Guatemala is covered in a sea of clouds, washing over, between, and through impossibly high mountains. Small flecks reflect E already brilliant sun that pours into the early morning, the only markers of the people who live below.
Guatemala City reaches it’s fingers right up against the runway, only to spill back towards the edge of a nearby cliff. The houses appear small and simple from above, flat roofs throwing the sun’s blinding rays back upwards, as they tumble towards the various scars knifed between the mountains, only to come to rest just at the edge of a cliff, as if on a knife’s edge, precarious, waiting to slip over like the tumble of rocks just beside that points it out as a distinct possibility.
There are large, straight roads carving their way up the mountainsides, cutting back and forth like an artist’s blade through paint. My neighbor informs me this is la tierra del sol y de montanas. She is brimming with pride as I admire our view out my window, even though she has made her home in Los Angeles for the past 40 years.
She tells me that like a good strong tree she has spread more roots in the States, but that when she packed up and left everyone behind all those years ago, she left just the edges of her first roots here, still entwined underground with those of her mother and siblings.
She told me that no matter how far she is from her sisters and brother in time or space, no on could ever know her better or be a better support than those who first put their roots down beside you when you were new.
We learn to grow, to lie, to hurt, to laugh, and to cry with these people – and each holds an echo, scar, or mark of the other in their heart. Parents are there to pick you up, but siblings are there to help you fall together. They are the ones that are our secret holders – don’t tell mom I ate the last cookie, or let’s bring a pack of gum and see how long dad let’s us keep it.
And it is for my two sisters that I say I will jump off the cliff with you and hope that we land safely, I will keep your secrets and share your joy, I will steal your sweater and give you my trust, I will punch you on the arm and hold your hand when you’re scared, I will laugh with you until we cry and yell with you until you feel better, I will critique the finer points of your walk of shame and congratulate your accomplishments, I will compete for our parents’ attention but only complain to them if I lose from time to time, and mostly I will drop everything for you if you ask, with the sole exception being my obsession with getting to Antarctica within the next two years… I may sell your organs if mine aren’t enough to get me down there!
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Rule #2: Don't Die. 