"let the children come to me"

i don´t know what to say today...or rather i don´t have the words. a million things are swirling through my head, they´ve been overtaking me all day, every once in a while overwhelming me so that I have to escape, get away from the people the noise the conversations...none of which i can be present to today and so being in the presence of all of these upsets me.

to love like a child. i was the recipient of this wonderful love today. i spent the hour after class before lunch first at william´s house. he has a little sister named ashley in the chicatito´s class in the morning and i gave her a hug and she just held on to me, so I carried her home, sat on the couch with her on my lap for a little while and talked with her mom and grandma. in the chicatito´s class as soon as i came down i was met with smiled and engulfed in so many little arms i couldn´t move.

we did emotions in my morning class today. we al cried "i am sad" we laughed "i am happy," growled and yelled "i am mad" yawned "i am tired" screamed "i am scared." i think it was as carthartic for me as it was for them. will do it again when i go bacl after easter. and my girls were mad at me (an they told me, let me tell you!) that i only gave one star on monday. so they all told me they were mad... in english! i am so glad for them to yell at me... how good, how healthy to be able to YELL it ... and then smile and say "la quiero cristi" ten minutes later.

so after class i went home with ahsley and then her people had things to do and i left and i went to blanca´s and karina´s home but they weren´t there but the little two year old twins were and yancy and milton (i think 5 and 9 respectively?) were there, as were there mom and i think grandma? the twins started playing tag with me, but i tag where it never counted when i got them so i was always it. milton went back behind their house and gave me a bag of mangos which then we all ate. yancey just kept calling my name and then asked me to read her a book right before i had to leave. and everyone just went on with their life and i just got to sit there with them, eating mangos, laughing with the twins, searching for mangos with milton, telling yancy how bonita y linda she looked in her uniform. a quiet love, not a monton of hugs, but just this ability to be.

and then i went to lunch. my afternoon class the past two times have adopted the tradition of coming an hour early to class "to help prepare" what this really means is the color and play while i get ready for class. the rule though is if they come in the house early they have to be quiet cause that´s peter carmela´s and mine hour to descansar (rest) and prepare. only wiliam came early today and i have never been happier to see that kid..i told him he was the light of my day, and it was true. and it made him smile. his sister marina knows how to say monkey in english and has adopted monkey as her personal animal and so today in class she was jumping and latching on to me, karla, anyoone big enough and in the same place long enough really.

these kids love me in a way that i have been loved before, but i feel like i have words to describe it today. there´s a freedom in, a wastefulness that has nothing to do with me and everything to with me. they love me because they do, they don´t need a reason, but it is intensely personal, exclusive love, different than any other that is the way it is because they are who they are and i am who i am and we love each other and walk together.

my house loves me this way too and i´ve seen it these past few days and apreciated it, the realness the genuineness and sincerity newly. what a gift to be loved, what a gift to be aware of this love.

and my room mates at home, at georgetown. emily and sarah, them too, with honesty and fierceness and this fierce love has all of a sudden connected el salvador to georgetown. i am home and i am loved and i love in both. these words don´t even begin to capture the bigness of this because a lot of the time gu and el salvador feel like they must be in different worlds, and in many ways they are... but at the same time they are right on top of each other. everything is the same and everything is different...and how can both be at once? but they are.

and so the me who is all different and all the same, who hurts and cries and screams and smiles and laughs and hopes and despairs. who gets angry, who callenges and asks questions and takes risks, whose heart has been cut... the intensity and the realness of these which have come to light in el salvador, all of these are true at georgetown (that other reality :) and even being here in el salvador world, i have felt all of these for georgetown. for georgetown, for el salvador, for colorado (really for the people i love, no matter where)my hearts is cut open and in the hurt and confusion hope and love are there, welling up. and it´s funny because i expect that here, here, here...but how good is God that pain and joy are not the sole property of el salvador.


and hope and joy, in none of these realities, make the pain and hurt go away nor justify them just as the resurrection does not make the cruifixion go away not justify it (well the pain and hurt and crucifixion are ok, maybe even good, because the hope the joy the resurrection are there). the hard is transformed but not denied nor watered down by the good. otherwise we live "in the best of all possible words" as whatshisface says..candace? candid? but pain and joy are hand in hand and so we have hope. so we learn to have faith. we learn to laugh and cry and hurt and bubble over with joy.

and the love of children, to love as children, helps the movement between it all.