2017 Ecuador * Decision * February 7

"To decide is to make peace within and let the chips fall where they may."

~Lisa Tabak

Cuenca, Ecuador

Special coffee, alone, at Sajsana and time to avoid thinking or doing much. Boredom and depression. Seems like now I'm just biding time to get home. Although home will not be better. Gray days both and cold versus warm.  

After a FaceTime with Mom yesterday and today, I have adjusted various flights and reservations in order to go home this week. I leave Monday and arrive Tuesday afternoon. (My flight is actually five past midnight in Tuesday morning and with layovers it will take the two days). 

Mom is wearing down. Over a week in the hospital now.  Heart and back issues, and pneumonia.  She puts a strong face on when I video-call, but I can tell.  Around her eyes are red-purple and sunken. She's dehydrated, terribly bruised where testing is done, she is not sleeping, eating or drinking fluids much at all.  She doesn't get up except to the bathroom with nurses help and she refuses OT.  My brothers say she is ok and shares that the medical staff considers that she is improving, but my observations and my intuitions convey otherwise.  

I'm going home. A month early, yes … but going. 

Actually once I had arrived here in Ecuador I wasn't excited anyway.  I usually am very eager when I travel.  It is not where I really wanted to be.  I have been here and it is fine, yes .. but if someone is looking for lots of sun and warmth, it is not here in these beautiful mountains. This is a nice, temperate spot, fairly clean and convenient for a  small South American city with wonderful variety .. but .. it is not my spot for now.  

My plans had been firm to visit the Pacific beach at Puerto Lopez for a week, then the my host family (from my teens) in Guayaquil - for what would have been probably my final visit with the mother who is 88 - but that is changed now. I need to get home to my own mother.   I am procrastinating telling my host sister because I know they will try to talk me into a quick visit before I leave. It would be too rushed and complicated. No, gracias, no puedo ya. 

Besides the consideration of my mother’s situation, I am intuiting big changes this coming year.  My grandson growing so fast, my daughter moving out of state, my granddaughter flourishing and in school now, my parents slipping away slowly at 90, and there is a need for me to exam where I am personally after eight years of single life and nearly three years without regular employment.  

In the courtyard below me as I sit and ponder in this wide, soft chair at Sajsana, there is a little girl about five years old, running around and dancing on the stone tiles. Her arms are flying in the air, her curly hair bounces with energy, and the joy on her face of just being alive and enjoying freedom is wonderful!  A traditional Ecuadorian ballad plays in the background. She reminds me of my beloved granddaughter on this day, her sixth birthday, when I cannot be with her.  Just the momentary thought of her is a small joy in this gray day. 

Suddenly the Andean sun breaks through the clouds in an attempt to cheer me.  Heavy white and gray clouds disintegrate to reveal a brilliant cerulean sky.  A single pigeon sits atop the brick toned tiled roof basking in the rays of sun. Behind me the massive cathedral stands sentinel over us all.  And the twirling girl in the pink dress soars on. 

More photos on Facebook:  Photos: 2017 Ecuador to Maine

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My friends Dee & Scott have visited Cuenca a few years now for weeks at a time.  
Scott writes for Cuenca High Life and expresses the trials of being 6'6" in a community created by and for smaller people:

https://www.cuencahighlife.com/living-large-in-ecuador-for-cuencas-substantial-expat-community-big-challenges-and-sizeable-needs-can-make-a-good-fit-hard-to-find/

Dee's photo as we wait for the bus.  This sweet Indigenous lady came up to my waist.

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