Day 634: Guatemala Bliss Bits

How lucky am I! I'm in Antigua, Guatemala with two incredible women, Annie and Sonia, and I've just been up a volcano. 

This has to be brief, and I'll be internetless for a while from now, but I just wanted to get some of this down - some of the loveliness that is. 

Annie is American. She was offered to me by my lovely friend Kim (mmmm, tasty person) and she invited me to come out and work with the girls she and Sonia work with. Sonia is 20 and she comes from a beautiful part deep in the forests of Guatemala. She teaches over 115 girls from remote Mayan communities in the Rio Dulce area of Guatemala. ASOEMPO wants to create better conditions, education and opportunity and a stronger sense of self and self-confidence for girls. They also work with boys. I can't even go into how fantastic the work is, and how impressed I am with them both, in their own ways. I've also just found out that they're expecting 75 girls and young women to come to the workshop. BEYOND excited! I'm currently jet lagged, so my Spanish has taken a knock this afternoon, but as a general thing, it's flowing more freely and luckily, I (with others) run a course called Be Yourself In Any Language, which means that I have the techniques to be clear and confident in my communication whether the words are right or not. 


Today's joys included the feeling when the bus that was due to pick us up at 5.50 finally pulled in at 6.15, when I was just about to give up on it, and the lovely man who let us in and drove us to the volcano; watching birds that I think were buzzardy vulturey things, hover over the beautiful Guatemalan landscape; tickling the belly of a beautiful stray girl dog. She did smiling with her face and opened up her legs and belly in complete trust and strokey bliss. I liked her so much, I gave half my lunch to her and her bony little body. Guatemala is a land of dogs, loved and kept, stray and tolerated. So far they've all been very peaceful and well up for a stroke. More than once today, I've had a dog in each hand. That's my open-bellied bliss, that.

Feeding small pieces of watermelon to a sharp-eyed black singy bird in the main square in Antigua. He came back and got closer in his melon-gathering; buying a beautiful cloth I didn't need from a street trader because of my delight at her delicious 4-month-old girl, who smiled and laughed and engaged from her mama's back. She was Karine. Her mama was Micheaela. She told me we were all gifts from god. I liked her and her lovely warmth. I loved her baby! 

Laughing with Sonia in the bus, up the volcano, on the way back, and doing the same with her and Fiona Sweny off of my yoga training, who just happens to be here and may visit me/us in the Rio Dulce. 

People are so warm here. I love how willing they are to smile back, from a little girl in the back of a lorry we were behind to people in the street. They smile with full eye action and so much warmth. I'm impressed and blessed. 

I'm off on a long trip tomorrow and will end up in the jungle, so I'll love you for ever and speak to you soon. Big love and keep smiling. 

Day 633: As Creatures Go

Where did my lovely post go? I done a great big one full of all the tasty lovely people who've blessed me over the last (then last) week, and it's upped and disappeared. That'll teach me to dally on the posting of it. The good bit, though, is that it doesn't stop those people having been very, very lovely.

Yesterday was the winter solstice and it was enriched on many fronts. An afternoon swim by invitation (an invitation to all the women who swim there, not an exclusive one). We swam and then we did a jumpy-up-and-downy solstice ceremony together. It was cold. A few of us chased each other before the seriousness of the ceremony started. After that, we were well serious (almost).

After that, we made our various ways back to the home of lovely artist Jane (and what an artist's pad it was - wood everywhere, carved with love, a studio and a high, almost secret mezzanine bed, carved art, high ceilings, light and loveliness. We had another ceremony there, which involved cake and crumpets, prayer ties, four directions, more laughter and a little bit of crying (not from me this time - odd). Lots of giving of thanks. A little bit of foot massage. 

In the evening, a lovely, magical healing (it's all so surprisingly magical... I'm impressed) and just general sweet vibes. Very lucky, I am, as creatures go.

Day 631: Best Face Ever

After a week of not using them as normal, I'm finding my legs again. The bike is out and the hills are welcoming. I'm loving the push of it and the tense and release. I'm loving the hills and the breath and the flow.

look at that face!

I'm feeling very loved and full of flow right now. A week's retreat with wonderful people, more hugs than you can shake a stick at, some truly enriching conversations and lots and lots of warmth and laughter have dropped me back to London all nourished and full up. 

And today, my favourite face is here (with the man that accompanies it), lovely, rich-delicious Steen Haakon Hansen, in my actual house, in London; not in Copenhagen or Odsherred, or even on a stage somewhere, but hanging out in my front room and walking my haunts with me in the cold of the winter heath, and talking and planning and hatching and dreaming. 

Here's to tomorrow, with warm, sweet mornings.

Day 630: Dog Toff

stop doing this to me

One tiny dog in a tweed jacket has the power to make a person's whole day, if that person is me. 

This morning, I was thrilling at the fact that now is the time where dogs strut their stuff in a range of clothes that would put C&A to shame not for reasons of (their owners' idea of) canine fashion, but because it's cold and they're little or lanky or maybe even hairless. It's very funny. I saw a spaniel in a wax jacket and a tiny mongrel in a jumper. There was tartan in the park, as well as wool and fleece. I haven't yet seen a pug in a hoodie, but it's only a matter of time. 

tiny tweedy toff

This evening, though, as Greg got Aristotle ready to take him out on a man & dog date, out came the sheepskin-lined tweed - retail price £115 from Harrods (though he got his for £20 - still expensive per inch of dog, in my book). He looked like a proper little English toff, that dog and my day, in that instant, was made.

I draw the line at shoes - there's no need for them and most photos of dogs in shoes leave no doubt as to how at ease the creature feels. Rollerskates too, but they've also almost gone so far down the Wrong road that they're funny again. 

fuck this shit

My first frost of the year, swim-wise. I hate to be cold, but when, in Wales last week, I saw frost on the grass in the morning, I ached in my belly to be swimming in the cold water and daring my dive. I didn't dare my dive this morning. The water has dropped to five degrees and my head-under plunges resulted in the harshest of sinus screams and proper frozen brains, so I need to source a hat or two - two swimming caps does the trick, apparently, though I'll have to put them on after the dip and before the dive. 

There's something exhilarating about stepping in when the grass is white in the field. This morning, after a week away and a drop of three degrees, ice on the neighbouring ponds and a last-minute borrowed pair of gloves, I made many sounds on the way round and as I moved from steps to free float, the word 'sensation' came out of my mouth repeatedly. When my beautiful friend Lilley had a baby, she banned the use of the word 'pain' and used 'intense sensation' all the way through. It helped. She was there for four days, so thank goodness it did!

I'd smile at anything, though

My body hurt and rejoiced simultaneously. It stung and prickled and I felt the blood shrink back into my core, abandoning anything at a tip and starving the skin. Once out, the collected ladies commented on the vibrancy of the shades of red and purple each other's legs had gone on getting out. Some were kaleidoscopic in their colours. Others slightly scary. Mine were vivid pink, with blue lines, haloed white, where the slow veins are. I wonder if my diet change will affect them. 

Day 629: Rats and Flatbreads

Lovely to see Rob, though I was slightly late, having jammed in a swim as an absolute must. My hands still cold, Rob wrapped them, one by one, in his ovened flatbread when his dinner came. A first, today. Not a last. Next time a hot flatbread is delivered to a table near me, I'm in. Five stars, I say. Did my fingers a whole new world of good. 

It had to happen today. I was late, but I had to be held in that water womb today. It's not just nipping, at 8 degrees, it's got teeth. I was out of my clothes and in the water within a minute, but I let it hold me for a reasonable time. I was going to say respectable, but there's no such thing. Stay in as long or as short as you like, it's not a competition, it's a gift. 

never leave a rat and a flatbread unattended

I was late, and it's fine to rush the clothes off, but the second I'm on the steps,the slow, calm ritual begins. However rushed I am, I take the steps steadily, stepping off and stepping in. Sometimes with a lurch, but not for speed. Then I bathe in sensation. Why come here just to rush that bit. I feel every inch of skin and flesh find itself within the cold. I wait it out. I plunge, head under, and pop up (like the cormorant does, only for shorter). I shake my head dog-like and swim on. 

I was transfixed by the cormorant, ugly-elegant, black-beaked and curious. It looked concentrated but not, like the heron, on the water - balanced on the life ring, it had its head lifted up to the sky. As I gazed and cooed at its beauty, it suddenly spewed forth a stream of white waste into the water - a spout, if you like, of shag-shit. I laughed and it went back to being gnarly and stunning. 

As I turned and headed back towards the hut, I spotted rats. Two of them, I saw. Swimming woman Val said three. Fat and happy, they went about their business, jumping up and down steps. Just animals. Not gross or cute, but pleasing. None of them dived in. They're good little swimmers, apparently. I did, and drank in that moment of dark nothing as I cross the water's line. Lost. And then the ice cream headache and the bliss smile and the glee at having done it one more day, even though I was scared. 

Cold shower: aaaarrrrggghh!

Back inside, Val and I discussed whether to shower hot or cold this time of year. She chose cold today. I chose hot. She chose better. With cold, it still feels warmer than the pond. It's harsh on the head, the cold, but the hot opens up your pores and confuses your body. It wants to concentrate on warming up the core, but then we warm it with hot water and the blood can't do anything but come up to meet it, so the superficial warmth runs cold deeper into your veins. Cold shower, hot bucket for feet and hands (lovely mental image, all folded in like a shrimp). Next time, in a week, when the world has changed. 
Till then, big love.
And gratitude.