Las Dudas, but Plodding Along

I really stuck it to myself with that phone call home. Knew it'd happen.

There I was, all happy and content, having recently made the decision to come back -- this time, to Bogota -- and I had to hear old Mama G's voice.


Afterward, Ms. Sands -- that matron of sarcasm, sly looks and inspiring, callous wit -- had to watch me arrange all of Little Morgan's (the Little Rat's) baubles and bracelets and anillos, tying it all up with a headscarf. I maybe even wrote her a little heartfelt note. One can never know.

No doubt Sands' stomach was turning over dinner as I spoke about life in League City, TX and who I missed there, and in New York, and why.

We don't ordinarily tolerate droplets of nostalgia, just as we don't make it a habit of discussing Matters of the Heart.

But I couldn't help it.

For the first time, I started to have my Doubts.

"Will I really be OK?" I thought, aware of my trite, internal sobbing, "Can I continue to wrap myself in deflective jokes and delusional optimism?" -- more internal sobbing -- "It's exhausting."

How I longed to call back home and hear Mama G tell me how she thought I was growing "tubby" (de los fotos, and from when she saw me last month and pinched my sides). I wanted to call Brother G and ask him about the upcoming Baby, and share with him that he should rest assured that I still think he's a lout, a wretched -- wretched -- fool, and perhaps my best friend. [In Your Dreams.]

But then!

We got into a cab, Ms. Sands' disgust at the droplets of nostalgia too much to bear -- I mean, who could?

As we had to push the old Colombian cab down a stretch of the highway as I shouted at the driver that he was drowning the engine, I was sure I could keep plodding along.

Yet, still, I came home and tossed and turned until dawn.