February 2: Patagonia

Today is hiking day. We have two hikes planned in the National park.  It’s beautiful out. Patagonia is stunning: huge, craggy peaks, glaciers and geological delights as far as the eye can see. I don’t have the words to explain it other than sublime. Our guide, Mariso, was a delight. He’s a big guy with a charming smile and a booming laugh. He is so knowledgeable about the history and culture of the area. Not all guides are created the same and he was a good one. As we walked the trail, he would walk alongside and chat with us individually. He told us funny stories about camping in Northern California and how he found out that he was an overconfident guide.

The first hike was about 5 miles. We walked up to a ledge where there were petroglyphs. I took a photo of the ancient hands painted on the rock there. I still cannot figure out how these ancient people figured out how to mix paint that has lasted for 1000’s of years. Keith has a pencil drawing in his wallet that I made for him years ago. It’s not really that old and is faded significantly. I don’t get it. 

The second half was a delightful meander. It was a fairly easy trail with a view of Torres del Paine (“blue towers”). Holy cow! Again the only word I have is sublime. Greg, one of our single travelers, had a rough time of it today. He didn’t drink enough water and was hurting by the end of the day. One day, a few months ago, while working with Tom, Greg heard him talking about this trip. He decided that he wanted to come, and spent the next few months learning Spanish just to come to South America. I tip my hat to this dude. 

The second half was a shorter hike but holy hell it was steep! Both Keith and I decided that we would like to walk around the next day so we sat at the base and watched our friends with our binoculars as they traveled up and down the trail. Keith called it sportscasting. It was very entertaining and we got to have a rest, a bag of chips, and a cold drink. A win/win for us!

January 31: Patagonia

We had an early start this morning with a 5am alarm. Oh but it was worth it. I got a hot shower for the first time this trip! The shower in our room in Easter Island was lukewarm at best. Our hotel is located literally across from the airport terminal. No need for transport. It will be a travel day today; nothing is planned. I’m hoping to do some laundry this afternoon and get to bed early tonight. Steve and I are playing my ukulele, well, I’m playing, and he is singing. We all sang Lava together earlier at the airport. I think it was the best it’s ever sounded. It’s been fun having others join in my uke fun!

I’m working on a song for this trip that we can sing on the boat once we get to Antarctica. Knowing my songwriting skills it will be silly. I’ll keep you posted.

We gained some peeps today. Suzy the veterinarian and Shaun and Lisa. They all got premier seats on this flight. I need to know how they managed that <grin>.

At our boarding area we came across a Starbucks so I thought that after I walked to the bathroom I would surprise Keith with a hot drink. As I am standing there in line I hear him calling for me. There he was with a big smile on his face and 2 Starbucks cups in his hands! He had the same idea. Oh I love this man, 😍

So my work today of loving the moment is the dude sitting next to me has a wicked case of gas. I’m not sure quite how to live that unconditionally but I’ll be grateful that is not something worse.

Punta Arenas, in the afternoon

We broke from our group today to have an adventure on our own. I wanted to find a duffel bag and look around the town. Keith and I got a map and headed off. We found the main shopping area but everything was closed for siesta. Siesta! What a brilliant idea. When I was younger the siesta made no sense to me. Then I got older. Holy cow to take a nice break midday is a godsend. I am a convert!

We stumbled on a Chilean version of McGuckins, one of our favorite stores in Boulder. It had everything. It didn’t feel like a department store. It had underware, screwdrivers, cat toys, party supplies, and everything in between. We bought a toothpick dispenser for one of our kids, more paper for me and an air freshener that was desperately needed for our hotel room. We probably spent an 45 minutes wandering around in there. 

On our way back we made a miscalculation and ended up nowhere near our hotel, but the universe had lead us straight to the cemetery. The people here seem to prefer to bury their family in mausoleums rather than in the ground. Each grave site has an area where the family places mementos for all to see. I found it fascinating, creepy, and cute, all at the same time. I had previously watched a documentary that talked about the customs around this type of cemetery and I heard that you have to pay for your space in perpetuity. If you don’t, and you don’t keep up on annual payments, your bones are evicted. It’s very different that’s what we are used to in the States.

I needed a drink after that, so we had a mojito and empanadas. They were so good and I gotta stop eating all this gluten. I am not going to fit in my pants next week. 

January 27: Easter Island (Rapa Nui)

We’ve arrived! From the air the island appears to be long and skinny. Numerous volcanic eruptions created its land mass. As we approached we could see the remains of a huge caldera. It was beautiful to see. As far as I can see the the island is made of lava, of all kinds. It’s greener than I expected! It’s very hot and humid as well.

It took a long long time to get into our room this afternoon, oh and what bliss it was to walk into the cold room with the air conditioning blowing. Our guide is an indigenous young man named Amato, which means big sky in the local Rapanui language. We found a little shop with cool little Moai magnets and Keith insisted that I buy a big brimmed hat to keep the sun off of my face. Lord that hat is goofy looking.

We went tonight to see the Moai at sunset. It was spectacular. Keith and I sat on the grass in front of the one statue that had his “eyes” (more on Moai eyes in a later post). I just wanted to sit with the Moai. The sunset, the breeze from the ocean and the Moai felt like we were in a moment of timelessness. It was remarkable.

January 27: Santiago, Chile

We got up early and headed to the airport. All was smooth sailing until we had to go through passport control. We booked this adventure so long ago that we forgot we got new passports about a year ago, so our passport numbers had changed, and they didn’t match the numbers on the documents that our travel agent produced for us to show the authorities in Chile. I am so grateful for my tech savvy husband! He refilled the forms in record speed and we were on our way. I would probably still be there looking for my glasses.

My goal of being disconnected from social media and sorta get away from the world while we are down here is challenging. It’s eye opening to me how attached I have become to my phone. 

Nancy and Tom Caruso are the defacto leaders of our group. Nancy is the brains behind the operation. That woman is amazing. She can effortlessly wrangle a group of independent adults into getting where we need to be ON TIME! She works with a lot of kids so she has mad skills. Tom is struggling a bit with his back. He tweaked it awhile back and he hasn’t gotten over the pain yet. He will be our photographer for the trip, so I imagine he will forget about his pain as soon his camera is in his hand, at least for a time. I recognized long ago that his photos are the ones that capture the beauty of the trip. It’s such a gift not to have to experience a place through a lens and you just get to be present.

Steve is one of Nancy’s board members with Get Inspired and he and Tom are great friends. They enjoy teasing each other. He has similar energy to a dear friend of ours so he feels comfortable to be around. He is a charming man with a great sense of humor and a gentleman vibe. Steve ended up seated next to Keith on the flight and graciously traded with me, which may have been a favor to him: we have an unhappy baby in the row in front of us.

I have to wonder if the baby is unhappy because of the pressure on his ears or if he’s just cranky. I can really feel it in my ears on this flight. His dad has been walking with him every time he fusses. I just heard somewhere that one of the greatest gifts that feminism has given to men is the opportunity for them to spend more time with their children. This man with the baby has been so tender it’s delightful to see. 

January 26: Santiago, Chile

We arrived early in the morning on Sunday. The roads are quiet and the city is asleep. There are some dedicated runners and a few dog walkers with cups of coffee In their hands slowly meandering the streets. The Andes loom through the haze in the distance, beautiful and foreboding. I didn’t manage much sleep on the flight so I am tired. I can feel the humidity in the air and am aware of how hot my feet are in my wool socks.

Santiago has a tunnel that goes under the city for traffic control: there’s only one way in and many exits out. I think it’s a brilliant idea but hard to really judge since we are here with no traffic on the streets.

Our hotel room is very hot! Thank goodness the AC cooled the room quickly for our nap. The afternoon was filled with naps, a walk to the grocery store and a meetup with the people we are traveling with. Walmart was too far away to walk to so we ended up at the neighborhood market. It had a huge meat department with more meat than the big Whole Foods market in Boulder. These people like their proteins! We bought some fresh bread, fruit, coconut macaroons, and some French fries for a snack. We have an early day tomorrow, meeting up at 6am to leave for our flight to Easter Island. 

January 25: Boulder, CO

We’re on our way to Antartica! First stop Houston, then on to Chile. I hear the weather in Santiago is warm and toasty, a far cry from what we woke to this morning in Boulder. It snowed most of the night and we had three or four inches on the sidewalk. Keith had a fun time sliding his car around on the way to the airport. I did not.

I was up late last night packing and repacking my suitcase. I didn’t notice the snow but I felt the cold; perhaps that’s why I packed so many things. We’ll see how it works out. Our flights have been uneventful, the best kind. We transferred through Dallas and will arrive in Santiago around 7am. There is a Walmart close to the hotel and we plan on walking over to get snacks. I will be curious to see what a Chilean Walmart looks like. I expect it will be the same.

I am working on two things while we are on this adventure. To disconnect from the news, YouTube and my email. And to experience all of this adventure both good and bad with unconditional love. Standing in line this morning at Starbucks and then not getting the thing I ordered was not a good start for my unconditional love experience 😉

 

Recently we spent a few days with our friends, let’s call them John and Jane. John is an easy going guy who seems like not much bothers him. His wife, Jane, is a beautiful, funny, vivacious lady who is a big germaphobe. She is serious about getting her clean on. I was a little worried that I was doing stuff all of the time that was grossing her out. I’ll be honest I don’t get it. OK, I would like to be entranced by cleaning, but I’m just not. It’s not my favorite way to spend the day. I do love Myers cleaning products and appreciate how much I like a spotless house, but I would rather spend the day reading or cooking, or almost anything else than scrubbing the toilet. I do it, I just don’t like it.

Our new house has a fresh, contemporary vibe. We have a concrete hallway and lots of windows. I love it. Once we moved in, I was surprised how fast that hallway got dirty. The hall is right inside the front door and what everyone sees as they come into the house. With all of the light, you can’t hide the dirt. I wanted to figure out a way to make cleaning this hallway manageable. My broom wasn’t cutting it. I needed an upgrade. My plan was to lean on modern technology, so I bought a Swiffer. It was ok, but I needed more cleaning bang for my buck. I boosted the Swiffer power and got one that had moist pads. Ugh. It was streaky. Keith joined in and got a dustmop. That actually worked pretty well until we had to figure out how to pick up the dust at the end of the hall. A dust mop is what you use to clean a basketball court not a hallway. It’s 2 feet wide! Where do I shake out all the dirt?

I know, I know, first world problems…

After a trial with a Dyson stick, our regular vacuum cleaner on low setting and a dry string mop. Keith decides to get us a rumba. He told me that we could set it so it would run at night. We would come down in the morning and the floor would be swept and the hallway problem would be solved. Leave it to my engineer husband to figure out a solution. I wasn’t sure it would work on our concrete, but I was in.

So we get our rumba. It’s a little round robot. I’ve seen YouTube videos and think they are grand cat taxis. We named him Wall-e. Keith set it up and programmed the time for him to run. We wanted it to clean at night so Wall-e wouldn’t be underfoot during the day. He did a test run, and all was good. I was jazzed! My hallway problem was about to be solved.

A few days later I wake up to the same dirty hall. Wall-e didn’t clean. Maybe we got a Wall-e that was a little too much like me and would rather read than sweep? Keith rolled his eyes and assured me that was not the case. Something was amiss. So we tried it again. We got up the next morning and again a dirty hall. Wall-e would sweep during the day but just didn’t want to at night. This went on for a few days.

Then one night we forgot to turn off the hall lights. Lo and behold we woke up to a clean floor. Hmm. Could Wall-e be afraid of the dark? As an experiment, I left the lights on overnight. The next morning everything was clean. So yes, our robot won’t clean in the dark. Keith has explained to me that it’s the camera that lets him see the walls that needs a little bit of light. I prefer to think of him as our little friend and likes a nightlight to work. Don’t judge me for giving Wall-e human characteristics. I watched The Jetsons when I was a kid. Who didn’t want a Rosie as a maid?

In the end, it worked out well.  The trouble getting Wall-e going was a small thing, but I promise you a couple of years ago in our relationship it could have been a thing we might have had conflict over. It would have been so easy to belittle each other for the failure of Wall-e’s first attempts at cleaning. I might have said some snarky comment about it being a dumb and expensive idea, and Keith could have reacted with hurt feeling over my contempt for his solution to the problem. We often fought over the little things rather than being courageous enough to talk about the big things that were off in the relationship. To make matters worse so often in a fight it became about who was right and who was wrong.

Being right was a thing in my family. You didn’t question. You should somehow just know things. Being wrong equaled being bad. You were stupid. You were inadequate. It was not something that I knew was happening, but as an adult, I can see it now. The problem with having to be right all the time is that if you are right, sure you get to win, but it makes your partner a loser. I had to think about that. My partner that I loved so much had to lose to make me feel better about myself. I had to be better than him. That was a terrible way to be in a relationship. I hated it when it happened to me as a kid and I promise it didn’t feel any better as an adult. It was a big problem we had to overcome.  It’s taken a lot of work, but we are on the path of figuring it out.  Our first step was deciding if it was more important to be right or be married. Sounds simple but I guarantee remembering this in the middle of a fight is not. I have to remember that everyone has the right to their opinion. Sometimes, my opinions are way different than Keith’s and the same goes for him. We are 2 different people and its I’ve learned to accept that his opinion can be different than mine.

Wall-e is a story about how Keith gave me a gift from his heart. He thought about what would make my life easier and put his spin on it. I would have never considered a rumba as a good gift. But he did. He didn’t have a fear of being wrong. He just did it. I am grateful for the part of Keith’s brain that is so different than mine. He doesn’t always see the world as I do. Somedays it’s a challenge. Most days its a delight. We’ve discovered that being different is not being wrong. It’s just different. He doesn’t have to wrong to let me win. We’ve taken that off the table. He just lets me be me and doesn’t mind that I think our robot is afraid of the dark.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve got to give it to Popeye. He is a confident sort of guy. He doesn’t seem to notice that he has those weirdly out of proportion lower arms. I mean how do you even buy a shirt for this guy? He eats cold spinach (ugh) out of the can and has, let’s say, an unconventionally beautiful girlfriend named Olive Oyl. His buddy Bluto is a bully and is often trying to steal Olive away from him. Makes me want to know more about Olive now that I think about that…

But he was 100% OK with who he was. I’ve got to give him props for that. I have been working on that same sort of confidence and self-acceptance that he has.

So Keith and I were in San Fransico not too long ago. We decided to have a food adventure and find really good sushi. Keith knows more about sushi that I do. I had a bad experience with sea urchin a few years ago, so I have a certain amount of anxiety around unknown sushi. But I like an adventure, so I leaned in.

We found Kusakabe. Wow. The food was delicious. Everything was fresh, beautiful and little pieces of art. We sat at the bar and our food was prepared by Chef Nori. We paired the sushi with a saki tasking and just had the most delightful evening. It was such a treat.

So here is where my friend Popeye comes in.

After we ordered, our server brought us hand towels and many small plates and a lot of miscellaneous stuff. The staff was soft-spoken and demure. I was really busy looking around and missed everything he said about what was what. I was distracted and not paying attention to his instructions. The people who were next to us were in mid-meal and that was an additional vie for my attention.

Our server had poured us a cup of hot something. Was it tea? Was it water? I wasn’t sure. When I picked up the cup and looked it seemed pretty transparent but it did smell sort of seaweed-like. The cup was sitting next to my hand towel. Hmm, well perhaps it’s not really tea it’s just hot water.

OK. So I picked up the towel to wipe my hands.

We were going to eat most of this meal with our fingers so clean hands were a must. The towel felt damp, but not really wet enough. Yes, you can see where this is headed. I dunked my towel into my tea and proceeded to wipe my hands

Part of my brain was screaming NO the other part was thinking that I just wanted the public ick of San Fransisco off my hands.

Our server literally runs over to tell me that is tea and not to do that. He looks appalled. In my head, I perceive that the restaurant has gone still and everyone has turned their heads to peer at the ignorant chick with the tea soaked towel. None of that was true. No one noticed except the server and Keith. Five years ago this would have sent me into a shame spiral that would have lasted for days and ended with a huge fight with Keith.

This time, though, I laughed. Loudly. A Yuk-yuk-yuk sort of awkward guffaw. I laughed at myself. I laughed at the situation. and I laughed because it was funny. I had the most delightful moment of both self-awareness and self-compassion. I was not the first person in the world to do that very same thing, nor would I be the last.

Here’s the beautiful thing. Not one person in that resturaunt fell off their chair in shock. The chef continued preparing our meal and the waiter didn’t stop serving us. I didn’t die nor did Keith file for divorce citing bad table manners as the cause. The world continued its slow spin.

I am imperfect and human, and as a human, we are allowed to do dumb stuff sometimes. I have discovered that self-acceptance is a force field against shame. It’s sort of a cone of silence against making yourself feel worthless. If we can accept that mistakes are just a way of learning then we are allowed to rise.

I have my good days and my bad. I’m just giving myself permission to rise more often. Apparently, strength comes from more than just cold canned spinach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keith and I were in North Carolina for our anniversary the first part of July. We celebrated 8 years of wedded bliss. Well, mostly bliss. But that is for another day. Anyway, I saw fireflies for the first time there. My gosh what a magical treat that was!

Keith and I would wait until twilight and then stand in awe watching these little bugs sparkle around the grass and in the trees. It was like the stars came down to earth just to delight us. It didn’t last long, and when it was over, I wanted more.

I grew up in Colorado where I never saw them. It seems like those insects like thick foliage and humidity. It’s pretty dry here in Colorado, so instead of delightful fireflies, we have Miller moths. Not an equal comparison.

I have been thinking about the fireflies now that we’re back home and I wish I could see them again. That feeling of magic and wonderment that I had as a kid has been lost to me for a long time. I remember being in such a huge hurry to grow up that I’m not sure that I appreciated things. Or maybe I did but didn’t have the language to express it. I’m not sure. For me, growing up was something you just had to get through. As an adult, I have been so caught up with keeping my head above water, and living, I have overlooked so much. I haven’t been noticing the joy that the world has to share.

But seeing things through a different lens has made a difference for me. I am lucky to be where I am at this moment and know it could all be gone tomorrow. I know how quickly life can change.

A couple of years ago Keith and I started a gratitude practice. We would remember one thing we were grateful for and talk about it at dinner. It was a simple way for us to be reminded to slow down and see the world differently. Keith would often point out how pretty the sky was or the contours of the rocks in a beautiful landscape. It forced us to slow down and notice things. I would be grateful for the more pragmatic things of the day, ice cubes for my water, or a cool breeze on a hot day. Both directions fed our gratitude.

As Keith and I get older, we are more aware of our mortality. Time really does fly by as you get older. I mean really, wasn’t it just New Years? And as I think about that, spending time with those bright little fireflies was time well spent. Maybe those few minutes spent with the fireflies was a reminder for us of the transient time we spend here. A beautiful reminder to notice the world around me and to be grateful for them.

Or maybe it was just a delightful treat. I’ll take it either way.

 

 

My sister read my last blog post featuring my bike story. I couldn’t tell if she was delighted or annoyed. No matter. What she said to me after she read the tale was the important part.

My grandma upon hearing the tragedy replaced her bike. Grandma kept it safe and away from the riff-raff at our place by holding it for my sister to enjoy when she visited her house. I think had I been in the same position I would have likely done the same thing.

Whew. I’m relieved to know that my sister’s bike was replaced. I didn’t know that until now.

However, two weeks after she got the new bike, she left it in the driveway for a moment and my grandpa Carl ran over it with his truck.

Sigh…

Giggle…

Sigh.