Admiring Pachamama from Machu Picchu.
3/10/2013 1:52pm
-Cuzco, Peru, Hotel El Triunfo
This may or may not be a good idea. I am suffering altitude sickness and my head is fuzzy. Yet, I insist on writing. I'm sipping down coca tea (yes the plant cocaine is made from) and enjoying the mountains and cathedral from a small cafe window.
Erika is one floor above me in our room. Room 302 to be exact, passed out from exhaustion due to our sleeping only 4 hours last night and altitude sickness. As soon as I'm done here I will be taking her a cup of tea.
-Cuzco, Peru, Hotel El Triunfo
This may or may not be a good idea. I am suffering altitude sickness and my head is fuzzy. Yet, I insist on writing. I'm sipping down coca tea (yes the plant cocaine is made from) and enjoying the mountains and cathedral from a small cafe window.
Erika is one floor above me in our room. Room 302 to be exact, passed out from exhaustion due to our sleeping only 4 hours last night and altitude sickness. As soon as I'm done here I will be taking her a cup of tea.
Did you know coca is a stimulant, and also that the way coffee can be decaffeinated, coca can be decocainized. At this point I don't give a shit. I just want to feel like I'm taking a productive swill of air! My head is in a complete fuzz and I find myself taking heaping breaths of it. My eyes about rolled backward when I walked up a flight of stairs with our luggage. Not 4-5 flights, ONE. Terrible. Hopefully the coca tea will help fix this. It's *supposed* to help the lungs better absorb oxygen.
I have Internet now. I'm limited by my frugality in not paying for roaming charges. Frugality probably isn't the best word for it. More like a practice in common sense. The bulk of the people I care to talk to are on Facebook or I can iMessage them. So why pay more?
Anyway, there's something liberating about being disconnected. It's liberating for the obvious reason that contact with the outside world is limited. Challenging though because it creates a false sense of urgency. The "oh my God what's going on back home?!" temptation creeps in.
For me, that moment comes while flying. Can't use cellular signals and wifi isn't present. It's also a dangerous moment for those whose minds are too active as all the demons and thoughts that you lock away and ignore in your connected world come rushing forward. Not gonna lie, memories of Mama's death create fresh wounds during this time.
But...with pain comes pleasure, and even better, clarity. As I flew somewhere between Costa Rica and Ecuador, sad thoughts of Mama creeped in. I remembered the last time she ate out. We took her to Chuy's. She had tex mex enchiladas, and she tried their tres leches cake which she loved. She later said she wanted to get that for her and Dad's upcoming anniversary. As we left the restaurant, planes flew overhead as they normally do since it's close to Bush airport. She remarked "I wish we were on one of those planes. I wish we were going somewhere fun and could leave this sickness behind." Ever the optimist around her, I told her that as soon as we got her well enough that we'd be going to so many places. Spain, Italy, Mexico City to name a few. She smiled and seemed to feel a little bit better about it all as I wheeled her to the car.
She never got to enjoy that cake with Dad and didn't get another shot at flying again. I wept quietly somewhere over the pacific as we neared Lima. Luckily, the old lady to my left was asleep and the guy to my right was enthralled in his in-flight poker game.
Then it hit me...as a society, we celebrate the firsts. The first steps, first birthdays, first time driving, but never the last. As children, we're obviously not present to witness our parent's "firsts" and in our rapid fire pace to grow up, we miss out on the last things our parents did. Luckily, Erika and I were given that opportunity and we didn't pass it up.
I can proudly say I remember the last things my Mama did. Chuy's was the last time she ate out. That Sunday was also the last Sunday she went to church. Proud to say that the first AND last time she flew was with us on our trip to Italy. The last meal she ever had was chicken and veggies. My aunt took a pic of it. The last piece of paper she read was a card from a friend of hers named Loretta. The last day she spent outside was two weeks before Labor Day. I was pruning trees in the back yard, and she was playing bejeweled on her iPad on the back patio. The last words she spoke to me were, "I love you too".
Bittersweet memories no doubt. At times haunting, other times, humbling.
Through the tears I smiled, and as I wiped my tears away, I was humbled again with the reminder that even though we complain when we don't get our way, what others do to us, having to give up stuff, getting angry frivolously, and in general being a malcontent, there is always someone, somewhere, who just wishes they were on an airplane instead of their wheelchair, hospice home, or prison.
We missed going to Peru last summer because we knew in our hearts we needed to take care of her, and I know she's smiling right now, knowing that we got to make that trip after all.
In conclusion, don't ignore your family. You never know when you may experience their or your "last", take the time to introspect, and remember that someone, somewhere, is wishing they were on an airplane.
I have Internet now. I'm limited by my frugality in not paying for roaming charges. Frugality probably isn't the best word for it. More like a practice in common sense. The bulk of the people I care to talk to are on Facebook or I can iMessage them. So why pay more?
Anyway, there's something liberating about being disconnected. It's liberating for the obvious reason that contact with the outside world is limited. Challenging though because it creates a false sense of urgency. The "oh my God what's going on back home?!" temptation creeps in.
For me, that moment comes while flying. Can't use cellular signals and wifi isn't present. It's also a dangerous moment for those whose minds are too active as all the demons and thoughts that you lock away and ignore in your connected world come rushing forward. Not gonna lie, memories of Mama's death create fresh wounds during this time.
But...with pain comes pleasure, and even better, clarity. As I flew somewhere between Costa Rica and Ecuador, sad thoughts of Mama creeped in. I remembered the last time she ate out. We took her to Chuy's. She had tex mex enchiladas, and she tried their tres leches cake which she loved. She later said she wanted to get that for her and Dad's upcoming anniversary. As we left the restaurant, planes flew overhead as they normally do since it's close to Bush airport. She remarked "I wish we were on one of those planes. I wish we were going somewhere fun and could leave this sickness behind." Ever the optimist around her, I told her that as soon as we got her well enough that we'd be going to so many places. Spain, Italy, Mexico City to name a few. She smiled and seemed to feel a little bit better about it all as I wheeled her to the car.
She never got to enjoy that cake with Dad and didn't get another shot at flying again. I wept quietly somewhere over the pacific as we neared Lima. Luckily, the old lady to my left was asleep and the guy to my right was enthralled in his in-flight poker game.
Then it hit me...as a society, we celebrate the firsts. The first steps, first birthdays, first time driving, but never the last. As children, we're obviously not present to witness our parent's "firsts" and in our rapid fire pace to grow up, we miss out on the last things our parents did. Luckily, Erika and I were given that opportunity and we didn't pass it up.
I can proudly say I remember the last things my Mama did. Chuy's was the last time she ate out. That Sunday was also the last Sunday she went to church. Proud to say that the first AND last time she flew was with us on our trip to Italy. The last meal she ever had was chicken and veggies. My aunt took a pic of it. The last piece of paper she read was a card from a friend of hers named Loretta. The last day she spent outside was two weeks before Labor Day. I was pruning trees in the back yard, and she was playing bejeweled on her iPad on the back patio. The last words she spoke to me were, "I love you too".
Bittersweet memories no doubt. At times haunting, other times, humbling.
Through the tears I smiled, and as I wiped my tears away, I was humbled again with the reminder that even though we complain when we don't get our way, what others do to us, having to give up stuff, getting angry frivolously, and in general being a malcontent, there is always someone, somewhere, who just wishes they were on an airplane instead of their wheelchair, hospice home, or prison.
We missed going to Peru last summer because we knew in our hearts we needed to take care of her, and I know she's smiling right now, knowing that we got to make that trip after all.
In conclusion, don't ignore your family. You never know when you may experience their or your "last", take the time to introspect, and remember that someone, somewhere, is wishing they were on an airplane.
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