Pero la vida, ¿es linda o es fea?

“¡Chau avión! ¡Chau avión!  ¡Graciaaaaaas!  Este fue tu primer viaje en avión.  Esta es la casa de los aviones.”

The little boy’s eyes widened as his father waved goodbye to the plane that had just brought us twelve hours from the south of Brazil to the USA.  My eyes were heavy after a three hour journey from Montevideo and a six hour layover in Sao Paulo.  I had only slept about an hour on the overnight plane ride from Brazil, but as we rode the tram to the terminal that early morning, the father’s enthusiasm won me over, and I began to view the Atlanta airport through the eyes of his two-year-old son.

“¡Mira!  Las maquinas.  ¿Cuántas maquinas?  Wowwww.   ¡Mira!  ¡Mira!  El tren, el tren:  chu, chuuuuu.  Wowwww.  Mira:  otro avión.  Wowwww.”

The airport unfolded magically before us.  The airplanes lived honorable lives in their airplane village.  Each one had a story, and ours in particular told the story of a little boy and his first trip on an airplane, his first visit to America.

My story was a homecoming.

A month or so earlier, the reality of my departure from Uruguay struck me hard.  The sweetness of my new relationship turned bitter, as each new memory became weighted with its transience.  I watched the joy fleeting away as each time became the last time.  Burdened with this loss, I lay crying in the arms of my man.  Gently pushing the hair away from my face, he tried to console me, asking me not to cry.  With a strain that came from reconciling his worldview with my suffering and the tenderness that came from years of caring for younger siblings, he asked slowly, “Pero la vida, ¿es linda o es fea?”  I lay in his arms and wept.

The immigration officer in Atlanta was noticeably perky for 5am on a Wednesday morning.  I expected nothing less than southern hospitality on my arrival home, and I grinned ear to ear as he questioned me, “Wow, you went a lot of places, were you on a cruise or somethin’?  Teaching?  Wow, that’s cool.  Where did you live, you just rented an apartment?  Okay.  How long were you down there?  A year!  You must be fluent in Spanish now.  Oh yeah?  Ha!  Well, what are gonna do now?  Are you gonna stay or go back down there?  Are you going to school?  Good luck to you.  Welcome back.”  He stamped my passport, and I was on my way home to South Carolina.

I lunge forward and push off my toes into a rapid sprint.  All the muscles in my legs burn as I run and jump onto the end of the board.  The board springs violently, propelling my body into the air.  At the peak, I bend forward and kick my feet up towards the sky, toes pointed.  I dive, head first, into the pool.  It’s more or less a clean entry, my feet clipping the surface towards the end of the dive, sending a splash of water up into the air behind me as my body disappears into the cool blue depths.  The judges scores are in:  ………...8…………..….…6.5………….….…9.  The spectators applaud.

Tonight I went to a disaster response training at the American Red Cross.  I’m training to become a disaster volunteer.  If someone’s house burns down in the middle of the night, my team leader will call me, and I’ll get dressed and go out at 2am to provide food, care, and emergency services to the folks who lost their home.  In the meeting I sat next to an Investigator for the Solicitor, and he told me to let him know if I needed any help finding a job, that he knew a lot of people.  As I drove home from the meeting, the sun was setting in front of me.  The day’s last light infused the horizon with brilliant pink, purple and orange.  The colors spread across a dimming sky, hovering majestically over the foothills for a few moments, and then they were gone.