Then Followed that Beautiful Season

Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Twenty-Eight More School Days...

...til summer.
Can't wait.

Can We Bring Our Friends?

I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.

Lillian Smith

I now understand why married people travel in groups. In fact, I'm thinking that three couples or a group of six might be ideal. Why?

When researching a destination for this celebration retreat with my husband, I searched far and wide for the perfect journey to fit my burned out parent frame of mind. I knew I didn't want to travel as we usually do, wandering museums and traveling from city to city, guidebook in hand. I was tired and wanted a trip where I sat on my butt and read books and magazines, with beautiful water in front of me where I could take a dip, snorkel, maybe, then nestle back into the sand and read some more. I didn't want a lot of fancy people, cruise ships, shopping, or noisy stuff (kids) around me.

Relaxation. No adventure. No guts/mind required.

I discussed this at length with my husband. He doesn't sit well (or hear me when I talk) so when I suggested Turks and Caicos, known for its beautiful beaches and not much else, I tried to make sure he understood the landscape. He agreed this port of call sounded good. He was tired, too.

Turks and Caicos, part of the British West Indies, is south of the Bahamas, east of Cuba and north of Hispaniola. The trip is an easy two hour jaunt from Atlanta, 2 1/2 hours from New York City. Many Canadians, French, German, Americans, and English frequent the islands.

One of the least developed group of islands in the Caribbean, Grand Turk welcomes cruise ships, but Providenciales, boasts the 12 mile long Grace Bay Beach, good restaurants right on the waterfront, and no shopping or crowds. Perfect. No need to do anything but hang out at the beach during the day and walk through the starlit sky to eat dinner at night. Take an occasional trip to the grocery store to purchase Cheetos, chips/dip and picnic lunch/dinner items. Beer.

I reiterated the details of the trip and asked my husband several times: Will you be content to sit on beaches each day and spend our days splayed out on top of the sand?

He said it sounded perfect.

So, fast forward. Here he is. Sitting on the beach in front of our great hotel, the 28 room Sibonne'. Looks pretty content, right?


Good thing I caught this moment in my camera lens. Might be one of the few moments he simply sat there.

Like I said, he doesn't sit well. So after the first day and a half, I was one book into my stack and reaching for another. He had already roamed 8 of the 12 miles of beach in front of us. That next morning, while I drank my coffee on the beach and set up for the day, he joined me and said how he'd studied the guidebook and had found a beach on the other side of the island.

What? This spot was working for me. I had this view three steps outside our hotel room.

And a 45 second stroll through here...

...to get here.

But, all good things...

Change.

Into our little rental car we loaded our cooler, floats and snorkel equipment. My husband handed me the map.

Now I don't know how it is where you live, but where I'm from maps mark things like interstate highways, state highways, main thoroughfares and side streets. Dirt roads don't make the cut. In Turks and Caicos, with very few exceptions, dirt roads are the state highways, main thoroughfares and side streets. Also, being a British Commonwealth, you drive on the opposite side of the road. (Every time we turned a corner, I had to remind my husband, "Get on the left.") Stress.

I studied the map and we embarked on our search for Sapodilla Beach, or rather the small wooden sign that led to it. Nestled at the end of a dirt bike trail, where we dodged craters the size of nuclear bomb sites in our Daihatsu with dime-sized wheels and six inch ground clearance, we discovered the largest natural kiddie pool I'd ever seen. Three feet deep, the clearest turquoise water one can imagine. Perfect. I set myself up in my float and with sun and sunscreen on my face, breathed deeply to acquire a meditative state.

Halfway through my second beer, my husband walked out to my float. "Time to go," he said.

"What?"

"We've been here. Time to move on."

"But I want another beer," I plead.

"They're all gone."

"But there were six."

I then come to find out he's also been for a walk and scouted out an entire 25 square mile area.

I packed up, reminding myself it is his vacation, too. We headed back down the bumpy road, into the village, and out into the countryside in search of Da Conch Shack. Bolstered out of my comfort zone and clinging to a two beer buzz, I'm now the navigator on roads with names known only to the natives - the Belongers. We dodged pot holes big enough to swallow an elephant on "paved" roads and drove what seemed like endless miles past above ground cemeteries and cinder block homes painted delightful colors until we came across a restaurant situated five feet from the beach. And they had rum punch. Delicious conch salad. I adapted.

After a trip to the local grocery store, I got a few moments to rest on the beach, watch the sunset and study the stars before an early sleep.

The next day, car got loaded again. My tour guide informed me we were headed to Malcolm's Beach. This time I knew the way to the gravel road because we passed it while wandering the day before. This road, the only road that reaches the east side of the island (on my map,) is an endless drive down yet another rut-filled dirt road. Driving our Daihatsu, we traveled 5-10 miles per hour. However, the prize at the end of the line was indeed beautiful. Remember this beach from my last post? All to ourselves.

We did have to share with this lone avian adventurer.

My husband snorkeled (first photo) and took a walk. As I cracked my second beer and turned the page of my book...

... the man I married long ago stood above me. "Let's go."

This is when it dawned on me, that this is why couples travel with others. So those with like minds can hang out together and people like my husband will have a pool of poor souls to drag on his adventures. That for him, the relaxation part comes from the adventure and unknown. And once he's conquers the quest, he's ready to roll and find another one. Unlike me, who in my older age conquers reluctantly and then quests to sit on my ass.

With that revelation, I still didn't anticipate that the next day would provide an opportunity for me to recall the dirt roads of these two days...

and rename them The Autobahns.

To be continued...

Midlife Jobhunter Decides Future

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

Confucius

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I took a trip to celebrate getting all three of our sons to 18 without having to embrace any surprise grandchildren or post any bail. Little did I know that while celebrating, I'd also discover my calling.

Yes, this Midlife Jobhunter has decided what she wants to be when she grows up - a professional vacationer. I have no idea why I didn't think of it sooner. I'm so good at recess. I can even prove it.

See how well I sit at this table in an open window restaurant drinking my wine. I'm so happy.

And my toes - look how good they look after a wave swishes over them.

Look how comfortable I am on this beach. I have my cooler, my float, my hat, my book (although I must say this wasn't the best time to lend my only smut book to the Fragrant Liar. Those I brought were much too tame for vacation alone with my husband. )

Who, by the way, never said a word that even though I'd hauled my snorkel gear all that way, only used it for about ten minutes.

Besides, it was much more fun to look at views like this..

and this...

and this...

and this...

and this...

Yup! I think this is gonna work for me.

Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.

Robert Henri

I'm thinking.

Progress on My List?

Tomatoes purchased and planted,

toes painted.

Excited for vacation. Will figure out the rest while lounging - maybe.

Those that say you can't take it with you never saw a car packed for a vacation trip.
Author Unknown

Coming Up For Sun

Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.

Carl G. Jung

In my late 20's, my husband and I lived in Salt Lake City, Utah. For one year, two months and five days. Yes, it wasn't my favorite place to live. Beautiful, though. Recreational haven summer and winter and my oldest son was born there, but not quite my cup of tea for various reasons that are unimportant to this tale.

For Salt Lake's role in this post is to merely provide a metaphor utilizing their temperature inversion that occurs each winter. That time of year when the ban goes up on wood burning fireplaces and the fog moved in. For months one would awake not only to not see across the street, but no view past the front door as well.

I worked for an oil and gas company and had finally attained an office with a window. Excited at the prospect of having my own place and view, I had to wait months for the air to clear and the view of the Salt Palace across the street to come into focus. Living in this blur became normal, I suppose. Wasn't like you arose each day, noses pushed to the window in anticipation of some one's arrival or the first snowflakes of winter. For you knew out there was just the norm. Life in the fog.

On weekends, my husband and I would drive the 20 miles up Little Cottonwood Canyon to ski at Alta or Snowbird. As we began our ascent up the mountain, the fog abated and above the black cloud cloaking our entire city, the sun shone intensely. I'd ride the ski lift to the top of the mountain and see all the way down to the hidden valley, as though a tent cover kept it isolated from the rest of the world. Like Truman's world in The Truman Show. (Probably some metaphor for my stint in Salt Lake in that as well, but another time.)

If we flew to Denver to visit family during the inversions, the return trip to Salt Lake took longer than scheduled. Often we circled above the city, waiting for a break in the clouds so the plane could dip into the abyss and land safely.

I doubt I need to tell you that happiness was Salt Lake City in my rear view mirror. Although 24 years have passed, seems I've returned to living in that fog most of this past year. Only this time the visual effects of Salt Lakes' inversion coveted my brain.

Time has offered a chance for the mist to begin its evaporation process. Lately, I often yearn for a schedule. Substitute teaching doesn't quite provide that as other than Thursdays and Fridays, I'm never certain what days I might work. Or when I may fall into a longer gig for a teacher with a sick child. Most of my sub work is based on request by the teachers, so simply saying I will work these three days and do such and such on the others is not a viable choice right now.

However, the work has provided an easy escape while biding this passage of time. There is no homework so my day is done when the school bell rings. With my youngest son gone, I don't have to keep my energy up to attend baseball games or school events. I can sink into my chair at home and watch Jeopardy and then decide what frozen entree we will eat for dinner.

I do feel that with the promise of spring, the haze is beginning to lessen. I feel certain things awakening in my brain that I haven't felt in some time -- a yearning to put my pen in hand and write something. Anything. My half finished novel has begun a slow chug in my thoughts. Poor Lily, my main character that has been stuck in a wheat field in South Dakota suffering a panic attack most certainly deserves a change of scenery.

For whatever reason, perhaps time is what it takes to find a clearing for oneself when the fogs of life brings a burdensome weight. As this fog dissipates, the heaviness seems to lessen also. I see a few rays of sun seeping through the clouds.

Provides hope in this search for new beginnings. I'm starting a list--a list of things I want to do in my life. Nothing too grand, at first.

1. Buy tomato plants
2. Sign up for a writing conference this summer
3. Make a list of all the places I want to visit in my lifetime
4. Go get a pedicure
5. Get excited about the vacation coming up with my husband. Our celebration of getting all three sons to 18 and college, without any pregnancies or jail time.

Seems a good start. A fairly easy step to fumble my way into the sunshine.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

Speed, strength, and the inability to register pain immediately.
Reggie Williams, when asked his greatest strengths as a football player

A long awaited Sunday has arrived. The Green Bay Packers play in the Super Bowl today. Now I know that many of you could truly give a crap about that, but this is the big time at my house.

As many of you know, my parents moved to Green Bay 30 some years ago. I drove my kids up north every summer to stay for a few weeks and most often we hit the summer training camp for the Packers. We'd spend hours at Lambeau Field, watching the players.

During Packer Camp, the players walk with the kids, ride their bikes, and sign endless autographs. Bleachers are set up beside the outdoor practice field and rarely a seat opens. Lots of standing and through the years we watched the likes of Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, Reggie White, Sterling Sharpe, Robert Brooks, Gilbert Brown, James Lofton, Ty Detmer, William Henderson, and a mass of other men that took the time to thrill my young boys.

I remember many a moment where a very large player would reach over the crowd of adults or older kids to take up my young son's football to pen his name. I remember when Robert Brooks was engulfed in a sea of supporters shouting his name for an autograph. My oldest, Jacob, said, "Mr. Brooks, may I have your autograph?" The player stopped and reached back and signed Jacob's Wheaties box.

Perhaps one of the most memorable signings occured with a 5 year old Jordan, now 22. After Ty Detmer handed him back his autograph book, Jordan burst into tears. My mom and I gathered around him, worried as to the problem. "They're all writing in cursive," Jordan cried.

Downstairs at the lake house, youngest son Ian put together a collection of Packer memorabilia. Jerseys, newspaper clippings my mom sent him. The signed footballs and helmets. When he lived at home, each weekend he'd put the Packer banner next to the team they played that week. If it wasn't going well, he'd put the other team's banner into a closet and shut the door.

Today, we have a big pot of beer brats cooking.

Expecting a crowd of 10. Jacob's searching Austin for cheese curds. We've got potato chips and French Onion dip. Potato skins. Bob and I are deciding which jersey we'll pull off the wall to support the team.

Two things will be missing in this quest for Super Bowl greatness - Jordan and Ian. Jordan's up in Montana attending a job fair and that Ian boy, the creator of our basement decorum, is at the University of Alabama. Doesn't seem right that he can't be here with us today, but we plan to Skype him in for a little bit of time. Frequent calls to my mom in Green Bay and my brother, Jordan, in Sheboygan will have the phone lines rattling.

You are hereby welcomed to The Texas Green Bay Hall of Fame.
(We have no idea how that speed sign got there.)

To all you Steeler fans out there, Sorry. Just gotta believe about the Pack. Come join us in the Texas Packer Hall of Fame.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday everybody.

What Color Is Your Car?

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

Dorothy Parker

Next time you're sitting at a stop light, notice the cars around you. How many different colors do you see?

I know what I see. A sea of white, black, silver, gray, beige. An occasional red. Maybe a blue one here and there. Used to be black, white, brown, gray, and silver weren't even colors. The color wheel I remember had blue, yellow, red, green, purple, orange.

Are our cars a sign of how boring we've become? Sort of like how boring this post is?

Often when my husband and I are driving somewhere, he'll ask what I think of some car he sees on the road. I don't know why he does this, because cars really don't do a lot for me. (Air conditioning, heat, radio, starts--works for me. I can't tell the difference between a Cadillac and a Datsun. And a truck is a truck.)

I never display much enthusiasm in my reply, hoping he'll discuss something more interesting to me. Surely he knows what those things might be.

His next line? "What do you think of that new Z2000375A?"

"Coupe or sedan?" I reply, and in my mind bang my head against the dashboard.

So goes our exciting rides in the car. Sort of like when he's flipping channels between American Chopper, some war show on the history channel, and some obscure football game between Nimrod College and Shinola State. He'll make a comment and I'll look up from my book and nod my head. I think he truly believes I'm following the changing of the channels every 30 seconds. That I enjoy watching snippets of all those shows, too.

Okay, so I was talking about boring colors and boring posts.

I have six drafts of posts sitting in my Post queue. I have topics on minivans, children's play, my cat coming to the lake for the first time, night owls, creativity, jobs. Each of those has notes on it with a worthwhile list of ideas to make a fine essay. Do I have interest in writing any of them this week? No.

Perhaps it is a reflection of my personality at the moment. Perhaps it is the time of year and everything outside is brown, so I feel brown, too. Perhaps, perhaps.

I think I'll go get in my silver car and go to the grocery store. Nothing mundane and boring about that. I'll even, like normal, forget where I parked and search for my car in the sea of boring color in the lot.

Oh, wait. Sometimes there is a rainbow. The produce section. Surely I can find some real color there. I'm off!

Onward to the New Year

For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.

T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

My oldest son took the above photo down at Zilker Park in Austin. The city has put up this tree of lights for as long as we've lived here, probably longer. When my kids were little, my husband and I would take them down to the park and we'd stand underneath and twirl.

When my son sent this photo he took this past Christmas season, I recalled those nights of twirling with my little boys. Those recollections brought me joy and I closed my eyes and whirled in my mind, the events of the past year swirling with me. After a year of extreme highs and lows, I welcome the new year in hope of a steadier stream of events.

Alas, rather than further lament over how to write my first post of the year, I've decided to "butt in chair" and type away. If this lands all over the place, so it goes. The new year has arrived; I'm happy about it.

Of course, I don't know if life this year will accommodate a level stream, but I can hope.

This morning, I have the house to myself. No teaching job today. Middle son and husband off at work. Youngest son safely ensconced in his dorm room at the University of Alabama after sliding in between the South's snow storm and freezing cold. He left yesterday morning at 5:30 taking the southern route through Baton Rouge and arrived in Tuscaloosa in 12 hours. Proud of that boy doing that all by himself.

Seems odd to have him gone again although I didn't see him much while home. He worked landscape and made his money for books and expenses this next semester. Had a good lesson on how if he were to depend on that income to live, he'd have to give up certain things like electricity, entertainment, and food. (Great fodder for school success.)

Middle son currently living at home substitute teaching in the day and painting the YMCA at night. Decided that working on a for profit trophy deer hunting ranch argued with his sense of wildlife preservation and conservation. Eagerly pursuing a wildlife job anywhere in the country, but employed in the meantime.

Still his presence here means my husband and I are not empty nesters. That transition has been put on the back burner. We still can't run around naked.

But today, no one is home and I won't tell you what I'm wearing. Instead, I'll begin my first blog of this wonderful new year with some photos from our holiday. Get this first one going and hopefully the ideas and words for getting back on track will arrive.

The Christmas card I sent this year, ala A Christmas Story. I want that lamp.
The other card I sent.
One of my favorites that I received.
The mushroom crab cakes I made up. No recipe, but to die for.
My granddog getting intimate with our splurge for dinner.
The dinner table filled with Swedish meatballs and potato sausage, lefsa, cucumber salad, and the lobster. A white dinner.
Me with the kids. Husband had to take the picture.
Chelsea's new socks.

Happy New Year everybody. I'd like to share my list for the new year, but, I don't have one. However, do cheer for the Green Bay Packers Saturday night. Go Pack!