I’ve been handed my first writing assignment in ages, covering a much-anticipated wedding in Portugal. At the same time, an incredible opportunity has come up involving a full-time job for a major newspaper chain covering nothing but Taylor Swift.
Isn’t that just the way these things happen?
You are a nobody for years. Unread, unfollowed, untalked about, an aging ghost of a writer drifting through the literary fields. Suddenly you have to choose between the wedding of the decade and Taylor Swift.
In counseling the British writer Robert Graves on a possible move to Majorca, Gertrude Stein called it “a paradise – if you can stand it.”
And that is as good an explanation as any of the complicated relationship many people have with Jimmy Buffett. The man sold a brand of paradise. Millions bought at least some version of it – be it a beachy lifestyle, the music, a devotion to margaritas, Hawaiian shirts and sandals, sportfishing, sailing, and all the Margaritaville bars, retirement communities, casinos, resorts …
Buffett wasn’t the first to turn a lifestyle into a commodity but few seem to do it better. Maybe Donald Trump. These days you can be a cradle-to-grave Parrothead with apologies toward none. More than anything, we worship success and if a guy sells a million records or makes a million dollars, he will find no shortage of admirers.
Rose Alcantara spending a Belizean birthday at Victoria House on Ambergris Caye.
As a writer, I don’t think I’ve grown less creative over the years. As the husband to Rose Alcantara, I don’t think I’ve grown less ardent in my love and appreciation.
Still, I wrote this declaration on her birthday (which is today) during our first year in San Miguel de Allende, and I don’t think I can improve upon it:
“Feliz cumpleaños, Rose Alcantara, el amor de mi vida! Cada año creces más hermosa. Tienes un alma que nunca envejece y un corazón que crece para llenarse en cada momento. Estoy tan agradecido de que estés en mi vida. Te amaré por siempre.
Happy Birthday, Rose Alcantara, the love of my life! Each year you grow more beautiful. You have a soul that never ages and a heart that grows to fill every moment. I am so grateful that you are in my life. I shall love you forever.”
Nothing has changed.
If anything, my sense of wonder grows as I see Rose through the eyes of others, as I see how passionately she prepares for her every Pilates class, as I see her smile lift a whole room of weighted souls, as I see her love for her children and mine played out daily, as I see her planning our next adventures, as I see her embracing life as something to live and not just abide, as I see her response to every act of kindness, as I see her own compassion, as I see her.
Yes, simply, as I see Rose.
Not just be with her, but, see her. See inside. See the love. See the pain. See the hurt. See the worry. See the desire. See the happiness. See the vision. See everything that she has overcome to be the dancer, be the teacher, be the mother, be the wife, be the friend.
Once again, the gift today is mine. Thank you for traveling this path with me. Thank you for teaching me how to really live, that just abiding is not enough.
While I can only give you words, you have given me life.
The voice is young, sweet, innocent and yet, broken in a way only love’s betrayal can scar.
She accompanies herself on a guitar, languidly strumming. Not living, not dead. In the between. In the neverland of a broken heart. The vocalist drags out the last words of each line, as if groping toward a precipice. It may be in Spanish but it feels very French.
The singing is coming from an upper patio of the building next door.
Every time I think that I’ve photographed the Parroquia San Miguel de Arcangel from every conceivable angle during the past five years, something new comes along.
It’s like in physics. Scientists were pretty sure that the Standard Model that addresses all “of nature’s known particles and forces” was The Overall Encompassing Answer to Everything.
(The author begs your indulgence if you already read this on Facebook. The blog seems a better home for it. Thank you for reading and commenting. — The editor)
A whole ocean spreads out before them
But for two little boys
A string of shallow pools
And some rocks
Are quite enough.
They hop from pool to pool
Splashing water with foot-stomping fierceness
They move rocks from pool to pool.
They wallow in the deepest one
Like beached sea lions.
All the while, the ocean calls
In vain.
It sends dolphins to entice them
But the boys will have none of that.
Yesterday, at a children’s park,
It was the rolling green lawn, the wind twisted climbing trees, and the incurious squirrels
That captivated their imaginations.
Not the swings, not the slides, not the plastic and rope confections of an adult’s imagination.
They are like cats with boxes and Christmas wrapping.
And the Creator said, “epiphyllum oxypetalum, you shall be a cactus, though you do not look like one. Once a year and only at night, you shall bear forth beautiful flowers while the world sleeps. Before dawn your flowers shall wither away, but only before being ravaged by bats.”
The epiphyllum oxypetalum did not understand this curious fate but it knew better than to argue with the Creator.
Perhaps the Creator felt a little guilty because later, the epiphyllum oxypetalum was given a lovely and pronounceable name: Queen of the Night.
I met a woman, in my dreams last night. Her senses are scrambled. She touches through her eyes. She sees through her nose. She tastes and smells through her skin. She listens through her mouth. She speaks through her ears.
Speaking isn’t a sense. I know. But this was her dream. I only happened to walk into it.
“What a fine mess you are in,” I say. “Or is this a path to enlightenment? “Or a punishment? Some sad karma?” Mainly, she remains mute, confused. As would I, in such a confounding scramble.
I ask her if I could walk a mile in her shoes. “My shoes?” she cries. “Do you mean to say that I still have feet?” Just what she didn’t need, someone else in her shoes. “Are they still at the bottom of my legs?” she asks.
Under the circumstances, it was an unkind thing to say.
Swapping sensual responsibilities has its strengths. Imagine listening through your mouth, Drawing in another’s words with your breath. Savoring them, absorbing them, digesting them. You would actually have to listen. Rather than think of some clever retort.
Suppose you speak through your ears. That requires special talent well beyond small talk. I don’t even know how it can be done. My dream offered nothing on this. Maybe, intently listening is a form of speaking. Silence does speak volumes as others chatter on.
Putting your senses to work in areas For which they were not trained Sounds like a grueling, but potentially rewarding, exercise. Sort of like the blind man whose other senses Compensate by growing intensely acute.
Perhaps all senses ought to be rotated once in a while, Like the tires on your car. We grow lazy, only hearing through our ears, Seeing through our eyes, speaking/tasting through our mouths, feeling through our skin, smelling through our noses.
Shake them up, I say! And when, again, we grow too comfortable, Rotate them once more! Keep the fine treads of our senses staying sharp.
Perhaps if we employ all our senses to share the load — Let the eyes do the speaking, let the ears do the seeing, Let the skin replace taste and smell …
Soon, all our sensations grow muscle and power. Newer sensations arise, previously unknown sensations. Next thing you know, the heart and brain Want to engage in this circus of sensations, too. And, then, won’t things get interesting?
We are fully present in processing our environment We are fully engaged in evaluating, understanding, inhabiting.
Deep immersion, full immersion, absorption and immersion.
Life gets more interesting because we will be, well … living. No longer just data-processing and consumption machines. We are higher beings. At one, for once, with the various universes.
The woman in my dream knows none of this just yet. She is still trying to … Touch through her eyes. See through her nose. Taste and smell through her skin. Listen through her mouth. Speak through her ears. Find her footing.
I try to tell the woman in my dream that it will get better. But her face is blank. She betrays no thoughts. The woman in my dream moves on, back to the shadows. She seems neither excited nor saddened.
I gather it will take some time. Perhaps she will come back on another night And show me what she has learned.
Images were generated by artificial intelligence based on the first stanza.
