on flan and roller coasters

it is relevant to note here that the emerging upswing more accurately feels like the anxiety and hushed panic you feel while riding up a really steep roller coaster hill. my upswing has morphed into that unmistakable, stomach-stirring, knot-forming ache and the multiplying anticipation i feel surely signals some inevitable plunge is just a little ways ahead ready to yank me downwards, screaming, nervous and alive.

ok, so i have not envisioned looking quite this scared.

though,

i was having a cold day. it was cold here, but more to the point-- i was cold, closed down and distant. following several weeks of a relative reprieve, (i.e. celebrating victories that you might otherwise glance past in the states (excellent post, james)) i knew there would be a lapse and detour from the pleasantries that were coming my way. i suspected challenges were right around the corner.

today was a plunge back to the ground and around several corners. and it did not feel enthralling or exhilarating. it just felt exhausting.

i looked on from a place far removed as the reality of the struggles here took hold of me again today. i watched my classes slip by with atypical and increased (somehow this is possible, even still) levels of indifference and apathy. it was freezing cold in the classroom. it was gloomy and miserable outside. it was world AIDS day and no one cared. it was beyond difficult to talk about AIDS with even my best students at a basic level of english. there are, after all, only 689 people in this country currently registered as having HIV/AIDS since 2006-- why is this relevant?. in my last class, the second of a back-to-back 10th grade class, we digressed into 40 minutes of playing hangman.

but. just as i was sinking into an afternoon of reading books and detaching (read: blocking out) from my day, my wonderful neighbor knocked on my door. a solid pounding and her voice singing out my name... she must secretly have discovered i don't answer my door sometimes when certain neighbors drop by...

i opened the door to a crisp wave of cool air and my sweet, kind, wonderful neighbor holding a pan of 'creme caramels' (or flan) in her hands.

just friday i had made apple crisp for her to express gratitude for my lovely new name tags. and today she returned my pan with flan in it because she thought it might remind me of home.

she intuited my longing. my homesickness. my lousy disposition.

i am so very homesick. it will pass. though, as uncertain as i am about what specifically i long for, i miss the silly comforts of being in the states. the ambiance and crazy nuances of the holidays.

then there she was, my gleeful source of care and kindness standing in front of me offering a taste of something that infinitely reminded me of home.

it is comforting to know that when the fall is over, life affords you space in time and place to regroup and to regather before the clack-clack-clacking of the chains lifts you to your next adventure.

i know that eventually, this whole experience will pass and i'll find myself walking out of the 'roller coaster station' thinking to myself, 'that was crazzzzzy.' but, right now, i just want to be on a carousel going round and round...