***critical addition***

One day on the island, Aaron saved a horse’s life. We were on the scooter, just he and I, heading North or South down the road when I saw a foal tangled up in a line. I asked A to please stop so we could help it. There were multiple horses tied to a metal fence alongside the road, just out there eating that free grass and breathing exhaust. Foals are usually left untethered next to their mothers, since they stay close. This guy (whoever owned these horses) tied them to the fence using some sort of telephone wire and ropes. One of the foals had gotten the black wire wrapped around her neck and legs. Nobody I asked knew who the owner was and they all kinda looked at me like, “Oh, that poor soft-hearted chela thinks she’s gonna save that horse.” And I wanted to. But see, I had Chaco flip-flops on so I made the wise decision to send Aaron in my place. Besides, animals know he’s a good one and he’s got compassion like Jesus has, even though he’ll tell you that nothing happens after you die–no reincarnating into brooms or going to heaven or floating off to light; just the end of whatever life you made happen. So we get off the scooter and walk over to the horses. Aaron tries multiple times to untangle the wires, but the horse kept jerking back and pulling the wire even more tightly around its neck. I was being incredibly helpful over on the sidewalk, making concerned sighs and shifting my weight. Meanwhile, the mama horse doesn’t seem concerned at all and maintains a strong nonreactive demeanor. Before Aaron could unwrap the wire from around its neck, the horse jumped up and one of its hooves landed right on top of Aaron’s foot. The fact that he was also wearing Chacos hadn’t seemed to register for me until just then. And his poor pinky toe was bleeding and got kinda poofy. He reminded me later that he’s actually not the biggest fan of horses, as in they’re way stronger than us and sometimes scary. I will say, I was really grateful that Aaron was able to untangle the line and free the foal to live another day alongside a Nicaraguan roadside. I do wish I had been a more effective part of the project though. Good thing my boyfriend is a badass at basically, well, anything. Even in sandals.

***end of addition***

 

The Corn Islands (one Big, one Little) are just under 50 miles off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. So still Nicaraguan, but with an English/Spanish creole and Miskito spoken, plátanos maduros (por fin), and that clear blue Caribbean water. If I were to stay there for more than a week, I’d need to learn to listen without so much intent and to use the absolute minimum amount of energy necessary… and then take that down three clicks. I’d do just one thing a day, and whenever that doesn’t work out, I just won’t. But I’d definitely find those hammerheads. Pretty sure that if I ever tried to dive, though, I would use all that oxygen up in ten seconds and self-sabotage my way through it…only to attract all the sharks and deadly jellyfish, since they can sense fear, ya know, not just blood. Eeesh. So maybe staring down from inside the boat. But what about the shipwrecks? I’d have to figure that out. Maybe if I did enough yoga and made sure that Sylvan made it to two and that Raines Wilder really was okay on his own with that machete, and that Aaron would keep up the love for what we’ve started for our life.

The night Aaron and I set the kids free and went to another hotel down the island a bit, we met a guy whose mother had passed away just two days beforehand. He took a cigarette and shared our bottle of rum, and then he told us that no, he didn’t go to the funeral; he’d lost his mom and that was everything to him. Money’s not the problem, he said, when I asked what he did for work. “Nothing’s the problem.” Except his mother had just gone. Except that (I added this in my head, but he never said it, apart from the way his head and shoulders hung). Oh, and Aaron and I were able to stay in that dreamy spot, looking out over choppy, white waves at the Southernmost tip of the island, because of Kylie. Kylie loves sweetly and sincerely, and my boys know it. She had offered to give us a night away and handle the tigrillos until morning. Kevin kept Brave in their room, and when people asked, Aaron and I just told them that we left our kids back at the hotel with their machete–they’re resourceful and we’re working on increasing their independence. Not entirely a lie, but.

Aaron and Raines had a great day bumping down nonroad roads, finding baby pyramids and beached boats along their way. I probably should’ve warned them that the pyramid they were looking for wasn’t exactly like the ones we saw in Mexico, ahem. The monument on the island marks one of the eight points connecting the globe. The Soul of the World, they call it. Anyway, it’s about the journey, right, baby? And who wouldn’t wanna ride around a tiny Caribbean island with Raines Wilder + machete?

Before I round down this trip, I should touch lightly on emotions. As much as I tried to say no, no, no to them after Haylie died, they have proven resilient through these years and I’m now working on a more professional discourse about it all. Okay, so the weeks before Aaron got to Nicaragua, I was feeling intensely isolated and vulnerable in my downheartedness. Every day and every night I worked to unclasp my hands, which were subserviently clinging to my fear. My determination ran out of energy before midday usually, and then I would work on focusing on the little joyful happenings, such as Sylvan’s smile and Raines’ forward kindness. I was really concerned that the backwash from the throes of my dispiritedness was making its way under my bedroom door and out to Kylie, Kevin, and Brave.

I couldn’t compartmentalize this shit. And while I generally mind confrontation 100 times less than passive aggression, explaining some of my internal blech to Kylie and Kevin made every single one of my crimson-red vulnerability flags fly up and whip me on my cheek. I care for their family, and was sure that I could make good things happen on this trip–for all six of us. And we did; we really had so many wonderful, golden (Kylie 😉 ) moments, days, evenings, moto rides. And all thanks to rum…jk jk, mainly. But in a big way, I felt so trashed emotionally by the end of the first week that I couldn’t even figure out how to pray (except about tarantulas. I could do that super well). I excelled as a defeatist during the second week. I mean, somebody should really give me a fucking giant gold star for those days. Ugh. Those guys may have a difficult time remembering why we decided to romp around Nicaragua for four weeks in a group of three adults and three baby leprechauns. I’m frustrated that I wasn’t able to lift my head above my own standards and handle things better. I am evermore grateful for the grace and mercy of God, which I somehow ignore until I need it like blood in my veins and skin on my bones. Please guard the hearts of my children from being charred or even scratched by the fruit of my weakness, I pray. Please protect the hearts of others who find themselves around me and could be negatively affected by this shifting grey cloud above my head. I do not cry in hopelessness, but in anger, which means I still have much to do. I know this is not my forever, and it may not even be my tomorrow. So I’ll drink a cup of coffee, make of list of good from my day, and maybe smoke a cigarette every once in a while. And draw near to Him, near to the one who knows well my broken places and will never hold my failures over my heart. Well, yes, these things were difficult, so we prayed and took a shot of moonshine. And then Aaron got to me, and I could feel my hands release their guarded tension and my body stood up with more ease. Oh, and Raines and Sylvan started eating food again, so add that to the pro list.

Um, okay, I’ll jump to our last night in Nicaragua. We flew back to Managua from Big Corn Island, where we stayed at Casa Lucía. Claudia and his mother run a bed and breakfast (found them on Airbnb, fyi) and instead of ending up in sketchlandia as I had thought probable, we enjoyed clean rooms, incredible kindness, breakfast, and peace. The kids all seemed so comfortable there and Kevin felt so good that he got a tattoo. I really wish he had gone with something more like Nicaragua Forever or the national bird or something, but he decided on something more premeditated. So. It’s good though, seriously.

Well, we got back to Casa Lucía just before 6:00 p.m., and I checked with our driver about taking me to Granada that night. It was my last chance, before leaving the following morning to head back to the States. Michael Peters (hmm…) said yeah, he could take me at 7:00. See, Granada is about an hour from Managua, and I had already yawned like five times before 3:00 that day. But we did it. We got to Granada just after 8:00 and we started walking the colonial blocks around the main square, looking for a painting on a wall in a restaurant. “We’re looking for a painting of William Walker’s death,” I would say, and then I said it probably twenty-five more times in various bars and restaurants just off the square. Most people really tried to help, but had no idea where it was. One man, sitting in his rocking chair in his hotel told me, “You will find no paintings of him here. And you are incorrect to say that he was assassinated; he was executed in a just act of war.” Ajusticiamiento. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. Maybe you’ve never heard of William Walker. So you probably don’t know that he went down to Nicaragua in the mid-1800s and named himself President of Nicaragua. Uh…well, then he burned Granada down–twice. Eventually he was executed by a firing squad, at least, but it’s kind of a bummer that they killed him in Honduras instead of Nicaragua. Oh, and he’s from Nashville. Go try to find him in your history books and see what happens. Dead, white filibuster from Nashville, TN. He might say he was only trying to keep slavery alive, so if you wanna join in the celebrations of his defeat and death, Nicaragua welcomes you. And KB, we found the plaque but couldn’t find that painting. I wrote your letter while seated at the bar that supposedly used to be part of Walker’s house–more specifically, the jail he kept prisoners in. If you make it there and find that letter, I left you enough Córdobas for a couple beers. Worth a trip, right?

And then we woke up at 5:00 a.m., went to the airport, flew away home to Nashville, TN. Mom and Tío Roddy surprised us at the airport, which was the best, and we all went to eat dinner at Coco’s–even G-Pa! Raines freaked out and melted down while trying to communicate that he wanted to sleep with both of his big knives.

Dale pues y hasta la próxima vez