I wrote a short story, not long ago, about a social worker (me, maybe 20 years younger) coming to Guatemala, working with the people I work with, and learning the things I have learned about the economy, the people, their lives, their difficulties. And she falls in love with a Mayan man maybe 10 years younger than she, who lives on the side of the Volcano at Lago Atitlan. I enjoyed playing with the writing of this romance – trying to make it “true” in terms of psychology, cultural differences, and so on – but as I did, I learned I was really writing about MY romance, not with a person but with the natural world, with the sensory world of sounds and smells and sights, in this case his farm…….and her memories of milking goats, forking hay, feeding the chickens on her own farm in the past (my farm.) My feelings about that were so intense, that once again my desire to live more in the country emerged…..to have something more in my life than my sweet view of the banana “trees” and bouganvilla, and the low mountain behind them, out my bedroom window. Some days later I went up to Santa Maria de Jesus (on the side of Volcan Agua) with our teachers, and coming back was just stunned with the view……….not really the beautiful view of the valley and Antigua in the middle of the mountains, but the view of the varied fields around Santa Maria…rich and green. I felt as though I was feeding on the view, as though this is what my soul absolutely needs for sustenance.
So what a surprise to have a love come into my life at this age…now nearing 73….almost as though I called it into being by imagining it. He is not a Mayan and not much younger than I, however certain aspects of the story are there. However, I suppose it should never be a surprise when someone comes into your life who pushes certain buttons, requiring you to grow as a person, while at the same time pleasing and pleasuring you. So that is a delight for which I am very grateful. But secondly, he lives near Lago Atitlan, and when I visited him there we walked along the lake and I discovered the house that I first saw when visiting San Pedro to be trained in Pedagogia Basica, a year ago, which I fell in love with and said to our young teachers, “That’s MY house!” On 3 subsequent trips I had been unable to find the house again. Well the story would be perfect if I bought the house and lived there forever, but it’s nearly perfect in that it is for rent for the next six months, and so I’m going to uproot myself to “fly” again, this time to live near a lake and near a man I find quite delightful, with whom I’m going to work in the schools there. God works in wondrous ways……….la verdad.
