It's All A Mystery

(I wrote this back in December...around the 19th or 20th)

In case you hadn’t noticed from my e-mail signature, I have a mild obsession with the Flaming Lips. My favorite quote by them to date is from the song “Fight Test.” It says,

“I don’t know where the sunlight ends and the starlight begins,
It’s all a mystery.
And I don’t know how a man decides what’s right for his own life,
It’s all a mystery.”

It is all a mystery. This random, exciting and often unfair world. I don’t understand why I landed in particular circumstances that allow me to run around the world like a chicken with my head cut off...blindly, recklessly. To nowhere. From nowhere. Bound for I don’t know where.

I don’t understand why I woke up underneath a clean duvet, my head resting on a white, fluffy pillow (two things I severly underappreciated before travelling.) Why I got to take a hot shower...a long one...without remorse for the water and energy I wasted long after I was sparkling clean. I really don’t understand why, upon climbing a winding staircase, I was greeting Lake Atitlan, peacefully resting beneath three volcanoes. Why this lake seems to wrap me in its arms as it envelops my entire range of vision. And while this lake hugs me, I drink good, hot, black cofee and eat bacon, on top of runny egg yolks, on top of freshly baked bread. I sort of smile at the little warning lights my nutritional education sets off in my brain... If I were starved in prison for years and years, this is exactly the breakfast I would order upon my release. I don’t understand why I am lucky enough to not be in prison—it’s true, I’m innocent (for the most part), but then throusands upon thousands of innocent people—people whose Karma should be off the charts!—have spent their lives in prison. Well, I refuse to wait to be imprisoned or starving before I appreciate a good fucking breakfast.

I don’t understand why, when I finish eating, my friend Liz will join me in the lake’s embrace for breakfast, round 2. Why we are lucky enough to be able to afford this, in terms of time and money. Or why I, accompanied by Liz, have had seven versions of the best day of my life in just one week—eating at restaurants we can’t afford, taking walks, enjoying views, talking about nothing and everything, and then watching three members of the Buena Vista Social Club, sectioned off by votive candles, play at my favorite teeny-tiny bar! Can you imagine your dear friend (who also happens to be saving the world in the Peace Corps) from University joining flying from Costa Rica to watch a Cuban flautist (say it outloud—it’s fun) in a little bar in Guatemala?! I just don’t get any of it! The randomness of luxury and love and luck and life. It’s all a mystery. All I know is that I won’t wait to enjoy it. This Food. This Lake. These Volcanoes. This Earth! This Friendship. This Life.