A River Knows Perfect

We live in a society which refuses to wait for you to tie your shoes. The American Dream was swallowed by the American Race and it demands progress, evolution, efficiency. But in our hearts, we long to stand still like we do in our favorite old photographs. It wasn’t until the summer of 2009 that I truly perfected the art of “letting a moment seize you.” I have Montecristo to thank for that. When I was lovingly adopted into the small community of Montecristo, for the first time in my life, I wanted to be perfect in everything I did. Not merely good, not just great, or well intentioned. No…Perfect. Perfect at the very least, like-a-4.5 GPA-and-30-extra-curriculars-on-an-college-application perfect. While I had never had an intrinsic desire to be the best of the best in academia, this tiny little community in El Salvador was a game-changer. I knew within my first two weeks that I would never again have the privilege to work for something that I loved as much as these people. So yes, the time had come to be perfect and not because it was expected of me, but because I genuinely felt that it would be criminal to give them anything less than the perfection they deserved. I figured the best way to “go perfect” was to begin with psychotic-grade, meticulous planning. In the weeks to come, my mind, my journal, and the surfaces of my room were assaulted by a barrage of project proposals, web diagrams, Venn Diagrams, outlines, and pie graphs. The family I lived with invited neighbors to come witness the insane organizational shrine the gringa had constructed in her room. Notes were color-coded, alphabetized, and prioritized according to community needs. Even the image of Gandhi on my wall with his famous inspirational words “Be the change…” was buried under layers of plans for the change I was determined to be. I was relentless. Yet still, my multiplying sticky notes of to-do lists refused to stick to the humid, molded walls, and soon fluttered to the floor like rebellious fall leaves. In my first few months in site, I was invited to the river almost every day. Initially, I respectfully declined, but in the long run my resistance proved futile--every couple hours “Mission Perfect” was interrupted by the sweet voice of children gathered at my gate, “Kalllllllliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, Kaliiiiiiiiiiiiii, vamanos a bañarrrrr!” Ok, just one hour. But one hour often turned into six. The river was productivity kryptonite. Its spell sucked me in without fail, along with hoards of local children, aged six to thirty-two. (Note: If you think by 32 you no longer qualify as a child, go to the nearest river, start to skip stones, and it will be undeniably evident that in that place, you could even be a child at 101.) Riverside we delighted in an endless array of unproductive activities, none of which were featured on my post-it collage of elaborate work plans. River activities included water tag, sand castle construction, mango-eating contests, and face painting with a pallet of mud, clay, and pollen. Every afternoon each of us graduated from the sandy banks with prestigious degrees in storytelling, minnow catching, and tree climbing. The river taught us that it was possible to be still. And when we laughed and sang loudly to the sky, we glowed with the unspoken secret all of us shared--that it was not sunlight, but perfection itself, that glistened in the water beaded on our shoulders. And because we had it, in that moment, we were richer than kings and wiser than time. It was a secret too precious to keep or carry, but our hearts knew exactly where to go to discover it over and over again. Eventually dusk would crawl into the valley, bringing with it dusty gusts of wind, el norte, which whistled through the mangled tree branches, calling us back home. The thirsty grass crunching audibly beneath our feet, we traversed the barren pastures of cutuco trees and roaming cows. The bold colors of our swim clothes could be seen a mile away—a single vibrant streak across a brown-hued canvas. Dry season was like that, harsh and stark—the only soft strands of landscape that remained were the rivers, reduced to streams after months without the slightest hint of a raindrop. These rivers, the Hualpuca, the Lempa and their web of tributaries, were our haven. At night, the heavy cloak of heat was so unbearable that we often wandered in groups to the river by moonlight. The swimming holes were at their most magical in the dark. The blackness of night was inhabited only by fireflies, our voices, and a sky flooded with enough stars to drown the most jaded of souls. After following our flashlights home, we’d collapse in our hammocks and hurry off to dreams before our refreshed skin started to dampen with sweat once more. The only thing better than being by the river was being there next to the people I loved. In the end I did manage to eke out my fair share of “productive” projects, often against the current of country-living in Latin America. But ironically, the closest I ever came to perfection was at the river. I caught a glimpse of it one afternoon when I invented a song about animal clouds and little Estefani burst out with bouts of silent shaking laughter curled upon my lap. I was perfect one day while washing a tub full of dirty dishes alongside Zulma, our body positions inadvertently identical. I realized we did that often because we had become sisters, and this is something siblings do. Perfect was the moment I huddled in a tight circle under the mango tree with my group of teenage girls, explaining how and why to use a condom as they listened intently. It was then I knew that we had grown a deep trust by that river. And also I think back to that humid night in February when Reyna grabbed my wrists and we swung around howling by the campfire until we crashed to the ground, side by side, hysterical, and coated in wet sand. The love I gave, and the love I received--that, above all, was perfect. Over a year has passed since I said goodbye to Montecristo but my mind often drifts off to the Hualpuca on a sundrenched day. I always smile thinking that on those banks, in this exact moment, there are children laughing. And they are telling stories and knocking down mangoes the same way their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents did because the constant acceleration of change has no bearing whatsoever on the timeless magic of rivers. Progress and productivity are as irrelevant to a river day as an Ipad is to a hug from your mother. It’s where the people go in 2013, it’s where people went in 1750. It was, is, and always will be a place of sacred stillness—a place to be perfect.