The night sky is a swath of velvet with pinpricks shining through. So many stars. So. Many. Stars. So many that the constellations don’t stand out as individual formations, but are a mass among masses of twinkles. I stare, and everywhere there are twinkles. I can’t not see twinkles. I stare up and my eyes drift down all the way to the horizon. Dense darkness and sparkly stars are all I see.
I know now why The Milky Way is called such. The cloudy path across the sky, which upon viewing with binoculars are millions and millions of sparkling stars, so close together they appear opaque. Milky. A giant brush stroke across the sky.
The rocking of the boat, whispers with my best friend, and a sky full of sparkles. This already is a great trip.
That’s what I hear when I’m underwater. I love the all encompassing silence while snorkeling. I gracefully move through the water, my arms close to my sides, kicking only intermittently to propel myself forward. I breathe in slowly, I breathe out slowly. Life has slowed down. I’m so happy.
I watch schools of fish swim under me, coming closer, and closer. I’m tempted to reach out and touch them, but I don’t want to disturb them, their perfect formation. I love being the observer, just watching, drifting, and slowly moving closer to the observed.
The sunbeams highlight the matter in the water, the murkiness is cut by the piercing beam of light. It’s a world in which everything is not crystal clear, a world in which more and more things are revealed the longer you wait. Patience and stillness are rewarded.
A marble ray materializes. As it gently glides below me, I hover above it, watching and wondering, “How quickly can it move? Does it generally attack any body part? Or does it go for the face?”
A sea lion pops up. Others swim towards it, gradually encircling it. I worry. Is it scared that it is surrounded by people? Does it feel trapped? It responds by simply diving under and around them, as though in a game of tag. I want to see it, but I don’t want to get too close (could it bite my arm off?). I stay back. I watch it swim, flip, and dive. I lose sight of it.
I’m floating, happily, lazily, and feel a presence beside me. I turn my head and see the sea lion right beside me. I’m still. I turn on my back and slowly swim away, watching it; it follows. It swims around me, nipping at my fins. I back away some more, very slowly, concerned that it is bigger than me, wondering if sea lions like to nibble at humans, wondering how thick my wetsuit is and if it could bite through it. I turn over, laying in a dead man’s float, quiet and still, watching it out of the corner of my eye. It spins, dives, swims, tumbles through the water, claps its fins, and swims directly towards me at high speeds then turns at the last possible moment. Oh. It’s playing. It’s not going to hurt me. I imitate its moves, until it targets a new playmate and swims away.
We’re called back to the boat. Already? I don’t want to leave the water. I do, reluctantly, and am greeted by the ever friendly crew and hot cheesy empanadas. This is going to be a great trip.
I was in Quito because of a bag of these. Arguably, the best cookies ever.
Years ago, 2000? 2001? my friend Emily and I traveled to Lyons, Colorado, for the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival. We planned to camp and on the way from the airport to our campground, we stopped at a Safeway to load up on provisions. Emily always chooses healthy snacks; I often opt for the not-as-healthy ones. She had filled our basket with apples and carrots and hummus and bananas and other utterly healthy food items. I detoured down the snacks aisle and noticed Mother’s Circus Animal Cookies (pink and white frosting! and sprinkles!) were on sale two for one. I picked up two bags, held them up, and with a wide grin said, “Pleeaaaasssse?” She rolled her eyes, which I took as an exasperated “yes” and I dropped them in our basket.
The first day of the festival we joined hundreds of others already in line, waiting to enter the festival grounds. We were ready to go in, spread our blankets, and enjoy a day of lazing in the sun enjoying great music and snacks. Before we could enter, though, our coolers had to be inspected (no alcohol or glass allowed!). The volunteer inspector seemed like a friendly enough guy, bantering with festival goers as he looked into coolers. He opened our cooler, spotted the Mother’s Circus Animal Cookies on top, picked them up and said, “I love these things!” I grinned, “I know! Aren’t they the best?” Introductions followed, and we headed inside the festival grounds.
Later that day when we opened the bag of cookies, we found him and offered to share. We discovered he lived in San Francisco (just like us). After enjoying a weekend of great music, we exchanged information and promised to get in touch once we got back to the Bay Area. And, the strange thing was, we did. The next several years saw more adventures – music concerts, trips to Tahoe, nights out on the town, abalone diving trips up the coast.
Then he moved to Sacramento, and we saw each other less. On a vacation to the Galapagos several years ago he met a lovely woman, moved to Quito, and is now married with two beautiful children. When we told him we were coming to the Galapagos, he immediately invited us to stay with him while we were in Quito. We said yes right away then wondered if five plus years of not really keeping in touch would have changed our relationship.
As he answered his door at 1 am the night of our arrival, we realized nothing had changed. We lapsed back into conversation as if we were back at Lyons so many years ago. All because of a bag of Mother’s.
I’m sitting in the Houston airport , waiting for our flight to Quito, from where we’ll continue on to the Galapagos. This will be the last time that I have cell or wifi service for eleven days. After the initial “OMG” and hundreds of “what if” scenarios running through my head, spiraling into more and more unrealistic versions of reality (?), I realized this is exactly what I need. A forced vacation from always being connected.
I think it’s okay to check work email before going to bed at night (I’ll just answer that one email… And then two hours later I’m shutting off my computer…) and then find myself wondering why I wake up from anxiety ridden dreams about something I may or may not have forgotten to do.
I think it’s okay to set aside just an hour on a weekend morning to catch up on loose ends at work, and find myself wondering why I’m so hungry. Oh. It’s 4 in the afternoon.
Basically, I don’t have the self control to not check email or read up in work events (something for another post) if the technology is available to me.
This eleven day break will be good. I’ve downloaded 14 books to read (okay, maybe that’s a little ambitious) and look forward to being in nature, napping, and just hanging out with one of my dearest friends. Offline.
I landed in Paris this morning and the first order of business was to walk to the local cafe and order a decaf cappuccino. This arrived, and I smiled – such beauty, such art, and with a tiny heart on top. Je t’aime!
The Most Perfect Cappuccino
Next stop, the bakery. Sara would order a pastry, and I would immediately say to the clerk, “Deux, s’il vous plait!” which made her smile. Right before paying, Sara ordered a baguette. The clerk waited for a moment, then said with a smile, “Deux?” We laughed and shook our head no. One baguette is plenty!
While in Ireland earlier this year, we decided to rent a car on Sunday and drive up the coast. Ingrid mentioned going to The Giant’s Causeway, which I had never heard of, but it turned out to be delightful. We drove about three hours north of Dublin to the tip top of Northern Ireland. I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I was a little wary of traveling through Northern Ireland. Why, you might ask? I was a teenager/college student during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. I remember the news being filled with The Troubles and stories of bombs, and blasts, and violence, and death. It’s funny how an idea, or a perception, can get stuck in your mind, even if it’s not reality anymore. The drive turned out to be lovely. The most trouble we encountered was, as a driver accustomed to driving on the right side of the road, making a right hand turn, not realizing we were crossing oncoming traffic. Oncoming traffic that happened to be very close.
We opted for the guided tour of the causeway. A few of us walked out of the visitor’s center into blustery winds and a drizzle that persistently became a respectable rain. Despite that (or maybe because of that, it seemed fitting to be exploring Ireland in the rain) we had such a fun afternoon. The tour guide was incredibly humorous, sharing the story of Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the creation of the causeway. We walked down to the water’s edge, and explored the magnificent rock formations. And walked in the presence of giants.
In February of this year, I had the chance to visit Ireland for the first time. It’s been a country that I’ve wanted to visit for a long time (since I was a teenager), and somehow never got to. I was there primarily for work, but had a lovely time walking around Dublin, listening to the fantastic accents (eavesdropping is one of my favorite activities anyway, and when it’s eavesdropping with accents? heaven!), and having a drink at the pub.
On our last afternoon there, we walked over to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells exhibit is very well-organized, explaining the history, the art, and the various scripts. The end of the exhibit leads you into a dimly lit room where actual pages of the Book of Kells are on display, pages that are *over* 1,000 years old! It’s a stunning masterpiece. The calligraphy is divine, the colors intense, and the illustrations timeless.
After I peered over the pages, walking around the exhibit several times, stopping to observe the pages from all angles, I climbed the stairs to the Long Room. I stood in awe. I was standing in a space more reverent than a church. All around me were books, books, and more books, from floor to ceiling, the entire length of the room. It was the perfect room. The afternoon sun streamed through the windows, illuminating the hundreds of thousands of books that surrounded me. I walked up and down the center aisle, looking at titles, fantasizing I had a job as a librarian there and was allowed beyond the velvet ropes, searching for a rare book. I breathed in the wood, the darkness, the solemness, and was supremely happy I finally made it to Ireland.
The Daily Post prompt for today says, “Tell us all about the person you were when you were sixteen. If you haven’t yet hit sixteen, tell us about the person you want to be at sixteen.”
I was sixteen and incredibly insecure. I somehow fit the template of “popular” but never felt like I fit in. I was a cheerleader, I got good grades, I hung out with the “cool” kids, but I felt ridiculously awkward in my own skin. I wanted to fit in more than anything. But I didn’t. I didn’t agree with a lot of the things around me, and I didn’t have the courage to assert my beliefs. I didn’t think I believed in God, but I was in church multiple times a week. It seemed so acceptable, so normal, to everyone else; I couldn’t understand why I didn’t have faith that seemed to come so naturally to everyone else. There was an interracial couple at our high school. I hated the way that people gossiped about them, and I hated myself more that I stayed silent. I hated when people jokingly called someone “gay” or “faggot” and I hated it more that I never protested.
I took a trip that summer to Europe. Our Word History class sold cheese (yes, cheese) to finance our trip. I loved being on an airplane. I loved being in another country, another way of life. I loved buying fresh produce at a local market (this was before farmer’s markets were the common thing they are now) and eating bread, cheese, and cherries for dinner. I loved wandering museums, lost among artists. I loved seeing people live lives that were so different from what I lived in North Carolina. I loved that the French (at the time) seemed to hate Americans, but had no qualms about interracial relationships. I loved experiencing a different way of life.
Sixteen was the year I decided that somehow, my life would extend beyond what it currently was. I didn’t know how that would happen, or even if it was possible, but that was the year that I decided that I would do whatever I could to see more of the world, and that I would do whatever I needed to do to have the courage to speak my mind.
Last year at an Ecology Project International fundraiser, I was the lucky winner of an auction for a seven-day cruise for two to the Galapagos. The Galapagos! Islands of exotic animals! Swimming with sea turtles!
I asked my partner in crime, Emily, if she’d like to go with me. She was ecstatic. She had lived in Ecuador as a student, but at the time couldn’t afford to go to the Galapagos. We looked at our calendars and picked a few dates in May that we wanted to book.
I called the boat tour company in January and asked for our first choice of dates. Nope, they were booked. I asked for our second choice. Booked then, too. Before I could ask for a third choice of dates, the tour operator told me the first available tours were in August. August?!?! Eight months away? I guess other people like to plan in advance. We booked a tour for late August.
Emily and I talked about booking plane tickets to Ecuador, but never really got around to it. We were planning to get together this weekend and I said, “Come over! Let’s book our plane tickets!” We figured out how many days we wanted to spend in Quito before going to the islands and what days we wanted to travel. We booked our flights from San Francisco to Quito and return. From Quito, however, we needed to get to the Galapagos Islands. There are a few airlines that fly that route: TAME, Avianca, and Lan Ecuador. We chose Avianca since it’s part of Star Alliance. Unfortunately, you can’t book Avianca domestic flights online. Emily called the airline, and I listened as they conversed in Spanish, “…talk, talk, talk, numbers, numbers, dates…” Silence. “Solomente? En Augusto?” She turned to me. “There’s just one flight left with seats available, at 6:30 am.” “Really? For August?” She nodded. “Book it!” She talked some more, arranging the internal domestic flights. When she hung up, again, I was somewhat flustered. Who plans this far in advance?
We decided since we were in a planning mode, we would book our accommodation for our three nights in Quito. We perused several residences on Airbnb, finally settling on one that was centrally located and decorated with brightly colored rugs. We sent a message to the host, checking availability for August. This morning, she replied that she doesn’t make reservations more than two months in advance.
LoriLoo 