Dolphins

A friend of mine blogged about dolphins, about how they live in the water but still need to breathe air.  (see the Dwell Richly blog at http://dwellrichly.wordpress.com/?s=dolphins)  It reminded me of the movie Ever After when Danielle asks Leonardo whether a fish and a bird could be together.  His response, if I remember, was: "Then the fish must grow wings."

To belong in two places and belong equally to both.  It is a concept that intriques me and hovers tantalizingly out of reach, but perhaps it's not impossible.  After all, I came back to Guatemala, and I had tried for several years to convince myself to stay away...

To be an American and a foreigner...to live abroad and be at home...to adapt and relate and not lose sense of my real self...to still be me.

Sometimes it feels like a jigsaw puzzle, all this going back and forth.  And in all the times I analysed the puzzle, I got distracted looking so hard to find the final piece.   Or thinking each picture was the puzzle, when really I needed every single one to make a whole.

So I am learning to breathe whatever the circumstances.  To rest abroad and know there are many places where I can feel at home.  But it's not always easy...to find a balance and to breathe knowing that both places are needed to really be at home.

But maybe someday the fish can fly.  Or better yet, the dolphin will continue to breathe.  Part of both worlds.  Subiendo y bajando.  Back and forth with hardly a care in the world.  Doing what comes naturally.  Living equally in both.

I hope you will join me in this journey, of balancing cultures to make a home.