Nico's Nonsense

  It's nearly 6 am, the sun is beginning to rise and still I haven't slept one wink.  This past day and a half has felt more like weeks. I have spent half the night at the hospital and the rest of this morning here, at home with my older sister and my mother; digging through tubs of photographs. Searching for photos...photos for the wake. My grandfather passed away at exactly 11:30pm last night. And I begin to feel sick to my stomach thinking that less than 24 hours ago I was talking to him about my recent trip to Mexico, he'd asked about the food I ate there (he loved food) "Did you eat a lot of beans out there?" I hear him asking in his goofy old voice. And my mind begins to drift off... To somewhere happier... Now It's nearly 11 pm. It's still Monday.  And I have spent the day here at home with family, with my sisters, aunt, cousins, mother and my grandmother. We spent the day in, like crabs, only opening the door for more family members or to le

     I'd been standing in the middle of my third class. Second to my last. With this slapped in the face kind of feeling. This paralyzing feeling.   I had thought about San Cristobal, and how after these last two classes I wouldn't be greeted by familiar faces as I walked home, I wouldn't take off my shoes, let down my hair and flop onto my bed. I wouldn't see Poncho's goofy smile greeting me at the front desk, or Yoli’s mischievous smirk sipping cafe con leche in the kitchen. This sudden fear ran through me like a bolt of energy. A bolt of realization. I had left San Cristóbal. I had left home. And though it was only for three days I had felt this rush of change in me. This change I still am unable to recognize.      The call had come early morning Wednesday, I had already cleaned the hostel, checked people in and out, eaten breakfast and I was now lounging in bed reading Isabelle Allende's Of Love and Shadows . “Nicooo, telephonooo” Yoli yelled out putting

He'd told her. He'd finally told her.  "I am falling in love with you. And I wish I could find time, more time for you, stuffed in my backpack or underneath the grit of my fingernails, like the change I find in my pockets. I can't keep pretending. Acting like this feeling is non existent. It's been howling out at me for much too long now. I've tried to play cool. To keep calm and brush it off. And then. Those eyes." He'd said "It's those eyes that have brought me here, those eyes that tell me stories for days, those eyes that both mend and break my heart all at once. And I'm standing here now, like a fool with my heart strewn out across the floor before you. Because I don't want to go another day. Another minute, knowing that you're not mine to keep, knowing that I'm keeping this truth from you." ,

  These past few days I've been having this reoccurring dream, this reoccurring nightmare. I'm still unsure which. In the dream, I wake up one morning in San Cristobal and out of nostalgia and stupidity, I book the soonest flight back home. In the dream there is no time frame, I do not take a 15 hour bus ride back to Cancun or spend the day on a flight back to Ontario. I simply decide I want to go home, and at home I am! Of course everyone is happy to see me and I reminisce on the people and places I've met and seen. The dream never seems to drag on. Like most dreams it starts just as quick as it ends. In this dream, I can never remember too much of anything, except for one feeling. A  heavy feeling of heartbreak of regret. Of anxiousness. Is that a word? Ehh, anyhow. I awake to a world unknown. With the covers pulled over my head, for a second, I am unsure of whether reality was really a dream, or dream a reality. I peel back the covers slowly each time and see the oak w

Palenque, Chiapas                     It's been almost a week since I’ve returned to San Cristobal from Palenque. Who knows, maybe even less, I've always been terrible with estimation. Regardless of the actual time, it's felt like years. I've gotten to know the place and the people so quickly and can hardly imagine leaving.   New faces and stories are seen and heard each day by travelers from all around the globe, and each time they head off to further destinations, we are forced to say goodbye and go forward. As hard as one can try to detach themselves you simply cannot help it, you fall in love. Recently I'd celebrated a 22 nd birthday, and being amongst people I hadn't even known a month ago, I expected nothing more than a “Feliz Cumpleaños” if even that, to me it had simply been another day.   Though come nightfall I had been surprised by the entire hostel with an enormous cake, and off key singing of Feliz Cumpleaños . My heart melted as quickly as

    The ride over to Palenque was a cold and nauseating one. A five hour trip that felt more like fifteen. Half way into the trip I felt the need to violently vomit all the floor of the bus, or wherever convenient. I looked around for something to throw up in, or on if needed. As I came to the conclusion that my purse was the best and least embarrassing option, my stomach had settled. "Oh thank you God!" I'd announced a little too loudly. As the grueling bus ride came to an end and I'd gotten off I’d met an Argentinian couple, and split a taxi with them to El Mono Blanco del Panchan (something about a white monkey) a grungy little Hostel conveniently placed in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Literally. We had been dropped off in the middle of the rain forest.   This was definitely not how Ontario Mills Mall had depicted it at Rainforest Café, there were no singing alligators or friendly little monkeys. In fact, the monkeys sounded more like hungry tigers.  Onc