TheExpatJournals.com

Well, some time ago I spoke of my political position, but only as it applied to my decision to leave the US. Thought now might be a good time to address religion, or my lack thereof. When I left NYC, at first, I couldn’t get over how friendly folks were in NC…strangers seemed always ready and willing to strike up a chat. I quickly realized they had an agenda once they found out I was new in town. “Come to our church!” After awhile, I got so tired of it that I came up with a handy response designed to get the response I wanted, “I haven’t been to church since April of 1975, thank God!” Seemed to always do the trick.

Long ago I heard what now seems like a hokey line, but at the time really spoke to me. “Religion is for those who fear hell. Spirituality is for those who have been there.” I later heard another version of that, “Religion is for those who don’t want to go to Hell. Spirituality is for those who don’t want to go back.”

In any event, I begin my day, every day, by reading from at least two books, both of which are single page ‘thoughts for the day’ and then I pray. I still suck at stilling my mind enough to meditate, though I also feel that an ongoing conversation with what I call my God in many ways suffices as meditation. Another thing I once heard is that praying is like talking to God and meditating is like listening. Most of my life I had trouble listening, even when it truly was for my own good. And most of my life I had trouble even saying the word/name God out loud because of the mental association of all those southern born agains, et al. All it took to be an outstanding Christian in SC (where I grew up) was going to church each Sunday. How you lived your life during the week was seemingly irrelevant as long as you didn’t get caught and could keep it under wraps. God was about condemnation and judgment in the name of Christ and any joy was for the afterlife. So what I witnessed in terms of religion left me with a serious emotional investment against religion. Or the name God until I came up with my own description of what that’s all about as opposed to the one they tried to teach.

I can remember being in this renown cathedral in Colon, Germany and feeling not dissimilar to what I felt that morning I saw the carved window from the beach here in Panama…a creepy sense of all the torture that may or may not have happened where I was standing. And I had to get the fuck out of that church. Couldn’t stay in there. On the other hand, visiting the church where Ferdinand and Isabel are entombed was intriguing as hell because the basement was an art gallery that happened to also have all these tombs of legendary figures in history.

So I am limited in my impressions of all the churches in Casco Viejo. I think the main cathedral is actually quite ugly, though I always love the view through that enormous dark space to the balconies so full of light visible through the other monstrous arch. Once I walked in there and the only thing I remember thinking was how nice and cool it was inside, especially relative to how incredibly hot it was outside and for a moment, I wondered if the cool, calm space incentivized attendance.

And the church with the huge golden altar is on the edge of where no gringa should tread sola. I have only walked by twice and once was while showing someone around the neighborhood. That day, there were three serious looking secret service type men standing around the front with their matching gray pinstripe suits and headset earplug attached to some unseen radio in their jackets through a helix coil like a telephone cord. They looked more ominous than any police I’ve seen and I wondered who was attending service that day to merit this. I’ve also wondered why…which pirate was it? Drake or Morgan?…didn’t attempt to axe the altar that was painted to look like wood? I guess some things are just meant to be.

No, my church in this neighborhood is what I call the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, though I’m sure there’s some other name for the enormous government building built in a former convent. It’s on Bolivar Plaza, one church away from the Teatro Nacional. Inside that building is a gymnasium sized courtyard with an open-air roof and an enormous compass mosaic that is made of marble. On the sea side, it is completely open with an elevated mezzanine of a few steps made of the most marvelous green glass, ala a medicine cabinet, but strong enough to walk on. Underneath those steps and open along the width on each side of the steps, are the walls of the old convent which were once part of the wall around the city. In the center of the mezzanine is a huge bust of Bolivar. And separating all of this from the sea is a wonderful garden along the low wall, like a window box on the floor.

I can go sit behind the bust of Bolivar with complete privacy from the courtyard. And I stare out at the sea and wonder how it is the Pacific is so calm and witness the reason it was named the Pacific. One of the first things that happened for me there is absolutely impossible to put into words, because it was something I sensed very deeply in the place where words are only a limitation. I was not having a very good time that first week or so I was in Panama. I was missing my boyfriend (which is just not the case anymore at all) and I was nervous about moving to another country and just plain full of that old formless fear of the scariest kind.

I had visited the Bust before and remembered it as I walked out one day shortly after moving here, I hesitated about going in, then forced myself. That day, as I left, I noticed the mosaic and I asked Sr. Nunez if the compass was correct. He said ‘of course.’ I was (in the west) looking due east at the Pacific Ocean. And that just made zero logical sense. It didn’t not seem possible, let alone plausible. And in that moment, I thought, that’s it! I get to let go of all logic and just let this experience unfold. When I was visiting before moving down here, I had no agenda, no expectations, and as a result, what unfolded motivated me to go back to NYC for only 8 days before moving here. Granted, I still have loose ends to tie up, but it can be downright scary how effective I can be when inspired.

And now, thinking too much stood in the way of living. And looking due east at the Pacific Ocean became a governing metaphor for what my internal life should look like in order for my external life to exceed my own limited expectations.

And so far, it’s working. I never knew some of the things I would see could bring me so much pleasure, inspiration, expansion and all around fulfillment. It had been so long since I felt the élan that has emerged since being in Casco Viejo that I had completely forgotten what happy could even feel like. And now, I’m anxious with some of that formless fear about returning to NYC. And I’m still shocked that anything could capture me away from what I presumed to be the true geographical love of my life: NYC. Yes, I’ve absolutely fallen in love with Panama. It has stolen my heart and soul away from NYC.

This morning, I thought about describing the start of my day to friends when I get back: I have coffee and do my reading on my balcony surrounded by plants I watch grow (and they grow so fast here that that is truly possible) and bloom in red, yellow and blue. My balcony is across a cobblestone street from the Pacific Ocean in a 300 year old neighborhood that is the oldest European settlement on the Pacific coast of the Americas. No, words won’t do. I’ll need to tote my computer out to the diner to share pictures.

I do love the mornings here. The sun doesn’t strike the balcony until maybe 8:30 or 9:00, so the temperature early in the morning is always perfect. I water my plants and take a walk before I come back and go to work. This morning, I fed a little black kitten that I just feel so sorry for. I’ve watched this lonely little creature running under parked cars and away from any people who try to approach it. I mixed up a tiny amount of tofu in milk. Couldn’t get her to come, so I just left it under a car. I did see her eat later. And I wonder why this sole creature stirs my compassion when all the other stray cats and dogs just harden my indifference. Perhaps it’s like the difference between seeing a homeless adult and seeing a homeless child. Anyone want a solid black kitten?

I am NOT a cat person. I like dogs. I don’t hate cats, but I can’t stand living with a cat– had to once and don’t ever want to again. I hate the smell of a litter box. I hate the fur balls. I hate the way they just feel entitled to be wherever they want to be and as a result, my privacy in terms of space is always invaded. I think cats sense this because whenever I visit a friend with cats, they always make a beeline for me. They seem to steer clear of anyone actually wishing to shower them with affection.

Note: The night I had Susan GG, Mivia, Kathleen and Leo walking around Casco Viejo, it was so NOT the image of Susan I had to watch her walking around talking to cats in their language, ‘meow, meow.’ We think we found her Achilles heel that night. Her mind may be like a steel trap, but the tenderness was all we saw on that walk.

I always stray before getting back to what I started talking about…sorry. I remember my ex reading a poem once that contained the line, “Like a robin on a frosty morn’” and he said that was how my mind worked…by hopping around all over the place. Not much has changed, so bear with me.

Back to the Bust of Bolivar spot for a moment. There have been a couple of other significant moments that have occurred for me in that spot. Once, I was staring out at the horizon of the ocean and thought, some people are just wired to want to see what’s over that line and others are wired to be afraid of what’s over that line. I’m way too clear I fall into the first category and that’s not always the good news, but it is how I’m wired and that is out of my control to change. I just get to adapt to it and stop wishing I was otherwise or thinking that otherwise might be easier. Like Paul Simon’s wife once sang, “That’s what I am, that’s what I am.”

Another day, I was sitting with Manuela at the Bust and noticed that in the floor, I saw a perfect reflection of all these birds flying in the sky. And I so appreciated that visual: Birds flying on the floor. I’m sure there’s some metaphor to cull from that, but I never thought any deeper than ‘how perfectly ironic’, and then left it as yet another example of what I mean when I say I feel like I’m living in a beautiful painting.

This morning, I finally went down and walked on the beach around the peninsula that is the French Plaza. It is quite a different perspective from below looking up. I seem to have some nagging paranoia of the tide suddenly rushing in and drowning me which I know comes from the stories of prisoners being shackled in the dungeons of the walls of Casco Viejo while windows were opened so the water could come in and drown them. And I know it’s irrational because I see kids out there walking around all the time, sometimes so far from shore it’s amazing. And it was an experience, though not so pleasurable I’m ready to make a routine of it.

I will say, that if you ever need photos of what Mars looks like, it’s beneath the sea here. It’s pretty amazing to see all the forms and colors up close that are the rocks beneath the water I look at from the walk above. I was surprised the rocks weren’t more slippery than they are and I was also glad I wasn’t anywhere near the little look out point on the Paseo as some guy stood there and urinated. I was also quite surprised to see a small patch of land beneath the point near the obelisk, a large enough patch for a tree to grow. The sounds, or lack thereof, were intriguing. About midway around the point, I realized there was a kind of silence I’m yet to experience in the city here. It was so very, very quiet I couldn’t think of anything I could actually hear. How often is that true anywhere? And, by the way, it didn’t stink, though there was a decent amount of garbage at the base of the wall: shoes, tires, t-shirts, etc. My respect for the sea grows each time I see something so heavy - like a pillar of brick or a piling or even that cayuco I couldn’t budge – that it would take machinery for man to move it an inch and yet the sea carries it in and out as though it were a feather.

I climbed up the newly constructed staircase in front of the French Embassy and as I walked along the street towards my apartment, I noticed 3 little girls in their school uniforms busily searching for something. I could hear someone instructing one of them, “To your left, use your hands!” I saw the little girl comply with the order and as I grew closer, I could see there was a little boy in his school uniform just sitting on a rock giving these girls orders they were happily following. I thought of a Discovery Channel-type special where the male lion just sits by while the female pack goes and hunts to provide for him. I could see the little girls pocketing some find upon occasion, maybe coins?

As I returned home, I saw Haro, the guy I wrote about in a wheelchair for those of you who follow the serial my life has become in the form of this journal. Well, it turns out that Haro is not one of the homeless guys here and not even one of the locals without means. He is a handicapped guy who commutes here on a daily basis to work the street. It’s his job. He sits in the area of the entrance to the Paseo and helps folks park, answer questions, orders cars going too fast to slow down, etc. I’m not really sure of what all he does, but we have grown accustomed to always saying hello to each other. He was hired by the Foundation in the President’s office that is set up to see the well being of Casco Viejo.

This morning, I gave Haro the old cell phone I dropped. It stills makes and takes calls, but you can’t see anything on the screen. He was pleased. That was the one I dropped onto a tile floor. The second one I left in a taxi. I wasn’t about to buy an expensive phone the third time around, but what I have works just fine.

I did meet a man this morning who is, from what I understood in Spanish, a presidential guard who chauffeurs the president. I finally learned that the inaugural activities for Martin Torrijos will be held in the morning on September 1st, but not in Casco Viejo. That happens at Miraflores Locks. So no worries departing Casco Viejo for my flight, all the trouble that day will be in NYC with the Republicans and protestors.

And Manuela and I are now going through a period of separation. Last weekend, I kept her for 8 hours each day and now, she can no longer settle for being alone during the day and announces that to the neighborhood in the form of whining and howling in hopes of it bringing me over to rescue her from the loneliness that didn’t exist before she knew there was the option of hanging out with me. And that is unacceptable to all, so now we are deprived of each other’s company until the situation reverses and she is once again content with visiting me and spending time alone in her own home. I’m about to leave for a month, so I assume that will do the trick. When I get back, I will go out walking with her, but I can no longer let her stay in my apartment when Giselle isn’t there lest this situation recur. Giselle thought it best I not even say hello to her last night. It was my first day in awhile without spending some time with Manuela.

Thanks to those of you who publicly or privately encouraged me to keep posting. It was so quiet I had begun to wonder if there was any point. I have kept a journal since I was 8 years old and was quite surprised when I got so much response on the Yahoo groups that anyone wanted to read it. But I must admit, I like sharing the experience with you. Somehow, doing so increases the fun, like it’s not just for me alone.