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I present to you now in the spirit of truly awful music, my Guatemala foot. I think it's been a quarter of a century since I officially melted down, but it lasted a lot of years and even the hallowed footpaths of a zen remove were simply not removed enough for me. I had a sudden influx of cash from an unexpected quadrant and immediately purchased a ticket to Belize. Not the chic Belize. The one still attached to the mainland.
It was almost the perfectly-plotted escape. My inexperience with matters tropical did not allow for the perfection of escape, so it turned out to be darn close but no cigar. Too bloody hot in the lowlands for me. I was the incarnation of heatstroke and it's too pathetic to give you the details. Suffice it to say I did not get to eat dinner every night at Man-Man's Five Star Restaurant in Punta Gorda, Belize, because after three days in that town the only conveyance that would've covered it would have been a casket.
Some dotty old English dude physically dragged me to the safety of Atitlan… the mountains of Guatemala for the balance of my escape. That's where I had my torrid affair with a parrot. Mai-Mai… pronounced "may may" and don't ask me why. The innkeeper from whom I swiped him insisted he get a nap every afternoon and so while my sweet boy was napping, a couple times, I caught the boat to Panajachel… wearing, very unfortunately, sandals. All the walking gave me blisters where the sandals intersected with my foot and when the blisters broke it made way for microbes of prehistoric provenance. Of that much I'm sure.
It evolved that something took up residence in my right foot, via the happy accident of my popped blisters. It left me with strange little red bumps where the blisters had healed. In the intervening years they have ventured from the blister sites to other spots on my foot. I only know this because they come out to play every so often. They will hibernate for months and years, but always come back out according to some inducement about which I am still uncertain.
I had long bouts of investigative squabbling with my doctor in Stinson Beach over the identity of these critters and all I know is they are not any of the things he thought to propose. They are not fungus, though they do sometimes act a bit fungus-like. They make the skin above them die and peel off after they're done playing tag in there, but they do not itch; they do not hurt; they do not want anything to do with my toenails; and they leave no trace of their identity for forensic inspection.
These may be the aliens we're looking for.
It may be why the others leave me alone. I'm already spoken for. They are the mark of my having sense enough to flee charlatans, determined to do it myself if no teacher was to be found. The buddhas tagged me for closer scrutiny in this wise. I guess I'm trying to say I've grown to love them… vexing as they can be from time to time. They saved me from untold decades of wallowing around in the darkness of the mindfucked minions that populate Endurance. The ancients called this world Endurance and they were not whistling Dixie, now were they?
They might be how my temporary conference boyfriend knew to keep close enough to charge my serenity often enough to keep me upright in the midst of such a sudden burst of energetics and inputs and to keep you safe from the true nines, who might've scared the wits outta you if you'd gotten out of line.
Or, of course, they're just mystery critters who enjoy the heck out of my foot, itsy buddhas teaching me to let them have their fun and not break my psyche trying to identify them and vanquish them. It's like people in the tropics who don't mind geckos crawling all over inside of their houses. They're harmless. They're friendly. They help somehow or other. They're kind of like good luck charms.
I mention this because, out on the deck this morning, with my glasses on, I noticed there is a mystery critter convention being held in honor of my big adventure. I wonder if they're as happy as I am?
No, nope, nope, nope, actually, betcha, betcha, they're happy because I am.
always and any time....
