Sunglasses Always Fit

Living in and traveling through my fair share of interesting places over the last few years, I’m used to waking up due to unexpected reasons. Fireworks and a mariachi band for a birthday at 4am, dog fights, cat fights, roosters that can’t tell time, drunk neighbours hosting impromptu poetry slams and political pots banging. But this Sunday morning, for fun, for variety, I woke up itching my skin to the break, with my left hand swollen to twice its normal size. Huh. Okay. Well then.

Panicked, sure I was sensing something crawling up from my hand into like, I don’t know, my brain arteries, I sent a video to my nurse mom. No, I hadn’t been in a jungle, pet a stray dog (that’s a big big lie, but), tried a new lotion or detergent, etc. I have a lot of allergies (a teacher allergic to apples, I know, it’s so dramatically me), but none that have presented in this way. I could get one ring off, but not the other. It itched like crazy. Was I bitten by a serpent and failed to notice? Was I modern day Eve? Spider-woman? Was my arm going to fall off? Why was everything in Guatemala trying to kill me?!

I was able to go to the doctor the next day, a father of my students. He gave me an injection in the bottom to help it calm down. “But, the problem is in my hand?” I reminded him, motioning to the distance between the two body parts. “Sorry, pull down your pants.” They love a butt shot here. Luckily, it worked and quickly. Now that it’s not so swollen, I can see where I must have been bitten by something between the fingers. Rude.

The point of this story, besides another instance where Rachel was making “put the fun in funeral” contingency plans to share in a password-protected-based-on-inside-joke-from-childhood Google doc with my sisters (end of life celebration demands include goodie bags with Cheetos and Oreos and everyone must tell a story where I am very interesting), is that I was taking a lot of pictures of my hands to monitor the progress. And then . . . then I would look at the pictures of my hands. And then, more than worry about what was happening to me, I would say “hey . . . whose hands are those?” 

Because suddenly these body parts on the end of my arms looked dry, and freckled, and wrinkly, and old. I don’t feel that way. Those can’t be mine, right? It scared me. 

But. But then (after getting past the initial disappointment of not being Spider-woman) (and after the swelling had gone down and I was not so hysterical) I remembered that these hands are privileged with life. They are beautiful hands, actually, full of strength and stories. They have given pinkie promises, held babies, cut bangs the night before college graduation, taught kids how to turn pages and follow the words and how to hold a pencil. These hands have pressed palms with those I’ve loved as they passed away, checked for temperatures of kids who were just trying to get out of math lessons, started fires and administered pills on medical missions. 

These hands have guitar string scars and hot plate scars, have scored the winning ace in volleyball games, and crafted designer coffees and cocktails. They’ve cradled telephones, scribed pager code, written beautiful cursive heartbreak into journals I hope no one will ever read. They’ve planted seeds to grow trees to provide shade for people I will never know. 

These hands do look older than I was expecting. God willing, they will change and look older still. Hold more hands, wipe away tears, write more stories, knead more bread. 

This weekend I found out that a good friend from elementary school was killed in a hit-and-run by a drunk driver. It sent me into a bit of a tailspin. We used to ride bikes to the park. Have sleepovers. We played softball and carpooled and gossiped and giggled. She was one of my first friends when I moved to a new school. That’s a core memory for a six year old.

I’ve reached an age and a time where a lot of people from my graduating high school class have passed away. How was she, these last few years? What was her life like in that moment? I saw her last, what, twenty years ago? I’m daily shocked at the actual passage of time compared to my Peter Pan interpretation of it, as I am determined to never grow up or grow old but always be the cool person my nieces and nephews need me to be. What were my last words to Timarie? Did we hug?

The wild thing about social media is that I can and do hate it, however, you can feel like you still “know” someone from far away. It’s a diet kind of friendship. You know what someone looks like and who their partners and kids are and their hobbies and the last vacation they went on. What they had for lunch! And we’re mostly just posting highlights, the good times. But how are you, really?

Maybe it’s living abroad for so long, and it’s just what I can get . . . but I want and will take and treasure those curated pieces of you all. There’s no way we could just call each other all the time, and I have no physical address here in Guatemala for you to send a postcard. Carrier pigeons? Does anyone still do pigeons?

Please, keep posting. I will take the carefully crafted, filtered, posed, best outfit highlight of your life moments if it means I get to “keep up” with you in some way. It would be impossible to do otherwise. I want to know at least some version of you that you’re willing to share. I want to know everyone and celebrate it all and.

And if you want to know the crazy blessed mess that is my life, trust me that I don’t even know how to keep a secret, so you will see it on instagram or read it here, especially if it’s funny. Which most things are, if you look at them in a certain light.

Times are crazy, and as they are going to pass anyway, I want to pass them seeing bits of all of you, friends, what you share, so. Post them or send them, life is worth celebrating. Here’s to growing older, because not everyone gets to. To Timarie, who was a delight. To Carly, who left us around this time not too many years ago.

To life and how we get to share it.

Until next time :)