Under the Same Sun

The days are getting shorter.  Rain clouds between us and the rising sun are enough to shroud the morning in darkness.  It's hard to get and keep going.  Remedy?

A Latin Dance party for breakfast.  Pillow-mashed heads emerge from their bedrooms to blasting trumpets, pounding percussion and Marc Anthony crooning, "A veces llega la lluvia para limpiar las heridas, A veces solo una gota puede vencer la sequía!"    We don't know what it means, but we feel so much better!  (Google translate tells me:  "Sometimes the rain comes to clean the wounds, Sometimes just a drop can overcome the drought." No wonder!)


Now packing lunches, frozen burritos from BJs, Oreos, obligatory carrots. We pour Cheerios, we spill the milk. Waking up, like growing up (and breaking up) is hard to do. Now the chorus we all know, three little boys at a counter and their pajama-wearing, puffy-eyed salsa-dancing mamma singing our lungs (and breakfast sausages) out: "Voy a reír, voy a bailar, Vivir mi vida la la la la, Voy a reír, voy a gozar, Vivir mi vida la la la la..."  (I'm going to laugh, I'm going to dance, To live my Life (la la la la la!), I'm going to laugh, I'm going to enjoy, To live my Life...") 


Into which walks their sweet-smelling grandfather, in tweed, bow tie and horn-rimmed glasses, en route to his work as a psychiatrist.  Doesn't miss a beat, joins the party, pointer fingers poking the air overhead to the beat, twisting in his loafers.  Gives lovey kisses to the boys, wishes them a good day, and dances back out the door on his way.

The song comes to an end.  General let-down.  Scramble to gather the pieces.  Where's my book?  I need a note to go home with friend.  Where's my other shoooooeeee?    The weight of the day that must be lifted sinks back upon us.  Duncan dials in help from Alvaro Solar and J-Lo.  We all know the chorus... 

We wait in the car, peering through the murky morning for the headlights of the bus.  So much darkness in the world beyond this country road, I fight to hold back the anxious grip on my breath I often feel these days, yet the hopeful rhythms still partying in my mind carry words out my mouth before thought can intercede:

"It's too late," I say to the boys.  Too late for what?  The boys ask, thinking I mean the bus.   

"To turn us back," I answer as if fact, but also prayer.  Sí juntos celebramos, aquí todos estamos, Bajo el mismo sol...  We are indeed under the same sol.  Vale la pena, mis amores.

*******

Last night I saw a film that exploded my heart.  (Literally, my heart felt like a water balloon that swelled, oozing beyond the cage of my ribs, to bursting.)   I am so grateful to the braveheart women behind documentary film It's Criminal, which tells the story of a group of Dartmouth students who collaborate with incarcerated women to write and perform a play about their lives.  I encourage all to seek this film.