Fish Jumping At Dusk

Hello, Dear One.  How good it is that you are reading these words.  Yes, with much ballyhoo and glee I launched this blog a few moons ago—only to write nary a word for months on end….

But I am here now.  And you are here, too.

Let us grab a cup of end-of-summer lemonade and celebrate.

 

I planned this blog with the stories of others in mind. But I realize that sometimes I also need to write about the ways I meet the world.  Today strange travel joys have been on my mind.  I delight in journeys that dunk me headfirst into the unexpected.  I might not exactly feel dance-a-jig-jubilant in the very moment the unexpected is happening, but the unexpected is what I’m still thinking about years later.

 

I spent my childhood summers in Cadillac, Michigan. The lakes everyone came to visit were nice and all, but what I really loved were the rusted fire escapes awkwardly hugging the backs of Main Street’s polite shops. I liked the geometry of their sharp lines, and their rusting paint was my favorite color of sunset. An old empty house along the highway also drew me toward it. Its frayed ivory curtains melted into the half-opened windows. My brave Aunt Esther and I would edge our way toward it. We hollered at one another over the sound of semis careening down the roadway, scaring ourselves with stories of what must have happened there.

Once I was riding a bus in Ljubljana, Slovenia, intending to spend the night in a hostel outside of town.  The ride was taking forever, I spoke no Slovene, and I had never been in this country before.  Although I had assumed that the driver’s jovial smile and gestures meant he would indeed tell me when to disembark to reach the hostel, after an hour of driving, I was beginning to have my doubts.  Only one other person remained on the bus, and it was starting to rain.  Finally, the driver spoke loudly and grabbed my arm, saying “Next bus” in English.  I found myself following the other passenger off the bus, bewildered.  Then the bus driver got back in the bus and drove away.  I tried in vain to ask people on the street how close the hostel was and whether I could walk.  Another bus drove up, only to leave off two passengers and zoom away before I could climb on.  This happened twice more until finally, damp and dreary, I began to cry.  And that’s when I met Anita.  The first thing she told me was that the buses had not stopped for me because their destination, spelled out in large letters I couldn’t read, was “garage”.  She was a student who loved to practice English.  Did I want to get some coffee and meet her mother? Did I want to eat some potica and learn something about life in Slovenia?  I did.  Eventually I made it to the hostel, but first I enjoyed being lost.

 

A few weeks ago, my friend Deanne and I met in Skaneateles, New York, which was supposed to be a five hour drive. As I was about to print a google map, something in me rebelled and reached for the tattered road atlas instead. I wanted a weekend of spontaneity and unexpected sights, without computers and technology and busy-ness.  So I eyed what looked to be my route, and stopped at a few coffee shops and diners to double-check.  I channeled my inner eight-year-old and pretended I was searching for lost treasure.  It was interesting to guess whether the people I asked for directions would be surprised or pleased or annoyed that I didn’t have directions in hand; whether they would be certain or vague about the route I could follow next.  I arrived in Skaneateles a little later than I had planned.  But I was excited that I had found my way on my own terms, and I felt like the next thing that happened was going to make me smile.

Once at dusk in Cahuita, Costa Rica, two friends and I stood waist-deep in the warm ocean, looking at the mangrove trees that lined the shore, and breathing in the calmness of the air.  The sky was the color of ripe papaya as it edged toward darkness.  Suddenly fish were flying through the air as though they were Olympic gymnasts.  The performance went on for a long while, and we were the only people to witness it.  When the fish finally sank into the water, we grinned at one another and asked if what we had seen was real.

 

You could say the fish were just hungry or I over-reacted to a late bus or I wasted my time reading maps.  But I’d rather say my experiences were wild bits of magic, and the world and I fed them to one another.