Everybody's Missing the Sun . . .

Antigua, Guatemala  2001

 

It's that time of year where I feel like I am living in an icy winter cave and I miss the sun. so. much. All I want to do is hibernate under my down comforter and eat things drenched in buttery sauces. I want to drink garnet colored wine's that leave the taste of oak and vanilla in my mouth. I want to read novels in pajamas and have movie marathon's. Oh winter, you get me every time.

In my sun craving haze, I share with you a note from my friend (and talented writer) Sara. She too, is living out her own winter tale in another part of Alaska and I am sure - like me - she's missing. the. sun. The imagery in her words swell inside and flood me with color and warmth. Thank you Sara * Each time I read her writing,  I am transported to those warm days in our twenties when we were traveling light . . .and hoping you - dear reader, wherever you are - are warm and full of color

Yesterday, Grown in Antigua, Guatemala, caught my eye as I passed a Starbucks coffee display. Ten years ago I went to Antigua with Amy. We may very well have driven by the fields where these coffee plants grew. I pulled out the photos from that trip to try and put it into words—Amy behind a camera lens—the things she sees that capture her fancy, the colors now captured in this book of photos. A salmon colored wall, pink conch, olive and aqua enamel pots in a turquoise doorway, painted wooden signs for orange crush & Gallo cerveza, white calla lilies. The movement of a curtain in a window, kids demanding “un quetzal,” a street scene reflected in a mirror, the shadows of cats and ladders and bougainvillea. “I should look at these more often,” I thought, knowing in the same moment why I don’t. We are captured in the photos too, young and untethered and traveling with a lightness like Amy’s photos of Belize, shades of blue on blue on blue.  ~ Sara

Sara at 23, Somewhere in Guatemala

Me at 24, Lago Atikilan, Guatemala