Posts Tagged: Guatemala

And I digress … from your normally scheduled reading order.

August 28, 2012

I’m forgetting stories.  Things people shared with me that I was present to, but did not write down, in an attempt to be fully present in that moment.  I love recording, for it aids in re-membering (literally) an event or an encounter.  When I record though, I do not listen as well or with the same presence. So, this trip, I sacrificed recording for the greater good of presence. I’m about to do something a bit crazy and tell you …

An Apology

August 22, 2012

… My last few days I’ve been living some of what I learned in Guatemala. I don’t always listen to what my body tells me, and often, I schedule and overschedule myself. Last week, I got a head cold that quickly morphed into me losing my voice.  My 9 am to 2 am day (most likely) triggered this.  What an incredibly funny species we are that we forget our lessons so quickly.  I had eased in to my schedule after …

Concrete, part dos.

August 16, 2012

Some pictures to whet your appetite: The ladder being “fixed” The whole process, from start to finish. The process of moving the cement merits detailed exposition.  The workers (and John) shoveled the cement into buckets that we had lined up (about 8 of them); these were the same buckets Ana and I had used to hurl water.  I picked up a bucket, turned, handed it to Jen, who passed along to Ana, to the next and then the next, then, …

Concrete(ly) in my body

August 15, 2012

*Disclaimer: This is MUCH longer than most of my other posts.  It will take a while to read through.  If you were to print it out, it would be about 2 pages double-spaced. I’m going to post part two separately.  Almost three weeks after the fact, about to reconstruct the day of concrete and cement, I looked in my journal today to see what I’d noted, in the hopes that it might jog my memory of the day.  What I …

We’ve only just begun

August 14, 2012

6 a.m. was our departure from the Casa Retiros.  To work backwards, that meant that breakfast began at 5:30, and wake up, 4:30. My earliest meetings, at home in the States, start at 10 am—that’s a stretch for me.  My favorite time of day is morning, where I ease in—often with the same routine: skinny coffee and a book in my pajamas; an hour later, breakfast; then gather and prep for the day.  I had no coffee with me, and …