Mexico redux: ailments, injuries, and issues

I believe I promised you gringos falling into holes:

In addition to all the fun and sun in Mexico, there seemed to be quite a few ailments, injuries, and issues in our group. Some of the usual stuff: upset stomachs, hangovers, bug bites. But also a few more dramatic problems like painful relationship woes, major road rash, and one nasty case of what is either Dengue or Typhoid Fever.

It all started when my sort-of sister, Jenny, fell into a giant hole in the cement while walking home in the dark. One minute she is striding confidently across a little pier/deck thingy over the lagoon, the next second, she is up to her hip in a hole booby trapped with rusty pieces of rebar, all of which miraculously missed tearing her open in any life-threatening way. Still, I've never seen such impressively multi-hued bruises or a rawer, oozier-looking wound.

If I had been the one to fall in the hole, you can bet your last peso that I would have been able to speak of nothing else for the entire week. I would have had people waiting on me hand and foot. I would have demanded gauze and pain pills and constant, fluttering attention from all parties. But after some initial crying, Jenny bounced back like nobody's business. Only to be felled the next evening by all-night vomiting. From which she also bounced back with gusto. They don't breed no sissies in rural Vermont, apparently.

Oh sure. I look tough.

In between Jenny's accident and Mark's case of tropical fever, Maggie was stung by her very first bee, I had stinging jellyfish larvae stuck in my bathing suit, the sun broiled the tops of my brother's feet, I barfed in the sink, Donna whacked the s-h-i-t out of her shin climbing out of a boat, and, as if that all wasn't bad enough, there was one day when the pie ladies ran out of pie before we could get to them. The horror.

And now, to Sayulita:

We arrived on Sayulita Day. There were 15 marching bands

playing simultaneously and dancing horses in the streets.

Sayulita is a dusty surfing town about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta. It is also, suddenly, like the hottest, most talked about place in Mexico. Daily Candy just wrote about it. I have a piece on it in this month's Travel & Leisure. Every young hipster with a henna tattoo and Frida Kahlo beach bag is suddenly smitten with the place.

I've been there only once before, six or seven years ago, but because it gets so much hype, I've wondered lately if maybe I've been missing something. Maybe, I thought, we should start spending our vacations there. Maybe we were fading away like last year's papel picado in Yelapa. Maybe Sayulita was the place to be.

from HERE

So we went. Just the Mister and me. For a little romantic getaway, sans twins. Mark and Chelsea were already there.

As I said, dancing horses in the streets

And this is what I say: "Eh," shrugging my shoulders in the universal Jewish gesture meaning I could take it or leave it. It has its charms: taco stands, palm trees, good coffee, nice boutiques, a very reliable surf break. But its beach is a sea of sizzling flesh and pushy vendors. The beach-front restaurants charge you $15 a day to sit in their beach chairs, even if you are eating there. The town is crawling with the aforementioned hipsters, swarms of young parents wrestling their Bob strollers over the cobblestones, and boomers in Guatemalan vests and baggy shorts. Plus, it has that I'm-more-local-than-you vibe that tourist towns get thrumming through it like a pulse.

Don't get me wrong. It's a perfectly fine town, and our hotel was charming, indeed. But the fuss? The cache? I don't get it. Which means we can stick with Yelapa. Whew.

Chelsea and I follow directions by lounging in

our hotel's rooftop lounge, my favorite place in Sayulita

This brings me very nicely to the problems with travel writing I wanted to discuss. But I think I'll save that for another day. Along with news of my spray-on tan. Please stay tuned. There is audio of my Literary Death Match appearance coming soon as well. It's going to be a big week. Promise.

Turning 40 in Yelapa. Ole!

Last time we met I was off to Mexico and promising in my haste to discuss a million important things (such as the success or failure of my spray-on tan) upon my return. Well, I'm returned. The larder has been restocked. The laundry is in various states of washing and drying and waiting to be folded. The junk mail has been tossed, the checks endorsed. The sunscreen and bug spray have been put away. Let me just pour myself a glass of wine, and we'll settle in for a nice long chat.

We have so much to go over, so many adventures and mis-, that we're going to need a real working week to get through it all. Plus, as regular readers of this blog will attest, I've been a bit slack of late. And what better way to get back into the frenzied American pace than to commit to five full days of writing? I will picture you all as cranky overworked editors in soup-stained ties impatiently slapping the backs of your hands against your palms, demanding I file my next missive.

It was the Mister and Mark taking the kids up dangerous rocks

Let's start with Yelapa, Mexico, where I went with 17 family members and friends to celebrate turning 40. How was the trip, you ask? Well, it was so many things.

It was watching the chubasco from our open-air apartment

It was sunshine and blue sky, and it was unseasonable pelting drops of rain. It was hanging out with my dear friends, and it was fighting with my mom. It was our kids eating only white food for ten days. It was a pod of eight whales putting on a show, and it was a kidney-damaging boat ride on the pounding waves. It was heaven-sent piña coladas and a little touch of the Mexican revenge. It was bug bites, bee stings, and tetanus shots.

It was the invention of beach cereal

It was eating pie on the beach everyday. (That's right, I wrote "pie on the beach." And then I wrote, "every day.") It was turning 40. It was a shower of birthday Haikus recited in an outdoor disco. It was me feeling slightly anxious about making sure 17 people, ranging in age from 3 to 67 were having a good time. It was 17 people having a pretty great time in one of my favorite places on Earth.

It was customized birthday match boxes

It was Maggie forsaking her dinner for a lollipop

It was Julie reciting her Haiku a little tipsy on mango margaritas

It was me looking ridiculously drunk while Jono and

my dad discussed grant writing (I was sober)

Tomorrow's missive: Sayulita, boutique hotels, and why I regret ever becoming a travel writer. Plus, gringoes falling in cement holes prickling with rusty rebar, and, finally, the verdict on my spray-on tan.

I am woman, hear me dither endlessly

I just had my 80-minute Healing Hiker's massage (nyam, nyam) and although I do hate to leave my Four Seasons suite, I miss my family and am looking forward to a little three-year-old action. Plus, this desert air is murder on my lips; they feel like bark.

Flying over the Grand Canyon

Flying over the Grand Canyon

While I was off hiking the Grand Canyon and kayaking the Salt River and climbing the Praying Monk and dining on seared scallops with butternut squash ravioli, my kids were kind of missing me. Maggie especially.

The Mister told me this morning that she woke up at 1am last night crying and saying, "I need someone to talk to. I miss mommy." I know. The heart. It hurts.

I've always been a firm believer in taking a break. Being away from the kids for a few days always felt like a good thing, a much-needed refueling for me. But as my friend Vida pointed out to me long ago, your kids don't care about your success or your career or whether or not you need to refuel. They don't even care if you ever publish a novel. They just want you to be soft and loving and available.

This is the rub of motherhood, I suppose, the place where your sense of who you want to be and your sense of who you should be stand across from one another glaring and whispering cruelly. One says, "You cannot make anyone else happy unless you yourself are happy and fulfilled." The other one says, "Shut up you selfish twat and make me a pie."

It's a place where I feel particularly judged. I get a lot of raised eyebrows and disapproving comments disguised at declarative sentences. Things like, "Wow, you are so lucky. I could never leave my kids for five days." Or, "I just feel like I've lost a limb when I'm away from my little darlings." Comments that simultaneously fill me with guilt and murderous rage (I'm not even going to discuss the sexist double-standard here. Fathers, as we know, are pretty much free to come and go as they please).

I don't know what the solution is. I miss my kids and it pains me to know that they miss me. But I doubt very much that the next time someone offers me a free trip to, well, anywhere, I am likely to turn it down. Traveling is one of the great joys of my life. Free traveling is one of the great bargains of my life.

I am almost certain I am not doing my children any permanent damage by leaving them with their loving and capable father for a few days here and there. What that bilious combination of guilt, freedom, joy, sadness and self-recrimination is doing to my own psyche, however, I cannot say.

I could say this picture is about being on the edge

of something, but really I just want to show you again what a badass I can be

I did this today

Be the only girl in the group who makes it to the top of the Praying Monk? Check.

Happy weekend. May you summit a few things.

Encaustic painting, Doris Day and Carmel-by-the-Sea

Doris Day owns my hotel.  I'm in  Carmel-by-the-Sea, a town so Thomas Kincaid-esque, it make me feel as if I might come-face-to-face with Bilbo Baggins all snug in his Christmas elf suit.  Everything is so dimiutive and quaint and incredibly chi-chi.

See for yourself

They have a shop here that just sells handcrafted lampshades.  Another devoted entirely to an aviation theme—you know, flight jackets for babies and massive framed photos of fighter jets against the blue, blue sky.  

Clint Eastwood used to be the mayor and I have trouble understanding how he could have taken it all seriously.  His first act in office?  Legalizing ice cream cones.  Apparently the city had an ordinance against take-out.  Not anymore.  I just now polished off a bag of Chinese.  Alone.  In my hotel owned by Doris Day.

I am here on a women's art retreat, an assignment.  I'm learning encaustic painting (painting with hot wax) in the company of six other would-be artists.  I've learned three things so far:

1.) I LOVE encaustic painting.  It's luminous and lovely and just so fun to play with.

2.) Being a visual artist is much more fun than being a writer, especially with a staff waiting on you hand and foot (Chris, more wine.  Clap!  Clap!) 

3.) A lot of women own and wear fur coats without a trace of guilt or self-consciousness. (What would Doris Day think?)

Oh, and if you took all the diamonds off all the fingers in Carmel, you might just be able to bail out the economy once and for all.

Here's my first encaustic painting (they have a tendency to look a little tie-dye Dead Heady)