Moments of September

Do you ever find yourself in moments when you feel a ball of energy in the center of your chest which triggers the idea that there is more to this world than you will ever be able to understand?  I have had a few of those moments this month.

The first was when I was sitting in the park the other day.  The electricity was out on account of the wind, so I took up a seat in the sunshine with my journal and sketch pad.  As I was getting ready to fumble around with a portrait of the church sitting humbly in the shadow of the volcano Pichincha, an old man wearing a poncho stumbled forward interrupting the line my pen had made a moment before.  His feet never left the ground as he shuffled forward.  Beside him, black posts made a good guide leading to the steps of the church.  The way his hand searched desperately for the posts made me wonder if he was blind and I started to get anxious the closer he moved toward the steps.  Once there, he proved capable.  Slowly, he made it to the top and directed his shuffling toward the church.  Both hands pressed against the church's wooden doors and for a moment he stood there perfectly frozen into the scene.  Then he turned and continued to shuffle, this time to descend the stairs.  Descending the stairs, was this a feat he was capable of?  The wind asked the same question.  In a sudden gust it lifted his poncho up over his head.  Not knowing why this had happened, not ready for this surprise, he let out a loud cry.  The park was empty besides me.  I am sure he did not know I was there to hear his bewildered cry out to the world.  Still caught in a moment of confusion he stepped forward too quickly, down the stairs.  His feet betrayed him and he fall backward his head hitting against the corner of the threshold of the church.  He cried again. 

It was in this moment that I should have gotten up to help him.  I felt a burning inside of me in the center of my ribcage.  But I could not get up, the weight of his cry made me explicitly aware that there existed a magnitude of pains and joys he had lived through of which I would never be able to understand.  So, I did not feel that it was right in that moment to enter his story.  I sat there welling up a strange emotion and I thought, where is this feeling coming from?  And I thought there is a part of me that I really do not yet understand.

Another moment I had this morning.  I woke up feeling excited that I was exactly where I was.  Though I am generally happy, this kind of contentment has not visited me frequently, so I sat down with my journal to try to understand where it had come from.  As my pen tends to run ahead of my thoughts, I found myself writing about children.       

This is where I have found my happiness in past experience and I have found it here again in Lloa.  I love working with children.  I love what they teach me, I love that they hold no reservation in accepting and returning a hug and a smile, I love their imaginations that run wildly from thought to thought, I love their wonder and fascination for the simplest of things, and I love the opportunity to hand back to them all of the lessons they give to me.

Yesterday I started teaching English classes in the schools.  This must have been what sparked feelings of happiness which greeted me this morning.  This combined with a weekly kids group I facilitate, reading Harry Potter aloud to my host sister Mayra and drawing flowers with 4 year old Adamarís, hanging drawings my kids group made in an artisan fair last Sunday and having them bring their families to show off their work, a hug on the street, a smile passing by, all of these I will add to the list.  I guess I am just starting to realize all the potential there is for me to fit into the world of Lloa.  And more than anything else the children are making me see Lloa as home.

So that ball of energy that swells in the center of my chest.  It is inspiring and mysterious.  It is not a part of me you can see with your eyes, but it is the core to who I am.  Sometimes I lose it, forget why I am here, who I am.  But watching the old man in the park and learning more about the children of this place have made it throb within me.  They have reminded me why I am here and of the person that I am and want to be.  No different than everyone else, therefore completely unique.  I wish I could harness this part of me every day.