Six weeks

We celebrated New Year's in the square. We dodged renegade fireworks that exploded in our path. We talked about wizards and witches, their qualities and powers, how to recognize them and what they have to teach us.



We tried to define the dying year with single adjectives. I chose "resilient."

A lot of us had been sick. On the night of the 29th, I threw up for hours, so long I passed out, hit my head on the wall, cried and prayed not to die in Guatemala. The 30th disappeared, drowned in Gatorade and corpse-like sleep. On the 31st, we traveled to Antigua feeling frayed and ready for renewal.

Exactly six weeks ago, in the early hours of New Year's Day, we sat on a rooftop in Antigua, Guatemala, and the breeze felt good, and volcanoes made a ring of shadows in the sky around the city.



One among us was a wizard, or else a Scorpio -- maybe they're the same thing? One among us used to dance ballet, and I want to talk to her about that, but now she's far away again, and man, I hate when my friends live far away. Another one played guitar on the roof, songs that we could all sing, and new songs that we hadn't heard before. He turned on a recorder to catch the sound of fireworks exploding in the streets.



Tonight, I turned in my first of five packets for my last semester of school. It feels like years ago that I was sitting on a rooftop in Guatemala. I have so much work to do to get my novel in order, but if time moves as slowly and fills up as full as it has over the last six weeks, I should be all right.

Currently reading: The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart.