The Land of Faery

It’s raining. The slate roofs on these German houses are just a shade darker than the sky. I am sure the downpour will water the earth and everything will flourish green and gold and yellow and pink, but right now it’s just raining. 

I’ve been in Germany for just a few days and will only be here for a few more. Part of a European tour: Cyprus Crete, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France I think. We’ll see. The trip isn’t over yet and you never know how these things will turn out. Regardless, it is pretty here. Castles and vineyards dot the hillsides and the slate roofs are accompanied by turrets and tiny third story windows that peek from under sharply slanted dormers. It feels like a faery tale. You know, the Grim Brother’s kind where wolves hide in the woods and trolls live under the occasional bridge. In fact, I think I may have spotted one yesterday.

The rain and the green and the slate and the towers and the vines and the possibility of wolves may inspire a story. Surely I can feel the land of Faery is here, not quite beyond my reach. If I just lean forward a little bit more….

On the Road Again and Tossing Things

“Here I am, on the road again . . .” Funny what you hear on the radio when you walk into an airport. Well, here I am after getting up at 3am, walking a couple miles somewhere between 4am and 5am in a crazy Halloween wind, and then repacking the suitcase I so carefully packed last night. I am headed to my brother’s wedding and I am required--well, not required but requested--to come in costume.

I purchased an elegant sequined mask and laid out elegant clothes to match but then bleck, bleck, blecked over the shoes I would be required to wear-—well not required, but you know. Anyway, I really am flip flops. There just isn’t any way around it. So I scavenged my closet somewhere between 5am and 6am and came out brimming with hippie clothes. Yey for hippy clothes! Then of course I was so inspired that I tossed everything formal and replaced it with hippy green and willow brown and a leafy sweater and--well, not quite flip flops, but close. Anyway, I feel much better . . .

Michigan, New Mexico, Thailand...oh my!

Well if I ever learn to stop running maybe I will stop this silly gallivanting around the globe. But I think that will not happen anytime soon. The blue skies call me. I need the wind at my back and the sun on my face. And I need to see and hear and experience everything. I will not promise to dutifully report back here. But will make a valiant attempt. I do want to share what I see. If you would care to see it, that is.

So on to Michigan in a few days for my brother’s masquerade wedding and a reconnection.

The Munson clan. I do believe they hail from Scandinavia and descend from Viking stock. Perhaps that explains the salt water in my blood and the restlessness in my soul. Perchance I may find a sympathetic spirit in my connecting. A long lost uncle with treasure to share. Well, we’ll see.

Carrot Cake and Caribbean Kitchens

When you travel you expect to see things. Buildings and parks and beaches and markets and jungles and pottery and sea shell necklaces and colorful fish and such. You know, things. But so much better is the kind of travel that connects you with people. Faces. Smiles. Conversations. Mind meeting. And kitchens.

I often find myself in kitchens. I am never sure how I got there. Usually it begins with my butchering a little Spanish in an open-hearted attempt to communicate with someone local. On this particular occasion it began with scuba lessons and meandered through two years of emails and photos and repeated trips to the Mexican Caribbean. But eventually I found myself in the non-non–non-touristy part of Puerto Morelos where every home has bars on the windows and the doors and all the people welcome you in. It is a strange mix, this guarded hospitality. Never-the-less, I did find myself in the kitchen grating carrots and measuring cinnamon amid discussions of quantum mechanics and Mayan traditions. I love those kinds of days. They resonate.



Crescent’s Famous Carrot Cake
2 cups flour
1 ½ cups sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

4 eggs
½ cup oil
1 cup yogurt
Undisclosed amount of rum

3 ½ cups shredded carrots
1 ½ cups chopped nuts (I like pecans)

In a large bowl mix flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl whisk eggs, oil, yogurt and rum. Add wet all at once to dry and stir. Fold in carrots and nuts. bake for 40 minutes in 350 oven.

When cooled, ice with:
2 blocks of cream cheese
1 16oz (or to taste) box of powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Don't Come Here to Help

“Don’t come here to help”

Huh?

“Most Americans come here thinking they will help us, but really they are bringing their own…how you say?”

“Agenda?”

This was a new idea to me, and yet I understood completely. This gentle man standing in the open air market with me expressed his desire to see expats just be. Come meet his family. Come play with his grandchildren. I understood. I’d been doing it for years. It made sense to me.

You see, I’d already written about it….

Excerpt from FINDING INNER PLACE

“THIS IS YOUR HOME”


SISAL IS A FORMER SPANISH colony on the north-western tip of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. It’s a poor place. A lost place. But definitely not a lonely place.

We pulled in at midnight after a five hour car trip across the peninsula with friends. They wanted to introduce us to their home. We wanted to see it. The moon had risen and was casting its glow across the lagoon where the fresh water from the cenotes mixes with the sea. We unpacked our overnight bags and fell into bed in a twelve-dollar-a-night hotel and slept like the dead.

In the grey light of pre-dawn we dragged ourselves from slumber in anticipation of a sunrise glimpse of Mexican-pink flamingos, preferably while we nursed steaming mugs of local coffee.

Little did I know my day would go all Anthony Bourdain and I would end up in the kitchen of my host’s great aunt where I would learn recipes carefully guarded and handed down from mother to daughter to wide-eyed traveler.

I relished that day with its Spanish immersion with Mona and Tia Ligia amid sizzling Yucatán pumpkin and shrimp and fresh tomatoes and chilies and bacon and crab purchased at the market and conch and octopus ceviche and achiote paste and epazote and soft noodles and light-as-air meringue.

I will never forget it. A connection. A few hours with family I just met. Not my family, but my family. Because in those moments, they became my family.

Because, as I left late that afternoon Tia Ligia gripped my hands and insisted in her sweet broken English, “This is your home. This is your home!”

I hope to go back someday, although it is a long trip through miles of scrub jungle and marsh. Not to mention far, far off the grid. I fell in love that day. And I am sure if you had been there you would understand.

This is place.

Thank you, Mona, for teaching me how to make meringue and introducing me to your iguana.

And thank you, Tia, for inviting me into your heart.

Akumal Ashes

Mexico wasn’t what I thought it would be. I planned a whale shark adventure, some snorkeling and a trip into the biosphere. Little did I know a storm was brewing.

It was late afternoon on day two of my trip and the thunderheads were gathering. I’d already hired a boat for my trip out to the reef and despite the threatening weather, I was reluctant to cancel. So I watched the clouds. And then the rain.

The ashes were in a beautiful wooden box in a soft purple drawstring bag in a dark green fabric shopping bag. I had not looked inside. How could I?

I figured the rain would pass. So I reverently stashed the bag between my feet in the front seat of my dear friend’s van and made the 45 minute trip to Akumal Bay.

Ah Akumal, where endangered sea turtles float in the clear Caribbean and sea fans wave in a watery wind 15 feet beneath the surface of the sea.You were good to me.

Thank you for embracing my dear one and taking him into your depths where he can rest and I can visit him again someday.

The sky was dark and

the shore was green. We motored slowly in and I splashed into the shallows and waded onto the sand.

I am so tired of waxing poetic. Life is what it is. I spent a few moments playing with my friend’s 3 year old son and then we headed to the dolphin pools and had dinner. I have no idea what I ate. I suppose if I thought long enough I could remember. But what does it matter?

The following day word came a hurricane was poised to engulf the entire east coast. I make plans to go home and beat the storm.

So long Mexico.

I am not sure if I will return.

Capture the Wind

The marsh is blooming. Pink marshmallows float above green grasses. The cicadas buzz and chirrup like exotic bumble bees. And the wind is blowing. How do I write the feeling of the cool breeze on my skin? How do I describe its rushing through my fingers and making me breathe deeply? How do I explain the energetic peace it gives?

Today I will practice my Spanish and take a few photos and pick up a “footprints” card to tuck in my suitcase for a friend in Mexico and mail the paper work to change the boat title if I can bear to get into the folder where the death certificate is. And I will write a little. I don’t know if I am brave enough to write everything. But the wind is changing direction and I will make an attempt to capture it.