If You Think My Life Is As Pretty As These Sunsets

Dec. 19, 2013

It is easy to feel energies. I just woke up. I am barely awake. I'm lying in bed at sunrise and I feel more alone than ever. The day has not even started.

I slide the lock to the left, open the door to my apartment and step warily onto my balcony. It is easy to feel the emptiness that surrounds. I cross the corridor that overlooks the unused pool and walk down a few stairs. I look to my left. The doors are closed and the curtains are pulled tight. 

The trees sway lightly with the breeze.

Just enough to show that they are alive. Not enough to create sound.

It is quiet.

My heart beats slow.

But loud. 

I look around. The sky is painted with early morning colors. The yard is a green wave of fresh rolling hills. The windmills are spinning atop mountains in the distance. 

I smile sincerely and warmly.

But it fades quickly.

The guayaba tree is bare. 

There is no reason to cross the green hills to walk to school.

And no music is playing from any of my apartment-mates' rooms. 

I turn around and walk back up the stairs.

I make a pot of coffee that I bought from Don Pupo, a local farmer in the area. As it brews, I smell his finca. I open the fridge and reach for some things to make a smoothie, but the combinations don't make sense to me. 

Oh well.

Did I say that? 

I know those 2 words. My Mom says them.

I close the refrigerator door, grab my towel and walk into my bathroom.

I leave my clothes in a lump on the floor. They pile limp and carelessly.

I pull the shower curtain across and the metal rings screech as they slide across the rod. 

Is that sound my only companion? 

It rips at my heart. 

Dec. 23, 2013

The numbers say something to me, but I can't make sense of them.

19…22…23….

The calendar says it is Christmas time.

I close my eyes and I try to feel the crisp weather on my skin. I breathe in deep and try to smell apple crisp in the oven. I begin to hum and try to recreate Winter Wonderland. 

But there are no sleigh bills ringing. 

The air is warm and humid and the ground below me is laid with sand and not snow. 

The sound of the sea is beautiful, but it is a lull that drowns my heart and it is not the sound of my sisters' voices that dances in my soul. 

There is nothing easy about traveling. My life is in a backpack and I have to choose what it holds. 

There are things I left behind that I long for, that I wish I packed… yet I know there is never enough room for the things I need most. 

I wake up and the bed is not my own. I've come to know these sheets, but I know deep down it is just a lie to make it more comfortable. She knows, too, as she cradles me. She knows this is just temporary. That I will not stay for long and soon she will host another body from another foreign land and they, too, will lie together. 

I fumble with the lock to a unfamiliar door and I step outside. 

The first instant is overwhelming. The smell of the salty sea, the sound of waves crashing, the colors that reach far beyond a rainbow. 

I smile sincerely in deep gratitude. 

What have I done for Mother Earth to love me so much? Every day she opens up a gift that is much too beautiful for mankind to capture, and she hands it to us. It is deep greens and vibrant reds. It is the smell of lilies. It is the sound of birds singing and the touch of fresh snow. It is sunsets and sunrises. Do I give this gift back? Or do I just keep taking? 

I reach back inside and grab a sheet off my bed. Still in my night clothes, I come outside and climb into the hammock, wrapping the sheet around me and I wait for the colors to come across the horizon. 

There is nothing easy about traveling.

There is nothing easy about the choices I have made.

There is nothing easy about being me. 

Cradled in my hammock. Alone. Silent. I look out at the horizon and wonder many things. My past flashes before me. My future is a mystery. My present is painted with dark smudges that I don't remember holding the brush to and I often try to erase them, but they don't go anywhere and I often tell myself to just accept them, but I don't want to. And it hurts. 

But if I just lift my head up in my hammock, I can see the colors as they start to creep out from beneath the clouds. 

'Cause I can hold onto those dark smudges (and sometimes I do) and they can start to grow and take over the whole picture and before I know it I can't see any colors at all. 

Or, I can keep seeing and I keep painting. Because sometimes the colors are there before me and sometimes it is I that creates them, but either way, they are there. And I know that is true. And I know the colors and I co-exist and co-create together. Sometimes, you just don't see them and sometimes you forget and sometimes, maybe, you just let the dark smudges take over. 

There is nothing easy about traveling. 

I can't lie about the beauty that I have come to see by taking my feet to faraway places. I can't lie about the blessings that the world has given to me. I can't lie about the wealth I have accumulated through the meals, and smiles and conversations and stories that I have shared with people across the planet. 

But, it is not easy. 

Sometimes, I paint a picture that it is…easy…

That it's all beautiful…

Through my photos.

My messages.

My one-sided-story posts. 

Because maybe that's what I need to do. For me. 

Because I don't need to tell you that you can't have up without down. Good without bad. Right without wrong. 

But it serves me no good to focus on the dark smudges.

Because the truth is, when you travel, you can feel really, really freaking alone...

And it's exhausting. And my clothes are old and stained and I usually wear them multiple times without washing them, so maybe they kinda smell. And I don't have the freedom to always choose the best food and sometimes I really just want organic almond milk and raw honey and blueberries and I have to eat greasy rice and beans. And my legs are covered in mosquito bites and you can tell me not to scratch them but I will because it feels so freaking good and I know that I will get an infection, but I will do it anyways and the hospitals suck in faraway places but I have to go there anyways and its my own fault. 

And those are just the small things. 

And the big ones are much more painful. 

The big ones are the dark smudges on my painting and I think only my good friends and family knows what they look like and how impossible they are to erase. 

But that's my painting.

And, I'd rather tell you about the colors. 

Because maybe you'll start to paint with me.

And I know that when we can see the colors of the world we can create more. And that is what I have learned to do for me and my own wellbeing. And you don't have to do it and you don't have to like it, but for me it works.

And if you think my painting is perfect that I am sorry for misleading you. 

We are all human beings and each one of us has a story that most of the world probably does not know about. 

I ask for help every morning to treat everyone with kindness. No matter how they treat me. Because I don't know their story. And they don't know mine. 

But, I can look for the colors (that exist in everyone and everywhere). And that makes it easier. And I feel less alone. And, I can smile. And, sometimes, I make them smile too.

If you think my life is as easy as these sunsets, it's not. But I choose to paint the colors I see because it makes life a bit easier.