In which there are celebrations, dreams, kites, and filth

I had a birthday recently, an occasion which occasions this post. A full twenty-four years have I lived, not yet a number to be proud of, or a number to fear, but still something to think about? I thought back a year to 23. I was working on the Obama campaign in Colorado Springs, less than a week from election day, and I don't remember much of a celebration or an occasion for introspection, reflection, etc. Probably some drinks with co-workers and a nice dinner with my Colorado host family (something like that). Crazy to think of how my life has changed in the intervening 12 months -- no way I could have imagined where I would be today. I had an inkling that things needed to change, that I could not just go back to California and my old job after Election Day, and some kind of international flavor was floating through my mental nostrils. But that was just a faint faraway premonition. Can I build some kind of logical equation to predict/decide my future?

Where I thought I would be : Where I am
Where I think I will be : Where I will be

This morning -- a Monday -- I boarded a bus bound for Guatemala City with the rest of the volunteers in Antigua. I was feeling the effects of the weekend. It was a full feeling, vague and circumspect satisfaction, hungover exhaustion, a shiny red apple with an unseen worm gnawing its way through. Please assign no blame to my communication skills; if those feelings seem illogical or ill-fitting, it's only because they are.

Saturday, the anniversary of my emergence from the womb, began with a great pancake breakfast prepared by my awesome housemates. A big pile of pancakes with three pink lit candles stuck on top, fruit, honey, and warm strawberry syrup on the side. If only every day could start that way (but I will settle for this twenty-fifth year starting off on the good foot). We went to the used clothes market to find some Halloween costumes. Convenience factor: This market also boasts a superb pupusa stand -- 4 Quetzales, less than 50 cents, each. Without embarrassment I will inform you kind readers that the five of us dressed as the Spice Girls for that night's Halloween party, with yours truly as Scary Spice. Somewhere out there in Internet-World there are pictures (too many). I won't attempt a description of our costumes; either find the pictures or use your damn imagination.

Sunday brought me to Santiago Sacatepequez for the annual Dia de los Muertos kite festival. The town was overcrowded with tourists and delicious looking street food. The local cementary is the locus for the kite festival, which includes everything from little children's kites to massive 100-foot kites which could only be flown under gale-force conditions. According to a source, the kites serve as some sort of communicative conduit between the dead underfoot and heaven high above. Unclear where this idea comes from, but the festival (and accompanying grilled pork treats) was clearly worth the trip.

Sunday night took my back to the house of my host family in Antigua, where we sang Happy Birthday and drank rum. I mixed mine with hot water, which proved a suitable mixture. More drinking at a bar while rain poured down in defiance of the supposed "dry" season, then on to an expensive dinner, a few hours of sleep, and an early morning rise to catch the aforementioned bus. I may be the only one who can truly read between the lines here, but that is my divine right as author.

I enjoy thinking, wondering about where I may be one year from now. I enjoy thinking that I may still be here, because I know that if that is the case, I will have stayed because I truly wanted to, and because I was accomplishing a great deal at work and enjoying my living situations. I also enjoy thinking that I may be somewhere else entirely, because there are so many options, so many greener pastures, each a different shade and with its own peculiar odor. A year is a long enough time for my imagination to fade the effects of any current anxieties or troubles -- by then I will certainly have resolved them. Surely there are trials and tribulations along every path, thorns in every rose bush, and things could conceivably be much worse for me in one year's time (or less!). Pandora closed her box just in time to save Hope, free to project our aspirations, our fantastical iterations onto the white wall of the future.

I step forward, urged onwards by hunger and not desperation or fear. My feet may occassionally land in mud, but without a little filth what meaning hath cleanliness?