Friday night, I might have cut out of work just the weensiest bit early. Then, I had a cook-a-thon with myself that involved making two fontina, leek and asparagus quiches and one enormous potato, kale and feta frittata. I’m starting to get the hang of this whole egg-dish thing. Saturday was devoted to cupcake eating and to welcoming an almost-hatched new baby of a dear friend — a little girl I couldn’t be more excited to meet. There was also a walk to Gasworks, where Seattlites go to give thanks to the Sun Gods for taking an early shift on what we hope will become their full time job in a few months. In the evening, there was much shouting and beer-drinking as I watched my first derby matches. (The only low part of the night was that I still haven’t quite developed those special PBR tastebuds just yet. I fear that putting this in writing forever outs me as truly unhipster; yet, if I’m being honest with myself, the lack of jeggings might have been a good tip off.) Derby was the perfect salty pairing with the sweetfest of the morning. Lots of swearing and fighting and pushing and glitter ensued — all the sorts of girly things that I desperately approve of. Sunday was sleeping in and lazy brunch, followed by 2+ hours of hiking at Discovery Park – which was appropriately blustery and sunny. Famished, we split a burger (my 1st in 15 years!), a strawberry shake and fries at The Counter, went home for naps and chowder making, and reading on the couch under a cozy blanket with slipper on. Really, it was perfection.

Laying in bed on Sunday night after this wonderful weekend, we were in sleepover mode. Chatty and giggling at the good luck of our weekend, we were quite content to lay in the dark and ask each other deep questions.  There is something about a perfect weekend that makes one wonder deep thoughts, and there’s something about being in the dark that is just begging for secrets to be told with abandon.

We talked about a lot of things: of course the was our ever-favorite topic, our desired menu for the week (perhaps something with lemongrass?). But we also discussed when we thought BBQ season might officially start, how we missed the comfort of good friends living close, and what a strange realization it is to love your family and friends dearly but know that there are some with whom you may never share the same values (and vice versa). And then Garrett got a bit quiet. He was thinking about something, I knew. I hoped it wasn’t work, which is what it usually is around this time of night on a Sunday.

But he asked me, “What do you worry about?”

It was a question that caught me off guard, that I almost immediately laughed off, or changed the subject, or started a pillow fight, to avoid. I’ve been known to do some worrying in my day. In fact, I’m sort of a Grand Champion of worrying. I might be able to earn international prizes for the amount and the breadth and depth of my worrying. There was a point in time this autumn, where I actually, very briefly, saw the edge between worry and complete inability to run your own life, the brink of OCD, the cliff that once you fall over, weighed down by anxiety and doubt, you probably spend years climbing out of.

I didn’t actually get close enough to the edge to look over, I just saw it, dark and groaning, in the not-so-far-off distance. Even the shimmering glimpse of it shook me. And then I shook myself. For a pretty practical woman, I sure can be a hell of a basket case at times. I can spin and spin and spin on ideas and worry and what if’s, but this time, like the times before, I shook myself into a moment of clarity. Sometimes that clarity has been a disappointing clarity where I realize that I can’t do it all. But, in general, the clarity reminds me that it’s all ok and that life is in general, a pretty good place.

And with that realization I can slowly start walking away from the edge. The farther away I get, the more the fog lifts, and all of a sudden I notice that I’d been walking all hunched over, tired and worn down and heavy, straining my neck to see what all is “out there”, looking for that thing that I know will save me, if I could only remember what it looked like. I notice that I’d been walking so twisted and contorted because all of a sudden my spine feels straight and strong, and I’m able to look out along the horizon AND I’m able to look down at my feet, noticing the sparkling stones and pebbles and teeny insects and flowers that I’d been missing previously. Along the horizon, the rain clouds look like welcome relief instead of impending doom. The wind blows a gentle breeze, not the first gusts of a hurricane. The sun is warm, not parching, not the beginning of a drought.

I’ve been to those cliffs before, and somehow, thankfully, I always turn back. Sometimes, like this time, its just in the nick of time. Sometimes I watch myself moving towards the cliffs like I’m watching a movie. I can see myself running, frantically, looking for something, twisting and jerking my head in all directions, trying to find answers, and faith, and grace, and tenderness, and relief, and hope, and yes, of course, happiness. I look ridiculous, but I can’t stop myself. I’m like some spastic animal going into fits. I look pathetic, truly sorrowful, obviously in need of calm and gentleness and a quiet breath, but that would just be wasting time now, wouldn’t it? I can feel myself running, trying to sprint, thinking that maybe the faster I go, I’ll be able to trick the answers that I’m looking for into sticking around this time, instead of teasing me and slipping through my fingers just as I reach them. Or maybe those things that I thought were answers were just tricks placed there in my path to trip me up, to break my focus. Everything is suspicious.

Maybe I need to start over again? From the beginning. Maybe that’s the trick. Maybe if I meticulously recount my steps, I’ll see where I went wrong. I’ll see that diamond that I missed before, that jewel of an answer gleaming in the sand that I’m digging my toes into, my fingers into, sifting, and finding still only sand. So I run again. And it’s like running through mud. No, not mud. Mud is dirty enough, but much too organic; it’s potential earthiness somehow alludes to healthiness, and that’s not the kind of thing I’m running through. Don’t people bath in mud for its healing properties? Don’t kids splash joyfully in mud puddles with impish grins on their angel faces? No, not mud. I wish it WAS mud. Dirt and I are such good friends; please let it be mud. But no, there’s nothing quite that kind or familiar along this journey.

Maybe jello. Maybe these fits are like running through some enormous wall of jello. You can feel your slow progress, but your forward momentum is also  your greatest enemy. The more you push, the faster you try to move, the more you realize that it could spring back upon you, that you might just get bounced back out again, like a rubber band/catapult/slingshot — all in one. But you’re really really sure that if you can just get through to the other side, you’ll find it. So you push some more. The effort is similar to a bouncy castle, which always promises to be fun, and then after the first 30 seconds, you realize your leg muscles don’t understand how to work in this new environment, your heart is pounding, your breathing is wheezy and weak. This isn’t fun at all. You have the early stages of vertigo, you’re sort of nauseous, and you just got “accidentally” whacked in the boob by someone’s flailing arm as they hurtled themselves against the wall that you’ve taken some kind of momentary shelter next to. So you get out, and take a deep breathe and you realize you’re just fine with the grass, thank you very much. No more bouncy castle! But here, you can’t just step out of the castle and across the drawbridge and onto terra firma. Jello doesn’t have drawbridges. There’s nothing “firma” about it. This jello is all unsettled and unsettling. And it’s suffocating. You try to hold your breath, but before you can stop it, your mouth and nose is filled with the gluey chemical sweetness, and you can’t help but gag. And your eyes… your lashes are sticking together, your lids are gummy. You can see a bit, but only enough to be overwhelmed by the florescent brightness and to know that whatever it was that you’re looking for isn’t directly in front of your face, because that’s as far as you can see. You begin to think this wasn’t such a smart adventure of “self exploration” after all. You want to yell, “No more Jello!” but you realize that if you open your mouth, Jello is exactly what you’re going to get.

This fall, I was trying to decide what to “do with my life”. I seem to go through these fits of discontentment and manic questioning about, oh, once every 4-6 months. Hooray. What an exciting “opportunity”. I’ve heard, “It’s totally normal to go through…” about a million times, but that is a platitude that falls on painfully tired ears. Blah, blah, blah. Normal? Perhaps. But it’s also a good way to go briefly and absolutely bonkers. No gracias. I mean, I know growth comes from pain and struggle, (again… blah, blah, blah) but… can’t we just skip all that? Honestly. Who wants it? And why haven’t we created some pill for this type of malady. Am I too much of an obvious embodiment of my generation if I say that I just want to skip straight to the good stuff already? I do not think of this question as an “opportunity”.  At least, it certainly didn’t feel that way when I was in the middle of it. To the claims of “opportunity”, I call a big ol’ “bull shit” on.

Questioning one’s purpose and path in life is like being forced to wear someone else’s itchy horrible underwear that are too tight and too big at the same time. Uncomfortable doesn’t even start to describe it. You feel like peeling off your own skin just to get away from it. I mean, all that this is teaching me is to buy my own goddamn underwear, in a nice spandex/cotton blend. Briefs. Nothing with lace. Nothing with bows. Nothing with teeny strips of fabric that get embed themselves in unmentionable places. Nothing with fabric that gets within 4 inches of my belly button. But perhaps this metaphor lacks a little when you follow it to its conclusion. I mean… undies I can be decisive about. My life, not so much.

But then, the storm passes. The cliffs of insanity (nice reference eh?) are in the far far distance. A collective sigh of relief goes up among the masses. My friends and family are ever so thankful not to have to listen to me pontificate and whimper about the endless possibilities and opportunities that I’ve been gifted with. In fact, I’m thankful not to have to listen to me any more as well. (These conversations surely amount to annoyingness topped with irrational lack of gratitude and perspective, sprinkled with irreverence a nice cherry of complete disassociation with reality plopped on top. Woe is me.)

What follows is a period of mourning for the fact that I will no longer be lost in the weeds (damned if you do, damned if you don’t, right?), for at least in the weeds, there was possibility of miracles lurking. Out of the weeds, unicorns and rainbows don’t exist… but luckily, neither do the monsters that were hiding under the bed. The decision has been made (in my case, the decision was not to go to grad school… this year at least). So I take a few quiet moments of mourning for the life I decided not to pick (for now). (Notice all my hedging. It’s very healthy, I know.) And then, I sort of just got the hell on with things.

And life has become rather lovely. A very real weight has been lifted. I’m a new woman. I’m not quite Pollyanna, or that lovely maid in the Sound of Music spinning her way across the alps, but close. There’s a sense of calm and contentment now. There’s very little that feels like plodding through jello, very little that is painful or difficult. I even strut a little bit. “I have MADE A DECISION!” Hands on hips. Cocky glance across the room. Rakishly adjust mirrored sunglasses. Very authoritative. Very cool. Very hip. (Well, let’s not get carried away.) Very grown up. Oh yes, very. (Pay no attention to the knocking knees.) Yes, I strut. I have no cares in the world. Perhaps too few cares in fact. I’m bordering on total disregard. I’m selfishly doing whatever the hell I want. And sometimes, the dishes just stay in the sink for three days. Take THAT!

And merrily I float along. It’s not quite the great high I’d been looking for, but the pattern of contentment is very pleasant and a general fog of happy/lazy/laizze faire-ness has started to float over me; I like it quite a lot. Things are really just fine. Good even. Some days, great. It’s not a confusing fog. I can see things quite clearly. It actually feels just a little bit drugged. Like maybe this feels too good. Like maybe if I started poking around a little bit, the pain would still be there, somewhere, but I don’t care so much. I’m observant, I’m present, but I’m not fighting it. I’m not going to be stupid enough to start poking around again. Not just now.

The flow is a good thing, and I’m in it. There’s a steadiness to this place that I like. A solidness that feels a bit unfamiliar and rich and I’m sucking up every last drop. I realize that flux and transition has been my steady state for a long time, and here I am in almost a boring lull, and I love it. Dinner at home every night. Work, but not so much that it disrupts me. Not so much that I even need to mention it. Oh, there are so many more interesting things to talk about. Sous vide for instance. Or things I might plant in my someday-garden. And there are books to read. So. Many. Books. And maybe on occasion I step out with a friend. It’s lovely… but not essential, not at the moment. I felt like I’d been holding onto friends and family for dear life; clutching at them for answers and support. And now I’m able to be with them gently, without so much need. Just a friendly cup of tea. Just a nice walk around the lake. Just a few rounds of Settlers. Oh, so civilized we are. Isn’t this nice and cozy and friendly? But mostly, I can be by myself for a while. It’s ok. I’m not as scary as I used to be. I don’t go into some crazy tailspin of self doubt whenever I look in the mirror. I no longer need a hand to hold every moment. I’ve got projects to do dammit! Holding hands is lovely, and I think you’re amazing, but… really people… there is bread to bake!

So, when Garrett asked me “What do you worry about?”

It took me by surprise. This was a question we’d asked each other a thousand times. Perhaps a thousand thousands of times. It’s a hearty topic of debate while traveling, and while contemplating one’s future, and when consumed by work or other traumatic duties — a general description of my last 10 years. So, why – WHY? – was I so surprised by this question?

And then there was this shocked moment – this quiet moment of complete disbelief – when I realized that it was perhaps the first moment in a very, very, VERY long time when this question was difficult for me to answer.

I wanted to belt out “Hallelujah”! (Or perhaps “Eureka!”)

It may not last for long. Hell, even just writing this, writing anything really, might be the pinprick in my balloon. But you know what? Life is damn good right now. And, I think that’s worth a nice self-congratulatory high five to myself. It’s probably the quietest my life has been in a long time. Our social calendar has a few blips and beeps, but it’s not frantically festive. Work is fine. Plugging along. Good people, good balance. Not as much balance as I’d like, but the best balance I’ve had in a long time; perhaps ever. Actually, ever. Definitely. And the home front is just darn content.

I struggled a lot with “contentness” as a theme while I was wondering my way through the jello. Contentment felt like giving up. It should be AMAZING ALL THE TIME, right? Whoa… slow your roll, little sister. Let’s get you down off that sugar high. Contentment feels amazing actually… perhaps not SCREAMING-AT-THE-TOP-OF-MY-LUNGS amazing, but lovely; like a calm canoe floating down stream, no rapids even possible on this gentle trip, trees branching out over the water giving you dappled shade, a summer breeze, warmth. You can close your eyes and lay back, feel the almost imperceptible-but-there rocking of the boat, see through your closed eyes the flickering warmth of the sun through the leaves. It feels easy. It feels right.

It feels like watching a spotted eagle ray swim under your hut, which is what we were doing… a year ago today.

Top Three Questions Upon Coming Home:

1. Why did you come home early?

Good question. No, it’s not because we got all our stuff stolen (though that might have been a good reason had we not already bought tickets). We were having a great time in Costa Rica with my sis Meg and her partner Tom. It was just a few days before they were leaving and we were going to be getting on our merry way to Panama when one morning, we received an email from our family saying that a loved one was soon having surgery, but not to worry… all was well and good. I had just shot off a quick “we love you and are thinking about you” email, when G joined me in the lobby where I had been checking our email at a very ridiculously early hour. We wandered off to our balcony where we watched the sun rising and the monkeys and the birds swing and swoop through the jungly trees around us, and I turned to him and, being the extremely sensitive person that I am, said, “You know, we could go home and be there for the surgery if we wanted. It’s only a week and a half early.” We sat in the early morning heat, which was not yet completely unbearable – just gently warm and steamy, and we pondered that thought, which if we’d brought it up just a day earlier would have been the craziest thing I’d ever heard.

And then after some quiet pontificating, Garrett turns to me and says, “You know, if we were going home for the surgery, we could also go home a week before that and make it to your grandfather’s wedding.” Hmmmmm… more crazy talk, I think.

And then, I said, “You know, if we were going home for Pa’s wedding, we could head home three days before that and be there for your 30th birthday.” This was followed by more silent observance of the monkeys and birds.

And then, in a completely un-Katie-like turn of events, we managed to make a very rational decision with very little hemming and hawing and within the time span of just 10 minutes (or maybe less). Usually, it take AGES for me to come to conclusions and make these types of decisions. I have to weigh pros and cons. I have to gather input and feedback. I have to write about it. I have to have long, stream of consciousness IM sessions with whomever I can find on Gchat. I have to ponder every possible consequence and make flow charts and/or project plans so that I can visualize these possible outcomes and the best potential ways to start and complete such tasks. Sometimes I even grace this blog with long-winded, drawn out exercises in thinkiness (lucky you).

But not this time. This time, we just sort of went with it. We weighed three weeks of beach time in Panama (which, of course, would have been awesome, to be sure) with the possibility of being able to participate in some pretty important family stuff that doesn’t come along very often, and rather easily we came to the conclusion that we should at least check and see if we could change our tickets. We could. And, we did. Decision made. Tickets bought. Three days later we were getting on a plane back to the States.

Hooray decisiveness! Hooray us!

I particularly feel good about the decision to come home because we didn’t make it under duress. You may remember a certain post not so long ago where I was sort of done with a lot of the “joys” of travel. But, to tell you the truth, when we decided to come home, we were both feeling great about where we were at (physically, emotionally etc.). We were loving our time Costa Rica, we were feeling back in the groove of traveling again, we’d gotten over our general crankiness about the heat/bugs/safety issues/food choices etc. Life was good, and previous to that moment on our balcony, I don’t think either one of us had seriously considered coming home early.

I think I’ve written about this before, but I’ve sort of fallen in love with the idea of making decisions by stepping towards happiness rather than running away from fear or unhappiness. That morning on the balcony, we realized we had an opportunity to chose, and that we were lucky enough to be in a position to chose between two great possible outcomes. If we stayed, it wasn’t because come hell or high water we were going to stick it out, and if we left, it wasn’t because we were fleeing from discomfort or lack. I guess the end decision could have been the same if we had been running away, but in my mind, it makes a big difference that we weren’t. We were able to consider what would make our hearts most happy, and we moved in that direction. And, actually, I’m pretty proud of that.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past few months, it’s that taking risks and trusting your gut, and getting out of your head and into your heart is a pretty great thing to do. I’ve also learned that if I haven’t disappointed myself, then I probably haven’t disappointed anyone else either. I feel like a year (or two) ago, I might have been disappointed in myself for coming home early, but honestly, I’m great with it. I won a lot by coming home, and, in my mind… I lost nothing. And, not that I’m asking for permission, but I feel like everyone else is happy with the decision as well, which was a nice bonus prize.

2. Is it weird to be home?

Yes. And no. Somedays it’s mostly yes. Most days, it’s mostly no. It’s actually weird how not weird to be home. Does that make any sense at all? I’ve been so surprised by how easily we’ve slipped back into life here. I feel like there’s been a gentle amount of culture shock, but nothing that’s been incapacitating, mind blowing or that I can’t handle. Our first night home, I did try to speak Spanish to our waitress at the Thai restaurant (you can imagine how well that went over), but I’ve tried to stop doing that to ever person of color I run into. (Seriously, SOOOOOO embarrassing.)

In general, I’ve noticed that my tendency to be hyper observant of the world around me (except in the case where people are stealing from me) has remained. It’s one of those habits I developed while traveling; a safety measure really to keep myself from stepping in endless pot holes and piles of you-know-what, but which also resulted in my paying attention to interesting architecture, funny street signs, flamboyant outfits, new faces, lovely flower specimens, and unique cultural differences. I also developed a rather attuned radar for the closest vendor of popcorn and churros within any given city. But I digress…

A dear friend asked me recently what felt most different or what I was paying attention to differently now that I am home. I’m sure this could be the subject of many future posts well, but for now, after thinking about his question for a while, I started keeping a list of things that have jumped out to me as points of interest as I reintegrate into my American lifestyle. I’m trying hard not to judge them too much, these things that I’m noticing that I’m paying attention to. I’m trying not to pile them all into “Good” or “Bad” things about America categories. I’m trying to just observe and to connect with the things that I’m thinking paying attention to. But that’s hard. It’s hard not to fall madly in love with some things (see reference to Soy Vanilla Creamer), and it’s hard not to be revolted by others (see reference to TV news shows). And maybe it’s ok to judge. Maybe watching how these judgements evolve is an interesting process in and of itself. The thing is, it’s pretty easy to crawl up on that big ol’ high horse while you’re judging, it’s pretty easy to start preaching, it’s pretty easy to start thinking the grass is greener here or there. So perhaps I make a little deal with myself and let myself go ahead and judge, but also to observe not just the thing that I’m judging but also the judging itself. (Upon re-reading there were a jell of a lot of “judges” there in that last sentence. But, you were following me, right?)

Anyway, here’s a list of some of the most recent things that I’ve been observing (and apparently, also judging):

• The number of pillows we have on beds. I’ve been using this great little blow up travel pillow for the past 9 months. Now I come home and find that on each of the six beds that I’ve slept on (yeah, we’ve been getting around a bit), not only are there pillows for sleeping, but also pillows for propping, pillows to prop up the proppers, and of course, decorative pillows that can come in any array of shapes and sizes.
• The plethora of storage space available. Even the trunk of my car impresses me, not to mention the fact that most homes and apartments have whole rooms just for storage. I obviously need to start acquiring some more stuff to put in these said storage spaces.
• Long days. While in Central America, you’re rather close to the equator. This means that pretty much every day of the year about 12 hours long. It was weird to me to be someplace hot and then have the sun go down at 6pm. I realized that I always equated warm evenings with long evenings. But there, they were short. It was a little Twilight Zone for me. And now here at home, we’re almost at the solstice and the days are as long as can be. They’re not quite warm yet, but having the sun up until 8 or 9pm is delightful and makes me happy to live in the North.
• Cold rain. Another consequence of that equatorial closeness: rain there is warm. Here it is not. I’m happy to some good ol’ Northwest-y weather, but I could’ve handled just a day or two. We’re going on pretty much two weeks straight right now. Ho hum… welcome home.
• WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE streets. Being back in Port Angeles at my parents house, I found myself just staring at how wide the city and residential streets are. I’m sure that every traveler has experienced this and looked at the practically empty streets back home and realized that any other country in the world would have them jam-packed with venders and cars and carts and, in some places, livestock. But here, they’re just hugely enormous, big, empty streets.
• The fact that I used to worry about the possible food safety issues of eating out or eating food off the floor. My first morning home I dropped a precious piece of gorgeous Mt. Townsend Creamery Sea Stack cheese on my mom’s kitchen floor. Not to say that it was particularly dirty floor, but a year ago, I probably would have been a bit grossed out to retrieve it. You obviously know where this is going: I popped that little bit of cheesey-goodness into my mouth without giving it another thought and only when Mom gave me an odd look did I stop to consider that it might not be common practice. Of course now I realize that my travels have not only gifted me with a true appreciation for the utter gloriousness of high quality dairy products, but also an iron stomach and the release of my germ-a-phobia. I mean really… if I made it thru Latin America without even one single full blown case of Montezuma’s Revenge, I think I can handle a few stray kitchen germs. So now I say, “Bring on the taco trucks!” and “Let’s try out that IchiRoll at Mariner’s stadium”
• Time and space to read. I’m sure most of you think that the last nine months have just been a read-fest for me. Part of me wishes that I could say that was so… but really no regrets. Our time abroad, I did read… but mostly the books were in Spanish, which meant I stuck to political thrillers and of course, anything of a vampire persuasion. If I did read in English it was mostly whatever craptastic book that I could find in the hostel book exchange. Not high quality literature to say the least. But now, we have endless books, and GREAT books, to read. (Garrett got 12 new Pulitzer prize-winners for his birthday to get us started.) And now we’re also not trying to get from one town to the next or attempting grand sight-seeing adventures, which means we have the time to just sit and read. AND… perhaps most exciting of all, we have a space to do it. While traveling, it’s maybe once in a blue moon that you find a spot to stay that has a comfortable living area that you want to hang out in and read. Usually… even if you DID want to just spend your afternoon doing nothing but reading, there was no place… no chair, no couch, no kitchen table, to just kick your feet up and hang out at. Here however, we’re graced by the lovely concept of a living room. I love living rooms. And family rooms. And, I’m just starting to learn about these new things called “media rooms”, which, though not good for reading, ARE good for other leisure activities which take the place of reading. So, I’m going to try to keep up my Spanish reading, but with all these other choices and all these couches around… I fear that I might fail at this goal.
• Television news. Ugh… is there anything more depressing that TV news programs? Puuuuu-leeeeeeze… just. shut. up.
• My longing to cook, but being a bit overwhelmed by my array of choices and feeling timid because I fear my cooking muscles may now only remember how to cook popcorn, pasta and rice.
• Pets and animals that I actually like. Dogs and cats in foreign countries are kind of gross, kind of mangy, kind of anorexic-y, and kind of mean. Dogs and cats here rarely have communicable diseases and are usually overfed to a pleasantly plump stage.
• Cell phones. When we first left on our trip, it took me at LEAST two months not to check my pockets every time I heard a cell phone ring. But then, apparently I got used to being without one. When we got on the airplane home, literally EVERYONE was either on their laptop or cell phone clicking away. The stewardess should have announced, “Welcome to America. In order to avoid eye contact or possible interactions with strangers, look at phone and poke at it as if you want it to wake up and dance a gig for you.” Of course, we had to get ours up and running immediately. You know, so that we could communicate once again. Apparently, we also lack the ability to plan any type of engagement without one. They also come in handy for avoiding conversations while in supermarket lines or doing any type of personal introspection that might come while going for a walk or driving without said cell phone. To be clear, I love my phone. Also, I like that people can now call me rather than always having to be the one to call. And texting; that’s a good invention too. For the record… I’ve released my Blackberry and am back to an old school phone that pretty much just does that one thing — call folks. I worry that all to soon, I’ll want my old bb back again and be chronically checking emails every hour, regardless of whether or not I have reason to believe that something urgent awaits me. For now though, it’s kind of nice not to have a multi-tasking device.
• How much electricity and water we use, and use relatively indiscriminately. This is a big one. I went from purchasing every drop of water I drank or used, to having an endless flow available to me. I went from staying in rooms with perhaps one working lightbulb and frequent dependency on my headlamp, to staying in places where each room had multiple lamps and track lighting overhead. I went from being in stores and homes and buildings where rarely would the lights be even turned on during the day, to places where sometimes folks just leave lights to greet them “with ambiance” when they get home. Today alone I’ve done one load of dishes and two loads of laundry, with a few more on the way. The last few days I’ve been hand-washing most of my dishes because I just don’t need the dishwasher, and if it weren’t raining outside right now, I’d be mightily tempted to hang those clothes outside to dry. But it’s just soooo convenient to have all these machines around that do things for me. And, I agree… having the lights on all the time IS more cozy. But, of all the things that feel tangibly different to me… it’s this use of water and electricity like there is no end to it, or that we really NEED all that we use. This is one thing that I’m trying very hard not to judge … just to observe. It’s something I hope to remain conscientious of, even when I take advantage of the easy things and the cozy things, I hope I don’t forget that it doesn’t NEED to be this way.
• Soy vanilla coffee creamer. So much for organic-y, local, grow-your-own hippie fabulous fridge items. This product I’m sure has all sorts of preservatives and ingredients I can’t pronounce. But, it is delicious. Yay America!

(The list goes on… but we’ll save the rest for another post because, DANG, this is already getting so very long.)

And then there are the things that I’m sure will be pondering and pontificating upon for a while. The things that are more than observations, but really lifestyle changes and adaptations that I need to decide how I’ll readjust to, or not. Things like:

• A desire to hide away a bit… a refusal to reconnect completely. I’ve been terribly lately at returning calls and emails, about planning outings, about getting “out” at all. I sort of just want to be, and be home, and be quiet. And frankly, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to do errands, to make plans with others, to have responsibilities, to be fully and physically engaged in people’s lives other than my own. I had this plan that for the last few weeks of our trip, I’d take that time to figure out and plan for the future (or at least the near future) of my life, to process this time away and the trip and the return home. But really, we left in such a hurry that I didn’t even get a condensed version of that experience, so I think that part of this “hide away” tendency is me taking that time now. I think the other thing is that I just sort of have momentarily forgotten what it’s like to be in a world where I actively engage with others. It’s not like I’m rejecting that as part of my desired lifestyle… I’m just a bit out of practice, and I find myself just spacing out on engagements or projects that need to get completed because I’m easily distracted these days. I’m not used to having things that have to get done, or should get done. I’m used to being only responsible for myself and if I don’t feel like brushing my teeth one day, then the only person who’ll I’ll offend that I care about it Garrett and I’ll know he’ll get over it. This absent-mindedness also is a bit more than that. I think I’m still not quite believing that one day in the (hopefully) not too distant future, I WILL have commitments and responsibilities to people other than myself, and other than my family and friends (which is right now about all I can handle). There’s that whole “job” thing looming in the distance and perhaps this hermit-ness is me embracing my one last bastion of calm and selfish control of my own time before I’ll need to integrate other people’s wishes and needs into my life. That sounds like a real bitchy thing to say, but you know that I mean it in the nicest way, right? Anyway, please don’t take it personally if I’m crappy at responding to you. Just poke me a few times. I also seem to respond well to offers of free beer.
• The amount of money we spend, and spend so easily. I’m in the middle of a huge priority review, and I’m just paying attention to how money has played a role in my life in the distant past, in the more recent past, and how I think I want it to play a role in my life in the future. Wow… there could be a whole book here, I’m sure. But, let’s just start by saying that I might be bringing you homemade cookies instead of bottles of wine and expensive cheese the next time I come to visit. You’ll still love me, right?
• People who know my history and who tell me (and to whom I can tell) dirty jokes. People I’m proud of. Again, there are books to be written here… but let’s just keep it easy by saying that I’ve been overwhelmed by how glorious it is to be around My People again. Even if I haven’t seen you yet, being close to you is still glorious. I realized that while traveling I’d just stopped trying. Making 24-hour-friends gets exhausting and frankly, it ends up being disappointing when you realize you never talk about the good stuff anyways. You never get to get to the place where you share secret jokes, where you know their favorite comfort food, where you can trust them enough to ask for advice, or where you’ve known them long enough to watch them grow and surprise you with their goodness. Being back around my people has been, in a word, rejuvenating.  There’s more, of course, but I think for now, that is enough.
• Having to share G with other people, and not getting to talk to him for as long as I want, whenever I want, every day of the week. The fact that he has other things (than me) to spend his time on and with. (Ohhhhh… do I hear little patterings of Jealousy wandering around the halls of my heart? Perhaps.) Ok, again with the bringing up subjects for ridiculously-lengthed journal entries! But, this has been the one thing that I was prepared for when we came home, and perhaps was most nervous about, but that I’m also learning is realistic part of our lives. I think just being aware of it, and being aware that I’m starting to learn how to ask from my partner (as well as my friends and family) what I need from him/them, is a step in the right direction. So, that doesn’t perhaps completely ward off Jealousy… but it might confuse him for a while and make him go knocking on other people’s doors first, and give me more time to prepare my defenses against his persuasive appearances on my door stoop.

3. Where are you going to live?

For once, something that I can answer quickly: Seattle. (We’re currently taking suggestions and bribes for various neighborhoods.)

—–

Ok, so there’s my rather hefty start to this evaluation of our homecoming. Good on you if you’ve made it this far.

And, since you have, perhaps I could impose upon you just for one more moment. Since I’ve been out for a while, and I’m trying hard to get back in touch… I thought it might be interesting to hear what you’ve been up to these last few months. In this next series of posts, I’ll also be asking YOU on easy-ish question… just to help me get my game face back on.

My Questions for you this week:  What is the best book(s) you’ve read this year?

So, on that note, lets fast forward past the snark and get to the good stuff, shall we?

Here’s the de-snarked quick version of the previous post:

On our second to last day in Costa Rica, we got a bunch of stuff stolen, including our cameras, our ipod, one very well-loved pair of super-quick-dry jungle pants, and our computer… complete with all our thousands of pictures from the trip. It sucked. A lot.

The previous entry spoke a lot about my sadness, my anger, my guilt, my frustration. It spoke about all the million “what if’s” and ways it could have been different. But, it mostly spoke about loss. I’ve never had anything stolen before, and I was literally just sick with misery for a few days about the most significant material loss I’ve ever experienced. Those pictures were precious. Ones that I’d hoped to share with children and grandchildren. Ones that I was planning to do crazy artsy collages with, and fill the walls of our some-day-when-we-buy-one house. (As I write this, I’m starting to feel the snark starting to sneak back into… so time to fast forward once again.)

But, here’s the thing… snark or no, the honest truth is that today is a new day. Somewhere not so terribly deep below the surface, I have all those feelings still, but they are starting to fade. I think there will always be some sadness (and understandably so), but honestly, and luckily for me, I just don’t have space for all that negative junk in my world right now.

A friend, upon hearing that we’d lost our stuff, said to me… “You know, just because you lost your photos doesn’t make your adventures, experiences or feelings any less real.” And I’ve really taken that to heart. I was heavily in the doldrums until I refocused on that simple truth and now I feel like I’ve really shaken off the burden of all those crappy, sad feelings and have been able to just enjoy and embrace the funness of coming home. And, happily enough, I’m realizing that while my memory is usually unimpressive, my powers of imagination are a force to be reckoned with. (Take THAT you shitty thief bastard!) I’m able to recall a lot of our trip, and even without the photos, am able to paint a picture with words of our time “out and about.” And… anything that I can’t remember, I feel completely licensed to just make up! I mean, it’s not like we have the pictures to disproove anything either! (Fair warning to all, this whole series of events just might turn me into a pathological liar… or at least a really good story teller.)

The last two weeks at home (and it’s been two weeks exactly today!) have been beyond fabulous. I know I use that word a lot, but really, it couldn’t be more perfectly used. If I sound like I’m on Cloud 9, it’s because I am. I used to have this quote in my college dorm room that said “Life is meant to be good”, and that’s just how I feel right now. We’re snuggled up in the bosom of our family and friends. We’re reacquainting ourselves with creature comforts (like being able to open your mouth in the shower) and life back home (who knew we’d miss couches quite so much?). We’re enjoying connecting with the people and places and things that we’ve not seen in a while, and we’re also taking time to be thoughtful about the things and people and places we’ve now left behind. I’m realizing that I lost some stuff. It was crappy, really crappy. But crappy things happen, and this crappy thing is over and done with. While I don’t think I’ll ever call getting a bunch of my stuff stolen a “blessing in disguise”, I will say that there I’m choosing to focus on the good that is happening in the here and now. The good news of today is that I’ve found about a million new things to be grateful for and to be excited about in just these past two short weeks. Turns out that I’ve found a lot more than I’ve lost, and that’s a pretty glorious feeling.

In short, life is good. Really good.

(And I hope yours is too.)

Well, I hope you do, ‘cuz we’ve got a BIG one!!!!! I wish I could have some type of visual drum roll to build up the anticipation a bit more… but I’ll just let ‘er rip because I can’t stand the suspense any longer!

We’re HOME!

Home! 

We snuck home four days ago just in time to surprise our families for G’s 30th bday (Friday) and to celebrate my grandfather’s wedding (yesterday). And boy, were they ever surprised! (We have super fun videos of us surprising my sis, Mom and Dad Gruver and my grandpa… complete with lots of squeeling, shreaking, falling on the ground, throwing things into the air and swearing, but sadly I can’t seem to get it off my camera right now. Stay tuned…)

If you’re wondering why we went radio silent on the blog and facebook and email for the last week, I guess now you know! Please don’t feel left out that we didn’t tell you earlier. This wasn’t something that we’d been planning for ages and sneaking around hiding for weeks and weeks. This decision to come home (approximately three weeks) early was only made 7 days ago, and because we wanted to keep it a surprise, there were only 5 people on the entire planet who knew we were coming home prior to us touching ground in the good ol’ US of A!  But now that the cat is out of the bag… we couldn’t be more excited to spread the news and celebrate with you all! So… sing it from the rooftops my friends! I know I will be.

More coming soon on how we’re doing,  how the last few weeks on the road were, how we’re feeling about the transition etc, but for now, please know that we’re excessively happy and doing well, we’re joyful about being back in the Northwest and we’re super excited to see you! Here are our immediate plans so that you can catch up with us: We’ll be in Port Angeles hanging with the Gruver clan until Wednesday morning, then heading to Seattle for a few days to catch up with family and as many friends as we can squeeze in, then over to Spokane for about two weeks to re-acquaint ourselves with the Tenold crew and the mightiest nephew ever, then a lightening trip through Portland, a gardening weekend in PA and then back to Seattle by the first week-ish of July for more merry-making and house-hunting and job-searching (eek!)

p.s. Here’s a few fun pics from our first few days back. HOORAY!

 
Celebrating Garrett’s 30th birthday with dinner at the Gruver house and lots of presies!

 
… and vanilla rhubarb compote over angel food cake and apple pie!
The gang’s all here! Having fun with the Dyl, Ash, G, me, Tom and Meg on the beach in Port Townsend right after Pa’s wedding yesterday.

Us, with the lovely bride and groom. My fave quote of twitterpated day was when Patty said to me, “Doesn’t your grandfather loook just like Johnny Cash?”
The whole fam-damnly having a ball at the wedding bash. Do you like that our table has three bottles of champagne on it? Never say that the Gruver’s don’t know how to have a good time.

I’ve thought about these metaphors a lot while traveling and realized that Time has taken on a very different meaning to me over the past eight-plus months. Don’t get me wrong, as a true blue American, I think time and money are about as intertwined in my mind as humanly possible. But, the topic of time has expanded a little bit for me, become a bit more dynamic and a bit more squishy, a bit more fungible, a bit more murky and sometimes even a bit more clear. But if nothing else… Time is a bigger concept to me now, and one that I take a little more care with than a few months ago.

As far as Time and Traveling, it’s more frequent than not that time becomes less important when you’re out of your daily routine. Days are lazy, or if not lazy then certainly unscheduled and self directed, and they sort of blur one into the next. We don’t have very many commitments or time sensitive activities, so I often find myself wondering what day it is, and then not really caring so much even when I find out the answer.

Sometimes, however, time seems like the most important thing: like when you have to catch a once-a-day bus, or when you’re timing your rice for your one-a-day real meal, or like when, say, you have to (get to) go pick your sister that you haven’t seen in 8 months up from the airport!

Time, and how it keeps track of special moments,  anniversaries and milestones in particular, seems more weighty these days. I woke up this morning realizing that today was one of those milestones that I wanted to give just a little extra special attention to, that I wanted to recognize as important, that I wanted to hold on to, that I wanted to share.

A year ago today was the day I was “let go”. I remember specifically because we’d just gotten back from an amazing Mother’s Day weekend with my dear friend Kristen and her family in California. (Oh, and because it was one of the most traumatic days of my life.) There are many other words, euphemisms, and metaphors for this, being canned, being fired, being given the pink slip, or my favorite British phrase, “being made redundant”. No one but the Brits could make something so abruptly life-changing sound so gentle, subtle and sort of confusing.

Yes, it was a horrible morning to say the least. And it was followed by a few angry, sad and frustrating days. But, as with all endings, it was also a new beginning. I can see that now and appreciate it. I haven’t talked much about this experience on the blog. Nor have I talked much about my specific experiences with work or feelings towards jobs that I’ve had, left and/or lost. It seems a little ironic actually that I haven’t talked about it more… seeing that this topic of work and how it has effected (and will effect) my life has been a continuous theme of internal conversation for me for years, and that work, and big changes in work were the very reason for this trip and this blog. But, the name of this blog is “Out of Office Messages”, and I think that while this trip has been an opportunity to physically separate myself from my previous world of work, this blog has been an opportunity for me to mentally and spiritually embrace other things, more important things, in my world. So, since I’ve wanted to use this as an opportunity to explore other things, I haven’t written much about my work experiences much.

And today, on this anniversary day, I’m happy to report that I’m not writing about losing my job to dwell on the crazy heart break or self doubt or hurt that came from that day one year ago. Today, I’m writing to celebrate what came after that day.

That day gave me opportunity to be really angry and be really sad (two feelings that I hadn’t felt very much before and that opened up new parts of me that were both dark and scary, as well as strong and confident), and the opportunity to chose to let go, to chose to move on, to chose forgive and the opportunity to chose to be happy. In this past year I’ve learned a lot about sharing how I’m feeling, I’ve learned a lot about trusting my community to support me and hold me up when I need them, just as I want to support them and hold them up when they need me. I’ve learned about asking for what I need and about trusting myself to overcome. I’ve learned how to open myself to Possibility. I’ve learned to believe myself when I say that I can be an active participant in embracing Possibility. I’ve learned that angry can be a productive feeling sometimes, but that guilt is not. I’ve learned that “failing” can lead to a whole lot of growth and that a few scars from the battle field of life make a person a bit more interesting, and a bit more capable of dealing with the world for all it’s goodness and all its ugliness. I’ve learned to a lot about compassion. I’ve had the opportunity to look at what I’m good at, what I’m not. I’ve learned to be a little more honest with myself and to take the risk of being honest with others. I’ve grown enough to be able to be content with the good person that I am, and enough to continue to strive to become the better person that I know I can be. I’ve learned how to talk to myself, and how to listen, and to make sure that I continue the discussions with myself and ask the questions of myself about what it means to be happy, how I can create happiness, and how I can be confident and calm, strong and vulnerable, kind and self-protective, generous and selfish, loyal and true to myself.

So, Happy “Getting Kicked to the Curb” Anniversary to me. May all my years ahead be this full of growth and opportunity.

But today is not just an anniversary, it’s also an important marker and milestone. Today is the day that starts our one-month count down to getting on a plane and returning home to the great ol’ U S of A. That’s exciting for many many reasons, especially since you might have heard that my patience is wearing thin with a few choice woes that you find along the Traveler’s Road. But truly, as much as I’m looking forward to having tea with my mom and wine with my dad at our backyard picnic table, and as much as I’m looking forward to riding up river with Greg and Jan, and playing with Thor and talking (talking!) with Parker, and meeting the nine (9!!!!) new babies that have been born since we’ve been gone, and reacquainting ourselves with the rest of our wonderful family and friends once again, the thing that I’m looking forward to most (ok, aside from my slippers), is just continuing on this adventure.

I totally know that sounds cheesy, but it’s really how I feel. Today marks the one month mark until I get to start seeing how the next chapter of our lives will unfold and that is actually really exciting to me. I feel like there’s the possibility of getting caught in the trap of being sad about leaving this adventure, as if there’s nothing adventurous about what’s next. Or, there’s the possibility of thinking about nothing but home for the next few weeks and miss out on what’s in front of me. But, (mini happy dance) I’m in a good place (physically and emotionally) right now and I’m really excited about the next month of fun. I feel like I’m currently finding a great balance between enjoying the now of today and also looking forward to the future. It’s a happy feeling to look forward to a home coming, and it’s a happy feeling to know that what’s next (whatever that might be) will be a great adventure as well. Whatever fear or anxiety or apprehension or trepidation that I have about the future, are easily trumped by a pleasant and giddy anticipation, and a confidence that as this journey of our lives continues, we have a lot to look forward to.

And as for today – T-O-D-A-Y!!! – I am also joyfully celebrating the arrival of my sweet sister bear, Megan Brook. It’s been eight months since we’ve seen each other, and I think this is a wonderful opportunity to just take a moment to jump up and down with a huge obnoxious grin on my face, and be excited that today marks the first day of our happy 10 day reunion. I’m super excited that we get to spend this good quality time together, and that we get to spend it together in Costa Rica! Tikos… watch out… the Gruver girls are on the march!

A super goofball pic of Meg and I in our first hostel room in Costa Rica. (Grin!)

So, for the record, we’re spending our time here well celebrating the past, the future and the present. And, I hope, where ever you are, that you are as well.

I re-read my thoughts this morning, and found them humorous and a little enlightening, so I thought I’d share.

—

Done!

F’ing done with shitty hostel rooms that charge too much and are still disgusting. Done with being hot. Done with being ripped off. Done with being stared at. Done with being scared of dark alleys and groups of young guys, and done being harassed to buy ugly trinkets and being made to feel guilty that I don’t want them, even though the people selling them aren’t wearing shoes.

Done with 50 minute friendships. Done with seeing dead bodies on the cover of newspapers. Done with stores that are closed on weekends and in the mid-afternoons.

Done with chipped plaster walls, questionable sheets, hard beds, saggy beds, beds with springs poking me in the hip and shoulder.

Done with drinking water out of plastic god-damn bottles. Done with bad service. Done with eating over-priced gringo food because I’m afraid the other options will give me food poisoning. Done with people littering right in front of me. Done with garbage and dog shit everywhere. Done with skinny cows, skinny dogs, and skinny kids.

Done with having my space invaded. Done with searching for the right words. Done with explaining our trip. Done with daydreaming of home and of salads and sanitary pillows. Done with never having privacy.

Done with turning my underwear inside out. Done with wearing thongs in the shower and always carrying TP in my pocket.

Done with never having a place to put things. Done with searching for places to stay, to eat, to sit, to read. Done with not having a bra that fits or earrings that I like. Done with never looking nice.

Done with colonial towns, central parks and catholic churches.

DONE WITH THE HEAT. Done with the sweat.

Done with barking dogs and squawking chickens. Done with florescent overhead lights. Done with bug bites, stained clothes, dull razors, bad smells and shared bathrooms.

Done with worrying about currency exchange rates and whether or not the ATM will have cash. Done with feeling guilty for my opportunities. Done with feeling undirected. Done with feeling nervous every time I’m in a cab or walking down the street by myself. Done with distrusting people as a default.

Done.

—

I’m a little embarrassed about my hissy fit, but I know that these things happen. And, those feelings, those frustrations, are honest ones, so I’m just taking a moment to sit with them.

It’s easy for me to understand being tired and done with those physical feelings of discomfort. Being grumpy about and being done with the heat, the bugs, the crappy beds are frankly pretty normal and although when they hit you all at once they can amount to a whole lot of grumpiness and the desire to change the return date of your ticket home, they’re also the easiest to find ways to work around. You get a room with a fan. You treat yourself to an ice cream cone. You take the AC bus rather than the local bus. You watch some mindless American television. And all of a sudden… those discomforts seem a little more bearable.

The ones that I didn’t realize were weighing on me so are the things that I have less control over. We recently took busses through the sketchiness of Tegucigalpa and Managua, and we’ve heard some very scary stories about the daily violence in people’s lives here in Honduras and Nicaragua. I knew that being in this part of Central America felt different, but I didn’t realize until I reread my stream-of-consciousness rants just how tired I was of feeling a little unsafe pretty much all the time. It’s tiring to always be vigilant, to always actively make choices that protect your safety, to always be distrustful first, rather than my default of being friendly. It’s not how I want to treat people, and safety isn’t something that I want to have to actively consider all the time.

Along the same lines, there’s something really tiring about having lingering feelings of hopelessness and cynicism all the time. For example, we went to the shores of the enormous Lake Nicaragua recently, and were greeted by sewage pouring into the lake and the “beach” being literally covered in piles and piles of garbage. This made me sad, and it made me angry. It made me feel like people weren’t respecting their own home, like people weren’t proud of where they came from, like people were actively making choices to destroy things of beauty. Within minutes, Garrett and I had devised a multi-pronged clean-up plan that would reengage the community and give them a lakefront that they could be proud of.

And then the hopelessness hits as you realize that having a dirty beachfront are really the least of their problems. It’s sort of hard to worry about recycling, when people feel unsafe in their own homes, when people don’t trust their own government not to steal from them, when having the police knock on your door, might mean that your family will never hear from you again.

Thinking thoughts like this certainly give you perspective on the world, help you make good decisions and make you want to be an active participant in solving problems in your own community, but that doesn’t mean that these types of internal dialogs don’t lead to some emotional exhaustion. Of course we want to run away from it every once in a while, or maybe even permanently. We have to step back and retreat from being horrified by it all. The running away, the being DONE with it (at least for a while) keeps us sane enough to live to fight another day. And, as Garrett reminded me last night, it’s good for us to have this experience too. it makes me furious that people, even in America – the land of the free, feel unsafe in their own communities. Now that I have experienced even a sliver what that feels like, I find it unacceptable. I’m not just compassionate towards other people who live that way, I feel a fire growing in me, a sort of burning need to find ways to change this for others.

For the record… I’m MUCH better today, Campers. I’m still, for the most part, done with all of the above, but not nearly so grumpy about life and it’s circumstances. It’s a cool(ish) early morning here. I’m sitting on our second story balcony looking down at lime trees and a bright red hibiscus plant. There’s a nice breeze. I’m not actively sweating. I have no new bug bites. Yesterday morning, we immediately moved hostels (which we’ve learned can make a dramatic and immediate change in attitude) to a place with two fans, a clean bathroom, soft sheets, a closet (so we don’t have to stare at our backpacks all the time) and a TV, and which (drum roll) did not smell like mildewing death. We spent the morning visiting a colonial monastery that had been turned into a museum, for about twenty minutes, and then proceeded onto a gringo restaurant where we spent about two and a half hours chatting over waffles and bacon and pineapple smoothies. The rest of our day was spent wandering around town, and when it got too hot, we took a siesta and watched “Two and a Half Men” and “the Simpsons” episodes in the darkness of our room with the fans pointing directly at us, while eating mangos and cucumber slices that we had chilled in our refrigerator. We eventually stole ourselves away from the TV long enough to go for a nice evening stroll and partake of a watermelon smoothie (for me), a few caipirinas for Garrett and some chicken fajitas. We had a relatively early evening, and I work up this morning feeling pretty excited about round two of waffles and bacon.

Oh the difference a day can make.

I believe I left you in Tikal after a blessedly cool jungle tour of some of the world’s most impressive Mayan ruins (sacrificial stone altars and all). The next part of our trip, we’d packed pretty darn full of travel and adventures, which, as you might imagine, resulted in some pretty fun, and funny, adventures.

Our first adventure took place after (or some might say during) a 7 hour bus ride through the mountains of Guatemala. I think some times we North Americans forget to say a frequent “Thank You” to the Gods of Transportation, for giving us our nicely paved highways and freeways which have what I’m coming to realize is a blessed lack of pot holes and speed bumps and seemingly unnecessarily twists and turns. We also forget to say our Thank You’s about the fact that almost all of us have our very own individual air conditioned cars, or the fact that rarely in these said individual cars do we ever have enough butts in them to fill up all the comfy seat-belted seats, let do we ever worry about overflow ratios between butts and seats. That’s not to say I’m not a good sport when it comes to bussing around the other Americas. There’s something kind of inherently adventurous about packing oneself into an old school bus or a rickety minivan and hurtling down the bumpy “highways”. It’s an everyday test of faith and the fortitude of Dramamine. But, I did just want to stop for a minute and be thankful for my lovely, comfy, air conditioned (hybrid, fancy pants) vehicle awaiting me back home in Pa’s garage (to take me, with my chai tea latte, to the organic farmers markets), and another quick “thanks” to whomever is keeping most of Americas roads well-paved and tarred. And, for good measure, I think it’s high time my good friend Dramamine got a few rounds of appreciative applause. If it’s saved us once, it’s saved us a hundred time from fearing the most the basic part of our travels.

But anyway, we made our way from Flores to Lanquin, Guatemala. After a lengthy travel day, we were very ready to kick back and relax outside of the confines of a 10’x6’ van. Luckily, we’d been recommended to stay at a lovely little hostel (El Retiro), where we were greeted by lush gardens sweeping down a lovely hill to a nicely burbling river, and sweet little thatched cabins. (Garrett and I hysterically ended up with an “attic” room, only accessibly by ladder. If you’ve never climbed up a vertical ladder in a skirt, which a 35lb backpack on, I recommend you try it with care. And a spotter.) We also were treated to a huge gourmet buffet dinner. Usually, as a rule, I’m anti-buffet. I realize they can be good. It is a functional possibility. It’s just such a rare occurrence, that I’d put the possibility out of my mind. When a heard that Dyl had signed us all up for the dinner buffet (which was also suspiciously cheap), my camel ride alarm bells went off. But this little buffet, out in the middle of nowhere Guatemala, has made me a firm believer in their potential delightfulness. After many days of ho-hum food, this buffet – which included soup, homemade bread, eight kinds of salads (including one with homemade pickled beets!), guacamole, quesadillas, hummus, pitas, grilled chicken, black beans, and fried plantains – was a sight for sore  eyes and hungry bellies. We may have also drank a little beer that night.

As great as that dinner was, and as pretty as our mountain surroundings were, they had nothing on our outing the following day. Actually, as far as days go, I think this was one of my favorite days in all of our travels. Obviously the day went from great to great-tastic (with multiple accompanying exclamation points) because I was able to share it with folks I adore, but even with that set aside, it combined a lot of things I love… crazy adventures in new places, beautiful nature, swimming, fits of uncontrollable laughter, weird animal sightings, doing things I didn’t think I could do and even a little exercise. We were heading to Semuc Chamey just outside of Lanquin.

Lanquin, Guatemala is in the central part of the country, about 5 hours north of the capital, Guatemala City, Guatemala. Aside from miles and miles of cardamom and coffee plantations (which I must say, are rather attractive all on their own), it’s main attractions lie beneath the soil. This part of Guatemala is jam-packed with limestone, and thanks to a rather a lot of water moving the hills, there is a veritable plethora (two of my favorite college essay words) of caves and interesting water features.

Our day started off unexpectedly fabulous. We’d signed up for a tour to see some of these said caves, and you know how I usually feel about tours. Sigh. However, this day tour almost made up for this day tour – it was that good. We piled into the back of a truck early in the morning and bumped our way up river to a craggy limestone cave entrance. Here, we were each given candles and we wandered with our guide into a cave which we quickly realized had a river running through it.

I think most people would have found this cave wander enjoyable, but I couldn’t help myself from giggling every step of the way. As soon as my toes touched the water, the smile started. As we got up to our knees it had become full-blown snorting laughter, aided of course by the belly laughs and shouts from my brother, my sweetie and our two caving companions. Not sure why it struck us as funny, but it did. It just seemed like a sort of silly thing to be doing… wandering through a river-filled cave with candles as our only light. The water was cold and the air was thick from all the waxy candle smoke and lack of circulation. Seeing that I have a not-so-mild case of claustrophobia, one might think that I’d have been bothered by this, but apparently, when your laughing hysterically, it doesn’t leave much room for being afraid. (A good reminder for ways to boot fears in the future – laugh.)

Soon we were wading through water up to our chests and dodging stalagmites and stalactites that we could barely see in the dimness. At some moments we were even swimming for 20-30 feet at a time, either one-handed or with our candles in our mouths to keep our lights from getting doused by the water. Further inside the cave we climbed up slimy wooden ladders and somewhat precariously-attached ropes to get ourselves deeper into the passageway. At one point in time, Dyl and Grant even scaled a waterfall inside the cave, which was very manly of them, to be sure. Not to be out-adrenalined, when we neared the back of the cave, I jumped off a high ledge into the black pool below. Our guide kept saying, “Jump right there,” pointing to one specific landing spot that was deep enough – and after I did jump, and missed whatever unseen obstacles might have been lurking, I did think for a moment “Hmmm that may not have been the smartest idea ever”. However, just a few moments later, I found myself with Dyl, Fi, Grant and Garrett and our guide shimming our way through a weensy hole made by a mini waterfall and dropping into a secret passageway that reconnected to the main river tunnel and the rest of the group. Perhaps also not terribly smart, but it was terribly thrilling, and fantastic! And the whole time, I kept thinking… “I feel like I’m in the Goonies!” (It’s our time, our time, down here… << If you get this reference, I’m sure we’ll be friends for life.)

It was an exhilarating time, and also a rather magical one. The light of our candles reflected off the water and made a glowing path to follow within the caves pools. I felt at times like I was venturing into some underground Tolkien-esque world, where elves and dwarves and fairies might be just around any corner, or perhaps they were looking down on us from the cave’s shadows above. We found ourselves speaking in whispers and holding back from the rest of the group so that we could venture quietly through the dips and tunnels and pools of the caves. Just magical.

Needless to say, the river-cave spelunking was good times. It ended far too soon for my taste, but, before it was over we did get this priceless picture (which may be my all time fave of G) which made the trip even more worth it:

Honestly, I would have been happy even if our day’s adventures ended there… but as luck would have it, things were just getting started. Next up… River tubing! The day was hot and the river was cold, so even though our tubes had seen better days, and we didn’t exactly have rapids to shoot (this river couldn’t hold a candle to my old tubing standbys back home, the Cedar and the Quilcene Rivers), we managed to enjoy this part of our day as well. Especially because, for me, any day I see my little bro dunk himself in a spectacular triple sow cow/belly flop/tube flip, it’s a good day for me.

(L) Grant with his wonky tube and (R) Dyl recovered from his flop.

Next on our list was a hike up to the overlook above the Semuc Champay river (a gorgeous view where you can see the river’s multiple limestone-lined pools). The path was well-kept, and not too long, but Lordy was it hot out… and there were a lot of steps. Let me repeat A LOT of steps. It was pretty much an hour and a half on nature’s version of the StairMaster. But… as luck would have it, we were greeted with one hell of a view at the top:

(Top) We made it! All of us at the lookout. I’m disgustingly sweaty, beet red and have mega hat hair, so please don’t look too closely. (Bottom) Close up of the pools at Semuc Champay.

After seeing what lovely pools awaited us, we took the required photos for our souvenirs books and then booked it back down to go jump in the water. The pools were clear and refreshing and the limestone ledges leading from one pool to the other were like mini waterslides. After a few hours of splashing around, it was time to leave, but our adventures for the day weren’t quite over yet.

We dropped off the rest of our tour back at the hostel and then got into the back of a different truck and bumped our way along to a different series of caves. While there weren’t any rushing rivers in these caves (anymore), nor were fairies lurking in the shadows, there were other little creatures for us to discover there and other reasons to enjoy the caves.

 
The first part of our cave hike was pretty straight forward. We checked out lots of cool rock formations and slipped and slid our way around the guano-covered pathways. Then our guide, taking us for experienced spelunkers, decided that we needed to go “off-roading”. With just three head-lamps between us, we soon found ourselves scrambling up and over boulders and trying to suck in our stomachs as we skinnied in between ledges and up vertical shoots. In reality it was a quick detour. But while I found it sort of thrilling, a few others in our awesome fivesome, were a little less impressed with the cave’s scenic byway. In particular, Fiona (who HATES spiders) had the unfortunate experience of coming face-to-face with a rather large cave arachnid in an unexpected moment (I’ve never seen her move so fast in my life). And Garrett, who is a pretty big guy to be sneaking through small spaces, found the whole spelunking experience just a little too adventurous for his tastes.

Garrett and Fi decided to head back out the “normal” route, while Grant and Dyl and I cruised a little deeper into the depths with our guide. The advanced caving was super fun, but it did end up being more technical than I’d expected. In fact, Grant and I both left blood sacrifices to the cave gods before the evening was through. The good news is that we made it out in tact, and without falling into a cave’s abyss, without cracking our heads open on anything, without getting bitten by spiders and without having bats fly in our hair. We did however have bats fly near our hair and we while no bat pooped directly onto us, the point was made moot by the fact that we all slid in enough guano to be fully coated by the evening’s end.

When we reunited with Garrett and Fi at the mouth of the cave once again, we were all exhausted, but we all had smiles on our faces as well. As I went to bed that night, I was struck by the greatness of the day. Of course I was pleased to have seen and done so many fun things, and so happy to have shared them with people I adore, but more than that, (and hopefully this doesn’t sound patronizing) I realized that I was also quite proud of myself and my travel partners for our adventures that day.

My pride in Grant and myself is pretty straight forward and easy to explain. Grant hasn’t traveled much in developing countries and never to Latin America. At times, this type of travel can be hard, grueling even. But Grant was never once without a smile. Smiles, optimism and general good humor can’t be underestimated in their powerful effect on other people, and Grants’ were no exception. I was proud of him for experiencing everything around him with gusto and with an open mind and heart. Also, I loved getting to see the land, the people and this part of the world through his eager and amiable eyes. He reminded me to be joyful in the moment and to appreciate just how special this opportunity was.

As for me, I climbed up a big ol’ hill that I thought would be really hard, but found myself encouraging others rather than complaining as we walked (or trudged, as I’d usually say). In addition, I laughed in the face of my fears of tight spaces, dark spaces, high spaces and physical exertion (not sure what that last phobia is called: exercisaphobia?), and came out on the other side exhilarated when at other times difficult moments like these have left me feeling a bit defeated.

As for G and Fiona, my pride in them was rather more nuanced. When we were in the last cave together and we decided to go on and they decided to go back, my first thought was, “Oh, come on… don’t wuss out.” But quickly, that thought was replaced by a few ideas I’ve been working on for myself lately as well. (1) Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you have to. (2) Being courageous sometimes means saying no, especially when other people want you to say yes. (3) Everyone has their own limits. Pushing the limits can sometimes be a good thing. Pushing them always, is just reckless. Making other push them unwillingly is basically the definition of being a bully.

I was realizing that for Fiona and G (who both had been given a good case of the heeby-geebies by the enormo cave spider and who weren’t interested in another close encounter with spiders OR with the bats who were just starting to wake up), scraping through holes in cave walls was no longer adventurous or fun. It had moved into that type of activity that feels like a a “have to” rather than a “want to” sort of thing. I think sometimes we have this “hard core” culture that bullies us into doing things that we don’t want to because we don’t want to “wuss out” or look weak. Even after having an internal dialog with myself many times about the balance between pushing a comfort zone in a healthy way and making decisions based on social pressures, I still had to fight my urge to goad them into continuing on with us. I’m happy to say that my more mature side won out this time, and I honestly was glad to see them turn back. Not that I didn’t want them with us. Obviously I did. But, I was proud of them for doing the uncomfortable thing – not the uncomfortable thing of continuing on with us and putting themselves in a place they didn’t want to be, but the uncomfortable thing of saying “no thanks”. I was proud of them for making a decision that helped them create more happiness in their world, and proud of Dyl, Grant and I for supporting them in that choice.

Last but not least… Spud. G and I have had quite a few adventures on this trip and in our lives together. I know that, and I’m thankful for it. But, when I think about who of all the people I know has the true heart of an adventurer, it’s Dylan. He’s independently minded (sometimes stubbornly so). He’s charming and scrappy (both come in handy for getting through tough travel days). He’s funny, self confident and smart – all of which make him a terribly valuable travel companion (and friend). He loves trying new things and seeks them out with a passion and finesse that I truly admire.

Of course, no one can annoy you more than your siblings… I admit that freely. And even on this perfect day, I’m sure there was a moment or two of “Oh geeze, Spud” (said in the sarcastic tone that only an older sister can take with her younger brother). But, what stood out to me that evening was that I was really proud of Dylan and his truly adventurous spirit. I was proud that he had chosen to travel during his one week of spring break. I was proud that he picked a place like Guatemala, rather than Cancun (though honestly, that’s a pretty good choice too). I was proud that he’d encouraged his two close friends to join him on a trip that wasn’t going to be very relaxing or even very comfortable at times. I was proud that he had become our group cheerleader and made us laugh when we were tired. I was proud that, more than once that day, he was at his very best … encouraging me to try something I thought was too hard or scary (like swimming with him into the back of the river cave without our lights just to see how dark it would get) and always there to offer a hand when I needed it (both figuratively and literally, like when my short little arms couldn’t reach across the overhang we were climbing in the cave). It’s a nice feeling to remember that not only do you love your brother, but that you like him a lot too. And that he’s a hell of a good guy.

Now, let me tell you, all these happy, fuzzy thoughts (along with some good old fashioned physical exhaustion), made for one heck of a good night sleep. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

** I lamely forgot to give photo credits for most of these awesome pics. The cave pics (including the one of the spider) are thanks to fellow traveler and friend Jenna D. (http://jenandwhitadventures.wordpress.com/) and the hip-sta-matic square pics are from my favorite guy from Tennessee, Grant.

So, what’s this battle been about you ask? I’m actually interested to hear your thoughts, so I’ll happily share.

This weekend we hit the 8 month milestone for this trip, which also means that we’ve started the two month count down until we head back home. I know… TWO MONTHS!!! This has instigated lots of chats about the future including: plans for the summer (seriously folks, the Tenuver calendar is filling up… so please reserve your spot today!), ideas for BBQ menus (G is very excited to get back to his grill and experiment with apple wood smoked ribs, among other things; I mostly dream about goat cheese pizza on the grill), and thoughts about our summer canning priorities (which so far include some corn chutney, at least two experimental batches of tomato jam, some homemade mustard and about a million jars of pickles – half being my mom’s hot pepper dill recipe,  a quarter being Mimi’s sweet pickle recipe, and the other quarter being Ms. Collins’ famous pickled green bean recipe which Garrett shamelessly and frequently pines for). It’s true, most of our conversations about heading home revolve around food: cooking it, eating it, and sharing it with all the people we love. We also talk about drinking Manny’s beer embarrassingly often. We may also discuss our excitement about once again being near our slippers. Really people, it’s the little things, isn’t it?

But… as for the battle…

We’re thinking more seriously about what we want to spend our time on when we head back home, not just in the first few weeks (which will hopefully be chock full of friends, family, and the aforementioned, BBQ’ing, canning, Manny’s drinking and slipper wearing), but also for, you know, the rest of our lives. It’s an interesting point to ponder, no? And, of course, we’ve been questioning what our lives will look like in the broadest of sense – not just what our work will be, or when it will be, or where it will be, or who it will be with (which are very interesting and confusing and provoking questions), but also what do we want to create for ourselves in the OTHER part of our lives. And, most importantly, how do we get these two parts of our lives to collaborate? In fact, we’ve been asking ourselves recently, are we crazy to think that it’s possible to have these parts of our lives unified towards a collective goal? To be said another way… is there really such a thing as a happy person with “work-life balance”?

We asked ourselves this question, and tried to think of one single person we know what has figured this out, and done it in a way that is (drum roll…) financially solvent and sustainable. So far… we can’t think of anyone. If you think you fit the bill… please wave your hands and yell loudly, so that we can find you in the crowd, ok? We’d like to make you dinner and then try to figure out how to duplicate your magic recipe.

But, to tell you the truth, after 5 years in start-up land, it’s not exactly the first time that I’ve questioned how to create a life where I’m connected to work AND where I value my own time enough to explore other things I love to do AND where I am able to make a space for spending quality time developing and paying attention to the relationships that enrich my life so much. I get it. It’s difficult. But that’s only half of what I’ve been battling with as of late.

The real battle-worthy question on my plate currently is about something I usually only pay minimal attention to: Money.

I feel like Money and I have a funny relationship. Mostly, I feel like I ignore Money. I’ve never taken (or turned down) a job because of Money. I didn’t base my decision for college on Money (as some of you know… Willamette has a very beguiling and persuasive baby duckling population), even though this could have really come back to bite me in the you-know-what had Papa Gruv not suggested that I get my act together and finish up early. Most of my life decisions have been based on increasing my Happiness factor rather than the bank account. I’ve always sort of figured that when it came to Money… we’d work it out. It’s not a very mature or comprehensive relationship, but there you go. I’ve had some fat times and some super lean times, and, I’m pleased to report that I’ve been very happy in both.

But now… as I’m thinking about being an active participant in creating what my future life will look like, I’m finding myself thinking about Money rather a lot. I know I’m going to change directions and I have a hunch that I want to try something totally new and different, but ever-so-quietly, I’ve been finding myself often thinking about “what’s next” in terms of happiness vs. cash. Or, in other words, Love OR Money.

The sneaky truth of the matter is that even though I thought I’d spent all this time ignoring Money and letting bygones be bygones, I had really been developing my own messed up (ok, I wanted to use a different, stronger word here, but my mom said that I’ve been swearing too much on the blog lately, so I’m trying to tone it down) relationship with It, just like everyone else in the the Western world. Sneaky indeed.

For example… as I think about potential future jobs… I have this crazy idea that if I happen to look for and find a job where I make a decent salary, that I’ll be completely unhappy with the rest of my life; that for some reason, Money will mean that the job is necessarily overly burdensome, that the people I work with will be heartless and unfriendly, that the job will suck away my happiness and keep me from having any time for myself and my loved ones. Contrarily, I realized that when I thought about lower salary jobs, I was equating less cash with more freedom, more happiness and more time for other parts of my life.

I actually posed this thought to my parents when they were traveling with us a few months ago in Argentina. As we were talking about it and about various hypothetical career paths for me, I realized that not only was I thinking about Money and Happiness in terms of absolutes, but I also realized that even based on my own personal experience, this idea that a lower salary job equates to more freedom and more happiness was absolutely, 100%, inarguably incorrect.

Here was my moment of clarity:

But wait… In my professional life, the time I was making the least money was the time in my life where I was most unhappy, where I had the least time for myself and my loved ones, and where I was stressed out beyond belief. The times in my life when I happen to have been better compensated were the times when I was happier, had more “free time” and when I really explored other goals and opportunities more fully than ever before. Oh crap, maybe Money doesn’t necessarily lead to unhappiness after all.”

I believe this is the part where my parents began to laugh hysterically; supportively, but hysterically none the less.

After being rather embarrassed about this discovery, I shut it up in the back of my mind, hoping that I’d have a while until I had to think about it again. Guess what? Now is that time.

I realize that as I contemplate the future… whether we want to be City Mice or Country Mice… whether we’re ok with one car, or whether we’ll need two… whether or not I can give up my trips to Beehive and the Sweet Spot… whether we’ll be renters or buyers… whether we’ll be condo-dwellers with 9 types of cheese in our fridge or whether we’ll have a wee little bungalow with a really big garden… these questions about my relationship with Money have come back to lurk. More than anything, it’s just weird to spend time thinking about something that I never before thought was important. (I know, welcome to the land of Grown Ups, right?)

I know I can live simply, but I also know that I like goat cheese and hosting ridiculous dinner parties. I know that I’ll be happy, that I’ll work hard and that I’ll be proud of my vocation (or avocation), regardless of whether or not I receive a pay check or how large that paycheck might be. But, I also know that I find the ideas of retiring early or taking my family on vacation or venturing out on another “radical sabbatical” with Garrett someday to be terribly alluring.

Garrett’s Tutu always said that in order to live the good life, you needed to have both Time AND Money. I’m starting to be convinced that this might in fact be truer that I ever wanted to admit before.

There’s a lot of push and pull here.  I find myself for the first time asking questions like, “How much is enough?” which is just super overwhelming (and a little sickening when put into the context of the lives of all the people we’re spending time with here) for all SORTS of reasons. I’ve been having a rather raucous internal dialog about how I am (but shouldn’t be) making decisions based on a fear of lack and/or a fear of what you have to give up to create abundance.

But, as my dear friend M would probably tell me… “Katie, this is a sucker’s choice.” (As in, only a suckers would make themselves decide between things that aren’t really mutually exclusive.) But, try as I might… I just can’t help it. Apparently, I’m a big ol’ sucker.

I guess these choices are easy for some people. I guess some folks have less “messed up” relationships with Money (or with Happiness) than I do. Actually, I think Happiness and I do pretty well together. We’ve been hanging out for a while now, and I think we’ve learned to speak the same language. Truth be told, I dig Happiness rather a lot. I just feel like the party got a little more complicated now that I’ve invited Money to come and hang out with me and Happiness. It’s a weird little love triangle that leaves me feeling a bit confused, dirty and unsure of my next steps. And you know how I like being sure-footed. Sigh.

–

The truth is, there’s a lot more to all this new round of Thinkyness. Money is just one part, but it’s something that feels so new and uncomfortable to be thinking about that I thought I’d just throw a few ideas out there and see what stuck (and what stunk). And now I feel like I’ve just written the intro chapter to some strange self-help book, and truth be told… I’m a little embarrassed about the whole thing. But it’s all written and spell checked, so it seems a shame to erase it all. 

That being said, I’d love to hear your thoughts about how you balance Happiness and Money. Have you ever made a choice (consciously or unconsciously) towards one or the other? How did it work out for you? How do you chose between having Time and/or having Cash in your world? Are you making sacrifices now to live “the good life” later? Or is all of that saving just waiting for a rainy day that will never come? Or is all of this a big ol’ sucker’s choice? What else am I missing here that I should be thinking about?

Consider and discuss. Thank you.

Ok, so it hasn’t ALL been craziness. Our first day together in Flores, Guatemala was actually pretty chill. After their all night bus ride from Guatemala city, and our 11 hours of bumpy bus travel from Belize the day before, we were all ready for some good food, some time in hammocks, and a wee bit of Central American sunshine. Luckily for us, we were able to easily access all of the above in Flores, and seeing that it was 100 degrees outside (literally), we also got in some good swim time in the cool, but questionable (as in, where exactly does this town dump its sewage?) waters of the lake that Flores sits atop. 
Fiona and Dyl get sunburned on Day 1, and Grant parties like a rock star in our hostel’s hammock.

The next day we’d booked a tour for Tikal – one of the gems of the Mayan empire. This impressive series of ruins rise out of the jungle in northern Guatemala just about two hours outside of Flores. The ruins are spread out over more than 6 square kilometers, and while the temples are terribly impressive now even in their crumbling state, imagining them at the height of their use (between 700-900 AD), intricately painted in red, yellow, green and blue and surrounded by more than 50,000+ inhabitants was quite mind boggling. For your first day in Guatemala, you really couldn’t do much better.

(Left) First glimpse of our first Mayan tower at Tikal. (Right) A 6 ft tall Mayan head recently unearthed in one of the temple walls.

We were lucky. The previous day had been sticky hot, and I’d been dreading, really dreading, the thought of hiking around in the jungle in 100 degree heat. The idea of climbing up rickety ladders and crumbling stairs to look out over the Tikal vistas may sound romantic, but I was also preparing myself for enormous jungle mosquitoes and mild heat stroke. I had to have a little chat with myself while we were waiting for our 4:30am (yes… 4:30 AM people!) pick up, that I was going to try my very best to not be grump-tastic if it turned out to be crazy hot. (Although, for the record, I feel like if you wake up at 4am, you sort of have an excuse to be grumpy, regardless of the weather.) I have a tendency to go from fine and dandy to throwing daggers in the course of seconds when I get over-heated (thanks for that little genetic glitch, mom). I decided that I’d induce the “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” mantra, which some people may think of as the silent treatment, but really, I promise, you’re rather NOT hear what I’m thinking sometimes. And anyway, I was going to try my best to be the perky tour guide for Dyl and Fiona and Grant on their first day… and I was prepared to lie through my teeth about my personal state of happiness if necessary.

Fortunately (for everyone’s sake), it was a lovely, cool and misty-rainy day. While the rain could have ruined some peoples’ trip to Tikal, for me… it was a blessing. We walked our tushes off, and explored the Mayan alternative to the Stair Master (many of the towers we climbed were over 4 stories high), and all and all had a fantastic time. Best of all, I didn’t need to invoke my mantra even once (miracle of miracles). And, as a bonus, as if the natural beauty of the place wasn’t enough, we also actually learned a thing or two from our guide while we were there. For example, did you know:

• When Tikal was in use, there were no trees at all in the complex. The people of Tikal actually plastered the entire city’s floor (that would be all 6 square kilometers — oh, the things you can do with slave labor!) with white chalk.
• Tikal means Village of Voices… all of the towers are acoustically arranged so that if you clap your hands it makes the sound of the Quetzal bird, the national bird of Guatemala.
• The kings of Tikal were really into their human sacrifices. Usually, the “lucky” participants were babies, virgins and the strongest warriors of conquered villages. Although the sacrifices weren’t quite as gruesome as the Aztecs (no hearts being ripped out here), the Mayan did their fair share of castrations and beheadings as well as your run of the mill sacrifices. But, in case your feeling a bit sentimental for these folks, I’ll pass along this tidbit from our guide: “Not to worry. The kings and priests were very conscientious. They heavily drugged their sacrifices with psychotropic drugs before the Big Moment. That way the sacrifices weren’t terribly worried when the guy with the knife headed in their direction.” Very thoughtful, no?
• The kings and high priests of Tikal were usually obese and often times more than twice as tall as an everyday laborer due to their better nutrition (sometimes they’ve even get up to 6ft tall). Considering the height of the towers, the physical difficulty involved in climbing them and the assumed lack of physical fitness of the Mayan elite, there’s one school of thought that believes that the kings and priests would walk up (or be carried up) the stairs and then stay in the towers for weeks or even months on end before coming back down. Is it just me, or does imagining chubby Mayan priests stuck up on the top of their sacred towers for months on end that strike you as funny as well?

I’m pretty sure there were other interesting things that we learned while at the ruins, but those tidbits above will have to serve as your appetizer for Tikal. You’ll get the main course when you head here yourself, and that gets me and my poor memory off the hook for any other juicy words of wisdom.

The guy in black in the lower right corner is Dyl, in the main court yard of Tikal.
(Left) The staggeringly huge Tower 5. You can’t tell, but the boys are up at the very top after a vertical climb up 3+ stories. (Right) We saved the best for last; Tower 4. Sadly when we got to the top, the rain really started coming down so we only had a brief glimpse of the towers all in a line before booking it back down to some shelter. Still though, beautiful.
The whole gang, being rather smug at what a good time we’re having.

So, thanks to some rain, a rather entertaining guide and a rare ant-eater sighting in the jungle, our first potential camel ride of the trip was avoided rather easily. (See this post for camel reference.) Apparently that whole preparing for the worst and hoping for the best thing really works out sometimes.

Also, you’d be surprised by how easily one’s spirits can be boosted by a bag (or three) of Cheetos.

(Left) Grant, Fiona and I showing the international hand signal for “More Cheetos please”. (Right) I’d forgotten how good that nuclear orange powder can be. Yumm!

The view from the deck of our over-the-water hut on Glover’s Reef Atoll.

NOTE: I feel that I should preface this post with a pre-emptive apology if it seems like I’m gloating or overly proud of myself and Garrett about this past week of fabulousness. I don’t mean to be. Ok, I don’t mean to be that much. Please forgive me, and just know that I’m wishing each of you your own little slices of paradise (however that might come into your world).

Since I was planning most of our travels around Guatemala, I was quite happy to let G plan our Belize travels. After setting aside the common tourist spots of Caye Caulker and Ambergris Caye, Garrett stumbled across Glover’s Reef “Resort” which is smack dab in the middle of the second largest barrier reef in the entire world (second only, of course, to the Great Barrier Reef in Aussie Land) off the coast of southern Belize.

We’d read mixed reviews about this mystical island called Glover’s Reef. We’d heard that it’s waters were gorgeous and filled with fabulous fish and sharks and rays (it’s in the middle of a world heritage site and wildlife reserve). We’d heard it was off the beaten path and a bit hard to get to, which was both appealing (in that we’d certainly have a unique experience) and a little worrying (as in, if we hated it, we’d just have to tough it out because there was only one weekly boat that took people to and from the island). We’d heard it was “rustic” at best (no electricity, composting toilets and only one shared faucet of running – but not drinkable – water for all the guests). We’d also heard that the owners happened to be just a little bit crazy.

I had given Garrett carte blanche to pick our destination and was quite excited about a week of snorkeling and Caribbean sunshine, but when Garrett started to say things like, “Well, I hope this doesn’t turn out to be a camel ride**”, I did start to get a little worried.

And, to tell you the truth, our trip started off a bit bumpy. First, we had a 8 hour journey that included one border crossing w/ grumpy customs officials and five different types of transportation (bus, taxi, bus, bus, taxi) to make our way from Flores, Guatemala to the teeny tiny town of Sittee River, Belize where the boat was to depart from the next day. Then, there was the fact that Sittee River was kind of a mosquito infested dump, and the place we stayed the evening prior to our departure (Glover’s Guest House), seemed like the worst-managed place I’ve ever been to in my life. Even after asking, not one of the three employees seemed terribly interested in informing us (or even fully informed themselves) as to whether or not this was in fact the place where the boat left from, or what time the boat might leave, or what we were to pay, or when, or how, or even if there were cabins available on the island. (When we’d called to make a reservation, the phone rang about 12 times and then the message machine came on saying, “We’ve got probably got rooms available. No need to leave a message or send an email, just show up on the boat dock on Sunday morning.” Um. Probably? Ok. This didn’t seem to bode particularly well for Glover’s Resort. But…  Leap of faith… here we go!

Though a good portion of these interactions made my “sketch-tastic” alarm bells start a-ringing, the truth was, we’d already traveled quite a ways to get there, and come hell or high water, we were determined to have a good attitude about our funny little adventure. Rather than being ticked off by the heat, the bugs and the general lack of cleanliness and the complete lack of any sort of order to the place, we decided to find the whole thing sort of hysterically funny. This included smiling at the fact that we were given a 4×10 ft bunk room to stay in for the night and having a silent giggling fit for a good 20 minutes when Garrett broke through the termite-eaten bed in the middle of the night and our butts caved the mattress in almost to the floor. I mean… this place was q-u-a-l-i-t-y).

Our amazing “room” at Glover’s Guest House. Note our use of the mozy net (right). This was it’s maiden voyage after 7 months in G’s backpack, and damn were we glad we had it.

Our good attitudes were bolstered by the fact that soon enough, other fellow island-goers started arriving soon after we did; their general normalness and niceness began to put us somewhat at ease. There was a set of five jovial fly fishermen from B.C. who were both overwhelmingly friendly (those darn Canadians) and had enough food with them to feed a small army, which felt very reassuring. (Did I mention that one needs to bring all their own provisions to the island, including candles, TP and, of course, food and booze?) Then, there was the adventurous Scottish family consisting of mom and dad (Ingrid and Sean) and their precocious and endearing 9-year-old daughter Kate. In the last 8 months, they’d biked from the very northern tip of the Northwest territories (like where the Inuit live) to Belize. Yep, that’s right. I said bicycled. With their 9 year old. And, their plan is to go all the way to Argentina together. Fantastic, no? Then there was the charming older New England couple, Elizabeth from Maine, her gentleman friend Charles, and Elizabeth’s 19-year-old grandson Noah who was born in Oklahoma but has spent the last 10 years living with his parents in England. We were quite the motley crew of folks and everyone seemed to make friends quickly, knowing that we’d all be neighbors for the next week. Or longer… (discussions of Gilligan’s Island and their infamous three hour tour came up repeatedly).

As you might imagine, the next morning dissolved into utter chaos rather quickly. Most of the guests were ready to go with our bags on the dock by 8:30am, because we’d heard through the grapevine that the boat left promptly at 9am. However, the owner didn’t arrive until about 10am with all the supplies, which we then had load. This doesn’t really sound like such a big deal, but with now almost 30 guests all trying to be helpful and no one really telling us what to do (the owner mysteriously disappeared during this time), we packed, unpacked and repacked the boat at least twice with probably a few thousand pounds of gear, luggage, food and water. (Insert enormous eye roll here, but then delete enormous eye roll, because remember, I’m having a good attitude here, and I’m telling myself “Don’t worry. Be happy. You’re on island time now.”)

Anyway, at some time that morning, we got under way. We had a three hour journey on a catamaran to get to the island, and by this time, everyone was getting antsy. We had the opposite of island fever. Rather than getting off the island… we just wanted to get on it! When we finally arrived at Glover’s (which was teeny, just 9 acres in total), we unpacked the previously mentioned thousand pounds of stuff fire-brigade style, took a quick tour with Becky (the “eccentric” owner I’d mentioned before) and then that was pretty much that last social activity that Garrett and I engaged in for the next six days.

Our new home for the week was Cabin 2 Moray, aka – PARADISE! There were 14 other cabins and about thirty other guests on the island, but sort of by happenstance, this became a week of delightful solitude for us in our little hut over the water. (G sprung for the “nice” digs, and it might easily be the best decision he’s ever made… other than marrying me. Seriously.)

Our time on Glover’s Reef was a six day break from our “normal” lives of constant logistical decision-making, of watch-checking, of asking when things will open, when things will close, of trying to figure out what we wanted to eat, where we want to eat, and when we want to eat, where we will sleep, what we want to do, how we’ll get to where we want to go and, of course, the constant negotiation of how much all of the above will cost. This was a week without commitments, without time (we took the watch off for the week and only used it to time our rice – hence it became known as the Rice Timer, with no illegal uses of the Rice Timer allowed), without worrying about where we’ll go to next or about how life will be when we get home, without the need to be active or “culturally engaged”, and even without the need be engaged in making new friends.

We had planned to do some diving, but we couldn’t be bothered to make it to the dive boat (100 yards from our hut) at any appointed time (beside, that would have required illegal use of the Rice Timer). We’d planned to eat a communal meal or two at the “restaurant” with the other guests, but we just couldn’t be bothered to walk over there a few times a day, and it seemed like too big an effort to imagine engaging in witty conversation long into the evening. We’d planned to hang out at least a few nights around the campfire with our friendly and fun fellow island goers, but we really couldn’t be bothered with that either, as that would mean missing out on sunsets, and watching moonlit sharks swim under our dock, and going to bed within an hour of sunset (we approximated this to around 7:30pm).

Sure, it was rustic. In fact, I’d go ahead and call it primitive. Yes, there were bugs. Yes, the composting toilet was ripe. Yes, the showers were cold and brackish. Yes, the humidity was so intense that I didn’t dry out for an entire week. And yes, our days were selfish and indulgent and simple.

And it was perfect. A truly perfect week. We were happy hermits for six lovely days. We did exactly what we wanted to do, whenever we wanted to do it. A true vacation.

Well done Garrett. No camel ride here, my friend.**

 
Sort of over-exposed interior shots of our hut. (Left) The main bed. (Right) The “kitchen” area, which was a desk, with a single burner propane stove on it and some dishes and utensils. To the right of the hut was a bunk bed, which became our armoire, bookshelf and pantry for the week.

So what did we do for a week on Glover’s?

Well… we enjoyed the sea breeze.      
This is our first morning. We had a huge windstorm all of the previous night and the wind continued most of the next day. My bouffant hairdo is the work of the wind. We ate al fresco every day… however, this day proved challenging because our eggs kept flying off our forks, hence, the introduction of the tortillas.

We cherished tranquil moments.
Our “living room”. The view off our front deck.
 
Gorgeous sunrise on the water.

Happy, with a toes dangling over the Caribbean blue and a cup of tea.

We took naps and read.

We swam.

We ate.
 

We swam some more. And snorkeled. A lot.
  
(Left) Garrett looking stellar in his snorkel outfit (which is hard to look stellar in, but he manages quite well). (Right) Me being very happy because we’ve just seen five (5!!!) nurse sharks on our afternoon snorkel as well as my favorite marine creature, a spotted eagle ray.

We snorkeled so much that we got really pruney.
But we figured pruney-ness was a sign of happiness.

We experimented with creative snacking options.

We efficiently and happily managed our “chores” for the day.  
Our two “chores” of the day consisted of (left) washing our dishes in the sea and (right) watching the sharks come in to the dock area while folks were cleaning the fish they’d caught for dinner. Above is a blurry pic of a 5-6ft nurse shark mowing down on a snapper carcass. We also saw lemon sharks and a bull shark during the evening “feedings”. 

We hung out together and talked.

We watched sunrises…

… and sunsets.

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** Camel ride: Noun. Tenuver slang for “doing something that sounds adventurous that ends up being a horrible disaster that your partner can lord over you for years.” Comes from a certain mishap in India when I may have gently persuaded Garrett to go out on an evening camel ride through the desert, that ended up including an almost mugging, a very uncomfortable saddle rash, an inedible dinner, bug bites from being forced to sit on mite-filled camel blankets during a pathetic attempt at “traditional” entertainment, and about $150 dollars down the toilet.