Rain, Solstice, and a Long-Awaited Vacation
Happy weekend (nearly). The rain has not stopped all night, and, at 7 am, it is drizzling still; it is our earliest start to summer in years.
Speaking of summer, the solstice is tomorrow and will be the longest day of the year. Enjoy if you will participate in any pagan festivities to mark those extra minutes and our eventual slide into darkness.
A month from now, I will be a week away from kissing ‘work’ goodbye and taking a month off. I have written this column, From Here, as a weekly for over a decade and, for the last 18 months, pretty much daily. I can’t imagine not doing it, although I am trying! I am psyching myself up to stop writing (and editing and publishing) for an entire month.
My last vacation was in late December 1986. – nearly 40 years ago. Of course, it was my first trip to Vallarta, and we all know how that turned out. Now, I am headed to Sweden with my sister – one of our nieces is getting married in early August. That’s our focus and will include side trips to London, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Cologne, and Brussels. And, lest we forget, my Old Country of Canada, where I have not set foot for 15 years.
I have zero expectations, which is strange for me always micro-managing my time, but it’s a good thing – I cannot be disappointed with anything that happens; I will roll with the punches and try to stay warm and be on time for flights, trains, and boats—other people’s schedules.
And other people’s lives! Yipes! Non-tropical lives. I haven’t lived like a normal person for so long. Maybe it’s like riding a bicycle, and it’ll all come flooding back to me as soon as I set foot on Canadian soil.
I just remembered a funny thing that happened while I was out walking around in my sister’s town of Drumheller the last time I was there. Someone passed me on the sidewalk, stopped, then turned around and, with kindness, said, “You’re not from here, are you?”
No, I am from Vallarta, where the sun shines every day, the streets are cobbled, and there is lots of salt water and, lately, rain. My kitty Bogie will guard my queerly designed house while I am away from it and him. I am from Vallarta, where there are still choices to be made – food can cost a hundred bucks for lunch or next to nothing for a can of tuna and a pack of saltines, and I will be as full afterward. I am from Vallarta, where the community is strong and as easy as breathing. I am from Vallarta, where hugs and/or huge smiles await on every corner from everybody I meet.