Tag Archives: Huatulco

The heart is an infinite space.

Posted on by
4

01a25ceb87823b6e89b0321ea298c61ea1b4343220I am watching a movie on the flight home. I cannot remember the name nor the actors. I think it was a sad movie. I hope so because I know I felt tears pricking at the edges of my eyelids.

And I think perhaps it is the bittersweetness of leaving Huatulco and the joy of coming home.

My heart is heavy. My heart is full.

It is both the blessing and the curse of travelling. Everyday new sights, sounds, ideas, foods, people open up like an oyster to reveal the exquisite beauty of every day pearls. And everyday, it takes you away from those you love, the places you know, the comforts of the life you live day to day.

And it comes back to me, the name of the movie I watched. In Her Shoes. Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley McLean. Two sisters who find the grandmother they thought had forgotten them and discover the beauty of the ties that bind them can never be broken. No matter what happens in the world around them, they are always connected through the heart to one another.

It is the heart connection that stirs my memory of the movie’s name because in it, Cameron Diaz recites one of my favourite  e.e. cummings poems.

i carry your heart

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

winter-is-hereThis morning, as I gaze at the snowy landscape outside my office window, as I feel the chill of the air when I let Beaumont out for a romp in the backyard, as I make coffee to take back to bed to savour with my beloved so we can lie together and reminisce of the days just past, of our plans for today and dreams for tomorrow, I carry with me in everything I do, the memories of Huatulco and Villas Fa-Sol. Of Don Gabriel and his coffee in Pluma Hildalgo. Of dinner under the palm trees, the roaring of the surf crashing against the rocks. Of the guitar player serenading us at dinner, the music of the looms at Textileartes. The sound of the birds cawing as we travelled across the waves to a deserted beach where I swam to shore. Of the taxi drivers, the servers, the shop people, the delightful staff at Villas Fa-Sol. Everyone. I carry them in my heart. The people. The sites. The adventures. The music. The laughter. The friendships made. The friendships deepened.

They will live in my heart forever for the heart is an infinite space. It gathers memories and holds them near, filling our soul’s longing for connection with its reminders of the people we treasure most, the one’s we hold so dear. And though the colours of the photos may dim, and the memory of the beauty of the sunsets become lost in other places, other journeys, the memory of the people will stay with me forever.

For that is the way of the heart. It holds onto people, no matter where in the world we go. For with every beat of our heart, it reminds us that we are never far from the one’s we love. We carry their hearts in ours. Always.

 

On the deep blue sea

Posted on by
4

img_0523I am gliding through the water. One arm over the other in rhythmic pace, like a windmill turning in the wind. I stop momentarily to check if I can touch the bottom, but I am still too deep. I crawl closer to shore. I check again. No. I keep moving closer to shore until finally, just a few feet from the pink and welcoming beach, I feel the sand beneath my toes. I stand up and a giant wave cascades over me, pummeling my back, pushing me into the sand. The wave crashes into the shore, curls back under itself and pulls back out to the ocean, dragging me with it.

I thrash and resist until I remember. Relax. Breathe. Go with the flow. Waves roll in. Waves roll out. Resistance is futile.

I become one with the ocean and stretch my body out on the water’s surface. The waves roll in and carry me back to shore.

I stand up and move away from the water’s edge. The sand is warm beneath my toes. The breeze warmer.

img_0511We are on a deserted stretch of beach miles down the coast from Villas Fa-Sol. Guillermo has offered up the services of his captain, Jorge, and the use of his 45′ powerboat, “Do It”, to take us out on the water for the day. After a leisurely journey hugging the beautifully rugged coastline, exploring several of the 9 bays that make up Huatulco, we are two miles out from shore, heading back to the northern tip of the region, when Ursula suggests it’s time to swim.

Ever accommodating, Guillermo and Jorge steer the boat towards this stretch of beach. Stefan, one of the guests who has joined us for the day’s adventure, reels in the empty fishing lines we have been trailing. Like an epilogue to a story about the one who got away, their colourful lures lie on the deck, empty, waiting for another chance to be cast into the waters.

At the farthest end of the cove, several divers bob along the water’s surface before disappearing below. There is a couple walking along the sand. They stop and kiss and keep walking in the sun. At the oppposite end of the cove towards which we are headed, a sailboat is anchored, its gleaming white hull gently rolling with each wave, its ropes and stanchions clanking, a cheerful bell calling us closer. Farther in from the shoreline, someone has erected a bright green tent, its sides untethered, the panels flapping soundlessly in the breeze that blows in from the water.

As I walk along the water’s edge, I see a family playing amongst the rocks that form the southerly edge of the bay. I know they are laughing, calling out to each other but the wind steals the sounds of their voices leaving me alone with just the crashing surf and my thoughts of paradise.

img_0524I spent much of the journey perched on the bench of the flying bridge, high above the boat’s main deck. Under Guillermo’s watchful eyes, I climbed up the two ladders to reach the bridge, my favourite place on a boat. I love the feel of being high above the waves, the wind blowing through my hair, the sound of the motors muffled far below.

As Guillermo shared stories of his adventures with his wife Rosio travelling the world, I watched the surface of the water for giant sea turtles, leaping fish and swooping birds. “Life gets busy and I get caught up in it,” he tells me. “Up here, I can forget the pressures and relax. It is like meditation.”

And I agree. The rhythm of the water, the boat rising and dipping with each wave, sometimes swaying side to side. The wind, the warm sun beating down, the birds swooping and miles and miles of sun-glistened sea reaching out into the far horizon. It is heavenly. Divine. Soul-refreshing.

We spent a day on the deep, blue sea yesterday. A day of magic and wonder. A day sharing in laughter, friendship, stories and tales of the one’s who got away, the one’s who got caught.

As we swam and lazed on the boat deck, Guillermo and Jorge prepared a delightful lunch of tuna salad, fresh avocados and juicy tomatoes. We sat and chatted and talked of worldly things and I listened and breathed deeply into the moment and gave a silent prayer of gratitude to the deep blue sea and the sky above.

And then the dishes were cleaned and stowed and we got underway, back towards the harbor.

As we docked Guillermo asked me if I’d had enough.

“No!” I replied. “Let’s keep going to Guatemala!”

He laughed and helped me ashore. I stopped and turned out towards the sea and said a silent ‘Thank You.’

The waves roll in. The waves roll out. Resistance is futile.

I cannot resist the lure of this land and its beautiful people. I breathe in and out and feel my soul stir deeply to the rhythm of the waves, the call of the wind and the music of this place called Mexico.

At the Edge of Infinity

Posted on by
4
The view from where I type.

The view from where I type.

Perhaps it was the lateness of the night, or the dancing under the stars, or even the wine, but when New Year’s Day arose with the sun, we agreed there was nothing we would rather do than spend a lazy day by the pool.

img_0483With its view of the ocean through the swaying palms, the pool at Villas Fa-Sol calls to the spirit to come relax on a lounger and rest in the shade of its deck. The pool that called to us yesterday, however, was filed with the generosity of the owners of Fa-Sol to come and spend the day at their home. Sabah, as it is called, is perched on top of the hill beyond Fa-Sol, at the edge of the ridge over-looking the vast Pacific Ocean.

Like Fa-Sol, Sabah is inspired by the architecture of Ancient Greece. Pristine white walls, domed azure blue cupolas, white marble floors and splashes of brilliant blue glass walls to divide the kitchen area from the rest of the house.

The pool here is a vast expanse of peacock blue tiles marching out towards the edge of the ridge seeming to flow out into infinity. From the far edge of the pool, there is nothing to interrupt the view. Nothing. Just space filled with the vastness of the ocean flowing out towards distant, unseen lands.

img_0480Surrounding the pool deck there are palm trees and azalea bushes. A grove of banana trees in bloom. Giant cacti and yellow flowering bushes stretching out to fill in any spaces between the opulence of the verdant vegetation.

The air is rich with warmth and moisture. The sea breeze pushes into the land, bending the mighty palms that sway back and forth like giant fans swooshing through the air above.

 

 

img_0481Lying on my back, drifting effortlessly on the surface of the water, listening to the rustle of the palm trees above me, I imagine they are gathering the stories of the wind. Breathing in the richness and vitality of its tales of lands and people in far off places. The palms bend their heads and nod with delight at the juicy morsels the wind whispers into their branches. And the wind keeps bringing its stories. And the palms keep swaying with delight.

These are stories of dark and stormy nights, of lovers caught on windswept beaches chasing after the one’s who got away, falling into the arms of the one’s who captured their hearts. Of knights in shining armor riding on prancing white stallions and maidens in glittering robes supine on beds of roses. There is wine and laughter, sorrow and joy, mystery and magic and murder and mayhem in the wind’s stories. And the palms listen and nod and stay silent as they gather the stories that rustle through their leaves like a thousand candles flickering in the night.

And the wind whispers on, its secrets safe within their branches.

img_0476We spent the day beneath the whispering wind and swaying palms. C.C.slept in one of the hammocks strung between two trees as I lay on a lounge chair, read and napped and occasionally slipped into the cool inviting waters of the pool that stretched out into infinity. Above us, hawks and pelicans and ‘Pilote’ (a cousin of the vulture) swooped and glided and drifted on the wind.

And the blue sky stretched out to meet the sea far beyond the horizon. And the first day of 2017 stretched out with grace and ease, filled with promise and possibility.

It was a day to savour each moment slipping into the next as the New Year welcomed earth’s journey around the sun.

And the sun and moon and stars held their places in the universe and the world kept turning and the waters ebbed in and the waters flowed out and the palm trees swayed and the wind whispered its stories into their branches.

“Do not rush my little ones,” it seemed to say. “Rest. Breathe. There is no place to be but here beneath the sun. There is no rush. Time moves at the same pace, no matter how fast you run. The journey of life continues at its own pace, with or without your acceptance. Rest awhile. There is no need to rush. All is as it should be here beneath the sun.”

And the sun shone and the winds blew and the palm trees swayed and the sea flowed as we rested at the edge of infinity.

*************************
With special thanks to Guillermo and Rosio for their gracious hospitality and Andrew and Ursula for their deep and enduring friendship.
.