Wednesday, January 17, 2007

fleeing the darker side of winter

Looks like the March sailing week-end is off. No boat to be had down there on the Keyes.
What??
(a sigh of relief… boats on choppy waters… go this way and that way, go this way and that)
But what I really say is – a week-end at a southern shore is what I long for on the cold dark days of January, February… What now?
What now… we’ll see… something will come up.

My occasional traveling companion just erased an image of boat decks and shorefront bars where sailors drink whiskey and smoke cigars. It’s what stories are made of. Gone.

Can we forget about the sailing bit and find a beach for the week-end? I have built my life around the image of the Caribbean blue waters in March.
Reluctantly: There are cheap fares to the Bahamas. People go there to gamble. Beach during the day, casino at night. You want to gamble?
No.
I don’t either… But that’s what you do down there…

(Future traveling companions: The way to my heart is NOT through a cheap airfare and gambling.)

I’ll look up some fun and funky places to stay, where fans spin in tile-floor rooms and locals sit on bar stools in the lounge and sip on whiskey and rum…
Can you keep it under $65 per night?
That wipes out the vast majority of winter Caribbean destinations!
How about Puerto Rico?
I’m surfing the Net as we speak…
So, cheap places. Have you found any?


(Future traveling companions: The way to my heart is NOT through a constant search for the very cheapest room to be had on whatever side of the ocean you may find yourself.)

Who needs a beach anyway… It’s pretty, here, in sunny cold Wisconsin. True, the picnic tables will stand empty for another six months or so…

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…but one needs to look on the upside of a January day.

Driving home late in the evening I focus on the upside of a January day. I try not to pay attention to the smoke suspended from chimneys, never seeming to go anywhere at all, held back by the cold. I try not to see that.

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I bring back my now polluted daydream of hammocks suspended between palm trees and bars filled with sailors and locals, drinking whiskey and rum. The remains of an image. They’ll get me through a day or two.