looking back and listing

Well, I am sitting at the Finca Magdalena, looking out over the wooden farmhouse railing, over the tops of the colorful garden, the outline and foundation of the soon to be artesanal sales building, treetops, and finally, the blue gray water of Lake Nicaragua. Sitting here at the computer, I try to think of all of the things that I have to do, to write, the ‘work’ that I am assigning myself; projects that will hopefully help me to understand, record, and synthesize this experience on all of the multiple levels, personal, global, academic, emotional. These include transcribing interviews, reflecting on the people and places that I have encountered, recording my thoughts about my findings in some semblance of a systematic way, and writing letters, notes, poems, to myself and other people who are dear to me, which also helps me to know where I am and what I am thinking about.
I am noticing recently that I am reverting back to my list making, something that I had avoided for the last couple of months, either because I felt I didn’t want to make lists, or I didn’t feel I knew well enough what I needed to do to know what to make lists of. Now I am left with lists of places to visit, of things to write, of letters to work on, emails to send, people to talk to. It is comforting, seeming like a connection to my former busy life (haha), and also giving me a greater sense of how my work on this project and myself within the context of this year is taking shape. Finally, almost three months in, I really feel like I am getting the hang of it. So with that, this brief, slight discussion, I resume my transcribing, my list making, and begin the work on my quarterly report to the Watson office, due in two weeks, and my first academic report in five months. Hard to believe that I am already almost three months along, learning, living, experiencing. That I am already able to look back at the same time that I look forward at this year. How will my view differ at the end, and from the next stages of the middle? I hope to be able to reveal at least a little of that in the reflections that I will be doing in these quarterly analyses.