Winter Sabbatical 2021: Week 6

TRIGGER WARNING!

I’m aware of my Nashville friends currently under a blanket of ice, with temps below freezing until Thursday. Some of you may be hating me right now. If you need to take a pass on viewing my pictures or reading my update today, I totally understand. 

First off, I want to wish Reagan a very happy 20th birthday! Her plan to celebrate yesterday was cancelled due to the weather. I’d hoped she might get a few inches of snow for her birthday today, but it looks like more ice is on the way. My guys both had man-dates on Saturday; Tim at a friend’s house and Pierce with his buddy at a Best Buddies Valentine’s party. Pierce made me a couple of Valentines. It was hard being away from Tim on Valentine’s Day, but we managed to work around the separation. 

I went to the Gypsy Market on Thursday and saw lots of beautiful things. Since I was on foot, I was limited to what I could carry in my backpack. I purchased 2 pieces of Mexican pottery for the garden, a hand painted mask, and a Mayan wooden puzzle box. 

The temperatures were pretty mild when I arrived in January, but the days are steadily heating up. I’ve gone outside to get sunshine a couple times a day. I continue to write and edit. I have a tentative book title in mind, and I’ve written what could be an introductory chapter. We shall see. 

I’ll keep it brief today so I can get back to writing. Stay safe and warm, Nashville!

Winter Sabbatical 2021: Week 5

It’s been a pretty chill week. While I go the the Farmer’s Market and do other grocery shopping for the week on Mondays, my Tuesday-Friday schedule has been pretty consistent: Wake up, walk on the beach while listening to a book or podcast, update journal, work out, eat breakfast, write or edit, eat lunch, write or edit, walk on the beach while listening to book or podcast, write or edit, shower, Netflix or read, dinner, Netflix, bed. I’m spending about 4 hours a day writing new material or editing old stuff. Saturday and Sunday are spent reading on my back porch, listening to the ocean, boats, and people on the beach. Today, I was told about the “Gypsy’s Market” that takes place every 2nd Thursday of the month, in the same location as the weekly Farmer’s Market. It’s hard to think about another 5 mile walk this week, having just completed my Monday trip. But there will be handcrafted items like jewelry and art, and this could be a welcomed change of scenery in a couple days. If I go, you’ll be sure to hear about it. 

In case you missed my Facebook post last week, I love this house so much, I’ve already booked it for January and February 2022! This place has been SO much better for me than Miami was last year. When I get back, I’ll have to start playing the lottery so I can buy a Mexican beach house of my own some day. Or I could just save the money I’d spend on tickets and put them in my beach house fund. It may take me 20 years to get that piggy bank filled up. I only have a couple of pictures this week. After 5 weeks here, I continue to be amazed at the piles of empty and perfect conch shells littering the beaches. I’m not much of a shell collector, so I leave them for others. I continue to find a few pieces of sea glass every day. I don’t think I can carry 10 pounds of glass home with me, so before I go, I’ll have to weed out all of the less than perfect pieces. I’ve been watching more Netflix:

-The Crown (Season 4)

-The History of Swear Words 

-Community (Seasons 1 and 2)

-Evil Genius

-Don’t F*** With Cats 

-The Keepers

-The Staircase. 

Yes friends, I am the stereotypical middle age white woman who’s fallen down the murder porn rabbit hole. Since Tim detests true crime shows, I’m binging them while I can. Shouldn’t this creep me out since I’m living here alone? Maybe, but it doesn’t. I watch a couple episodes of Community to lighten up the mood before bed.  I’ve also finished a few more books:

-Willa’s Grove by Laura Munson

-Draft No 4 by John McPhee

-The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

-Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

-On Writing by Stephen King

-Planting Native by Sharon Sorenson

Most of you know I make an effort to praise what I love and avoid trashing what I hate. I only enjoyed reading the last 3 books on that list, and the King and Lamott books were rereads. I forced myself through the John McPhee and Annie Dillard books about writing. I fail to see why these books are so highly regarded. McPhee had a few nuggets of wisdom, but I had to wade through lots of name dropping, reminders on every other page that he’s written for Time magazine and The New Yorker, and such long-winded setups of his stories I forgot what aspect of writing he was trying to illustrate. I mean, the man wrote an article for The New Yorker on oranges that was 40,000 words long…and was indignant that the editor had the audacity to remove 85% of the story to make it fit in that week’s issue. GET TO THE POINT, MAN. Dillard believes writing is a painful, arduous, and miserable process. I kept thinking, “Then why do you write? Why don’t you do something that makes you happy?” In Dillard’s opinion, not only is writing excruciating, there are very few brave souls who should accept the challenge, she being one of them; oh how she suffers for her art. I’m sorry, but how is this supposed to inspire me? What makes you believe you’re chosen for this profession and that the rest of us shouldn’t even bother? 

Lamott and King may not be elite literary scholars, but they’ve sold millions of books, so they’re obviously doing something right. They both acknowledge that most of us could write, and lots of us may even be good at it. Though most of us will never get a book deal, just the act of putting pen to paper can be fulfilling enough if we love to write and desire to learn how to make our words soar off of the page. I have no time for writers who make me feel like I’m a worthless piece of poop pursuing a fruitless endeavor. I’ll take my advice from people who know they don’t corner the market on being published writers and are eager to help us join their club. 

I am stepping down from my soapbox now and going for a walk on the beach.

Winter Sabbatical 2021: Week 4ish

This post is a few days late, because Tim was here this weekend. It’s longer than usual.

I’ve reached the halfway point. I still love it out here, but I did have to take a break from guacamole. Maybe I should cut back to making it just once a week. I’ve enjoyed the freezer meals from the Farmer’s Market to mix into my Mexican dinner repertoire. I’ve been to the Farmer’s Market 3 times now, and each time I have spent just a little bit more; I regret nothing. Last week, I had French Onion Mac and Cheese, and it was divine. Between my stocked pantry, frozen leftovers, and Farmer’s Market purchases, I should have enough dinners to carry me through to the end of my stay! 

Two Saturday mornings ago, I took my coffee down to the beach to search for sea glass. The lady I’d spoken to a few days prior was out collecting shells. I learned her name (Valerie) and that she’s from Canada. When she found out I was from America, we got into a discussion about politics. It’s enlightening to hear the viewpoint on American politics from an outsider, and how her country is directly affected. I told her about my kids, and I was surprised to hear that her job before retiring was teaching life skills to people with autism. She also cares for her nephew who, like Pierce, is an adult with autism. We compared Canadian and American resources for individuals with disabilities. I felt my world get just a bit smaller. Not only do I have an English-speaking neighbor, I also have a neighbor who understands EXACTLY the struggles that we endure because of autism.

Two Sundays ago, I spent another day without power. Apparently work was being done on our street, so a few houses were without power from about 6AM-3PM. I spent the day reading on the back porch. I’ve written the beginnings of a couple new essays, and I’ve done more editing to some old ones. 

Tim got in late Thursday night and spent the weekend with me. Since he rented a car, I was able to expand my boundaries a bit. We had dinner at a couple of upscale places in Merida, and everything was delicious. We pulled our masks down long enough to get a selfie outside of Porfirio’s. We found two places that reminded us of home. I got to shop at Costco!! I found pesto, goat cheese, and artichokes; I’ve yet to find any of those items in the Mexican supermarcados. I don’t think I can manage to eat it all before I leave, but I’ll have fun trying. We also found a Krispy Kreme! It was drive-thru only and we sat in line for about 25 minutes. WORTH IT. I overindulged this weekend, so I didn't mind the 4 mile walk to and from the market today. I will not be skipping any B.Fab workouts this week, for sure. 

Tim left this morning, but he’s already booked a ticket to come back at the end of February. We’ll be traveling home together. I know many people think it’s strange that we have this arrangement, separated for two months out of the year. In January, we spoke on the phone only twice. We did text each other a few times a day, though. There were times last month that we missed each other like crazy, but Tim hasn’t been resentful of my time away. We knew the pining would make our reunion that much sweeter. 

I think I noticed about 2 years ago that we had arrived at a new dynamic in our marriage. This April marks 30 years since our first date. We were children then, and we married before either of us had reached the legal drinking age. Like most marriages, ours has evolved and changed so many times over these 27 years. But through it all, I can’t think of a “rough patch” between the 2 of us that we’ve had to overcome; with the exception of my 3 clinical depression diagnoses, where I found it hard to love anyone. Many of our friends have reached the empty nest stage. We don’t have that luxury, but our conversations have changed just the same. With the lack of day to day parenting, a main topic of discussion has mostly disappeared. After telling each other about our day, we spend quite a lot of our evenings in silence. 

If you don’t know Tim, he is one of the most laid-back, go-with-the-flow people I’ve ever known. I’m the one that overanalyzes and stresses over change. This silence for me, in the beginning, was terrifying. Have we been together so long we’ve finally run out of things to talk about? I didn’t think we’d reach this place until we were old and retired. Should I be on Pinterest looking for lists of 20 questions or conversation starters? I got up the courage to broach the subject with Tim a while back, and asked him if it bothers him that we don’t talk as much anymore. I shouldn’t have been surprised that he was nonplussed. Instead of fearing the silence, he saw it as an indication that we’d become so comfortable with each other, we didn’t think it necessary to fill the void with conversation. Just being in each other’s presence was enough, even if we’re both reading or doing our own things.

When Taylor Swift released Folklore last year, one song gave me chills and made me well up with tears the first time I heard it. The song, Peace, is about how difficult it is to be in a relationship with her, because of the media circus that would always follow her: “Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?” I found a different meaning in the lyrics. Being with me means that depression will always haunt us. But the lyric that made my heart skip a beat was about one of the things she could bring to a relationship: “Give you the silence that only comes when two people understand each other.” I can’t say I’m completely at ease with our lack of dialogue, but this lyric gave me a sense of comfort and that the place we’ve found ourselves is no cause for concern. For while we don’t have many words, our passion for one another is still strong. If I had to choose, without a doubt I’d take passion over the ability to keep a dinner conversation going.