The next 5 months are a big struggle. I fail to secure a reliable person to help me. They come and go. I need someone with me, to help but also for safety. The area is at the border with Guatemala and there are a lot of people attempting to cross, and also many attempting to abuse the situation. I am constantly alone. During some periods I don’t speak for days, there is no one to speak to. Sometimes I enjoy that, other times the constant inner chatter is unbearable. One day I find myself in the middle of a slope, alone and very angry. It is a beautiful morning, am I mad?
As I walk the area, I find logs and logs of beautiful trees, there are cans of petrol to feed the chainsaw lying next to the bottles of ‘posh´, the local alcoholic sugar cane drink. Men come, cut the trees, sit to rest, they get drunk and leave, and never come back to claim the timber. There are examples of unfinished jobs all over the place. Once the canopy is opened the fire comes. The whole forest has changed, most tree species are gone now, mainly oak and pines remain. Instead of moss and gentle understory the floor is covered with bracken and bramble. My legs and arms are covered with tiny cuts. Now it is very hot and dry, whereas before it was humid and fresh.
I had become a tree hugger, and a mortuary recorder. I measure the diameter of the trees, and the diameter of the stumps. I trap and ring birds, noting their species, weight and sex, busy from dawn to dusk. Yet despite my datasheets, scales and measuring tapes and my other thousand veils, the powerful nature of Life is making its way through: ever present, ever teaching; diverse, generous, interconnected, and above all, conquering; always coming back after destruction, powerful, yet delicate. What is its source?
As I kneel down to measure a hidden stump, I find under some bramble, a beautiful inflorescence, pushing its way up with some flowers already transforming into fruit, red and grey, a strange chequerboard. A tiny insect, with all the possible colours grading from head to tail, fine transparent wings and a very long appendix lands on my finger. I find plants deep green with golden under sides, others silver, or immaculate white. I dream of a dinner by candle light beneath such canopy. I start recognising some plants by their smell, or the multiple shapes of their leaves, depending on whether they are under direct light or various amounts of shade. Life constantly transforming……