Missing things

The upside of having a meeting in the capital, as I did today, is you get to spend three hours driving through Guatemala City traffic. If you’ve ever had the opportunity, you know it’s a multi-faceted experience. Not only do you get from point A to point B, you also get to exercise parts of your body that tend to get neglected at the gym.

Knuckles, for instance. When you go around a curve, two lanes suddenly become three as your fellow drivers “improvise, ” which in me tends to provoke a distinctive grip on the wheel.

That one also tends to work the jaw muscles.

This trip actually went a bit better than most, because two co-workers were with me. We were going to meet with staff from the psychology department of a local university, la Universidad Landivar, to forge an agreement to do a study of a new teacher training program we’re trying out this year. Graduating college students are required to write a thesis here, and we’re looking for help in program evaluation, so sometimes we can help each other out.

The meeting went well, but that’s a story for another day. What got me was the sensory whiplash of driving across a chaotic city then strolling through a peaceful, well-laid out campus. I don’t think I’d really want to be a college student again, but for a second I remembered what it was like — being among so many people your own age, with a palpable sense of possibilities and only a vague sense of responsibilities.

Part of me missed that.

The drive back seemed to go more smoothly, probably because I was having a nice conversation with Mercedes, a Guatemalan co-worker who had lived in the US. We reminisced about the things there that we missed, like autumn. I don’t think I’ve seen colored leaves against a clear blue sky for 10 years. She talked about snow falling in New York in a way that I could almost see it.

I found myself wishing I could spend a year in the states again. I’d get to see fall, then tree branches covered in snow, then have that moment in spring when you first catch a glimpse of a green bud on bare limbs that lets you know you’ve made it through another winter.

I was still daydreaming about that as we pulled into Antigua, and I caught sight of a Jacaranda tree in bloom. It’s a slender tree with fern-like leaves, but at this time of year it’s completely covered with bright purple flowers. Gorgeous, and they’re all over Antigua. Here I was thinking about all the things I missed about “home,” and forgetting to notice where I live. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site! A city that was a capital before my own city of St. Louis was even a campsite, surrounded by three volcanoes, one which occasionally spews lava thousands of feet into the air and leaving everyone who sees it slack-jawed in amazement.

It’s human nature; you overlook what you have and miss what you used to take for granted. What else am I missing?

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