I’m sitting on the back porch of my house, basking in the
sun in Seattle.
Let me say that again… basking in the sun… in Seattle.
It’s gorgeous here, and I have a bowl of wheat farina cooked
with honey and cinnamon fresh off the stove with sliced banana. There’s birds,
there’s kids laughing in the background, the whole yard is covered in
dandelions and those white fluffy things you make wishes on when you’re a kid.
I had to look around and tell myself… just hold on a sec. You’re sitting right
in the middle of heaven.
 |
| A later expedition from this afternoon which resulted in scoop of coconut + scoop of salted caramel + waffle cone. Yummmm. |
Because all this morning from the moment I woke up I’ve been
stressed. I’ve had a to-do list in my head, I’ve been running in circles
thinking of writing this post, setting up more donations, fixing my car and
figuring out how to sell it, and surely there’s something I’m forgetting…
there’s always something next, something more. But then there’s paradise if
only I could just stop and look around.
I’ve had a lot of talks about development recently. I wonder why so many people in the
world want to end up where we are here in the US. I see people stressed,
unsatisfied, confused, unhappy. Like we’re all trying to get somewhere, and
even when you’ve “arrived,” there’s always somewhere else to go. I know I do.
I’m always pushing to the next thing, the next thing, the next thing… my mom
lovingly calls it my “disease.”
I think that in a lot of places, that is what development
can look like. It starts off as an
empirical thing – I want X, and to get it, I need Y. Let’s get a hold of Y and
then we’ll have X. Simple. Done. Poverty solved. Except now that I have X, I
want Z…
Oh dang… I think I just got the epic moral behind “When you
give a moose a muffin.”
I don’t mean to be cavalier about what I have – I don’t mean
to dismiss clean water, medicine, great food, beautiful friends... but I do!
Unless I’m writing a blog post and doing all this self-reflection business, I completely forget to sit and relish the
beauty around me.
A friend in Portland asked me, “Why you? Why don’t they get
someone from El Salvador to do your job since you’ve never even been there
before?” A great question for which I had no answer.
I don’t have answers, just a whole bunch of questions and a
really long to-do list. But I am starting to realize that no matter where I go
or whatever career I jump to, I won’t be happy unless I learn to appreciate
exactly what’s around me in the moment. Like this sunshine. Like the fact that
I’m blissfully exhausted from capoeira yesterday. That I can call up a friend
and in a few hours I’ll be hiking in some of the most beautiful wilderness I’ve
ever seen. And then I’ll go to El Salvador where those things don’t exist, but
other things do. And I just need to learn to see them. And so even without
answers, I can have awareness. Awareness of a new place and new people (and a
new me) that will likely lead to more discovery and joy than if I had “answers”
in the first place.
