Home is Where "The Mart" is

It’s been nearly 48 hours since our plane lifted off the tarmac at Cancun International Airport and I’m still defying the urge to greet people with an “Hola” and thank them with a “Gracias.”  We only spent five and half days in Mexico – Akumal, to be exact, but the warm water, cool sand of the Riviera Maya, and fruity drinks aplenty will tumble through my thoughts for days and weeks to come.  

THE CARIBBEAN SEA

It was refreshing to wake up to the sea breeze blowing in through the open balcony door, and to lazily lie in bed and watch the sheer curtains dance in the draft.  I reveled in the thought that the only decisions that needed to be made were whether to wear my olive green bathing suit or my maroon one, or whether to hit up the breakfast buffet at 9:00 or 9:30.   

Yet although resort life can be good, but it had its setbacks:  being so used to traveling to places where we are deeply ingratiated in the culture that surrounds us, Mart and I had a hard time feeling like we were, in fact, in Mexico.  Everywhere we looked we saw Americans, Brits, and Canadians, and other than the resort employees, who were predominately Mexican, the crowd was largely homogenous:  white, middle class folk.  Don’t get me wrong – I like white, middle class folks.  I happen to be one.  But after two days on the resort, we packed up the sunscreen and bottled water and hopped the collective to the Tulum Mayan Ruins and then to Tulum Pueblo, where we got our cultural fix and rubbed elbows with the locals.

TULUM RUINS:

 

TULUM PUEBLO:

While in Mexico we marveled at the sea, spent listless hours with our toes in the white sand, and ate as much as our bellies could hold.  At the end of each day we questioned our sanity for settling in the humdrum county of Albany.   As we walked the beach on our last day there, we passed a vendor selling pottery in an open-air thatch-roofed hut.   

He greeted us as we entered:  “Hola, como estas?” 

“Muy bueno.  Y tu?”

“I’m at work,” he responded dryly in English (as if to say, "How happy can I be?")

We looked at his wares and continued our walk along the beach, discussing the fact that our idea of paradise is just someone else’s idea of home – the place they live, the place they laugh and cry, lay in bed when they are sick, visit the bank when they are low on cash, stand in line at the grocery store, and work.  I mentally sifted through our short list of reasons why we chose to stay in Albany, to have it be the place where we did these things.  Family and friends were, of course, number one.  Work came in second, and comfort and convenience followed close behind.  The list may be short, I thought to myself but, damn, those things are worth it.  

I thought about how the more I travel, and the more I see of other people’s places in this world, the more I understand that those who live on paradise’s doorstep don’t recognize it as such. Looking out into the miles of vast open sea, I pondered the relevance of Dave Wilcox’s song “In Plain View”:

"You don't get it when you got it
 You can't see it when it's in plain view
 Don't ask a fish about the water
 You never notice what you're right next to"

Link to "Plain View" 

As we walked the beach and I dipped my toes into the far reaching edges of each fizzling wave, I contemplated how much home makes me appreciate 'everywhere else', and how much ‘everywhere else’ makes me truly appreciate home.

 

Tuesday’s return journey was long and tiring – it’s always so difficult to leave a beautiful place and go back to life as usual.  But when we pulled up to the house at 2:30 am, stumbled to the door, turned the key in the lock, and wearily prepared for bed, I realized how good it felt to be here.  As I sunk between the cold sheets of my bed and pulled the down comforter over us to ward off the March chill, I thought about our trip, about the time Mart and I shared together in Mexico, and all the other times we have shared in new and interesting places.  A smile came across my face:  no matter where we go together, it always feels like home where he is. 

Link to Photos of Our Trip