Xine Rose

Category: Temptations

  • Pascha

    Pascha

    I am told to arrive thirty minutes early because it gets crowded. I am old to wear comfortable shoes and dress classy but festive.

    It is 11 pm and we are hoping to get a good spot in the church. I put my phone in Jenny’s cubby hole at St. Athanasius. It is Easter for those who practice the Greek Orthodox religion. Father Justin is pointed out to me, coming down the stairs, with a handful of papers in his hand. He reminds me of Robert Gipe in the face, and in his big, easy smile.

    I am told the church will be unusually crowded. Everyone shows up for this event, even if they don’t come to regular Sunday services.

    I am handed a small unlit beeswax candle upon entering. Jenny explains what she is about to do upon entering the nave, and invites to join, or refrain. I decide to join her. I prostrate twice. Jenny kisses the holy relic and the alter. I choose to kiss my fingers and lay them on the relic. There is some lingering pandemic-based fears in me.

    Someone has been reciting the Acts since 7pm. They are nearly done. When the choir begins singing, the tone is somber. I am told, this is a funeral for Christ. The relic that I kissed with my fingers, is a splinter of the cross that Jesus Christ was crucified on.

    The windows are cracked open and the cool night air drifts lazily through the crowd. The lights dim and leave us in nothing but candlelight from the alter and lamps from the choirs music stands. There are benches on the perimeter of the space but it is a standing room only. I start to feel it in my knees in back. I see mother’s and father’s holding their children through out the service and decide quietly, I have no right to complain.

    There is activity behind the icon screen. I can see priests and alter boys. Father Justin emerges from the Beautiful Gates and carries incense. Alter boys carry golden fans and large candles. Father Justin picks up the relic and passes it to a bishop. They hold it high above their heads for all to see. Then the alter is carried above Father Justin’s head, as if Christ’s corpse is being carried through the crowds. They take the alter behind the icon screen and all the lights go out. Bells begin to ring. The singing changes tone. There is tension in air. Jenny leans in and whispers, “This is my favorite part.”

    When Father Justin reemerges with a large wooden cross. The alter boy who follows him carries a single candle. Small beeswax candles are lit from it, and a fire light grows through out the room in seconds. The nave of the church is bright and we all file behind Father Justin and the choir to leave the church and go outside.

    It is 1 am in Nicholasville, Ky. I am in a long procession circling the church. Jenny tries to get me a spot close to the choir, because she says the singing peters out at the end of the line. The bells being played are so loud, the alter boys wear ear muffs. Jenny tells me they get noise complaints every year. It is the most rock and roll thing I can think of.

    The singing never stops. My candle is blown out by the wind but it is easy to find someone who still has a flame and the willingness to share it. Father Justin bangs on the front doors to the church with a large wood cross. When he forgets the words, he is assisted immediately and smiles spread on all of our faces. The singing only stops when he yells, “Christ has risen!”

    The congregation yells back, “Indeed, he has risen.”

    We enter back into the church and the choir has reinvented itself. It is upbeat and rhythmic. Those singing are smiling and laughing. It is an infectious joy.

    They sing one song with a mounting volume and energy. They are singing it so fast, it sounds like a tongue twister. It goes:

    Christ is risen from the dead,
    trampling down death by death,
    and on those in the tombs bestowing
    life!

    We aren’t done yet. I hear most verses and recitations in English, but some things I hear again in Romanian, Russian, Greek, Spanish, and even Mandarin Chinese, Swahili, French and Latin. The director of the choir raises a tuning fork, each time she begins to sing, to make sure she’s in the right key.

    Children and infants are seemingly accustomed to both the late hour and the length of the service. I see children watching intently, and some in the floor with drawing material. Their parents are seemingly accustomed to both standing for three hours, and holding their infants for the entirety of the service.

    My back and shoulders are feeling numb and my knees are stiff. When the congregation crosses their body and prostrates, it feels good in my spine to do so along with them. There is communion. I have already decided I would not take it. That might be too far for a gringo to go in this service. Jenny takes communion and grabs blessed bread for me to try. It is bland but pleasant.

    By the end of the service, when father Justin yells, “Christ has risen,” I yell back, “Indeed, he has risen!” A gentleman approaches me and thanks me for coming.

    He says, “Christ has risen.”

    I respond, “Yes, Indeed.”

    He corrects me. “It is, ‘Indeed, he has risen.”

    He repeats, “Christ has risen.”

    I say, “Indeed, he has risen.”

    He gives me a thumbs up.

    Jenny’s partner Houston, tells me there is debate on the exact translation. Houston prefers the response, “Veritably, Christ has risen.”

    I stand in line with Jenny and Houston to kiss the relic again and collect our red egg. Jenny tells me, this symbolizes the cracking open of the tomb. It is a hard boiled egg that I may eat, but first it is customary to play a game. Jenny and I smash our eggs together and see who’s breaks first.

    Mine breaks first.

    It is 3 am and the congregation is heading to the basement of the church to eat food and drink wine that has been provided by members of the congregation. It is a multicultural pot luck. I am tempted but decide I have pushed my limit and will go home. I regret this in the morning.

  • Plus One

    Plus One

    If you get the chance
    Go to an Indian wedding
    Be a plus one
    I don’t care

    how bad
    your date is.
    You’re not there
    for them

    You’re there
    for the celebration
    of strangers. Eat
    at their table. Dance

    with their loved
    ones. Lift them
    into the air. With
    your bare hands.

    Toast to their story—
    Their arrival
    (Your arrival)
    Your new friends

    Then send them
    off with well wishes
    but, save a few
    for yourself

    Plus One.

    RECAP: I willingly agreed to attend a wedding two thousand miles away from home. I have arrived, period panties on, single carry-on full of (already worn once) back-up clothing, and writing a poem in my phone notes in the periphery of the matrimonial festivities, about how far I’ve come to be a plus one.

    Our cabin is small, possessing only a bed and two small night stands. There is no TV but there is a mini-fridge. There is no A/C but there is a fan. The bathroom has windows that remind me of [white trash] trailers back home, with the slatted glass panels that don’t quite close out the outside. Creak when they move. Fight back.

    It is a small structure comically dwarfed by cathedral woods, as if stolen from a caricature of a Kentucky soul in America. I think I could live in a space this size. Exchange my many possessions for its few. A wealth of its own.

    It is Friday, the first of a three day wedding event. The schedule invites us to dress casually for the evening, but of course, we dress-up. Because casual in Kentucky is a different breed than casual in California. I am wearing a solid purple wool dress, because the weather says it may dip down to the 50s. I dress-down the thrifted high-end attire with my rainbow vans sneakers.

    Chasity only knows a few people. She introduces me as her best friend. I wish she would just introduce me as her partner. It’s only a half lie. I am her soulmate, but we are not lesbians. I am her best friend, but not her husband. It would be fun to play the part of a plus one bound by partnership. Instead, I am a “best friend”, a statement lost in this modern age where people don’t have best friends any more, but followers, subscribers, or fans, and thus the term falls flat.

    A few dozen times, Chasity and I explain that I met the bride once. I was invited to their friend-date; a night dancing in clubs with fancy cocktails. Guests smile and nod. Backtrack to the topic of Chasity having met the bride while they both studied abroad in Ireland. This is a logical move to me. The semester after the bride left and Chasity remained, I visited my best friend/soulmate/partner in Ireland, but now is not the time to expect acknowledgement for own travel history.

    I admittedly fall smitten for another plus one, who is a more legitimate guest than I. [I hope you know by now, that this is what I say, as an INFJ who so rarely finds anyone one interesting, I either don’t care about you, or I fall for you. There is no in between.] She is punk rock, queer, Hawaiian and dates one of the bridesmaids. She is not a wild animal [plus one] in uncharted [wedding] territory. She is calm and collected, possibly high.

    This guest shares her insight in to what to expect for the talent show scheduled for the evening. As she describes, we see Indian dances, choreographed by the bride and groom and wedding party. We see Hawaiian hula dancing. The bride’s brother-in-law plays a saxophone. People sing. It is the extended version of every viral tiktok video captured at a wedding–not that anyone has a phone out.

    After all that small talk and talent, it is when we go to our cabin, that Chasity tells me the bride is an editor for Lucas Films.

    “Shit,” I say, “Josh is gonna be so jealous when I tell him.”

    This is my process for taking in information, that’s cool, someone else will love that. Is there a problem here?

    As Chasity and prepare for bed, I turn on the wall heater. Chas suggests we turn it off so that it doesn’t run all night. I try to tell her, it has a thermostat. It will reach a certain point and then turn off. I sense, she’s convinced it will burn the cabin down. I’m convinced we will develop pneumonia if we don’t leave the heater on. So our agreement is, I turn it on low, proving it has the ability to turn off on its own and we crawl in to bed. At some point in the night, I believe she gets up to turn it off. Josh would have done that, too. And maybe that’s why I love them both. They keep me from burning alive in my sleep. But at least I am no longer the paranoid, back-tracker. I am back to my trusting, carefree, who-gives-a-damn self.

    It is the wedding day. The highly anticipated, hard earned, unicorn in the wild, singular moment of our lifetime; this is the day we see a banana slug. It is on the uphill side of the path, not hiding but still requiring focus and determination. It is a big boy [or girl], at least 6 inches long. The shade of yellow it wears is most intriguing, somewhere between green, yellow and gray. It is stretched out in the dappled sunlight, perhaps sunbathing, perhaps baking in the sun. I do not claim to know the preferences of these elusive creatures. We photograph the first one we see, and suddenly, as if the spell is broken, we see another, and another, and a half dozen more, without even taking a step from this OG slug–gatekeeper of the banana slugs.

    Now that we’ve conquered the world of banana slug sighting, we turn our energy to a portion of the wedding schedule that caught our eye. At the end of today, there will be a movie via a projector in “The Meadow.” Chasity and I love meadows. I can’t speak for the image in her head, but I’m thinking of Twilight, where so many of Bella and Edward’s moments end and begin. The patch of wildflowers, circled by living wooden sentinels that have watched over the songbirds and monarchs as they fly to Mexico for the winter. The summer sun spilling in on the singular space that the redwoods will allow it–like a roped off section for the elite/wealthy audience members at a concert. We want to find it, and see it in all it’s glory.

    We hike the trails, follow the signs, ask fellow wandering guests, “Where is the meadow?” No one knows anything about a meadow. We are informed the movie will be at the lodge. Chas and I look at each other, “but the schedule says…”

    I remember the behind-the-scenes footage of the Twilight series. I only watched to see more of Robert Pattinson, but I learn that the wildflower meadow is a fabrication. Silk flowers have been stuck into the tall grass on the edge of a forest. The part I love and remember, is not real. Perhaps there are no flowering meadows isolated by forests. Perhaps they exist only in our imaginations.

    We do find more banana slugs. Chasity uses a fallen leaf to move a slug from the trail so it is not trampled on by careless human feet. It is beginning to get hot. We find a log behind the ceremony spot and sit and talk about nothing and everything. There’s no time keeping, but we can see the wedding party prepping the ceremony spot. Eventually, we relent. When your guests are trapped on a mountain top, their car parked on a hillside that they narrowly managed to fit onto, what else is there to do but help out with decor?

    We eat lunch at the lodge and then stand around with our palms up as if to say, “here, I’m not using these, you can have them.” Our offers are taken. We await instructions and I notice something. The wedding party and family members keeps calling it a “diy” wedding in a tone, like oh this cheap flimsy thing. It’s the folk art of weddings. The mass production of weddings. It’s the classless, unimpressive, but charming and quaint version of a wedding. As if this three day event at a mountain top resort is the budget friendly option. It is the “casual” attire of weddings.

    We are assigned the napkins, because I help them fold the cloth into a design that fits the size of the silverware. Lucky them, the bride’s American roommate in Ireland, brought a plus one who has photographed over two hundred weddings and operated a wedding venue with built in event design, and lives above a flower shop. They have a professional wedding diy-er, if there ever was one. [It’s me.]

    Not only am I able to help with the napkin fold, I set 4-5 of us up in an efficient assembly line to get over one hundred napkins folded and ornamented with a sprig of rosemary grown from the bride’s backyard. Guests come and go, attend my impromptu crash course, and then revel in the art of napkin folding. I am praised for my talent and gumption. This is the only thing they know about me, which, lets face it, is more than I know about them.

    [I find out later, that I taught a Senior Editor at Lucas Films how to fold dinner napkins to hold a sprig of greenery–and for context, this wedding was full of the editors who “could not talk about Indian Jones”–which is quite cool.]

    It is ceremony time. I select my safari themed dress that looks more like a robe than I remember. My shoes look more office receptionist than wedding guest in an animal print dress and a pixie cut. I tell myself, this is a normal fear. It is so me, to doubt the decisions made by the version of myself that packed my bag. Future me, is never pleased with the decisions of past me.

    The wedding is sweet and doesn’t take long. I can’t hear any of it, but I didn’t expect to. The time is spent convincing myself I look fine, and even if I don’t, I’ll never see anyone here again.

    I run out of cigarettes. A fact Josh predicted, and the past me, swore would be fine. Here she is, future me huffing and puffing. If I were back home, I would just have to bum cigarettes. No big deal. Here in California, it means, I go without because smoking cigarettes is the equivalent to littering in the forest, or leaving a dog in a car on a hot day, or slaughtering an arena of Taylor Swift fans with a single puff of tobacco: second hand cancer for you, and you, and you, and your great great grand children too.

    At the cocktail hour, without cigarettes, I no longer have an excuse to step away from the crowd of strangers. I must mingle, or linger oddly on the fringes. I would rather die than stand out. At least as a smoker, on-lookers can whisper, “see, they all smoke cancer over there. It’s a different world.”

    I drink a special cocktail, an herb-y and floral concoction with rum, maybe. The groom’s mother drapes a long necklace over our shoulders. It is brightly colored, made of a ribbon accordion-ed back and forth on itself. The end result is something like flower pedals stacked on each other. I am thrilled by it. It’s true green and deer-hunter-orange and bright white palette does not match my attire in the slightest. The necklaces spark conversations about the Indian wedding that occurred in February. About how many times they had to change clothes–like, not just daily, but multiple times a day, for each portion of the day, and how expensive it could have gotten, if the American guests had fully committed to all the Indian wedding traditions and expectations. Chasity and I feel a ping of relief that we did not learn this first hand. We would have been mortified of failing to fully integrate. Or we would have bailed by day two and gotten lost in the city on scooters or something.

    For dinner, there are Indian dishes along side Italian. I want it all. In my humble opinion, this is what weddings are for. The heart is not for love and commitment, it’s for living the metaphor of eating your heart out. If you are not miserably full, you’ve not wedding guest-ed right.

    During the speeches, the father jokes that he’s done paying for weddings. This is the couple’s third wedding. He explains, because of the Pandemic, they had a small beach side elopement. Then they had a 5 day Indian wedding. And now they are having had a 3 day “diy” American wedding. Like they sampled all the weddings from the world’s buffet of wedding traditions.

    My period panties are maxed out. There are a couple points to be made here. One, I should really go get a tampon, but then I’d have to come up with an excuse to leave the reception and walk alone back to my cabin. Two, I have kept the fact of my period occurring from Chasity so as not to dampen her own spirits for the trip. [It’s not a perfect trip if a period arrives. Not for you, and not for you if your plus one is the afflicted.] So, instead of the mature thing, of admitting defeat, I strategically roll toilet paper as a tampon substitute. This is less of a proverbial band-aid, than an actual band-aid.

    It’s one of those situations where, if I move wrong, I feel the make-shift tampon slip. It’s all i=I can do to not spend all night in the bathroom. I decline the invitation to dance. Chasity dances with a new friend we’ve made. I feel like a prude, or a terrible plus one, but I’m miserable and I’m trying to give myself grace, even if I can’t allow myself to explain the situation to Chasity and accept the grace I know she would give me.

    The sliver lining is, I’m granted the ability to people watch. It is one of the first times in my adult life, that I am able to witness a wedding without the responsibility of documenting it. I take snapshots with my mind, instead of an expensive camera that is breaking my wrists, or neck, or shoulders. I enjoy a beer. I really look at the faux movie posters that the bride made of her and her groom. I pick up the Indian trinkets that fill corners with festive colors and family heritage. I write a poem on my phone.

    It gets very cold. I’ve not packed for how cold it is. I put on the wool dress I wore the day before, right over top of my dress. The robe-y thing peaks out at the edges. It is not a good look. I change into my tennis shoes. We score a spot by the fire. We’ve got fleece blankets wrapped around us, but it’s not enough. We do not make it through the movie. I don’t even remember the movie–a classic, possibly black and white. I am just focused on rotating my body like a chicken carcass so that all sides get a taste of the warmth.

    On our walk back to our cabin, Chasity saves a banana slug from the roadway, so that a car doesn’t squish it. I refrain from telling her, these are not an endangered species. We aren’t here to save anything. It’s not our responsibility.

    I question my own mood. Why am I being such a fatalist? Why am I so critical of this good Samaritan act on behalf of the [slug] animal kingdom?

    I admit to myself, I am a bit tired, in an overarching sense. I’m tired of small talk, and trying not look like I’m physically uncomfortable, so that no one thinks it’s a social discomfort. I’m tired of the smell of smoke. I’m tired of resorting to criticizing myself for always making the wrong decision when I pack and prepare for the unknown. I’m tired of the moisture that clings to the fabric of the two dresses I’m wearing, and the blanket draped over them. I’m tired of traveling. I need a vacation from traveling, already. In the middle of our trip, I realize I would rather be vacationing.

    I think about the difference between the two. Traveling is a project in and of itself. It’s the attempt to maximize an experience. Our lists of things to see and do, is just another to-do list. Our sub-par experience at the Mystery Spot, is just another obstacle to accomplishing our goal of achieving a perfect trip. When this project is done, I’ll go home to more projects, more work, more to-do lists.

    Too late, I’m thinking of how much I need an absence of a goal. I need to pack a bag and leave my ambition at home. The next time I get on a plane, I’m promising my future self I will not travel. I will vacation.

    When I get to the cabin, I can’t stand it anymore. I find one of the two tampons I brought. Chasity finds the wrapper and barges out of the bathroom, “Did you start your period?!”

    I nod, ashamed I was so careless.

    “Oh no!” she says, “You should have told me!”

    Why is this is enough to make me feel better? A friend who would rather suffer with you, than not know you are suffering.

    The third day begins slowly and perhaps Chasity is also feeling a bit tired. We say aloud to each other, “we aren’t in any hurry,” and it feels more true. We eat a “diy” breakfast, which is to say, we eat left over wedding day dinner. I, again, load up on snacks that can sustain us. This is our last day in California. When we get to the airport hotel, we will go to bed and wake up early to get on a plane. In a way, it feels as though we have survived a desert of temptation. The East Coast has tried like hell to entice us with its waterfalls, and tacos, and world-record trees, and coast lines, and banana slugs, and roller coasters. It has one more day to give us everything its got: the golden gate bridge, the bay, the fog, the painted ladies, the house from Full-House, the lobster rolls at fisherman’s wharf. But it will fail. Of this, we are certain. We have only home sweet home on our minds, and we are in the home stretch.

  • Santa Cruz

    Santa Cruz

    We have a charming, old sea-side hotel room in Santa Cruz. The balcony faces the boardwalk, which is comprised of amusement rides running at full speed. It’s all we can do not to linger between the dark ocean and bright lights. Despite jet-lag, Chasity and I walk through the empty but still illuminated boardwalk. Secretly, I’m considering something.

    I started a book about this boardwalk.–about a runaway girl who gets a long board (skateboard) during the pandemic and meets a boy. I want to revisit the scene where a city cop approaches some kids with too much paranoia and the kids must de-escalate the situation. Perhaps my scene is a little too political, or pessimistic. This place is so magical and vibrant.

    When we can’t fight it any more, we retire the hotel room. I find Friends on the TV and eat a bag of Cheetos and a clementine. Chas watches for a moment, but requests the TV be turned off to fall asleep.

    I quietly begrudge turning the TV off but also I get it. The habit of falling asleep to a TV is a bad one and an unpopular one. So I turn it off, only to hear Chasity turn on a phone generated fan noise. I can still hear Santa Cruz outside, though. So, I lay facing the balcony where a sliver of boardwalk lights reach my eyes. I dream of being a kid who grew up within walking distance of the Santa Cruz boardwalk.

    And how, maybe I would have smoked weed for the first time under the boardwalk, or gotten drunk and puked on the roller coaster and been banned. I think I could have been the kind of kid who made sure her first kiss was at midnight, in the sand, with a full moon reflected in the low tide.

    I’m so used to traveling with people who don’t ride rides–it doesn’t cross my mind that, when we succumb to our exhaustion and let go of the day, Chasity is dreaming of riding the wooden roller coaster, too.

    Thursday morning, we rise before the sun and the city (and even the hotel breakfast). We aren’t gonna pass up on a free breakfast, so we wait in the car as it sprinkles on the windsheild. By 7:30, we are fed and I have packed extra nutri-grain bars and bananas for us from the hotel breakfast bar.

    We set our phones’ navigation to Big Basin Redwoods State Park. It continues sprinkling and the fog thickens as we drive through Ben Lomond. We admire homes that remind us of Kentucky hills: humble structures with driveways crammed between the road and the front door, junk in the side yards, vegetation wild along the fence lines. Steep inclines, and thick tree canopies.

    Then I look down to see that we have a gas light on.

    “Shit,” I say aloud. How does a car not have a bell or siren when the gas light comes on? Now I’m wondering how much further we have to go. We are passing signs that say ‘road closed ahead.’ I can only imagine the Honda Accord we rented from Turo also doesn’t accurately measure the amount of gas left and we will be stranded on a closed road. We’ll have to walk back to Boulder Creek, and then carry gas back to the car in Big Basin Redwood State Park.

    I decide to turn around. Chasity says I’m being on the “overly cautious” side, which is a polite way of calling me paranoid. She says, her husband would probably turn around too. She probably wouldn’t have. She also laughs and says, “I’d probably get stuck out in the woods.” I know Josh would have turned around, and if he’d been here, I would have convinced him an empty tank has 50 or 60 miles in it. We would have argued even as he turned back towards gas. I quietly wonder why I am the one filling those shoes on this trip.

    We head back to the only gas station we remember seeing in Boulder Creek. We’re both under the impression the route we intended to go is closed so we figure out a way to drive way north and double back south into the park. It’s a 45-60 minute detour, and unbeknownst to us, takes us through the part of Big Basin which burned in 2021 . Of course we know nothing about this forest, it’s fire, or it’s recovery. We are driving blindly into the area on a remote-ish road in a rented Honda Accord with untrustworthy gas level notification system.

    The trees are giant black tooth picks, with short, fuzzy green branches sprouting from the bottom to the top. Some trees are fuzzier than others, but for the most part, it is an aesthetic that is both strange and whimsical. The black bark tells us there was a fire, but the green seems to scream “but look at us now!”

    We ride with the windows down, my phone picking up the sounds of birds and identifying them for us. We we make it to entrance, we park next to a ranger on her day off. She asks if we’ve come to see the growth since the forest fires. We confess we didn’t know anything about the fires. She tells us the heartbreaking story of her favorite forest, black and empty. She tells us where we should hike and where to go when we leave the park to compare the re-growth to a healthy and mature forest at Henry Cowell.

    The biggest difference I notice, is the number of people we share the park with. Yes, there are burned trees and fallen limbs and barren areas that we can tell, once looked very different. However, there vegetation tickling our shoulders as we hike the now lush trails. There are Lazuli Bunting, Wilson’s Warbler, Dark-eyed Junco, Brown Creeper, Stellar’s Jay, Purple Finch, Hermit Thrush. There are foxgloves. There are critters that scurry beneath the underbrush before we can identify them. It begins to get hot as the sun easily filters through the young redwood branches.

    Henry Cowell Redwood State Park has families and foreign tourists, film crews, and a cacophony of clicking cameras. Forest Rangers in uniform roam the circular path ready to answer questions about bay leaves and banana slugs. There are signs with numbers that correspond with a trifold brochure of relevant information, giving me flashbacks to the 17 Mile Tour. There is a train just beyond the trees that rolls in and out of a resort (or restaurant) that we can’t quite see. We speak to a ranger who tells us the bay leaves we are walking on, are worth $10 an ounce. He tells us about local homes being made from redwood and how they are flame-retardant. He notices my binoculars and confesses we won’t see many birds because the resin of redwoods is a natural insect repellent so birds don’t thrive. Redwoods absorb water from the ocean air and the fog that blankets the area more days than not.

    We do fill our pockets with bay leaves we salvage from the roped off path. We hear an eerie Egret. We watch juncos hop along the fences. We stand inside a colossal redwood and place our fingers on the charred inside. We do not see banana slugs.

    When we leave the park, there is a great big slice of a redwood on display out side the parking lot. It has bronze markers starting at it’s first tree ring. The first reads 105 BC The Chinese Invent Paper. The next reads: The birth of Jesus.

    This tree was older than Jesus Christ. This astounds me. I confess that I keep reading and hearing about these trees being thousands of years old but my bible belt upbringing doesn’t quite make the connection until I am seeing the savior of a nation, out lived by a slice of wood that is hung on a display like a crucified thief. I think of how these trees survived fires, and deforestation, and built a resilience against disease and have adapted to absorb nutrients from the air.

    I think of Big Basin and how it has been reborn. I think of what that looks like: isolated, private, fraternizing with old friends who will likely migrate away when it becomes a insect-less sea sponge again.

    We leave the natural world for civilization. Secretly, our hearts are longing for that boardwalk that fulfills a playful, rebellious, and juvenile calling. We buy “credits” choose the “ski-lift” as our first ride. It is a single barely-an-inch-wide metal bar that keeps us from falling down toward the crowds with their dippin’ dots and cotton candy. Once we are in the air, Chasity confesses she does not like it.

    “I think maybe I underestimated my discomfort with heights,” she says.

    I laugh and pretend I am not also freaking out a little. I tell her to look at the horizon, focus on what is beyond the city, and not what is far below her feet. We manage to complete the journey pretending everything is fine.

    Next, we find the roller coaster that enchanted us from our hotel room. We get a seat in the back. When the ride begins, we are plunged into a dark tunnel, jerked and slung about blindly. When we emerge into the early evening, it feels as if the car is going to come off the tracks. The noise is a clacking raucous that triggers every bodily warning that death is near. It is over before we can quite acknowledge the fact that we survived.

    I am surprised when, after we discuss how utterly terrifying it was, Chasity expresses how much she loved the ride. We buy ourselves dippin’ dots.

    We walk to the pier where we buy iconic Santa Cruz garments. We eat fresh seafood and drink a beer each. I almost buy a skateboard because I want to take one home but convince myself it is not worth the airports extra fee, or possible abandonment at the airport. It is early evening and we learn this is the time that the seals pile upon each other on the beams underneath the pier. They are like slick fat puppies, barking and snapping at each other before fighting and falling off into the bay.

    From the pier we can see the boardwalk still. Chasity confesses she wants to ride the roller coaster again. So we walk back, wait in line and manage to score seats in the front of the first car. It is just us, the wind, and the creaking wood of the fifth oldest roller coaster in the country (and our souvenirs stuffed in my bra). It is everything we dreamed of and we go to bed happy, with full bellies still floating somewhere near our hearts.

    On Friday morning, I am greeted with my period as we say goodbye to Santa Cruz. I’m annoyed but I also knew it would probably happen on this trip. We have a reservation at the “Mystery Spot”. To kill time beforehand, we visit a botanical garden on a hill top. I’m trying to keep my menstruation from Chasity because I don’t want her to know how miserable I am. This trip is about having fun dammit. So I navigate to parts of the gardens that are close to the bathroom. 34 years old and I still care if I have blood on my pants.

    After the gardens, we find an art center with a sculpture park. (I’m always looking for free places to linger.) Chasity takes a phone call from her mom and I see a utility building that reminds me of a Wes Anderson movie. I prop up my phone and make a quick video clip. Chasity doesn’t realize what I’m doing and paces in front of me on her phone. When I review the clip, it looks like it was meant to be. So, we make more Wes Anderson inspired video clips that I have no idea what I will do with.

    When it is time for our reservation at the Mystery Spot we are pleasantly surprised by the establishment, it’s organization and it’s witty guides. We are convinced there is in fact something fishy about the “gravity” of the area. Example after example is drilled into our heads about how the mystery spot makes tall people short and makes water run uphill.

    I would say that the experience is worth it except, there are two small children wielding sticks, who are not only interrupting the guide but are straight up monopolizing the tour’s time and space. The main attraction, a building where ladders and table tops defy gravity and the iconic images are taken, is rendered impassable because these two children run rampant and unsupervised. I get separated from Chasity within the 15x8ft building and never even manage snap a photo. The guide calls out that our time is up and I am quietly considering complaining that the group was too big, that the time was not long enough, that I came from over 2000 miles away to see this, and will walk away having felt short changed. I wish I could have had all 45 minutes in the building. No tour guide. No demonstrations. Just me and Chasity learning about the space on our own terms. Where is the imagination these days?

    I’m not really the type to actually complain. I don’t think successful establishments take complaints seriously. Instead, I complain to Chasity as we hunt the premises for banana slugs with no luck. I talk my self out of a stuffed banana slug from the gift shop. Chasity lets me rant and agrees, but I’m not sure she shares my frustration. I tell myself the Big Foot museum will make up for it.

    We eat lunch at a “Western Grill” that has Kentucky themed dishes. I order something that looks like a staple of the establishment but it ends up being covered in a honey sauce that must suffer through to barely eat half of. The Big Foot museum is suffocatingly small and crowded. I’m so miserable from cramping and distracting moisture between my legs, and the unjust tour experience, and the lack of banana slugs, and a wasted food at lunch, that I can’t quite register the information I am looking at. I am incapable of reading anything. I decide to give the owner a Josh Nolan sticker and buy stickers for his Dad who is a self-professed fan of the Big Foot conspiracy. If I can’t find my own joy, I’ll try to give it to someone else.

    It’s finally time to head to the resort where we will spend the next three days celebrating a wedding. The drive is long, skinny, and winds relentlessly uphill. There is a point where I’m not so sure our car will make it. After a wrong turn, we manage to park in a crowded gravel lot on a hillside with steep drop offs and no back up camera. We carry our backpacks to our one room cabin. We are pleasantly surprised that our balcony overlooks the ceremony spot where the wedding rehearsal is currently taking place.

    Now I must prepare myself for meeting almost a 100 people who will quietly wonder, why in the hell I have flown across the country to be a plus one. I wonder if they will smell the lining of my uterus rotting in my period underwear.

  • San Francisco

    San Francisco

    Chasity texts me and tells me, “Do you realize we’ve never taken a plane ride together?” This doesn’t mean anything except, I’ve known her since 8th grade. I flew to Ireland to see her while she was in school. We went to Europe together. Except, I went with my [miserable] ex-husband, and she went with her Irish flatmate at the time. I met her everywhere across Europe. We’ve taken car rides together. Once we planned a trip to Chicago for our birthdays [we are two weeks apart in October] and I made the mistake of thinking we could save money by bringing a group. I invited a mutual friend and my current husband. This would have been safe, except our mutual friend invited a friend who promptly ruined trips for us all for a while.

    So when Chasity and I are booking flights to San Francisco for the middle of June, it’s kind of a big deal. There will be no surprise tag-alongs. For the first time in our adult lives, we are comfortable enough to spend money because we want to. We pick plane rides that are convenient and not at 4 AM or 11 PM or with two or three layovers just to save a couple hundred bucks. We pick hotels that are walking distance from the beach, or on site for an event. We do not make decisions to “Save Money.”

    So many years we’ve spent planning trips and daydreaming of exotic places we will go. Chasity’s friend is getting married in California, and affording me the opportunity to be a plus one, is our first real chance at carrying out our daydreams. It’s not Bali, or Transylvania, but it’s cheaper and easier, and honestly, I think I only have 4 or 5 days left in me for travel this year.

    Let me back up a little: Last summer, Chasity reached out to me with a question. She was invited to her friend’s first wedding …in India. Her husband couldn’t go and she debated inviting her mom, but settled on inviting me because her mother in a foreign country was a question mark. I sympathize with this. Traveling with my mother is difficult enough, I couldn’t imagine taking her overseas to a country that didn’t speak English or have standardized public bathrooms.

    I tell Chasity, I would love an excuse to go to India. I was selling my home, I had just got a cushy job at a non-profit with liberal vacation days. I could actually pull it off. Fast forward to the fall, when I accept an offer on my house and must renovate a very small apartment and move out of my hoarder home in less than 60 days, Chasity calls and tells me, if we still plan to go to India in February, we should make the decision by the end of the month. I am soul-crushingly honest with her, I’m not sure I’m into the idea anymore. The cushy non-profit let me go due to “budgetary reasons.” I am stressed about the home inspections, and the buyers backing out, and the moving of our possessions and getting settled in an unfinished place and I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel yet.

    I think she sympathizes and tells me, we can still go to the American portion of the wedding in California in June. And if I can’t commit to that, she feels comfortable inviting her mother as a plus one or going alone. I decide I can commit and would really enjoy a nice and easy trip in June. Plus, we can still dress up in Indian attire and join in the cultural aspects.

    These plans are also delayed and put off because plane tickets are a bazillion dollars more than we expected and how long will we stay and where do you buy Indian clothing–no where. You buy it online and gamble the fit, or you don’t get it. Almost a month before our departing flight, we decide to give consignment shops a chance. She buys a colorful summer dress and I buy a animal print robe looking dress. We also buy *somewhat* matching vintage sweaters because the weather informs us it will something like 50-60 degrees when we land, a fact we are both secretly disappointed in. My sweater has two adorable pandas on it, holding a big red heart.

    Less than a week before the wedding, I decide to do something I have always wanted to do. I cut off all my hair. I ask Josh to do it, and he decides to do it on our front porch in the rain. I do not actually support this suggestion, but I’m so excited to see myself with something between a pixie cut and an edgy buzz cut that I agree to it. It takes way too long because Josh is adorably detail oriented and even decides his electric razor is too old. He stops in the middle of my buzz cut and goes out and buys a new one.

    When all my hair is in a coffee tin, I look in the mirror and am shocked at how boyish I look. I do not look like Haley Berry and it shows on my face.

    I post a photo online with a gentle warning that essentially reads “Yes I cut my hair, yes it may have been a mistake, I might be having a crisis. No, I don’t want to talk about it.” I receive some encouraging compliments and settle on the fact that at least now, I don’t have to pack shampoo to California.

    My husband drops me off at Chasity’s house the night before our flight. We fly out at the reasonable time of 9:40 AM but it is out of Cincinnati so I didn’t want to worry about getting to her house, on top of getting to the airport. Josh and I kiss and say good bye a half dozen times and then I bribe Chasity’s dogs to love me and let me enter their home. I curl up in a chair in Chasity’s living room and we wind down, chatting over our plans and expectations for the next few days. We both brag about fitting everything we packed into one single personal-item-sized backpack, because, this, the ability to take up additional space on a plane, we will not pay for.

    We wake up around 5:30 the next morning. Chasity makes me toast and jelly–may I just stop here to say how gd good that toast was? Legitimately, I haven’t stopped thinking about it. I asked Chasity and she informs me the toast is croissant bread. She confesses it’s overpriced but even her frugal husband buys it because it is so good. She’s right. I make a mental note to look for and buy some for myself once I make it home. Anyways– and we are on the road by 6:30.

    The drive is a little over an hour to the airport. Traffic is fine. Security is fine. We are in the terminal and selecting our breakfast by 8 AM. We have made a deal, Chasity and I. I paid for the plane tickets and the rental car. So far Chasity has paid for the accommodations and intends to pay for all the food. We are thinking this will even out, but what it really means to me, is I don’t have to think about how much food costs because Chasity is the one who will pull out the plastic for it. So we start our trip off of with gluttonous, overpriced specialty bagel sandwiches, the contents of which drip down my hands as I bit into it.

    We are flying with Breeze Airlines. It was a direct flight to San Francisco and it was $200 cheaper. It is a new airline modeled much like Frontier. Chasity and I both look suspiciously at the plane through the gate window but don’t say aloud, that we hope it doesn’t crash due to some cost cutting maintenance practices.

    The flight with Breeze is wonderful actually. They are a bit over concerned about the size of our bags, but I’m sure employees are just trying to do their job. Either way, we’ve nailed the exact dimensions of a TSA personal item and it’s just so nice to know that no one can lose our luggage but us.

    I don’t actually remember what we talked about on the plane ride, but somehow the topic of Yosemite comes up. I’ve been and Chasity hasn’t, so I’ve talked her into going to Big Sur as soon as we land, so that the next day, we can attempt the 3+ hour drive to Yosemite instead. When our flight lands, we find our rental car and I sneak a cigarette in the parking garage before we set out towards Highway 1. We are in an older but trusty little Honda Civic. It doesn’t even have a back up camera. I have flash backs of Chasity and I in college together, when one night we drove almost to Tennessee just to watch the sunrise over the Smokies, but I got a critical and controlling text from my then boyfriend [eventual ex-husband] and I turned around and took her back home.

    There is no discouraging texts this time. Not only is Josh all for me traveling and getting to California, there is no cell service. Zero.

    The navigation I began in the parking garage of the airport remains the sole lifeline to get us down the coast. Chasity is able to get some service around Monterrey to find us lunch, but we abandon the spotty navigation when we see a food truck by a pier. Our first meal in California is street tacos for me, and Sriracha Chicken Tenders for Chasity. Do I have a beer? I don’t think I have a beer.

    We are encouraging each other, the world is our oyster. We have all the time. We are in no hurry. If we were in a hurry, it wouldn’t be the vacation we both need. It is maybe noon in California time so we overpay for parking to grant us the time to walk the pier and look for seals. We don’t find them, but we do spot a stingray and an otter. We watch it dive down and pop back up with food that is eaten off it’s own belly.

    Confession. I have a bit of a misconception of Big Sur. Josh got to go to Big Sur a few years prior and he thought so highly of it, he made it seem like it was a place to go. Like a singular place. Not a stretch of places. I have a beach in mind. A place I can stand and sit and linger, and just stare in awe.

    Chasity and I have our bellies full and are back in the car following google’s directions. We admire and scoff at the million (billion?) dollar homes in Carmel and then all of a sudden there is the ocean and the rugged cliffs and the road right there between them. There are scenic vistas, and turn offs, and bridges. There is fog and waves, and birds, and only a few other tourists. It is so gd pretty. Beautiful. Cathartic. No one told me about how pretty the drive to Big Sur would be. We pull over, get out and take photos and videos and scurry back to our rental as many times and we want to until finally our navigation takes us off the main highway down a curvy road toward a beach. I’m thinking this is our destination, and we have just been fortunate to enjoy the long drive down.

    The small side road turns out to be a private road, blocked off to anyone other an residents. We ask the ‘attendant’ about the public beach that our google navigation is aimed for, and he shrugs. Tells us we should come back on the weekends when the road is open to the public. We don’t bother telling him this is not an option.

    We drive back to the main road, without so much as a finger gesture from the man for another way to get to “Big Sur.” I’m fearing we flew all this way and drove all this way and will not get to see Big Sur. We have no service still and because the navigation ended, we are left with driving until we spot a nature park with a gift shop. I try to sneak a peak at a map that I refuse to buy, only to find out we have been in Big Sur all along. Big Sur is the area, not a place. I feel slightly dumb as I look for roads to the beach, or other beaches, or any of the places we have on our “maybe list”.

    The maps are useless, as expected and Chasity buys some weird tea drink so we don’t feel bad about not buying a map. She is telling me about a waterfall that empties into the sea but can’t remember the name of it, when suddenly, I am standing in a corner of the gift shop looking at a calendar and right there is a photo of the waterfall: McWay Falls.

    I return to the maps and find it only a few miles away. Suddenly, Chasity’s service is back and we have the compounded comfort of a destination and navigation again.

    McWay falls is at the end of a short hike. It sneaks up on us, peaking out from behind a cliff side. We are limited to the trail, but can look down on a picturesque beach spotted only with birds and soft waves. There are no people and no trash, and I decide I like it this way, despite how much I want to stand underneath the waterfall with my toes in the pacific ocean.

    Now it is getting late. The time change is taking its effect on us and we both feel content enough to head to our first hotel back in Santa Cruz. There are a couple stops we plan to make, but of course we have no cell service again and miss them all. When we make it back to the Monterrey area, service returns and we decide to squeeze in one last beach before we call it a night. Pebble Beach is all we have to go on. Sounds like a lovely little beach doesn’t it?

    When we arrive, there is another gated entrance and I curse as I pull up to the attendant, prepared for him to send us off. I roll down my window and greet him. The first words out of his mouth are, “Hello! Are you here for the tour?”

    I am so surprised by his response. I just say yes. “Yes, we are here for the tour.” Chasity is silent in the passenger seat. I ask the man how much, and he tells me for two, $11. I look at Chasity, she looks at me. She hands me her credit card and the attendant steps away to get our tickets and brochures.

    I look back at Chasity, “What did we just pay for?”

    We both burst into laughter and I can barely contain it when the man comes back with the card, the receipt, and directions to begin the tour. I’m so tired, and so shocked about our equal acceptance of whatever just happened that I don’t hear any of it. When I pull the car away from the gate, Chasity and I can’t stop laughing long enough to discuss what way we are supposed to go to begin the tour.

    Eventually, our laughter dies down to the occasional involuntary chuckle. I am following signs for the “17 mile tour” and Chasity is reading the brochure. There are numbered stops. It looks residential, and ends in a golf course. We have no fucking idea why we are still taking to the tour, taking the recommended stops, and reading the history of this moderately affluent gated neighborhood.

    This turns out to be my favorite memory. Right in the middle of poor technology and mistaken expectations and impulsive acquiescence based on exhaustion, embarrassment and decades of faking it until we made it. We see cypress groves, a beach of pebbles, and best of all, seals. There is an island off the coast and we use my binoculars to admire fat seals passed out in the nooks and crannies surrounded by chattering birds and their bird shit painted on the rock surface like melted wax art.

    End of Day One.

  • Florida

    Florida

    RECAP of the last blog: It’s late April, I know something is up. I know my friend is behaving strangely, and my subconscious knows chunks are about to fly. That’s why I don’t write, and that’s why I have to catch you up on the missing weeks. (Jesus H & M Christ, how is already June?)

    So May 3rd has arrived. My mother picks me up from my home to start the two hour journey to the airport for our 1 PM flight. Our flight has been delayed 3 hours. I understand that the normal response is to be frustrated or nervous, but this news has the opposite effect on me. I think of the 3 hours as a gift from the universe. I’m easy-breezy all the way to the airport. I don’t care at all to stop and use the bathroom or walk around. Mom misses the exit to the airport. No big deal, momma, we’ll just catch the next exit and give it a good u-shape.

    We arrive at the airport and make it through security with enough time to have theoretically caught our original boarding time. We find our gate, confirm a, now, 4 hour delay and decide to kill some time eating overpriced airport pizza and drink overpriced airport pop (hick for soda pop.) When we’ve run out of pizza and things to talk about, I use the airport wifi to brainlessly scroll social media. Bliss.

    We are intermittently entertained at the gate by a child who loves to pretend she is mad at her mom. She dances in the open space and her mom yells “get back over here”. The child crosses her arms over her chest and pouts her lips and says, “I’m not speaking to you any more.” Then giggles and screams in delight, running to her mom for a hug. I love this. The mom is blissfully scrolling social media, probably enjoying her relaxed momming duty as we talk to the child. Ask her about her plans in Florida (a Disney cruise.) Her vocabulary is aided by her mother’s but it’s still sort of a one sided conversation. We’re all just biding time until we get on our way.

    About an hour before our new confirmed departure time, my email dings with a $50 credit from the airline for our delay. How sweet. I love delayed flights.

    Miami greets us with sunshine and heat that isn’t shy even after the sun goes down. We make it to our hotel on South Miami Beach. We find a Cuban Restaurant a block away and I begin my research for the Best Cuban Sandwich of the trip. (I don’t actually get a cuban, because their full menu stops serving after we get there, but I do get a tasty cuban sandwich inspired Empanada, that cost more than the sandwich, but is served with a drizzle of something that I want to cover my entire body in.)

    It’s worth noting, that I chose this location and hotel because I wanted the old art deco feel. I wanted at least 2 dozen layers of paint on the walls, pastel accents and metal scroll work on the cast iron fencing. And I didn’t mind that the bathroom light didn’t work. Because they provided a floor lamp that I was able to place by the toilet so that I could pee with some light. I am still a happy camper.

    Day two arrives. Mom and I are starting to feel the excitement. Our hotel offers a complimentary hot breakfast in the courtyard with swallows and wrens as company. When our bellies are full and I am caffeinated, we don on our bathing suits and head to the beach. It’s Thursday and we have the sand and waves practically to ourselves. A family watches their infant play in the sand. A man swings a metal detector back and forth. A handful of runners huff past with headphones. I find sea shells and sea beans. My mom finds a broken piece of coral that is still a sweet lavender hue.

    Ocean Dr. is exactly what I hoped for. A pristine sidewalk takes us along old Art Deco hotels turned restaurants and galleries. The colors and the shapes and the humility give me joy. I want these places to exist, and I want them to exist forever just as they are. I want to be a South Beach Hotel when I grow old.

    My mom and I embrace our tourism. We stop and take photos, videos, point fingers. Bicyclists and roller skaters zoom around us. We don’t care. We are high on day 1 of vacation (not counting airports and car rentals).

    We walk so far we realize we don’t want to walk back. So I figure out how to rent the city bikes. Now we live our Hollywood vacation dreams. Salty wind blows our hair back as we cycle out to the southern tip of South Beach. My mother is 62 and bikes for fun, so this is all just pumping her heart with pride and accomplishment (AKA brag worthy material.) I know she can’t wait to go back home and tell her sister and brothers how her and her daughter road bikes along Ocean Drive.

    If I haven’t mentioned it yet, her joy and personal content creation is what this trip is all about. We don’t do Christmas presents. We do trips. Last year, we managed to gift each other two trips. She took me to New Mexico, and I took her to New England. We both agreed that expense was a bit outside our range to repeat, so this year we decided to gift each other one collective trip. Mom picked Florida. I went along with it. At the end of the year, after the loss of my dad, I’ll literally go where ever she wants, do whatever she wants. I feel responsible for making sure this trip is a trip of her dreams. This is not a healthy way to take a trip.

    Ergo, we are off to a fantastic start. My Gifted & Talented inner child feels like she’ll finally get the approval she survives off of. When Mom smiles as she gets off the bike, she does this thing where she retells what we just did to me, as if I wasn’t there. She punctuates it with a thank you. This is her practicing telling her friends how great her vacation was, and how great her daughter is. I slide into the role of tour guide, fed by little samples of how she will brag about me later.

    Between one hotel and the next, we stop in Wynwood where we are promised murals. Oh my god of spray paint cans and aerosol. Forget the ozone later, we have walls to paint! There is an installation of artists. We pay our $15 a piece to get in. It doesn’t take that long to walk through it, but we do get to see 6 figure prices on work by Peter Tunney. It is pretty cool but it’s hot and I’m hungry but mom is not. I decide to eat a hot banana from the car (stolen from the breakfast bar.)

    We still have a couple hours to kill before we can check into our next hotel, so Mom decides she wants to see Little Havana. All I can think about is a Cuban Sandwich to wash down my hot banana.

    When we make it to a hole in the wall restaurant in Little Havana I pay for parking via an app. Before we can even cross the street I get a notification that I should lock my car and remove valuables. That is quite possibly the worst thing to tell me. I’d rather come back to a broken or missing vehicle then be told I have not parked in a safe place.

    Anyways. The Cuban is good and cheap and I think I have a real contender for the best Cuban of the trip in my hands. We also manage to explore the area on foot with out any tragedies to our selves, our belongings or the rental car. We head to our swanky downtown hotel with a 14th floor view. (The light in the bathroom is operational and if anything excessive. I pee, missing my Art Deco floor lamp.) Mom and I spend the evening walking to the port and the Skyviews Miami Observation wheel. We are having so much fun and everything seems so easy and accommodating I get arrogant. I think I can figure out the public transportation.

    I don’t. I never do. We ride at least 3 separate trains. I ask public officials if the train we are on, are in fact headed to the area of our hotel. They tell me yes, but then the train doesn’t stop. I give up and me and mom take our chances at the next stop and walk the rest of the way on foot. We are exhausted when we finally make it to our luxurious hotel bed.

    Day 2 is devoted to the Everglades. We take our time getting there, even stopping by the Venetian Pool where it’s a little too early in the day, and a little too shaded by trees to have been properly warmed by the sun. We swim with goose bumps. I decide this is great for my nervous system. Plus, there are no chemicals in the pool, so my microbes are undisturbed. We have a second Cuban on the way out of town, and I leave a sticker for my husband’s music on a lamp post outside the restaurant. It is a good cuban sandwich.

    We don’t make it to the entrance to Everglades until almost 3 pm. A handsome young teenage boy at the information desk tells us we are in good hands. If we want to see the eyes of crocodiles, we should wait until the sun goes down, and use our phone flashlights to look for their glowing eyes. He says all of this with a straight face. So my mother and I nod and pretend enthusiasm for night time crocodile hunting.

    Armed with only a map of circled places that we may see a man-eating creature when the sun goes down, my mother and I pick our first nature walk. We see an Anhingas spearing a snake right away. We walk along a raised wood deck that takes us over water. We read plaques that tell us we are actually walking over the slowest moving river, a fresh water slough. We notice the cute little head of an alligator, and then we peak over the railing at another kid alligator that is sleeping in the tall vegetation. Then we see more Anhingas sun bathing in trees, wings spread, backs to the sun, like little crucified thieves. Finally, we see a big momma ‘gater. It is massive and I am so pleased with how I can peek over the wood railing at it and it doesn’t care about me one bit.

    I feel like the rest of the trip can be a wash, and I’ll still be happy I saw this ol’ girl. The rest of the adventure into the everglades is mild and we are amused to drive through the world’s smallest mountain pass. We see white ibises in the marshes. We see crickets the size of our thumbs. We learn that we can’t stand still long or mosquitos will get us. So we flail and jiggle our appendages when we stop to read a plaque. Eventually, the flying, biting insects win and we desperately run back to our cars and completely abandon our mission to see all the ink-pen-circled locations on our map. We are however greeted with a beautiful sunset over the slough and never think twice about abandoning the advice to hunt crocodiles after dark.

    Day 3 is devoted to getting to Key West. There is one highway all the way down, and google maps teases us with a 3 hour estimation and 15 hour estimation. We watch fishermen/women cast off the road side in the full sun. We point out abandoned bridges left to fall into the ocean. I tell my my mother, that portion of the old 7 mile bridge was used in True Lies with Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron. They blew it up for Hollywood. She seems unimpressed and points out kitschy tourists traps flying past our car windows. It does not takes us 15 hours to get there.

    Key West reminds me of New Orleans. I love it’s old, hurricane battered buildings, and dingy streets, except with well dressed tourists and country music themed gaggles of young adults. My mother tells me about her neighbor who had a photo at America’s Most Southern Point. So we decide to head that direction.

    On the way, we step into the Butterfly sanctuary. The onslaught of butterflies to our persons is immediate and frightening, but then a Blue Morpho lands on my stomach and hitchhikes until the flamingos. Again, my mother is smiling and retelling me the story. Showing me her photos of me and my new friend.

    The Southernmost point involves a long line in the full sun, for my mother and I to photograph each other at a thing that sort of looks like a giant nipple, painted with red, yellow, black and white lines and text. I put another of my husband’s sticker on the nearest stop sign.

    We then wander Duval St. There are chickens everywhere. We eat Key Lime Pie. We peer up at a 3rd floor clothing option terrace bar. We have drinks and appetizers at the pier and watch the sunset. We run into a Duval street concert on the way home to our hotel. It is a local musician, Michael Ray. He sings country, one of his songs that all of Duval street knows goes “I wanna kiss you in the parking lot” and suddenly me and my mom are ready to go to bed.

    Day 4 begins before sunrise, and with a 1 mile walk without food or coffee. It is the reason we are here. It is the one thing I am most excited and most nervous about. Our $200 tickets explain that there is no food, water, or shade where we are going. And if we miss the ferry, we don’t go, don’t get refunds.

    We are going to Dry Tortugas National Park. An Island 120 miles from any other land, home to the now defunct Fort Jefferson. I have packed sunscreen, a hat, and sunglasses. The ferry ride provides coffee, bagels, fruit cups and water. My mother and I meet a sweet couple from the north (Minnesota area?). We plan our snorkling route on the Island. A man with the ferry company entertains us with information and a play by play of the schedule of events once we arrive. Mom and I spot two turtles outside the window of our air-conditioned booth. We watch a video on a small TV about the island. And suddenly, there it is it. A speck of land in the distance.

    The first item on the itinerary, is a guided tour of the island and fort. I am honestly overwhelmed with fascinating and comedic history. Facts I recall: most stationed soldiers suffered lack of clean water, relentless mosquitos, and eventually died of yellow fever. The fort served as a prison, it’s most famous prisoner being Dr. Samuel Mudd, charged with complicity in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Dr. Mudd went on to save most of the yellow fever stricken soldiers, earning himself an eventual pardon.

    I learned that the fort was overbuilt, and excessive to the point that it never had to fire a single canon at a enemy ship, because no enemy was dumb enough to brave it’s 300 canons, with a 360 degree 3 mile range. In fact, the fort wasn’t even finished. It’s canons becoming outdated before the structure was complete.

    And then there was Bush key, home to to the nesting grounds of 80,000 sooty terns and 40,000 brown noddies. Magnificent frigates hung in the sky over the fort like kites, their long arched wings and tiny bodies hovering in the ocean breeze.

    Mom and I eat lunch and then dare to take our chances in the water with snorkling gear. When I say I nearly blacked out in fear, I do not exagerate. My goggles constantly fogged up. When I would look down at the ocean floor and hunt for coral, I would panic that I’d lose my mom. I’d raise my head, accidentally suck salty water through my snorkel, choke and flail with my fins thinking, omg don’t drown, but also, don’t touch any coral with your fins, don’t stand up, don’t drink salt water, omg where is mom, omg my goggles are fogged, omg salt water in my mouth, omg I’m gonna die.

    Mom on the other hand, was disappointed we did not see brightly colored coral, or turtles, or fish at all.

    Finally, our ferry ride sounds the call for our departure. Mom and I are not ready to leave and are the last on the ferry. This means we are left with seats on the second floor, in the middle of a row of seats next to a brother and sister, across the table from a trio of kids who’s parents supply them with sandwiches and sprites and then sit on the sun deck, and a women who uses up three seats to sleep on her bed. There is an announcement that our captain expects rough waters on the way back. They suggest remaining seated for the first hour of our ride back.

    My view is 180 degrees of the ocean, horizon and the ferry as it rocks from side to side over “rough waters”. At first it is soothing, charming even–no, a novelty. Then the horizon jolts left and right, like a see-saw through the windows of the ferry cabin. It disappears on my left, and then on my right. Fellow passengers are jolted awake, or are clutching at their alcoholic drinks as the boat threatens to launch all items not tied down. The brother and sister laugh with me (my mom is attempting to sleep.) There is a moment when every passenger is levitating an inch above their seat. We all crash down simultaneously, both shocked and amused. Crew members with their expert sea legs, wait on passengers as if this is merely a fun house ride.

    And finally, there is vomit. The sea has gotten to an older woman, who’s husband takes his chances and finds crew members to clean up the mess. It is Triangle of Sadness, in real life. Or rather, a sample in reverse. We have survived the deserted island, and now must sacrifice our expensive lunches on our expensive boat rides, phones capturing the whole thing for content creation.

    I am overjoyed. I feel like I am on an amusement park ride and I am watching a movie. The day is stamped and sealed as a good day. I happily tip the crew and don’t mind at all that my mother and I walk a mile to a restaurant only to see their menu prices and turn around and walk back to a restaurant a half a block from our hotel. It is here that I have the best Cuban of the trip.

    Before I get into novella territory, I’ll leave you, dear reader, with a sneak peak of what to expect when this saga continues.

    My friend is home alone (her husband is traveling for music) and we are mutually bummed her week off fell during my week away.

    Our Florida trip has less exciting but also less puke-filled moments to share.

    My inbox chimes with a notification that the first thing I have ever self-published is approved and officially available on Amazon & Kindle.

    And no one has visited a hospital yet.

  • New Mexico & Arizona

    New Mexico & Arizona

    Their home has been on Zillow for 3 days. Xine keeps looking at the number of viewings, the saves, and the bold text that says their home is likely to sell faster than 99% of near by homes. Yet, there are no offers. No showings. Not even a text from Shelly. Xine reaches out to see if she has possibly missed a text or a call. Technology can never be trusted.

    Shelly doesn’t sue the word “crickets” but reminds Xine that she has a nontraditional home. They are looking for the right buyer. If Xine is motivated, her and Josh could reduce the price.

    Xine and Josh decide they aren’t that motivated.

    Xine puts the house business on the shelf and prepares for a trip with her mother. In lieu of Christmas gifts, they are gifting trips. Xine thought it would help achieve their mutual goals of traveling more. Not that it would minimize costs–only that that it would cut costs around Christmas time.

    Xine’s mom, Judy, has selected the destination for this trip: New Mexico and Arizona. They will be traveling for 10 days. Xine refuses to pay for a checked bag or carry-on, so she is stuffing everything she needs into a single backpack that adheres to the dimensions of a “personal item.”

    She has also applied for a new job: a salaried position for a nonprofit. It wasn’t necessarily her plan to get a full time job. She still wants to be a kept girl. But this time, they reached out to her and talked her into applying. She’s never been recruited before. She’s in the final stages, having progressed past the initial interview. Xine predicts she will hear their final decision while she is living out of a backpack in the desert.

    At least she won’t have to consider a new job and an offer on a house all while trying to appreciate the Grand Canyon.

    ***

    The air of New Mexico is warm not unlike the heaters that blow down on the threshold of a Walmart superstore. Traveling is like that, isn’t it? Everything encountered is new and shiny, and the traveler’s base mindset is “gimme.”

    Xine points to what gives her pleasure: the spanish style architecture of the court house in downtown Sante Fe; the Navajo street vendors with storyteller statues and jewelry displayed on colorful blankets; the traditional dress of the street performers with bells on their ankles and sprays of feathers cascading down their backs.

    In pastel pink pants and a stylish tanktop, Xine feels good. She feels pretty and warm and mostly her self. Dry heat and sunshine does wonders for her. She hasn’t even thought about not getting an offer on the house.

    Xine is so overwhelmed by the impulse to fuel this machine of wonder, awe, and infatuation, she buys things. She spends $50 on a ring for her sister-in-law. She spends $300 on a small sculpture of a Navajo Storyteller for her mother-in-law. Xine second guesses her ability to buy something her sister-in-law will like. She buys a second ring.

    She is splitting a Tamale with her mother in the Sante Fe square when she feels the warmth of menstruation.

    Shit, she thinks. She has nothing on her person, no tampons, pads, or even underwear.

    “I need to find a bathroom,” she tells her mother.

    There is a bathroom in an old style 5 and dime shop. It has two stalls but one is broken. She waits in line. Smiles at the women waiting in line behind her as she feels the thick blood amass. Xine considers asking one of the women around her for a tampon but can’t bring her self to do it. She asks herself but can’t explain why.

    Finally, she makes it behind the door stall and drops her pastel pink denim jeans to see a burgandy Rorschach test between the meat of her thighs. Blessedly, the amount of blood that has transferred to her denim is manageable. Not ideal for someone who only has two pairs of pants for the next ten days but manageable.

    Xine pees. When she reaches for the toilet paper to clean her thighs, there is practically none. Even if Xine is stingy, she knows that she will leave too little for anyone else. She needs enough to clean her thighs, wipe the piss from her crotch, and also roll a makeshift tampon and shove into her vaginal canal.

    The murmur of women in line reaches her ears like the roar of a crowd antsy for the start of a rock show. Even if it starts on time, there will be a mosh pit. There will be elbows to cheekbones. She will not come out unscathed. Best she quietly and quickly proceed forward, find her escape like a sengi. She can neither ask for assistance, nor let the women know the toilet paper is low. She is 33 years old.

    Xine brings her mind back to the 5 and dime‘s half-functional restroom. She cleans herself up the best she can with four squares of toilet paper. She folds three squares of toilet paper and plugs herself up like a bathtub drain stopper.

    When she emerges from the store, it crosses her mind to ask her mother to walk back to the hotel, or hop in their rental car and go to a drug store. But Xine finds her mother waiting and smiling in the Sante Fe sun and can’t bring herself to ask for anything. Plus, she’s plugged for now. She’ll be fine.

    ***

    After two more public restroom visits and six more squares of toilet paper. Xine relents and asks her mother if they can head back to the hotel.

    “Oh, I was just getting hungry again,” Xine’s mother says as she looks around for a place to eat. “Do you want to eat and then head back?”

    “I just want to chill in the hotel for a moment. Then maybe we can walk back for dinner?” Xine says, instead of ‘I need a tampon’ or ‘I need to clean myself’ or ‘I need to put on underwear to keep this wad of toilet paper between the lips of my labia’.

    Xine’s mother isn’t really buying it but agrees to walk back. Plus she could use the bathroom at the hotel since it will certainly be cleaner than the public bathrooms. She has refrained from excessive hydration and real sustenance just to avoid using the public restrooms.

    They walk 15 minutes back to the hotel. It is a condo/suite style hotel with long meandering hallways with nooks and crannies that have lounge chairs and side tables. Once Xine makes it into the restroom of their hotel room, she assesses the damage to her lovely pink pastel denim jeans. She cleans herself, pisses again and finally asks her mother through the barely open bathroom door if she can ask the front desk for a few tampons.

    “Oh no!” Xine’s mother says, “I don’t have any myself. I don’t have to worry about that now , you know? Do you want me to run to Walmart for you?”

    “No, just ask the front desk. They should have some.”

    “Are you sure? I’m not sure they will have anything like that.”

    “I used to work for a 2 star hotel and we had just about everything back behind the desk. Surely, this place has toiletries.”

    Judy isn’t convinced but says she’ll check.

    Xine thanks her mother and closes the bathroom door. Her hand lingers on the door knob. Her tank top is burnt orange, polka dotted, and puckers out just above her belly button. It has wide straps over her freckled shoulders. Together the two components remind her of a summer dress. The kind of summer dress that gives her breasts a little breathing room and could fool anybody into thinking she actually had breasts. Even she thinks it’s flattering on her.

    Otherwise she is naked from the waist down. Her blood stained pants carefully laid on the tile floor so that the period mess doesn’t spread on the inside of her jeans.

    When Xine hears her mother exit the hotel room. She peaks out to confirm the room is empty and she pulls her backpack into the bathroom with her. She slips on a pair of underwear and cotton sleep-shorts. Carefully, she gathers her pink pants in her hands and begins to blot their red spotted crotch with a washcloth.

    She is still blotting when her mother returns.

    “They didn’t have any tampons,” her mother says.

    “You’re kidding!” Xine stops blotting.

    “But the front desk clerk had some of her own. Said this was all she had.”

    Xine is bewildered that their $250 hotel room doesn’t have toiletries for women. Whatever. She’ll make do. She always makes do.

    She takes two pads from her mother’s hand and tries not to wince. Considers for moment why plugging herself like a leaking barrel is more desirable than soaking up her period in a small scale diaper pad.

    ***

    On day 3, Xine is in the lighter days of her period. Her skin is rosy with sunshine. She sees the Earth Ships of Taos, the wildfires of Angel Fire, and the miraculous staircase of Loretto’s Chapel. She finds many beautiful sculptures of the storyteller that are cheaper than $300 and feels a constricting of her chest. She considers returning the one she purchased on day one. She considers returning everything she purchased. She has spend $600 and it’s only day three.

    Her mother convinces her not to. Says it’s a beautiful work of art. It’s worth $300. Xine’s mother-in-law will love it. It will mean so much to her. Xine retains her doubts, cries to herself in the bathroom. Wishes her heart would stop restricting.

    The day before, she received an email from the nonprofit, requesting a “sample” communication plan with social media graphics for a very real upcoming event. The whole request smells fishy, like a request for unpaid work, but it is the final stage of the job application. She tells herself she wants the job and is willing to give up an afternoon of her vacation to finish the assignment.

    She finishes a book called Clean: The New Science of Skin in the early morning hours before her and her mother head out on Route 66 to Flagstaff, Arizona.

    “I think I’m going to stop using soap,” Xine says aloud.

    Xine’s mother laughs and then raises an eyebrow, “What do you mean?”

    “I just finished this book and it talks about how we don’t know that much about skin. It’s our largest organ but there’s not enough research to really understand it.”

    “Hmph,” Judy says while looking out the car window.

    Xine continues, “And there is no organization that monitors what we put on our skin. Like, no one makes sure our make-up, soap, shampoo, or deodorant doesn’t give us skin cancer.”

    “What about the FDA?”

    “The FDA only monitors Food and Drugs.”

    “Hmph.”

    “Apparently what we do know, is that the skin has a microbiome just like our guts. You know like, you eat a probiotic to improve gut health?”

    “Oh yeah. I can’t have yogurt with my gut problems but I’ve heard of that. You know, I can sometimes eat some dried yogurt in a granola bar but that’s about it.

    Xine quickly continues, “Yeah, exactly. It’s the same for our skin. We have good bacteria on our skin and soap strips it away.”

    “Well,” Judy interrupts, “We also have bad bacteria. That’s why we use soap.”

    “But we only have bad bacteria because we’ve stripped away the good bacteria that would otherwise take up that space.”

    “Hmm.”

    “Did you know, that at birth, we are covered by the natural and self-sufficient microbiome from our mother’s vaginal canal?”

    Judy is silent at the words vaginal canal.

    “Like all the good bacteria we need, we get from the vaginal canal and breast milk. Breast milk, especially human, is, like, the best super food in the history of foods.”

    Xine is losing Judy. Xine is staring out at Route 66 as it cuts through the desert, and is thinking about how her skin feels like a desert after every shower. How the book she just finished has empowered her to leave the commercialized world of hygiene behind her.

    Judy is wondering how worried she should be that her daughter is becoming a hippy.

    ***

    At a desert themed general store, Xine and her mother are waiting to drive to a place where they will get into a helicopter and take a very quick flight over the Instagram-famous Horseshoe Bend.

    Xine gets an email from the nonprofit requesting a phone call.

    She calls them immediately. Her knees are bouncing under the tabletop of the picnic table as she is offered the position. Her mom can tell by her smile what has happened before she even gets to ask.

    “How quickly can you start?” Her new boss asks.

    “Right away.” Xine doesn’t think, just responds automatically.

    Caught up in the rush of accepting the first full-time salaried position with full health benefits of her life, she doesn’t even consider giving herself time to reset between her trip and this new job.

    Her microbiome goes crazy.