written on March 18, 2017

it, everything, goes away in a flurry, and it comes in a sweet and slow wave. and then away into the pores of the shores. I sit in a taxi gazing at my friend share an enlightening story about past lives and fallen but not forgotten lovers as the background of palm trees and buildings in construction whiz by, holding in my full bladder as we rumble over the bumpy gravel. I hold it all in place and remember the motion of it all… but I also capture it all as a whole, what lies in the corners of my eyes and in the sensations of my body, my mind taking it all in all while listening and waiting for more out of her hands. we’re approaching aeropuerto and I cheer the taxi driver on as the airport comes into view, as I feel like I’m about to burst. jehanne laughs and tells me to go, and she will meet me at the bathroom.

I remember little me in a playground, classrooms in mobile buildings atop silver frames and stairs that vibrated like a violin. I spoke, astounded, to myself, but to an older version–me as an adult. I so longed to know what I would be like and what I would look like as I was all grown up. I feared that the joy and the surprise of seeing the difference and how much I had changed by the time I grew up would not exist, and it would all become ingrained without any notice to the transformation. I pleaded to me, the older young adult me, to remember this moment and to reassure my big-nosed, curly haired little self who had tried to use eyeliner in a desire to be grown up already, that I would be beautiful and wonderful and strong. I lie there in the buses slowly filling up with bodies that would take jehanne and I to customs and back home, sharing this with her. I tell her that we are now in this moment, then we shall be riding home, and a hour later we will be sitting in our rooms home at last. as if a time warp took us home despite the long journey we endured to get there. I swear to her I will text her reminding of this conversation as we arrive in our rooms, and she beats me to it when we enter our uber and glide smoothly along the rainy highways that the moment we shared in the bus is long gone but not forgotten.

the time “8:57 march 18, 2017” turned to “9:01 march 18, 2017” and it once held years of the past when we traveled to Dulles to go to places of the world that were faraway but became here and then faraway again. Now, it is 9:49pm, and I am writing this after a sudden desire to write again. As I entered the coldness but warmth of home when the doors opened and I was greeted by a spray of rain, I felt reassured… not with disappointment, but with the knowledge that I am changing and I am returning to great old ways, and learning new ways. I am writing long paragraphs with little effort and writer’s block long gone. my nose is slightly sunburned, my right foot swollen, but my soul feels more refreshed than it ever has been. I look up and it is 9:55pm. a golden photo frame of the driver’s family dangles, lightly glistening, and the window wipers are wild at work. I breathe and.