autumn afternoons in manzano

Nacho, recently turned five, shared a hammock with me at his grandparents´ farm last week or before, exhausted after harvesting squashes and rolling around in falltime fallen leaves turned all kinds of rusty colors, both of us dripping with sweet post summer pumpkin smell and crisp decomposing leaf smell, the kinds of smells that makes you want Halloween candy and roasted turkey and a nap.

According to Nacho, five-year olds should be smarter than four-year-olds. He proved this first by fixing his pronunciation of ´four´(in Spanish) from ´cuaco´to ´cuatro´ with much pride and smiles. Next, he almost made a 23-year-old cry, on a bright and chilly afternoon on the hammock.

¨Patcho, will you build your own mud house one day for your family?¨

¨Yeah,¨ I told him. ¨Of course. Why?¨

¨Well, when you build it,¨ blue blue unSouthAmerican blue eyes fixed serious and piercingly in mine, ¨I will bring you the front door.¨

That´s when it hit, when he hit. When I realized how hard leaving this place will be, and how desperately I need to keep returning for, well, forever, how special these kids are. He caught me, though, before I could manage to squirt a tear.

¨But you have to build it down here. I don´t think they´ll let me onto the bus to the United States with a giant door.¨

The only thing you can do at a time like that is laugh and hug and spend the rest of the afternoon lying on a Maytime breeze-rocked hammock in silence, then swallow your pride later on and admit yer a sentimental hippy and let everyone else know how much of a sucker you are for cute kids.