Finding The End of the Rainbow

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Oh geez, Invisible Audience,

So much to say…so hard to summarize.

I’ve been making the rounds and saying goodbye to all the people I’ve known in Boquete before I leave, and it suddenly feels like almost two years has gone by in a flash. That, or I’ve been here for a lifetime. It’s all wrapped up in one.

I have passed houses of friends that have moved on, smiled at memories in restaurants, at swimming holes and up hiking trails, and stood on the bridge where I stood on my first day here, bathed in the light of a full moon, and felt something that had been wound too tight inside me start to release and unravel. 

In daylight, many, many days and memories later, I put my hands on the railing, heard the river rushing by below me, and looked up the valley, a completely different person than the one who arrived.

Every piece of the puzzle I received here has felt monumental and essential, and it is hard to believe that I was able to pack all I have learned into such a short time period. I have met so many people who taught me so much: so much about myself, and also about the world and how it could work, if I just got out of my own way -- out of my own head -- and let it.

Linda, my chiropractor but also my friend, may have summarized it best: 

“I am not going to say I will miss you, because that indicates that I will feel the absence of your presence. That’s not true. Instead I will say that I will never forget you, because that is far more accurate. You will always be here with me. It has nothing to do with physical distance.”

I will never forget you, Panama, nor all the people you have brought me. I can’t remember every rainbow anymore, but I will always remember and talk about living in a place with a whole season of rainbows. More than one taxi driver has told me that he has actually driven THROUGH the end of the rainbow, something that science and our Western thinking tells us is absolutely impossible. Then again, many things I thought were impossible have come to fruition here, so it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that the end of the rainbow is something you can find here -- that the proverbial pot of gold may be a metaphor for many other types of treasures that are reachable if you simply let go of the idea that they are not.

 

“So, you just didn’t like it here enough, huh?”

A lot of people have asked me this question. And the true answer is very simple: I loved it here, until one day I didn’t. And that day stretched on into another and another, and, because it has happened to me many times before, I knew what it meant. I came here to learn something, although it is only now that I know what it was: I came here to rest, rejuvenate and find myself. I spent a blissful couple years here, and now it’s time to go. I have done what I came to do. Whatever is next in this ever-changing and ever-evolving journey, this wild crazy adventure called life, it will happen somewhere else.

I guess that’s all for now. I have a lot to say, but a lot has to go unsaid. When I lived in Spain in my early twenties, I told the people I was studying abroad with that I hated the idea of having to summarize an experience into a sentence, because it could not possibly encompass all the joy, the ecstasy, the grief, the tears, the growth, the laughter and the smiles. So it wouldn’t matter if I wrote volumes about it, invisible audience. As much as words serve me well, they can only describe what happened. They cannot replace it. So just imagine having lived at the end of your own rainbow, perhaps, and then realizing that you can carry that rainbow with you wherever you go. Maybe then you’ll understand what I’m trying to convey. Maybe then the words will be enough.

Love and rainbow kisses

Morgan

I'll Miss You, Chelan

Dear Chelan,

I’m a week away from leaving for Mexico. When I come back, I don’t plan to come back to you. It’s a good thing for me, but sometimes you make it hard to walk away.
You and I haven’t always been the best of friends. I used to avoid going to the grocery store because I didn’t want to see all the people I knew. It’s tough living in the town where you grew up; sometimes it’s tough running into your old teachers and classmates, but living in your hometown means you do it constantly if you’ve been away as often as I have. It’s hard to try and explain how you’ve changed, and harder still because you see the changes in your hometown and you resent them. It’s a catch 22: you want people to recognize that you’ve grown up and become different while begrudging the changes that took place in your absence.
There are fewer orchards. There are more people. Many of the faces have changed, but many have stayed the same, or perhaps just become a little more lived in. Those changes one can get used to, Chelan. It’s the way the world works. What is harder to get used to – at least for me – is leaving the absolute beauty of your lake.
You’re so beautiful in the moonlight. You’re like the sea when the wind tears across you, and no one should underestimate your power in those instances. More than that, however, you are the trusted friend that cooled my skin in the summer heat and gave me something to smile at when the cold winter clouds hovered over you.
It doesn’t matter where I am in the world or whom I’m talking to, I’m bragging about you. I tell people that you’re deep, clear and cold, 55 miles long, with a hidden treasure at the other end that includes a bakery and a minute town that is only reachable by float plane, boat, or a long hard hike. I tell people about how I was spoiled growing up next to you; how I hate swimming in warm water after having gotten used to your glacial temperature; how I swam across you once, and cutting through the reflection of the mountains on your surface was pure bliss. I love you all of the time, but most of all in May, when I’m one of the crazy ones that can’t stay out of your near-hypothermic water. The apple blossoms are out and the hills are a light green, the lilacs are in bloom and there you are, not yet overrun by boats, placid and deep like a wise teacher. Now, on the cusp of spring, the trees are covered in tiny green buds that promise my favorite time of year.
And I won’t be here to enjoy it.
There’s no need to pity me. I’m heading to another paradise, different from you but beautiful in its own right. Despite the fact that I’m leaving, however, I just had to make sure you knew that I always think of you, wherever I am, whether I’m with you or not.

Love and pure water kisses
Morgan