Isla Mujeres, day two

There came a moment when I thought we would not leave the café. Notes of music coming through somewhere, the breezes blowing through the open spaces, the comfortable chairs, good coffee... why go?

There are deep navy clouds just off shore, but Ed is unruffled. Rain clouds? Over the Caribbean, they can sometimes sit for hours. We may never see the rain from that system. He should know -- he's sailed these seas often enough.

Still, our landlady is waiting (though I Skype her of our café delay) and we have our packs at our feet. Time to go.

The island is narrow (maybe quarter of a mile at the thick points) and long (maybe six miles). You can’t believe that a house, any house would be hard to find. I am given instructions: Leave the village, continue past the old airstrip, eventually, maybe after two miles you’ll come to Oscar’s Restaurant. Bear left then, one block, past something that looks like a church. Ours is the house with the hedge.

Okay. We set out. It’s colorful and completely beguiling at every step.









(At the Tortilleria Mama Lolita:)




(look closer:)












But we think we have walked for significantly more than two miles. No Oscar’s.
Where’s Oscar’s? -- we ask. It’s not well known. Maybe that way...
We walk some more. We don’t find Oscar’s, but we see a guy with a tin container waving at us.





He’s the fellow from the bus, with the delicious thin wafers.

And still no Oscar’s.

A golf cart pulls over (they’re not only for tourists). A man speaks to us in Spanish. Apartamento...He’s Miguel, our landlord (he and Sue rent out these terrific places).

I suppose it’s easy for locals to find us, even as it’s hard for us to locate them.

Miguel and Sue have just finished adding a lovely little studio to their handful of rooms. Perfectly placed, away from any tourist bustle (but you need to love to walk, as we do, or just go for the rental of the ubiquitous golf cart), we are happy as anything in our large, airy room on the top floor of this building: (At $35 per night, it is lovely in price as well.)




Miguel and Sue tell us where to eat, where to find the local market, where to pick up a taco if we have a craving, or a grilled fish, or roast chicken.

They drive us to their favorite bakery, we pick up some sweet rolls for the morning (there’s some fresh orange juice for you in the fridge – Sue tells us)...



...and now we are finally "at home."

We know we should wait to eat. We know that the village square comes alive late in the evening. People watching should be wonderful.

But I also know that if we linger, Ed will sleep and I’ll dig into the sweet rolls. I’m hungry – Sue said La Bruja Restaurant, just up the street, is open all day long. Let’s go now.

By 7, we’re sitting by the curb, eating grilled seafood and drinking Mexican beer and life feels so very good.




Next door, a family gathers around a sweet bread cart that has pulled up to the curb. The woman buys the kids sweet rolls and they grin with pleasure. Looking on, I try not to think about how long it will be before Madison sees any food cart outdoors.





This morning, the skies slowly lose their threatening clouds. We are only on the island until tomorrow. I am anxious to set out.

Mercado. Let’s start there.





We do. Juice – more of that wonderful juice, Ed says. (Ed can chug a quart down in no time.) The market is small, but it has a few fruit stands, plenty of meat vendors and, of course, a tortilla maker.

But no coffee. I find that Coca cola trumps coffee here as the drink of choice – mornings included.

We go back to La Bruja, where the kind people serve up a wonderful coffee with toast on the side.




Fortified, we hike to the southern most tip of the island, and, as they say, the eastern most tip of Mexico.

Let me say this about how beautiful it is here, in the center of the island: I am, at every corner, surprised with a splash (sometimes more like a burst) of color.









Well, yes, and coca cola adds...



(at our corner grocery store)


...and flowers...









...and people eating in secret corners at unusual (for me) times.





...and children telling you thank you when you take their photo.





...and water and sky – ostensibly both sharing the color “blue,” but letting you know that there are as many blues as there are people on this planet.





And let me not forget to say this: Isla Mujeres, at least where we are, is quiet (except for the morning rooster and the evening dogs) and uncommonly friendly.


In the afternoon, we hike back to the main town on the north end (just over an hour for us). We find our local waiter at our first café. He brings us eggs and beans and tortillas and a fruit milk for Ed and coffee for me and again we find it very very hard to leave.

Isla Mujeres

There is something wonderfully uplifting when, after a long flight, you first notice specks of the land that will be your home for a little while.





The Yucatan coastline is shielded from the warm heavens by a misty cloud cover. It's dreamy and beautiful, with bands of aqua colors touching the strip of sand.

We take our packs and head for the bus. Or, the first bus. The easy one to Cancun. From there, we look for the local to the town of Puerto Juarez - the point from where the ferry leaves. Many inquiries later, we are in a rickety van, first solo, then with a local fellow, taking his tin of... something to... somewhere.
What do you have there? – this from Ed.
We’re told the name, but neither of us remembers it. It's sweet, right?
Si, dulce comida.
Can we buy one?
Sure.
He carefully removes a packet with a large wafer.



It’s crispy thin and delicious – much like the wafers I would sometimes buy in the mountains of Poland. Mountains of Poland, coast of the Yucatan.

Someone on the outside is shouting into the van that we should get off. Ah – the ferry landing. Thanks for paying attention. We’re too busy munching thin wafers of crunchy sweetness.

At the ferry landing, we are taken aside by a time-share promoter. If you come to our place, right on the best beach of the island, we’ll give you a golf cart for the day (the mode of tourist movement), a free breakfast, two t-shirts and a lovely beach bag.

Ed hesitates.
No, Ed, no.
But I’m curious about time shares.
This is Ed – forever curious, but only that. I push him toward the boat.

We board the ferry. The ride is lovely – a little cool for me, but oh my, is that a relevant statement! It’s not near zero here, it’s in the seventies.


And now we are on the island -- the Isla Mujeres. We sit down at a café and time stops.








The island hasn’t changed, Ed remarks. I remember, in years past when...

I listen as I watch a guy carry heavy crates of beer into the café. Hard work.





And for me, at this moment in time, no work at all.

In a few minutes we’ll look for our room somewhere in mid-island. In a few minutes. Or longer.

I look up: Ed is in shorts already. I drink my coffee, he sips a platano licuado (basically bananas and milk). The sun comes out for just a minute. Or two.

traveling

Welcome to Apple Vacations! We hope you’re enjoying your Fun Jet Cancun adventure!

How is it that Ed and I found ourselves packed into a jet full of fun-loving, sun-seeking, underdressed in a sweetly optimistic way Wisconsinites, bound for an Apple Vacation? Air Tran canceled our early morning (or was it night?) flight to Atlanta (connecting to Cancun), which is sad... but they booked us on one of their charter tour jets that flies directly to Cancun. Which is terrific! It’s truly dumb luck to have a cancellation work in your favor – we’ll be in Cancun hours ahead of schedule.

I don’t normally post in the mornings, but as usual, when I am away from home, I flip my schedule and write before my traveling companion wakes. And when there is WiFi.

The plane has WiFi.

Actually, I am not certain where my traveling companion is at the moment – somewhere in the front of the plane I presume (I am in the back), but I’m sure he is sleeping. We left Madison when the night was in the early stages of development.

No photo for you yet. The ground below is flat and uninteresting – I’m guessing it’s the Florida panhandle. No photos of the passengers either. Fun loving types that they are, they also appear groggy and disheveled from a disrupted night.

I think I’ll take off my sweater. I want to fit in. Happy Cancun vacationing, fellow travelers! Shake off the northern airs and rub in the sunscreen! We are on our way!

done. off we go!

So how many times have you been to the Yucatan? – I ask Ed, whose travels in the past appeared to have favored anything south and preferably reachable by a sailboat.

Oh, maybe four. There was a fifth, but I hardly remember that one. I flew in. Weird to fly to the Yucatan, when a sailboat or a motorbike can easily get you there.

Well, we’re flying in this time. I have plenty of reasons to avoid sailing or motorbiking to the eastern tip of Mexico this winter. Besides, we’re flying Air Tran – the airline of choice for the frugally inclined. Ed should not mind.

My own visits to Mexico date back to a distant past. (Border crossings from Arizona do not really count.) I vividly remember the presence of parents as we bused from Mexico City to Taxco and then on to the western coast. I ate wildly, came home with a parasite and never traveled with my parents again. The memories are that good.

Still, I’ve wanted to go back, preferably with a companion who speaks Spanish (I, unfortunately, do not; and no, it’s not so close to Italian that one can pretend). Ed assures me that he can ask pretty much any question, so long as we can get by without understanding the answer.

We’re set to go. In the middle of the night we’ll be driving to the nearest Air Tran hub and then, in a roundabout way, we’ll fly south, to the Yucatan Peninsula.

We have some tight connections and no promise of WiFi when we get to our first night’s destination – Isla Mujeres. Wish us luck.

six years later

This is post number 4608. Blogger tells me this. That number doesn’t particularly stand out. It’s not cute, not even rounded. The more significant to me, is the number six: today marks the sixth anniversary of daily blogging here, on Ocean.

Oh, I’ve become less fussy about counting. I’ve skipped maybe a half dozen days in these six years, mostly because I just could not arrange the circumstances in a way that would permit writing and/or posting. But you know this about Ocean: if you click here each day, you'll find, pretty much always, a new post.


Numbers. Let me throw down a handful for you to consider:

Today, even in the middle of this very sunny day, the thermometer never passed five degrees Fahrenheit.

Of course, I did not know this when I said to Ed – let’s take a break from work. [I meant my work; Ed doesn’t work (anymore) per se. On this day, he could be found fumbling with machine designs on the computer; I think machine designing to him is like book writing for me. The difference? He actually anticipates reaching a final product.]


I propose a quick hike.

In retrospect, writing now from the warm interior of my condo, I can say it was quite beautiful.









But cold.

[Though this is relative: at the shop tonight, I chatted to a customer who loves winter and hates spring. Something to do with having to plant potatoes once the earth softens up a bit...)

Numbers. Let me not neglect to mention that this is day two of a decidedly work filled week-end. One more tomorrow. And then I kiss the deep freeze good bye. I hope.

the first of three: Happy New Year!

May I begin the new year with a post asking for patience? I am (I must be!) immersed in work – both at the law school and at the shop..

By Monday, I should be done.

And if I am done, then I shall have the reward of traveling south. Away from the deep freeze (for a short while anyway).

So, here’s day one of the trilogy: I wake, I work, I walk to other work, I return home to work.




But my mind is on 2010. And today, I wish for Ocean readers, at the very least this much – a year ahead that will be even better than the one behind, however twisted or brilliant that one was for you.

New Year's Eve

The end of a calendar year. I lock up the little shop on the corner and walk home. As I prepare to spend an evening with a person who chooses not to celebrate what he would call Hallmark events (did the Romans or the Mayans worry about Hallmark?), I give some thought to why it is that I do celebrate the flip of this calendar page.

New Year’s Eve. We think we’re giving festive encouragement to the year ahead by eating well and drinking bubbly stuff the night before. Fine, but we’re doing it at the tail end of the old year. To properly herald 2010, our first meal, not our last, should be the festive one!

[I plan to scramble eggs, reheat a baguette and pour bubbly stuff into freshly squeezed o.j.]

But speaking of food, what about tonight? Well, my occasional traveling companion and I held firm: lobster meat for me, a chicken and bean burrito for him.




My concession? Defrosted lobster meat (none of this fresh stuff, flown in from Maine and cooked on my stovetop), dressed and served with corn on the cob, along with a toasted baguette. From my favorite baguette place (I reserved one – they sell out early these days).





[Note to commenter: a lobster subway, right?]

Ed’s concession? He’ll eat his burrito at the same table, at the same time, and we’ll both not needle each other about our choices in life.




And then maybe we’ll watch a movie. With a macaroon for dessert. From Dinan.





No, no partying. At least we’re in agreement there – neither of us functions well in crowded places, even if such places are at the homes of friends.

I’m guessing (and I am good at this!) that Ed’ll fall asleep well before midnight. And that his first words in 2010 will be these, spoken when I wake him to say Happy New Year: What? What?? Oh, thank you.

comfort zone

It is definitely true that my comfort zone does not overlap perfectly with the comfort zone of my occasional traveling companion. And here’s another truth: the older you get, the higher the brick wall gets around that comfort zone.

Mine and his are pretty high.

It’s lead to an interesting discussion as to what should happen this year on New Year’s Eve.

Since I don’t know when, I’ve celebrated the end of the year with a dinner that is special. In leaner years, much saving took place so as to support this meal of all meals. It was an evening for the best – the evening when I first ate at L’Etoile in Madison. We would take daughters and when midnight came, we’d almost always be licking the last bit of flavor off of a plate, totally content.

This has not been Ed’s path. New Year’s Eve? A Cousins sandwich – two for $5, preferably.


For the first time, I am not eating with daughters this New year’s Eve (they’ve flown the coop so to speak) and Ed and I are trying to find a way to solve the New Year’s Eve quandary.

Let’s get burritos from Chipotle, he tells me.
Let’s not.
Okay. You want to go out somewhere that’s not fussy?
No. I don’t mind the not fussy, but it needs to be special.
We really haven’t had Chipotle for a long time. It’s special.
Let me buy a lobster and make lobster rolls.
No.

Two stubborn people, with very high brick walls. Where will be the opening? I’ll let you know tomorrow.

In the meantime, I find myself at an unlikely place today. True, I am in the neighborhood. But you don’t usually find me wandering into Henry Vilas Park. To glance down at him, with the mustache.




I have very mixed feelings about zoos. But somehow today I have warm thoughts about animals, even if they are, unfortunately, in captivity. Maybe it’s because I am having all these musings about comfort zones. Because surely these two, nuzzling away at each other, are outside theirs.




Though I later read that Bactrian camels -- the two humpers – actually can handle snow covered terrain. And here’s another thing: most every camel on this planet is domesticated, so I have to shed my images of herds roaming deserts in the wild.

So maybe these nuzzling beasts aren’t outside their comfort zones after all. Maybe it’s just me. Struggling with middle ground.

conversations (where the goal is to clear the head)

We should take a walk today. Sun’s out. I need to get moving again. It’ll clear my head.
Okay...
Maybe we should cross country ski...
Okay... Want to cross country ski?
Too much hassle.
Do you want to hike around Blue Mounds?
Too far... I have work to do.
Okay...

(Later, revisiting the same theme, but in a slightly less contrary mood)
Let’s head out somewhere anyway...
(My occasional traveling companion waits, because it’s pointless to offer ideas, knowing they are mere targets for a “shoot ‘em down” session)
Maybe the Arboretum is a good compromise for a busy person like me. Even as I know that you’re less busy. Hardly busy at all. No, actually quite unbusy. (I did say slightly less contrary)
Okay...

We head out.




It’s bright as can be, but that clean angelic sky is deceptive: there is the bite of a deep freeze. But is everything frozen solid? I’m not sure...

Should I cross over?
Want me to?
That’s pointless. I’m lighter. I’ll take the risk.
I don’t really think there is much of a risk, but I want to sound gallant and brave.





I cross and, like for those who have crossed before me, nothing happens. Ed follows.

And now we come to a place in the forest where birds congregate.

I'm losing all good shots! They're too quick and too hidden in the thicket.
Do a manual shot.
I can’t see without my glasses!
Again, you can’t win with this one. Eventually, Ed mutters the equivalent of "huh.”

One lovely little robin, undaunted by the cold, appears intrigued by the sound of my camera (it squeaks when it tries to focus). He comes a little closer and settles on a relatively unobstructed branch.





Thank you, robin.

More birds. Big ones. Turkey birds. They huddle around a large feeding tray.




Long shadows of the afternoon. Too cold to sit down now and contemplate life. But, the head is clearer now. Work can proceed, life can go on.

Time to head back.




Hey, thank you.
Okay...

daughters

No one can make me laugh like they can.




And although I have grown used to their quick arrivals and unwelcome departures, this time, the transition is too sharp and too complete.

The tree comes down, the house is tidied and off they go. My living space is suddenly too orderly, too immaculate -- stripped of their spirit.

I look around, confused. Wasn’t it just a minute ago that the room was fragrant with pine and cluttered with bright lights and cool wit? Didn’t I just have to nudge someone to move over and make room on the couch? Why isn’t there a half finished Klarbrunn (our beloved local fizzy water) in the fridge? And why isn’t anyone putting out plates of food for us to snack on while I fix dinner?

Abruptly empty.

And cold.

Inside and out.



Lake Mendota, slowly freezing over

last night

I would count this as a tough day, posting wise. It’s not that I stayed home and had no occasion to use the camera. From early on, the camera was out and clicking.




And we did go out – my daughters and I. To lunch, to shop, to the movies – conventional mother-daughter events, no?

Sure. But it’s always a wrenching day, that last day of their winter visit. How can it be otherwise?

The air is brisk, cold now. The sun appears for a minute at a time, no more than that.





Eh. Not interested in photographing anything really. Until a daughter nudges me – see that? Buried cart?





Yes, that one feels right. Buried. With only one wheel poking through.


One last dinner of favorites (never cook new things for daughters returning home; they only want the old things, again and again), one last night together, one last night of them passing through...

And then there will be the tough days. Not yet, not until after the Christmas tree comes down. Tomorrow.

many happy returns?

I was prepared, at the shop, for a day of refunds. Of disappointed recipients who wanted anything but what they got. The miscalculated present. I was expecting those.

But I got none of it. You could posit that the returns came before my shift, or that maybe I was sleeping on the job. You’d be wrong.

In the alternative, you could suggest that we, at the shop, listened well to buyers' queries and gave good counsel in return, or that the shop product is so excellent that only a fool would want to return it.

Better. That’s better.


I was thinking today how life is so often a guessing game and how we are forced to predict outcomes with very little information.



rosé at Brasserie V

It’s the day after Christmas. What I really need is for a big clean-up truck to roll in and pick up the debris after yesterday’s celebration. One that could sweep up and put things away and one that maybe would be capable of erasing thoughts of anticipation and replace them with thoughts of reentry into the real world.


Very late in the day, I had a holiday relapse: I baked another four dozen cinnamon rolls, in case daughters, in the last day and a half of their visit here developed an insatiable yearning for the smell of yeasty dough and cinnamon breads baking.


It’s well into the next calendar day before I make it to bed.

Christmas Day

What better way to start the day: light the room with the colors of Christmas bulbs, eat warm yeasty breads with cups of frothy but strong coffee...

And of course, the music: always there is the music. Choirs from England (a favorite – from Clare College), and more jazzy sounds and more playful ones – Muppets included. All day long, there are songs.

I sit before the tree now without a thought of what needs to be done tomorrow or next week. All that needed to be done by today is behind me. Only the hens have to make it to the oven. My cooking marathon is near an end.




One daughter naps, the other reads. Their dad has come and gone.

Outside, there was rain, then there was snow, and finally a snappishly cold wind put an end to all that talk of a mild winter.




Gifts opened, admired, loved. One person’s everyday needs and desires recognized and translated into a package wrapped in paper with snowmen. All that's left now is imagining how that gift will follow the recipient through days of work and play in the cold winter that still is very much before us.

The everyday is a holiday Ed is here. If everyday is a holiday, then surely today deserves holiday treatment. He works on a puzzle, then stirs the pan juices that will be incorporated into the chipotle gravy.





We’ll eat our dinner early and head out to a show late and maybe upon returning, we’ll have a second slice of the bouche.




I thought about Ocean and Ocean readers more than once today. Thank you, those of you who wrote messages and cards. And thank you to those of you who, through coming back, demonstrate the same need to find some small grain of pleasure in the ordinary. I hope your holidays were splendid and delicious.

Christmas Eve

The house is quiet. They’re all out. I could start on the cinnamon rolls. All that yeast work.

No, not yet.

I should finish wrapping.

No, wrong moment for that.

Indeed, part of me, that childish part, wants to walk over to the tree and give a shake to a box or two already there.

But I wont.

I’ll sit quietly for a minute and watch the eve of Christmas Eve take hold.

The day was busy. Of course. Picking up foods to make tonight and tomorrow was itself a huge task. So there wasn't much time for taking stock. Enjoyable, sure it was a thoroughly enjoyable day. And very pretty, in an icy sort of way.









But busy. Now, for the next hour, I need not be busy. I can wait. And listen. O Holy Night from Carla’s Christmas Carols is playing on a daughter’s iTunes. Jazzy. Lovely.

So much of what is around me is simply lovely.

winter holiday

The snow comes down furiously. Chased out of the clouds. Amazing how calm it becomes once it touches the ground.

The holiday ebb of shoppers at the corner store where I work has slowed because of the snow. We’re in the midst of a winter storm warning. How many storms will it take to get us through this season?

I restock shelves, depleted after days of rapid fire selling. Except for the jazzy holiday music, for now, it is quiet.

Winter holidays. What a great thing they are! They put me in a trance that then pushes me through December as pleasantly as if it were June. Even though really, it’s not even full blown winter yet, storms outside notwithstanding.

Did you notice, for example, that the lake here isn’t frozen?




Downtown, anyone can tell that it’s winter break. State Street is empty. Alright, except for my daughters.





And now it’s evening. I finish my final preholiday turn at the shop.





I tidy up, close the register, blow out the holiday candle and face the furious and wet flakes all the way home.

moon light

Christmas is, in my mind, woman’s work. Not everyone does great heaps of holiday work, but when it is done, it seems to me it is done by women. Work that falls on top of regular, nonholiday work. And even though separately, components of work may be enormously pleasurable, when heaped, they can knock the wind out of even the hardiest.


Last night, I closed the shop after one of the busiest evenings ever. Oh, women have been coming in with lists for weeks. They’re finishing up now. Picking up the small items. Lots of stocking stuffers. Men, on the other hand, are fresh on the job. And they’re spending a very long time contemplating whether she will prefer lavender or rose. It’s a new worry, a worry of a novice. Men navigating the holidays are babes in a forest.

But I didn’t need moonlighting in the retail world to understand this. I’ve had years of stuffing stockings (sorry – of helping Santa do this; you know Santa – the CEO of Christmas) and planning menus and buying trees and making sure the tree stand is large enough.

When I first met Ed, I was not surprised that he, the man who wears guy shoes day and night, would have none of it. Christmas leaves him cold. Oh, he’ll tag along and he’ll help me saw off the trunk of the tree if I ask him, but the other stuff, the “girlie” stuff of shopping, decorating, wrapping, of figuring out when the yule log goes in after the cinnamon rolls come out, but before the hens need the oven, of nurturing, worrying, planning – that’s not for him.

Christmas is scary, he’ll tell me, even as I remind him that he hadn’t been terribly scared of it as a boy. (Like so many New York Jewish families that I knew, Ed’s was comfortable navigating the secular aspects of mainstream holidays. I suppose you could say that I came to enjoy holidays in the same backdoor way. The curious thing is that Ed and I passed each other by. My childhood Christmas – modest that it was, became a springboard for drawn out holiday festivities in adulthood. Ed, on the other hand, was happy to leave it all behind.)

In the dark hours of the early morning, I look outside to see fresh snow. I know there would not be time to play in it today, but that’s okay. I allow the noise of the plow out in the lot to slowly wake me up...





Over the years, I have become methodical, organized. As the plow rumbles and scrapes, I think to the day ahead. It’s well practiced choreography. I know what needs to be done.

The snow continues to fall – delicate snow, lovely snow.




By late afternoon, I am back at the shop, helping the men figure out if she likes lavender or rose.

together

I am at the corner shop. It’s not my evening to work, but the scheduled salesperson called in sick and so there I am.

A young teen comes in. He’s not looking to buy anything; he asks if he can use our phone.

Of course.

He spends a while on the call. He’s obviously upset. He gives back the receiver, then asks for it again.

The shop is full of customers, but I am curious and a little anxious for him and so I strain to listen. I catch phrases about being left behind. About being alone and wandering into a shop to seek out a phone...

He hangs up and goes outside where he sits, slumped in the cold against the wall. I think he’s crying.

The phone in our store rings. His family. I call him over. They confer and then the boy goes out. I see a man walking to him -- surely his father -- and I see him give the boy a great hug, and then another and anther.

Reunited.


My daughters arrived tonight. Reunited with family, with Madison.


Earlier, Ed and I struggle with putting up the tree. It’s always a struggle. One year it was frozen and snowcovered. Another, it was too fat and stubby.

This year we have one that sheds sap and grows sticky, but size-wise, it’s just right.



In the evening, after my work, my daughters and I put up the decorations. One at a time. With care and lots of happy smiles, until all the boxes are empty. The lights go on.

You're the perfect Christmas tree, we say. You can be no better.





We sit back and study the way our favorite ornaments catch the light.