.happy

being here is kind of like camping. its pretty neat. pretty swift, as
me and kimmy used to say in high school. except the campground is
pretty permanent. and the tent is made of mosquito netting. and there
aren't any showers. and the other campers are camping for life. its
kind of like hotel california. it sucks you in and you might never
leave. you play in the dirt, read on a woven mat, sleep outside, cook
over an open fire, watch the coals spitting and popping in the fading
purple light. you draw your water from a well, throwing the bucket
down, it bounces off the damp mossy sides, and splashes into the cloudy
water below, pulling it up swiftly, hand over hand, the rope raw and
rough between your fingers, feeling your arms growing stronger.
honestly, some days, i really dig it. I could be happy never living in
a house, i could be happy always waking up to the sun in my face and the
birdtwang in my ears. i could be happy stretching on my backpacking mat
and rolling over, trying to block high pitched rooster rasp. i could be
happy washing all my clothes by hand, fingers red and stinging, twisting
and ringing and scrubbing, slinging them in dripping rows to dry in the
gaze of the sun. I could be happy walking to work every day, wandering
past mango trees and sleepy cattle and sheep hopping sideways down the
path like wooly grasshoppers. I could be happy putting in IVs outside,
auscultating lung sounds in the shade of a tree, hanging perfusions on
the chainlink fence. I could be happy learning languages that are not
my own, always a little out of my element, realizing that is indeed my
element. I could be happy burying my face in juicy fleshy mangoes,
sucking the sweat juice and tearing the tangy pulp clinging like velcro
to the stringy white mango seed, letting nectar drip off my chin and
down my cheeks like golden tears. I could be happy crunching into green
and pink guavas, the chalky thick rind giving way to ruby silken
deliciousness. I could be happy here. The only thing missing is
someone to share it with.