This last Spring I made an oath to be home for the holidays. The ongoing flow of travel and work had kept me away for a majority of these last 12 years since I had first left California in September 1999. And an extended stay at home is always a welcome hiatus from the road and her wearies. So last night while I sat around the turkey table I tried to recap my absences from home. While I knew off the top of my noggin that these last two Christmases were spent in Ecuador, I had to break down on my finger abacuses where I was the previous years.
I went down the list which should have spanned from ’99 to 2010. There were Quito, Ecuador; Montanita, Ecuador; Seoul, S. Korea; Byron Bay, Australia; Jang Heung, S. Korea; Correlejo, Canary Islands(Spain); Itacare, Brazil; Midigama, Sri Lanka; Camarillo, Ca.(Home); Midigama, Sri Lanka; London, UK. Funny to boil down ones life to a series of Christmases in random places as if that’s all I have ever accomplished. But that is the snake-like progression my life has taken. But now that I’ve copied it down I realize that one year is missing. Now, I’ve been going over it again and again for the last ten minutes and I still can’t figure out the missing place as there should be 12 locales and I only count 11. While I regularly misplace car keys and sunglasses and one time lost my passport, I’ve never had the misfortune of misplacing a whole singular day and thus the cumulative efforts and results of an entire year from my mind, except of course under the influence of highly-proofed intoxicants(which judging the likelihood of my actions and whereabouts on any given xmas away from home, it could provide a plausible explanation).
But the dawning question, eclipsing this singular loss is an over-coming pondering, similar to Jimmy Buffet’s pirate as I look back at 35. Where the hell has it all gone? If you want to judge any current ennui, boiling down your last 12 years into the whereabouts for the holidays. If you arrive safe and sound back to the current year then you’ve won, but if you end up singing Buffet’s lyrics through your mind “ I made enough money to buy Miami, but I pissed it away so fast” you’re gonna end up wondering where it all went. Fortunately for my liver I’ve never grossed enough to buy a descent car over the years, let alone buy Miami in a million years.
Boo-hoo, huh? I have celebrated in some pretty great spots with some pretty wonderful people over these last years. And for the moment it’s good being home. I have my family and my health. My grandfather is with us after a couple years fighting cancer. One year ago, they took him off chemo and told him, “Go home and prepare to die.” He was given only two months to live. Back then he was a skinny radiated charactature of his former self. 160 gaunt pounds, a reduction from his solid former 300 lb self. The chemo had taken it’s toll. Sitting here with him now, you have to almost admit to the strange possibility of divine intervention when an 87 year old slighted for the big turkey dinner in the sky devours a big plate of it with all the trimmings and pie a la mode at the end. He’s up to 200 lbs these days and I dare say this holiday fattening fest will leave a slight loosening of the belt when he walks away. For me, that’s lightning enough.
Unapologetically, I’m going to drop a cliche— you have gotta give thanks for what you have. Look at the headlines on any given day lately. Death squads in Syrian and Egyptian streets. The dragging out of Afghanistan. Republican debates. It’s all mostly bad news. If you’re reading this, you’re somewhere safe and warm hopefully with powerful broadband. And hopefully with the people you love.
How do you feel on the holidays when you travel? Do you like being home or do you like being somewhere on holiday? Let me know and share a comment!
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“Cuy” is not a andean rat!! USDA would not let it to be sold in New Jersey and New York supermarkets as regular food. Check well with a professional about animals, read more in the internet and you will find the moron and ignorant you are!!
Mincing words, mincing words. Once more, I call it a rat because it is in the family rodent. It is a cousin to the rat. It’s in the same vein that people call pigeons “flying rats” because they are annoyed by them and a little bit disgusted too. Now I can assure you that I was not literally thinking about them as a rat. So, I hope that spelling things out for you will alleviate some of the hemorrhoidal pain I might have caused. And I am sorry that any attempt at exaggerative humor is lost upon people like you.
As far as the tastes of NY and NJ, well the former seems to have hot dog salesmen on every corner and the latter developed the program “Jersey Shores”
As for the USDA, don’t they have a measure for the acceptable amount of rat droppings allowed in consumer products…?
gringo