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| No, that's not me with the Italian Speedo Guy. Oh, wait...those are the tips of my feet. |
Apologies for the delay. I have not written much since Akumal. In fact, I didn't write much of anything while in Akumal either. You can see why.
The plan was to write a lot, write together, write alone, etc, as what can be more inviting than writing beneath the velvet palms with their happy necks stretching toward the absolute most turquoise perfect sea and sky there ever was?
... Where words like azure, aquamarine, conch, coconut, flamenco, gecko, chuppa, liquado, mango, palapa, amigo, Maya, chacha, maraca, picante, etc were born, organically spun from the endlessly giving honey beauty making love to itself? Indeed this is a paradise for writers, I reflected daily over morning coffee (mas cafe por favor!) and juevos rancheros.
Only, I could not write. And oh, I wanted to write. I wanted to make sure I wrote down the following at least once: This exists. This is real. Appreciate this. Be grateful for everything that has come before to make this very moment possible, that that has lead you to this very sunshine, soft, loving, peaceful moment. And remember that even missing this moment, longing for just one more walk along the warm sand when you are back in freezing MN or wherever you happen to be, to allow yourself to be sad. This is a beautiful place and time. And...remember to take a moment to linger wherever you are because you never know when you'll long for that moment again, too.
At least I think that's how it would have gone, but I didn't write it down, so who knows?! Perhaps I'm just trying to rewrite my thoughts so I can feel better about being in 0 degree climes again. Why didn't I write it down? Well... I didn't do much yoga either. I couldn't do anything, frankly. I was too busy being. I could not take my eyes off of everything. I hated to close them at night. But then I got to listen. And in listening I could imagine what these late night tropical dark sounds were glowingly up to at all hours. And then, feeling...oh, the claylike sand, ground conch in all colors against bare feet. And that's just above water...the feel of cool ocean water will always feel like home to me.
When we first arrived, we joked that we finally had time to be "one with the palm trees" for as long as we wanted. No hurry. Nothing to do but be here now. Having only traveled out of the Midwest a few times, he said he was so elated by the colors and sounds and courtyards, and brightness that he could just cry with his entire being with the bittersweet awareness of being a part of it, belonging.
Likewise, I cried over the mangoes. I discovered the sun in the middle of palm trees. I couldn't get enough of the sound of the large green, white and pink washed brain rock coral rolling all over each other, a little city of song, with the tide. I remembered the scent of Mexican laundry taking forever to dry on the line in the blazing tropics. I heard the familiar song of middle-aged Mexican men that I'd heard growing up in LA, a part of the landscape, singing through open windows cut solidly out of pink stucco bungalows while they worked. And I saw clearly what Leonard Cohen meant in Suzanne...how naturally, simply, everything and all things of nature, including me, leans out for love in the direction of the sun.
What/when/who/how was the last thing you saw/heard/felt/experienced that was so unbelievably moving or beautiful that you just had to sit down (for a week, a day, a moment) and drink it all in?
