I pack four books and a magazine for a three-day trip. Then I buy more at the airport. I forget to pack a change of trousers. This will come back to bite me when I vomit on a boat.
The first thing I do when I land is get hoodwinked by not one, but two time-share salespeople in quick succession. I just want a taxi. Finally I find someone who not only promises but also delivers the taxi. When I arrive at the hotel, the concierge assures me I paid an order of magnitude more than the regulated tariff. I am not cut out for places that require assertion of will.
Lightning plays over the ocean as I lie down. In the middle of the night it wakes me and I figure out the curtain situation. Still at 5am the storm is raging. Aren’t storms episodic by definition? Don’t clouds run out of friction when they rub themselves raw? The morning ocean pretends it never happened.
Two dolphins take turns hopping out of the water outside my hotel window. I’ve never seen a dolphin in the wild. I rush out on my balcony in my underwear and annunciate, “Oh my GOD,” alone, atheistically. And then 15 seconds later I decide I’m done watching dolphins and it’s time to return to my Chinese homework. I did the exact same when I first saw the Northern Lights—exclamation, balcony, underwear, early-onset apathy and all.
The promise of stingrays in the water holds my attention for longer, as it involves children peering uncertainly at their toes. I get to look from the children’s faces, down to the water, and back again. The boy who ferries us to the catamaran on the “panda” (can that be right?) looks to be about 10.
My client-turned-friend has children about the same age with brighter futures than any human I’ve met. They flit easily between poised answers in Spanish, English and German as needed.
I reckon I could be a middling mariachi violinist right this second if you gave me the clothes. I could use the extra pants, anyway. The trumpet, never in my life. Such is the apparent skill disparity among the instruments in this particular group. My co-partiers are Mexican and know the words to every number. Spontaneous dancers, all except me.
Be It Resolved: The United States has turned into a Soviet misery. Houston Airport for the Affirmative.
Arrive midnight in Toronto after the last possible flight to Ottawa. They hand me an overnight bag full of off-gassing plastic.
Photos mine