An Honest Entry

Today was beautiful but also a little sad.

It was a combination of the best and the worst.

Sunny - so sunny. So thankful for the sun, especially after a seemingly endless season of rain and gray and freezing unheated rooms. And the sky was blue - like a powerful, bright, almost unreal kind of blue. The blue that just captures your attention and steals your day and forces you to stay outside - deadlines, chores, work - they all seem to fade into the background because this blue sky has cast a binding and captivating spell on you.

It smells like salt. Fresh, slightly bitter. Although it's sunny, it's still cold. The strong wind whips my face - turning my hair in every direction. Pulling the cool brass zipper on my jacket up a little more, I try to stay warm as I gather my hair to one side.

My hands now rest inside my jacket pockets with my fingers curled tight into my palms. The lining is warm, not very soft though - the wool is functional but not the most "comfortable" in that sense. But warmth definitely overrides comfort now. I occasionally feel the slight weight of Ana as she locks her arm around mine as we walk.

Children. One of my favorite sounds in the world. Abrupt bursts of laughter, playful screams. The constant rolling of r's - a skill which I still haven't mastered.

Red and blue and white catch my eye as the children run through the sand - teasing the water and testing to see how close they can go. A futbol rolls by. A knotted jump rope - made of a used piece of yellowed twine - swings. Up, down, up, down as the eight year olds practice their skills. The usual flock of Antillian seagulls grazes near the water a few hundred meters away. They always stick together, those seagulls. Perhaps even animals are built for community.

And it is beautiful. Peaceful. Joyful. Absolutely gorgeous here. At times I still can't believe that this is my life - this is where I live, this is what I do. Is this real? Yes, it is very real. Is it everything I imagined it would be? In many ways, yes.

But if I'm honest with myself, my joy is met with a slight bit of sadness. At times, even when I am surrounded by groups of people, I feel alone. Loneliness is not something that is found only by being physically isolated - loneliness, true loneliness, is met by feeling alone - the number of people you are surrounded by is irrelevant. Although it was a joy to be there today and although I felt a sense of community by being around the children and my coworkers, I also felt isolated. I can't contribute to conversations as I normally would in the United States. It's difficult to make small talk. It's difficult to communicate when my limited question asking skills are quickly answered by a one word response.

At times I feel isolated by this language barrier.

But you have to keep trying, I tell myself. I have gotten better - I understand more than I did before. And if I keep trying, even when it's difficult and I don't feel like it, it will get easier. At times I feel defeated - why even try to learn Spanish? I will never master this language. And maybe I will never be quite like a native speaker, but I am learning. And something should be said for that. Not everyone is willing to take that risk and meet that struggle and challenge head-on. Being the only American in my town: a challenge. Not fluently speaking the language: a challenge. But adversity breeds strength if we allow for it to. And the things that I am learning here - what it feels like to be alone, what is feels like to be an outsider, what it feels like to stand out in a culture, what it feels like to be a minority - are lessons of invaluable worth. Lessons that I really couldn't learn any way except through being in this situation.

So maybe my aloneness and slight discomfort are truly blessings. For it is teaching me things that I wouldn't be able to learn any other way, and it is creating a more flexible, more resilient, and more optimistic spirit in me. And maybe, hopefully, some day, I will be able to understand a child more when he feels like the odd one out.