Hell’s Half Acre

If love is like a rollercoaster, then our life lately has been in a non-stop Groundhog Day of E-ticket rides. We consider, drop the idea, consider again, drop and look around to see if anyone is filming “Groundhog Day”. We seriously looked at the possibility of investing in PaaMul and spending the summer rennovating a palapa that wasn’t even on the market (though the owners would like to sell). One morning we’d consider specific palapas; by noon we’d be considering building one and by afternoon we’d decide not to purchase anything in Quintana Roo only to be followed by the re-consideration the next morning. We wavered back and forth, over and over, day after day. In the midst of this wavering we were trying to decide whether or not to purchase a colonial to remodel in Merida (still no decision there). And in our oodles of spare time we’d debate the merits of settling down in Eugene Oregon or Silver City NM. When time came to an absolute standstill we’d consider all types of work and ways to provide for the future. And go back and forth, up and down, in and out, swinging wildly and getting more and more dizzy in the process.

And then one day we decided. No palapa in PaaMul. That was about the ONLY decision we could make; we’re absolutely inert with indecisiveness. And then today, during our walk, we brought PaaMul back into the picture again. As much as this is so NOT Mexico, as much as we would, in the winter, be surrounded by drunk Canadians, this place gets into your blood. How can it not?

I wake, get my coffee, put in a few hours before everyone wakes and savor the sun creeping over the canopy. The trailer is quiet, the camp is quiet and the birds and coconut trees are the only noise. After everyone wakes we make breakfast, do a little laundry and get ready for our walk. The boys tidy the trailer and watch the girls while we pound our brains and our bodies for a bit alongside the Caribbean. And what a beauty of a sea is the Caribbean. While the Inuit and First Nations peoples of western Canada must have 50 words for the word, “snow”, the Mayans, had they lived on the coast (generally they avoided the coast) would have had about 50 words for “green” and about 51 for “blue”. There are no words to describe the multitude of blues and greens we see daily on our walk. The dazzling bright whiteness of the sand serves as an absolute contrast for whatever shade they decide to dazzle us with that day. We talk, we egg each other on, I kick his ass and we end our walk in the shade of a newly built palapa while the kids play inside the trailer. We feed the kids again, if necessary, and then take whomever wants to come for a snorkel.

If you’ve ever seen a well stocked tropical aquarium, then you know the fish we’re swimming with. I don’t know if my favorite is the purple and yellow, the chocolate and turquoise, the cobalt blue with fringes of sky blue, the leopard print with a brilliant orange and blood red striped tail or the almost transparently clear with a bright yellow stripe down their body. It is enough to make you think that the person in charge of tropical fish designed them while on a lovely acid trip.

Afternoon I’m either working a bit more or we’re doing more chores or maybe one of these days we’ll extricate the kids from the absolute homebodies they’ve become and (drumroll) they’ll LEAVE THE TRAILER and we’ll go somewhere. We’ve found that YaKul is wonderful in the late afternoon when all the fishies come back into the lagoon to feed, but honestly, with the beauty of the reef right off PaaMul, we don’t really need to go anywhere else.

So here we sit, on sunburnt asses, high on the colors of tropical fish, happy kids, hot days, A/C nights, without a thought of tomorrow. It always comes; why worry about it now…until Groundhog day begins anew.