travel

The End Days

/ wvfurandroot / 1 Comment

I have perhaps twenty more years of life left in me. Maybe less. Maybe a lot less.

The years have been kind. The years have been brutal. I have experienced great joy as well as great sorrow. Through it all, I hoped for a tranquil journey. Through it all, tranquility has been elusive. Fleeting glimpses here and there. Moments of contentment were rare.

But I had hope. I believed in someday. If I were organized enough, if I worked hard, if I was a good person, if… if…if… all would be well. Life would be like boating on a placid sea with a colorful sail rippling in the gentle breeze of deep summer.

I handled the chaos. The stress. The upheaval.

I was often overwhelmed, but I continued moving forward. I tended to my child, who was and is the love of my life. I tended to my house. I tended the garden that brought me glimpses of tranquility when hummingbirds fed at the trumpet vine. I tended to my job.  I was not so good at tending to my spouse. We divorced just shy of our twentieth anniversary.

These past twenty years as a divorced, perimenopausal woman have been chaotic and heartbreaking. I often quip that my New Year’s resolution is to be bored. I have been accused of being dramatic, but the drama invaded my life uninvited. I did not conjure it, nor did I encourage the spectacle.

When sent home to quarantine during the pandemic, I hoped for three weeks. Three weeks to hole up in my house and find my equanimity. Three weeks to figure out my life. Three weeks to decompress, regroup, and emerge again fortified and ready to take on the world.

The previous year had been eventful — much of it in not a good way. Still, there were things to celebrate. I turned 60, and my only child had a small destination wedding in Spain. I was the only person on my son’s guest list able to attend. His father had health issues, his grandmothers were too old to make the trip, and so on.

With some trepidation, I planned my first solo international vacation. I raided my 401K and gifted myself an epic two weeks on the island of Ibiza. It was my 60th birthday present to me. The expense was considerable. It was also my only child’s wedding. It was an escape from the stressfest that was my life, and I pulled out all the stops. Sixty! Who would have believed such a state was possible?

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My First Experience with Fine Dining

/ wvfurandroot / 5 Comments
Shamelessly Stolen from Vintage Hawaii on Facebook

I’m standing on the boardwalk between teahouses, looking down at the koi glistening in the Honolulu sunset.

I am so thin that everyone thinks they’re being original by calling me Twiggy. This evening, we are celebrating my 8th birthday at the Pagoda Restaurant.  August 3, 1967. We didn’t know it yet, but I would soon be diagnosed with a serious thyroid problem that was rare in kids. 

There were not enough calories to keep me unhungry.  I was never sated.  Never full. My metabolism was always on overdrive due to my hyperactive thyroid.

My father, a career Marine, had been transferred to the Marine base in Kaneohe.  We – my mother, brother, and I – joined him there in May.  We also didn’t know it yet, but my father would soon ship out for another year in Vietnam.  He had just gotten back from his first tour. By the time he left the Marine Corps, he had been through four combat tours.

But on the night of my 8th birthday, we stood on the boardwalk of the Floating Pagoda Restaurant waiting for a table to open.  I was entranced by the fish, but hungry.  As usual.

I think this was my first experience with fine dining. It’s the first one I can remember. The open-air restaurant was all white tablecloths, glistening china, and cold ice water in the first goblets I’d ever seen. The Asian waitresses wore exquisitely embroidered kimonos that gleamed in the light. 

My father was finally back, and we were all together again.  I was so very happy.  I was a Daddy’s girl until the day he died at 79.

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Searching for Safe Harbor

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I’m rowing in rough waters though it’s a waste of my precious energy.  The waves are strong, the current powerful and I am too weak to fight it any longer.

But I’m looking for a coast.  A harbor.  A place of safety to wait out the storm. To recuperate.  To perhaps find paradise.  I try to guide the boat in the direction the waves break assuming the shore is in that direction.

I no longer know where I am.

The boat is gray weathered wood and perhaps not seaworthy any longer. I’ve been out here a good long time.  There used to be days of a becalming.  Flat water and I could see the dolphins jump and play.  I could see the seabirds swoop and dive into the azure deep.  I could hear the whales and see the starfish on the ocean floor.

Now it is just water the color of the boat.  In turmoil and rage and beating rain.

Oh, for the skies to clear.  For the tide ruled by the moon to guide me to safe harbor and smooth sand.  To palm trees and brightly colored birds.  To friendly souls who will take me in and tend my wounds.

For I am wounded in the places you can’t see. My pride is wounded.  My soul.  My innermost me.  This has been the storm of a lifetime.  I didn’t see it coming though perhaps I should have.  I was just out here in my boat when the sea roughened and the skies darkened. 

The ancient ones had told me to take care when I took the boat out.  They told me the sea was not my friend.  They told me it would beat me down and that I should stay where I was and prepare for the inevitable storm. To live with storm shutters and lanterns near a lighthouse. To light a fire in my hearth and pray for the lost.

But blue skies and frothy white-capped swells called to me.  I imagined the wonders and I took off.  Alone and poorly provisioned. I am the lost. 

It has been a journey.  One with no destination of my planning other than to seek wonders.  And I have seen them.  For that I should be grateful.  I have seen things that others only dream of.  I have been captain and crew.  Jailor and prisoner.  Now I am fighting for what’s left of me.  For the real me – the one that got pushed aside while I rowed and bailed water.

I am looking for safe harbor.  Smooth sand.  A warm sun to turn my face to.  A friend to tend my wounds, give me nourishment, and help me find the hope that was my inner compass for so long.

Pray for me. I am lost.

Be Careful

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“Be careful what you wish for, Missy.”  I can hear my mother’s words reverberate in my head.  Be careful what you wish for, be careful what you wish, be careful.  Be careful.  I was raised to be fearful.  Somehow, the times, the burgeoning women’s movement, the rise of feminism, the advent of women as something other than playthings for men, allowed me to transcend my upbringing.

I stood there in front of the travel agency door looking at the poster.  Travel!  It said.  And oh I wanted to go in and book a trip- to somewhere, anywhere I haven’t been before.  To escape nostalgia.  I wanted new and unfamiliar.

But in times of decision, I heard my mother’s voice.  Over and over.  Boys don’t like girls who…your future husband will want…, when you are grown and married…, when. . . It was like I never had a chance.  And then I was forty with a husband and I didn’t give a fuck what he wanted.  That was my sign to get out.  I wished for a life other than what I had, and my mother’s voice came back to me, “Be careful what you wish for.”

Photo by Keszthelyi Timi on Unsplash

I have been sincere with my wishes.  They represent my core values.  I didn’t need to be careful; they were front and center and required no deliberation.

I left my marriage.  Not gleefully I recognized the tragedy and the failure it represented, but as the bible said, be ye not unequally yoked.  We were unequal in every way.  It was a disaster.

And here I was possessed of half of my retirement account and newly paid-off credit cards.  I went in.  A bell tinkled with the movement of the door.  The woman at the front desk seemed surprised and I said as much. 

She said, “We don’t get much foot traffic.”

I said, “I need a trip to somewhere I’ve never been.  A place most people don’t go.  A place where I can lose myself in the novelty of moving through unfamiliar streets.” 

She snapped her fingers and said, “I have just the place for you.  And we have a promotion going on.  It’s quite the deal.  Free airfare if you book The Budapest Hotel.”

I paused for a second and said, “I’ll take it.  Do I need a visa?  Travel papers other than a passport?” I didn’t even know what country Budapest was in.  I knew nothing.  It was perfect.

“Yes, but it’s pro forma. We can take care of it here.  Just fill out some online forms and voila!”

An hour later I had everything I needed to leave for Hungary the following Tuesday.

I didn’t second guess myself, oddly enough.  I strode into my boss’s office and told him I needed five weeks off beginning Tuesday and he said no.  So I said, “I quit.”  And he said, “Now woah, wait a minute…” but he wouldn’t relent and neither would I.

I was sitting on the plane, in first class no less due to an upgrade for the number of weeks I had reserved a room at The Budapest Hotel.  It took nearly all my retirement account to reserve the suite.  But I didn’t care.  Maybe I’d care in 20 years, but not now.

The flight attendant brought me a glass of crisply cold champagne, a finger bowl, and a warm towel.  The juxtaposition of the temperatures and the textures was sublime.  I handed her the used towel and she took the bowl.  I was left with nothing but the bubbly and my thoughts and I penned this. 

I think this trip will be transformative.  I’m going to keep this journal and document my deepest feelings.  The ones I’ve always shied away from because of Mother’s voice in my head.