Short Skirts and Trade Winds

Excerpts from a new journal:

Sunday, March 1st, 2015 (First entry):

Starting a journal is a tricky thing. The inclination is to begin at a beginning; the first of a year, a birthday, or some significant milestone in one’s life from which the subsequent narrative may be launched. An anchorage. En media res seems unsuited for such auspicious commencements.

But here we are, nonetheless, right in the middle.

We’re here in the middle because my old journal's disappeared, lost in the machinations of luggage and travel and displacement. My personal history, scribblings accumulated over much of the past decade, has somehow been misplaced, much like the years themselves, and I find myself without written context. My literary moorings unstuck.

But starting anew, in the middle of things, is not without benefit. Instead of a life event anchoring a new journal, let a new journal anchor a life. Write a new story, set a new tone in the narrative, change the language of my existance. For what’s done is done and there’s no recourse but to move forward, lessons learned or no.

Put the old book behind, forget it, and begin to write a new reality.


Monday, March 2nd, 2015:

New Spanish words of the day:
hielo - ice
luvia - rain
la quenta - the bill
Si, cariño - Yes, dear (very important)


Wedensday, March 4th, 2015:

Working on kicking my Mt. Dew addiction. I have a little Coca Cola as my morning coffee, water during the day, and piña coladas at night. Not sure that latter is the right direction, but what the hell. I worry, though, that if I'm successful here, I'll be returning home where there are three six-packs of 16oz bottles and a couple of loose ones in the fridge, ready to test my newfound resolve.

The fact that I know exactly how many await is disturbing.


Thursday, March 5th, 2015:

Up early to get into town to take some pictures during the morning golden hour. But early also means morning shadows, a particularly interesting shade. Not dark or foreboding or rife with dangerous possibilities, but sluggish and sadly shabby. Corners put aside and forgotten, neglected, left to age. Places left without possibilities, unchanging, and sliding unnoticed during the day towards darker times.


Friday, March 6th, 2015:

Short skirts and trade winds. Such a delightful combination.


Saturday, March 7th, 2015:

I wonder, as this vacation enters its last couple days, how to return and not fall into the same old patterns. How to take some of this serenity, some of this quiet inspiration, and use it to beat back the routine. Yet, at the same time, I look forward to the familiar and natural rhythms of home; the comfort. So how do I reconcile this contradiction? I suppose I could look at my everyday habits with the eyes of the tourist, to examine and appreciate them as if seeing them for the first time. I wonder if that changes anything...

Sunday, March 8th, 2015:

...or if the patterns are established because they are right.