stumbling and soaring

Flying across ancient lagoons in a small speedboat - Floating down fresh water canals canoed by ancient Mayans - Watching out bus windows to miles and miles of low jungle dotted by cement buildings - Finding another place to sleep, and another, and another - Remembering to throw the toilet paper in the garbage can - Getting really familiar with feeling fumbly, stupid, awkward, lost and unfamiliar - Enjoying the occassional moment of pretending I am in a place I know - Feeling huge gratitude for my loveLee companion and divine champion - Riding waves of adventure, awe, sweetness, anxiety and salty Carribean waves -

Sharing both deep periods of silence
and unexpected cacophonies of sound

random Mexican mementos

Dinner with Jenn´s boss our last night in Isla Muheres (I owned that game of cards: ¨golf¨)

Wandering down a crocodile pier outside the Coba ruins (alas, I didn´t spot any of the 6 meter reptiles)

Bicycling around the Coba ruins, and being the first of the day (or in history, in my imagination) to conquer Nohoch Mul, the ¨big mound¨.

Trying to learn spanish on the fly, and the taxi driver having great fun with me when I tried to pay him instead of the bus guy (even though he had indicated earlier that was where to buy tickets...meanwhile the bus ticket guy decided to take a break minutes before the bus was scheduled to leave)

Wandering the streets of Coba at night, and feeling more like a traveller than a tourist (a guy getting a haircut from his buddy just outside his grocery shop, kids running down the street, dogs lolling about, a cake being prepared for someone´s birthday while I poked around their shop, and people generally doing what they normally do)

A bus almost hitting the dog that thought the middle of the highway would be the best place to defecate.

Reading voraciously and concluding that a direct relationship exists between reading time and happiness.

Playing in the surf with my Love, and jumping the Caribbean waves together!

Communing with basking iguanas.

Trailing hermit crab sand trails at night by flashlight.

Standing stunned as 10 tigers drove by as we tried to cross the road (of course, the tigers--most of which were white tigers--were not driving, they were in hitched cages)

Waking with the sun that rises outside our cabana in Tulum (and watching the moon rise later and later each evening)

On Tourism....

I realize it may seem strange to choose to comment on tourism when one is currently dunked into it in another country. Or maybe that is the exact right time to start to wonder more clearly: What are we doing to our worlds cultures, communities and places of belonging by flying large distances to stay behind walls, away from the people who live there? (Can you tell we spent the day on a bus travelling down the "Riviera Maya" past vast gates to mysterious resorts beyond?)

Who am I here?
I am a tourist - I resent it and of course, can´t deny it; I am a traveller - I want to know the reality of where I am, to go deeper; I am a person - who does not share the language, and therefore struggles to connect; I am a friend - through simple words, smiles, cookies, dog buddies, childrens laughter; I am invisible - both a stranger and an all-to-familiar sight to those who call this place home

Hmmmm, food for thought.

Sunset and moonrise

To my sweet Love, happy 24th moon day!

Shifting paradigms

If life is hectic long enough, busy becomes habitual. This past month I have moved cities, hauled everything from my office, tied up work threads, stuffed most possessions into two mobile cubes, and prepared to survive from a backpack for 3 and a half months. The storm of change crashes around me. I have chosen this. Through this storm lies the even sky of the equator. To disengage from my daily habits, to remove myself from expectation and the knots of responsibility, to discover what I did not know--that is the goal.

Each goodbye becomes a reminder of the adventure ahead.

And now, through the magic of physics, Jenn and I have soared from snow to summer.

I take a deep breath.

I am ready to embrace the unknown, to push beyond the zone of comfort, to push myself beyond the person I am today.

Time to let go...

Leaving the frosty wonderland...

Blessings-O-Rama to send us on our way...

12:12am, January 12th - the departure day of our grand adventure!

Walking in the snow
last vestiges of work finished
seemingly endless 'to-do's' crossed off the list
quiet hum of a familiar house, a familiar keyboard, a familiar self
4 hours to waking and off to another world...

Thank you Wade for sending us the blessings attached and for all the loving lovelies that have fanned the flames and carried us through this time of preparation, transition and take off.

YOU ARE LOVED.

Welcome!

Welcome to our travel blog!