Abundance is Community
My pockets are empty and I couldn't be happier.
I woke up today, watched the gecko run across my wall, cross over my painting, and I smiled; my heart full.
I don't know how to stop being grateful for this vida.
Last year was hard. January was hard. f*ck yesterday was hard.
For almost four years now, I’ve been calling Centra America home. Two and a half years in El Salvador broke me open. A tiny, tiny town built on bare feet and grit. The first place I really got to know and accept Me. It was the Peace Corps that brought me there, but it was sitting over cafe con tortillas y pupusas with the people that made me stay.
When my service ended, and I quieted my mind, something told me it wasn’t my time to leave.
A scholarship to the United Nations University for Peace brought me to Costa Rica. My heart is full here. And yet, I am so far from my family and friends back home. When times are hard, I don't always know why I chose to live so far from them. I need to reflect on this often, to make sure I am doing what I need to do. I like to do this from time to time. Make space to get quiet and feel my inner knowings and listen. I’ve grown accustomed to recognizing what my truth sounds like and I’m grateful for this practice.
And, yet, here I am.
My heart bursting with the love of a place that feels so home.
I am writing. I am working with children and real-life people, devoted micro-entrepreneurs, who share with me their passions. I absolutely adore meeting them in their element and listening to their soul’s speak about why they chose their work. I’m learning and growing faster than ever.
I am spending time with grandparents who have filled a space in my heart that has been sore since May of last year when my Grandma left this world.
I work over 10 hours a day and mostly 7 days a week and it is never a job; it is always work.
Work that requires my open heart, my deepest listening, and the allies of my hands and my mind everyday. And every day I'm so insanely blessed to do it.
My heart was split open various times in the past 12 months. My Grandma moved on. Friends left. Work place robbed. My safety compromised. Life uprooted overnight. I needed to learn how to find grace in pain. Build trust again. Check-in with myself more carefully than ever.
My house, my finances, my career, my studies went from full and active to a blank slate, waiting for me to paint it.
Sounds exciting. I was scared sh*tless.
I slept on couches and in new places. I lived out of backpacks. I moved over 6 times in 6 months. I was not trying to travel, this time. I was trying to live.
Today, I'm in a bed in a cute, minuscule place where my lovely landlord called me "sol" and we share stories about El Salvador. I feel so safe and so warm.
I'm here.
Smiling.
I have abundance everywhere I turn. Ironically, I am living frugally (in terms of money & possessions) and still seeking a way to pay for a flight home for my sister's graduation. Life is not easy.
Life is just willing to bless you. Life just wants you to live hard, lovingly and whole.
Life will give. That’s my experience these days. Time and time again.
My world is full of art work painted by the hands of curious children. I am spending time teaching and learning alongside youth with special needs and special abilities to take me to places I don't go enough...and I am grateful their parents trust me to share a bit of my values with them.
My life is abundant. It's unpredictable. It's full of financial debt and frequent heart pangs. It's overflowing with good souls. And that is way more than I can ask for at this time.
I woke up this morning 'Oli el viento, lo vi libre y me enamore
Me desperto tan dulcemente, acaricio mi pelo y me enamore'. (Perota Chingo).
Abundance will always be a knowing in my heart. Activated by sweet breath.
Abundance will always involve dirt under my nails, sweat, and clear vision.
It will be a knowing felt through art and music and movement.
Abundance will always mean community. Sharing wounds, holding hands.
Trust.
Forgiveness.
Love.
And joy. Abundance is heartfelt joy.
This one is tricky. Sometimes it feels like joy is taboo. Especially for womxn, in the places I’ve lived and the ways I’ve experienced, at least.
But, oh, joy is service.
——- This piece is an iteration of a journal entry from 2015 when I was living and working in Costa Rica——-