Sometimes more than others

On my recent trip to Mexico, we signed up for one of those guided tours. Not the kind where they stamp your hand and shuffle you through like cattle but certainly the kind that you take when you’re in a foreign country and you want to go through the jungle without getting eaten by jungle creatures, lost, or worse, be out so late you miss the Red Sox game.

Through some streak of luck, reservation confusion and the magic that is “Mexican Time” (which is just like Island Time for any who may be more familiar with that concept; believe me when I say EXACT SAME THING), we ended up on a smaller, later starting tour with only four other people. And our guide, who was this hilarious self-proclaimed Mexican-American who immediately made you feel that even if you hadn’t ever been to camp as a kid and had the “cool counselor” that the next six hours were going to totally make up for anything you might have missed. “I have a Mexican girlfriend now,” he said, “I had a Dominican girlfriend before. And all that means is now instead of everyone getting their ass kicked, it’s now just me.” This is how the day started.

As we went on our hiking/biking/snorkeling/zip lining adventure, each activity became more fun than the last. Also, being in a very small group, we had a ton of time for a lot of “extras” that wouldn’t otherwise occur. At one point our group was having a really hard time deciding if we wanted to eat, float in a cenote or drink beer first. “Float, eat, drink,” I told our guide. “Dang, are you single,” he asked, though it was more of a statement than a question. All I could say was “let’s not go there.” Sure, a little retro but I was serious. We did not need to go there.

Which sort of brings me to my point, the point of all this. There was a moment, when I stood at the top of a tower that was something like a billion feet in the air, looked at the three hundred sixty degrees of jungle canopy around us, took a deep breath and lifted my feet off the platform and felt, without any doubt, that there was no other place I would have rather been on Earth. Think about that for a minute; that feeling of knowing you are one hundred percent right where you think you ought to be. I didn’t need anything else. I needed no one else around me. I wasn’t anything but right there.

I felt a similar feeling when I walked in the door tonight. It’s been drizzly and rainy all day. I’m still getting over this cold and the feeling that my head weighs sixteen pounds. I let the dog out, kicked off my shoes, and put on my slippers and a sweatshirt. I put the teapot on the stove and while I waited for the water to boil, I sat down at my table and looked out onto the patio and thought, this is good. It is good, like that zip line in Mexico. But with one difference, I really would have liked to have someone sitting at the table with me. At least once in a while.