admitted. Upon discovering that I would be in an all-male corridor where Courtney would not be allowed, we were advised that we would probably be more comfortable in the private hospital. So I quickly found myself hobbling outside yet again in my underwear, but now with an IV bag, making my way over to the doctor’s Nissan Maxima in which he kindly offered to drive us to the private hospital himself. I left a small stain in the back seat where one of my large blisters burst.

The private hospital resembled a convent with nuns and the rest. The doctor there was rotund and jolly, and he told me he wanted to put me in surgery that night. The anesthesia was rapturous, but on its heels came a confusing and excruciating pain in my stomach, chest and neck area. The blisters and burns on my legs remained untouched, but my torso looked and felt as though I had been scrubbed with SOS pads. I was also terribly cold, and since they did not want blankets to touch my skin, they jerry-rigged a cage for me out of walkers, and placed blankets over the cage. Fortunately my moaning was as frightening as I felt frightened, and it was addressed with an onslaught of Demoral that kept me in a perpetual fog for the next 24 hours. It was during this time that I acquiesced to slowly break my fast of six days.
The unbearable pain, the interminable cold, the cage-cum-coffin, the difficulty of locating the nurses, and the threat of infection in this honorable effort at a hospital all inexorably led us to one conclusion: I had to get to a hospital in Guatemala City. Fortunately a divine prescience had graced my dad the night before and placed him en route to Sololá from Washington, DC. An ambulance could take me to Guatemala City, but not until the next morning. After much deliberation, we determined it most prudent to travel in the security, comfort and speed of an ambulance, as opposed to engineering some form of emergency transport with the SUV my dad had rented in Guatemala.

We had to wait until 11:00 am the next day for the ambulance to arrive. The three medics had no ideas about how to keep me warm during the trip. All they had to offer was a small “solar” blanket, which was merely a piece of silver plastic that quickly stuck to my skin upon contact. They had no ideas about how to secure some measure of warmth for me, so they told us to ask the hospital if we could borrow one of the walkers and a sheet. Then they told Courtney to go buy some rope from a tienda so they could secure the walker to the gurney. After an hour or so, we were on our way. Aside from flying objects from overhead cabinets landing on my blisters, the trip was uneventful, though full of stops. When I needed a drink, they stopped at a roadside stand to get straws; when I needed an injection to kill the pain, they stopped to steady the needle; when I had to pee, they stopped to keep it from spilling (which was comically ineffective). My dad and Althea traveled separately in the SUV, and when the ambulance sped up to the hospital with the lights and sirens blaring, they were already sitting in the parking lot, waiting for us.

Fast-forward three days and two surgical procedures later: I’m lying and writhing in the ICU, struggling to discern “reality” from the multifarious benign hallucinations, incoherently babbling Spanish and French phrases to Courtney and nurses who’ll listen, my entire body armored in bandages the national colors of Brazil. One nurse was fond of calling me “todo semaforo,” because the yellow and green combined with the red of my visible skin resembled something of a stop light to her. Most startling to me, however, was the appearance of someone else’s hips and thighs in the place where I used to find my own. When I looked down at the one unbandaged area of my body, no longer could I find the slender hips and semi-athletic thighs to which I was accustomed. In their place was a plump and pudgy mass of flesh that hung out and over my bandages with frightening effect. In the haze of anesthesia and pain, I had somehow become a true to form fat ass. Courtney had to stifle her laughter as she observed that I now had two asses: the one that hung low and the one that hung wide. And my arms, too, had been affected with lunch-lady syndrome. I could fan my body with a lithe sway of my arms. I dimly recalled the doctor saying I needed a high-protein, high-calorie diet—that I needed to eat as much as I possibly could. I also have the faint recollection of my appetite eventually rebounding from the fast with an avarice equal to the hefty portions I was served thrice daily (and two snacks). And the food was surprisingly good. It was quickly becoming the highlight of all of our days—i.e., me, Courtney, Althea, my dad, and Heidi, my Dutch compañera from the course in San Marcos who was also suffering from severe burns. Most alarming, however, was the discovery of strange and sizeable swellings in my so-called “private” parts. I say so-called because over the past several days I had been given sponge baths by at least ten different nurses.

When the nurses came to weigh me, I wasn’t terribly surprised to find that I had gained 30 pounds. Dr. Búcaro kindly informed me that this was normal, that it was mostly water I was retaining, and the solution was a simple daily diuretic injection that ensured I would pee the weight out all day long—and a jock strap, provided by the hospital. This, of course, came after the catheter was removed. I had tried so hard to avoid catheterization at first, spending an entire post-anesthetized morning trying to pee with all my might. Courtney and a male orderly were my assistants in this failed endeavor, attempting to stimulate my flow with a variety of truly ingenious replications of the familiar water-on-water sound. They tried to use warm water on various parts of my body, they tried mental imaging, and they fed me cup after cup of water in an effort to affect the flow by sheer force of pressure (this last attempt ended with voluminous vomiting into one of those way-too-small kidney-shaped pans). Finally I left the bathroom for good and acquiesced to the doctor with the frown of defeat on my face, unable to avoid this unnatural and bone-chilling invasion into my manhood. And once this thing was removed and I began my diuretic treatment, strangely enough, as I filled my seventh pitcher of pee for the day, I felt the ever so faint twinge of nostalgia for the effortlessness of the dreaded plastic tube and bag.

So here I sit now, going on two weeks in the hospital, finally out of the ICU and in a double bedroom where I can at least share meals with Courtney. The bandages have been removed from my torso and most of my right leg, I have a nice new layer of sensitive pink skin across my now shorn chest (“baby skeen,” Dr. Búcaro calls it), I am completely off pain medications, and I am dealing better with the depression of being bed-ridden. Althea is back in the States with Pop and Suzi, and we’re starting to think about making a trip north ourselves. My left leg and both of my feet are still all wrapped up, with the only questionable area being a strip of badly burned skin along my left foot, which I am sure is going to heal well, I can feel it. Hopefully I will get discharged from the hospital later this week after my bandages are removed. But what, you may ask, was the cause of all this suffering and craziness? Is it just bad karma? Perhaps. Is it a case of Josh being careless, absent-minded, or just plain stupid? No, I don’t think so.

The official medical explanation is that I suffered a severe chemical burn from an herb called ruda or rue (yes, the same herb Courtney had bathed with when I first showed up at the door). I was in a month-long course at San Marcos, and during the last week, the participants take a retreat with silence and fasting. Each day of the retreat includes a tamazcal (a Mayan sauna), followed by an herbal bath. On the second day, I took a bath with ruda, then went and swam in the lake and sat in the sun for about 30 minutes total. Ruda is a very strong and some say magical herb—this I knew—that apparently has the effect of making your skin highly photosensitive—this I didn’t know. So both myself and another girl in the course, Heidi, bathed with the ruda and ended up in the hospital. The place where we took the course has used ruda like this every month for the past 15 years, and this is the first occurrence of its kind. This was also the first time, however, that the ruda was bought in a market, rather than taken from the local medicinal garden. The ruda normally used is harvested while still young and relatively weak, whereas the ruda bought in the market was mature with flowers and much stronger. This is the theory, at least.
So perhaps my present suffering will prevent someone else’s future suffering. Perhaps this trauma has fallen into our lives to put us in places where we need to be, such as in Guatemala City, or visiting the States in the weeks to come. With events like this, often it’s best not to press too hard for reasons and explanations. But I can’t avoid the subtle yet persistent feeling that this whole ordeal has been part and parcel of the inner-quest that began overtly about a month ago and somewhat more cryptically back in January. Somehow, this seems to me to be part of a preparation or grounding for a new phase in our lives. The day before the ruda bath, I turned 28, and on that day, as I sat in silence and hunger, I pondered a medical maxim. They say that every seven years, all of your body’s cells completely regenerate, so that you are an entirely new person every seven years. That would mean that I am beginning life in my fourth new body. A rather strange thought, when you let it sink in. I had no idea then how new my body was about to become, after my “baptism by fire.” There is so much cellular regeneration going on in my body right now that I can hardly keep up with the caloric requirements (by the way, I’ve lost the extra 30 pounds).
How has this newness, this regeneration or rebirth, affected me? Well, I’m not entirely sure. But I can feel something different, something unusual, something vague yet poignant that was nascent before. When I try to talk about it, it starts to sound trite, so I try not to use words much. But for the sake of illustration, I could say that I’m learning a more profound and enduring sense of gratitude. Gratitude for my relative health, for the fact that I didn’t sunbathe naked, for instance; gratitude for family and friends, especially my wife who stayed unwavering by my side through the dark hours of the night, emptying my pee bucket and looking after my every need; gratitude for the experiences I’ve had and the places I’ve been in the past year. I even feel a new appreciation for every plate of food that comes before me, not to mention all the other romantic stuff like sunsets and breaths of fresh air. And when this grateful feeling starts to subside, I begin to experience the onset of a deep humility. This humility, when it contextualizes itself in your specific locality, has an unsettling and transformative effect, especially for a headstrong person like myself. And perhaps it is because of this strong and determined will of mine that it takes acute physical trauma to shake me up and help me to truly listen, with greater concentration. So I’m listening now, just listening, and I’m hearing the same strange and charming clamor that points without words or gestures to the infinite newness of our one undying moment.