We’re gonna have to fast forward to the present, where I’m sitting in a dive shop on Big Corn Island drinking rum and coffee. Just for a minute, though, and then I’ll try to recap things in a believable way. Aaron’s here now, as of three days ago. This basically means that the boys are eating food again, Sylvan only wants Papa, I get to fall all the way to sleep, and now we have a machete for coconuts + life. It also means so much more than this, but those are my secrets. I won’t do too much of this, but I need to write down and read for myself one of the goods this man brings to our lives. Really, what a phenomenal luggage bearer he is… jk, jk… but just to say one little thing: I say we just have to take these trips with our kids and we gotta do it every year and it’ll be good, and then Aaron says “Okay, let’s make it happen,” and then he starts talking about his new favorite crane, but he means it and we keep making these trips happen. He listens to my heart (uh…starting to sound like a Thumbelina song so I’ll move on). I may still be clinging to the bottom of the ladder in the vulnerability department with others, but I’m getting pretty damn good at it with Aaron. Scary and lovely.

Skipping through the past couple days, I’ll mention that we flew from Managua to Big Corn Island on Thursday to hang off the Caribbean coast and stare at clear blue seas and bright white waves until Monday. I’ll post a photo but it’ll probably just look like your screensaver, so maybe I shouldn’t. We’ve rented a pretty jankity scooter to save money from all those seventy-five-cent taxi rides, ya know (20 Córdobas is what they cost on the island…from anywhere to anywhere else). So yesterday Raines sat in front of Papa, Aaron drove, and I sat on the back with Sylvan strapped to my back in the Ergo. And off to the beach we zoomed. Aaron and Raines are on a date today, in search of coconuts, shipwrecks, and the Golden Pyramid that’s on a hill somewhere. Sylvan is hanging with Kylie, Kevin, and Brave for a few hours and here I am, drinking coffee, click-typing, and thinking about all those sharks out that window.

Now, looking back to even before Ometepe Island, let me sift a minute and remember some things to say…

Due to the style of wi-fi we get to enjoy here, my last post was deleted. So some secrets and details of our doings are out there somewhere, floating around in the deleted zone. Lame. (This happened multiple times in La Concepción, which is why I’ve held off until this couch to try again.)

I can’t tell you all the truth; I don’t want to and I don’t even have it all yet. This next part is a bit self-focused but it may explain a few things to those of you who’ve been around me this past year or so. I’m breathing underneath a pile a pillows, shallow breaths some days and deep, sweet breaths others. I mean, I’m sad. Sylvan was born May 1, 2014 and things felt dreamy in so many ways until he was about five months old. From that point, music began to overwhelm me, Phynley’s whine made me wanna crush a glass in my palm, and I would stare at my children and reiterate to myself all that I should’ve been feeling toward them. But really I was this emotional void–there, did you see that? That’s where shame bit into my heel. ME. Not just what I did, but me as a mother, me as a friend, me as a wife, me as a woman. I certainly recognized that this wasn’t normal, per say, and that it probably had some to do with postpartum stickiness, but I would definitely be able to, ya know, fix it. I didn’t doubt myself too deeply until I wanted to sleep for forever and forever and then take a nap…and maybe keep sleeping. I was developing such dynamic relationships between guilt, shame (they are different indeed–we can talk about it if you need to), ambivalence, apathy, anger, resentment, sometimes laughter, and desire. Pretty impressive what our chemical brains can do. Anyway, some days are like summertime and breakfast on a balcony and other days I’m like Atreyu’s horse, Artax. I’ll be all the way back soon, though, and I’ll be walking with more understanding and empathy, which should serve others well. So I’ll thank God today, out loud so I can’t try to take it back, for this ice wall that I’m trying to take down with a spoon.

So many photos, so check them later if you need to. Had to catch up on, oh, two weeks or so. K, I’m gonna get out of this comfy spot and go walk on the sand.

El Chanchito: best time with babies at a bar, eating nacatamales and drinking Toña.

Kylie, Kevin, Sylvan, and Brave enjoyed listening to Carlos Mejía Godoy while I wandered around with a incessantly whiny Raines Wilder, rabidly begging and pushing me because he wanted blue cotton candy instead of pink. I looked everywhere for a clean enough box to put him in…but too many policía staring.

La Reserva

Kylie studying to make her teacher, Jimmy, proud. “La muchacha va a la fiesta sola” Jimmy teaches her…

Cheles en otra hamaca

hiking up Volcano Mombacho

The real Fern Gully…except on a volcano. Truly incredible

Sylvan would like to hike the volcano by himself, thanks.

Who we are on top of Mombacho

Peter Pan

Cheles en hamaca con almohadas

lots of this

Cumiches con Jorge el Curioso

Teresa Monterrey: The woman who lives alone on a corner in a pink house with yellow walls. Her family has left her and only occasionally sends her money. She drinks all day now. She’s too old, she said, to cook and clean. She’s too tired and old now, she said, to keep up her house. Two chairs and a few catholic imagenes on her walls, the rest empty. Maybe there was a bed behind that one closed door in the back. Maybe. We found all the street food we could and took it back to her. She has a sister in Miami, she told us. But no one wants her anymore, she kept saying. We kissed her and thanked her for inviting us into her home. Teresa Monterrey.

Military truck that took us up the volcano at 40% grade. Sylvan got to sit in the front for a second. Super-happy chele