Holiday Living

Playa de San Pedrito, my favorite walking spot

We have landed back at our casita in Baja California Sur, Mexico after six months away. Friends here ask, "How was your vacation?" They see us as having come back home. It feels more and more that way to me, too.

Yet "vacation" is such an odd word. We don't vacation, we live a traveling life. Life-as-vacation has a nice ring to it. If life is short, why not make it a holiday? The word "holiday" comes from "holy day." So perhaps living with a vacation mindset--alive, fresh, and new--makes every day holy.

I started thinking about life in this way years ago, when I was still teaching. My New Year's resolution seven years ago was to do something new every day. New route, new conversation, new food, new book, new teaching approach...anything big or small, didn't matter. When you travel, everything is new. So living that way in my own town made me feel like I was on vacation. I now see that experiment as a seed planted that blossomed into this very life Dave and I live today.

Not to say it's all-paradise-all-the-time. No matter how you live life, there are bumps in the road. But when you're living how you really want to, the bumps can be easier to navigate. We had both been struggling a bit our last few weeks in Australia--getting over colds and dealing with bizarre weather like hot wind that set my skin on edge--that landing in California felt extra sweet.

Each time we come through California we face an ever-dwindling but persistent pile of things at our friend Mark's house. Dave decided it was finally the moment to divest himself of all of his Silicon Valley work clothes. He donated them to a men's shelter, which will use them when they send men out on job interviews. One man's ending, another's beginning. 

And then there were our beloved bikes that we'd ridden many miles along the ocean cliffs in Santa Cruz, and taken on a ski lift in Big Bear to ride down the fire roads, and ridden up a mountain in Zion National Park to watch the sunrise, and cruised around Portland. These were not the right bikes for Baja...so what to do with them? That thought was on our mind when we went to visit our friends Debbianne and Tony, who happened to mention they wanted to buy bikes for the great trails of their new hometown. Dave and I looked at each other and blurted out, "We have bikes for you!" I love knowing our lives are entwined through those bikes.

Hanging out with Debbie and Tony in Monterey

This was part of a flow of giving and receiving: When a friend discovered we were renting a car, she loaned us her extra one. We gave our snow tires to a stranger. An old friend gave us free passes to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I gave a friend feedback on his poems. And another invited me to a concert because she had an extra ticket. This movement feels like breathing, like waves. It seems related to all the strangers who let us stay in their beautiful homes in exchange for caring for their pets. In fact, we did a housesit in the Bay Area, in Walnut Creek where we enjoyed a darling golden retriever (and I got a lot of editing work done).

Button and Jasper

Turned out, around this time our first great-niece was being christened, so we were able to meet her and hang out with Dave's family. 

Dave, brother Milt, Milt's son James (holding Madeline), sister Sue

And then, at the housesit, we found a book about the history of the area. We opened it up to a page that featured Dave's great-grandfather! 

For years Dave had told me that his ancestors co-founded a Bay Area town, which by toss of a coin was named Clayton rather than Rhinesville. So we drove over there and walked into the museum. The place was filled with people chatting, holding tea cups, and snacking on cookies. Turned out an event was going on called the Camelia Tea. When Dave revealed his last name, people went crazy like he was a celebrity. The beautiful old home is filled with pictures and artifacts of his ancestors. It's mind-blowing to think how his family coming from Germany (among the first Jewish settlers in the area) led to a moment where we held his great-niece in our arms.

We also spent time with my family and were able to celebrate my niece Hailey's 18th birthday at a restaurant in Pleasanton. After our meal, she hopped onto a red-eye to NYC, where she hung out with friends she'd met last summer in Bali (where she'd traveled and done community service). Yes, my niece has a desire to see the world, too, and I couldn't be prouder of what a wonderful human being she is.

Evan (20), sister Crystal, Hailey (18), auntie Kate, Jenna  (16)

And lucky us, we got to care for a furry family member, my sister's dog Coco, for a week. I mean, really, she's as adorable as they get. 

Coco came with me to visit my friend Candice and her dog Darcy.

And then there are friends that feel like family...many of whom we were blessed to see.

Tung, Luc & Daisy. 

Mark, Jackie & Todd

Paul, in town for work, came by.

I also got some power-women time, including a hike, concert, dancing, meals, and attending my friend Laurie's spiritual center to listen to her sing in the choir.

In Santa Cruz with Stacey & Laurie & Junebug

That's another thing about this lifestyle: We don't stay in one place so we can't take for granted our time there. Our connections with people, our explorations, are all imbued with a sense of the reality of passing time. The holiday of life.

Yes, these are holy days.

Time Travel

Seaview, Washington

Back in the U.S. after more than a year, it's like we've stepped off a time machine. The more we live this nomadic life, the more all travel feels like time travel. Life doesn't feel linear; it's like something I'm swimming in, a dreamy substance that infuses me.

When we left China, we traveled in Thailand and Indonesia for three months. Was that yesterday? Last year? Ten years ago? Or is it still happening?

time and space blend...

When I look at Dave's pictures and write about the oraguntans and komodo dragons, the Gili islands and Amed,  Anais Nin's words come to me:

Writers taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.

Visceral recollections sweep through me: My arms wrapped around Dave on a motorbike, up hills with blue sea vistas, gliding past palm trees, winding through traffic.

My job is to hold on and loosen up. Alert relaxation, like a meditation. At times I close my eyes, feel the tropical air touching my skin, my heart pressed to Dave's back.

Phuket, Thailand

In Ubud, I walk morning streets, incense and flowers perfuming the air, dogs sniffing at offerings placed on the streets, kites and birds floating in the sky, swaths of green rice fields glowing in the sun, ancient temples wedged between stores.

Stairs to yoga.

Intuitive Flow...like doing yoga in a tree house.

There are so many incredible women everywhere: in yoga, in a goddess workshop, in cafes. We talk: Not what do you do? But who are you, what matters to you, what is your life? I'm giddy. I'm in awe. How is it that we collided here on the planet at this place and time?

Marilyn, in her 70s, has lived in Ubud many years with her Balinese "family."

Coco Wayan...we greet each other every day, and I buy coconuts from her.

Eliska and Christie, getting in touch with our inner goddesses.

The young women at the hotel in Flores call me "Mama Kate."

Embraced by friendship: Nancy (center) and Cynthia who met up with us at the writing retreat.

Music plays in my mind, the vibration that runs through the body, the heart, as our friends Paul (from Liverpool) and Daria (from Russia) play. They have come from China to meet up with us in Nusa Dua, Bali. We are together again, connected through rhythms and voices...

Throughout Indonesia, we experience music, dance, bodies telling stories.

Uluwatu, Bali

Ubud Jazz Festival

Jimbaran, Bali

Two months in Indonesia and we're off to Thailand. Did I really co-host a writing retreat on the island of Koh Phangan? Something I'd dreamed about doing for long time...and after all the months of planning and prepping and there we were, writers together, having journeyed on airplanes, trains, boats to converge in this rarefied little corner of the world.

Although I risk cliche, I will say it: we laughed, we cried, we wrote our hearts out.

Writers at work... 

...and play.

And all the water, the water...my body floats there now.

Flores, Indonesia with Fran and Paul

Koh Phangan, Thailand writers

Nai Harn Beach in Phuket, where we spent our last 2 weeks.

Leaving Southeast Asia after more than a year, we travel for 24 hours and land in the dream of Hawaii. When we arrive at the waterfront home of our friend Candis, we throw off our clothes and jump naked into the warm Pacific.

We're on the other side of the world. And again we're in the ocean, in our most natural state, afloat in the Earth's amniotic fluid.

Lanikai, Oahu

Everywhere go, it seems, I am sent messages.

Found in Thailand

Found in Ubud.

Life, I am listening.

"Time is an Illusion." - Einstein

My sister Ann, with Sigmund and Scarlet.

It’s fun living next door to my sister, reminiscent of when we shared a bedroom as kids.

Back then ours was a kingdom of stuffed animals and Barbies. We read Nancy Drew and the Happy Hollisters into the night, cool summer air drifting in through the screens. We listened to Dr. Demento on flat speakers placed under our pillows. We wrote stories about girls solving mysteries and traveling the world. We captured polliwogs and watched them sprout legs in jars on our windowsill.

Now we are sharing her neighborhood of friends, dogs, and beaches. Being in Leucadia means living an indoor/outdoor life. People leave their doors and windows open. They gather at dusk for wine in each other's backyards. Last night, Dave made chicken and ribs. Kit and Mark walked over bearing salad. Ann and Bruce came over with pie and wine. 

Such gatherings are an integral part of life here. Almost thirty years ago, Ann moved to Southern California. The rest of our family stayed in Nor Cal. I'm realizing that her daily life has been richly filled with a family of her own making, these wonderful neighbors.

When Dave and I are in the house, I like hearing my sister's laugh through the window, or my brother-in-law calling the dog. Sometimes I see my nephew walking up the hill, surfboard under his arm.

With Tony and Shannon, on our way to 1968.

It just so happens Dave's longtime friends--Tony and Shannon--live just a few miles away. I think about myself, say, seven years ago, visiting my sister. It's likely the Dave I'd yet to meet was hanging out just down the road. 

I like thinking about that: Dave and me in the past, living our separate lives, destined to meet. It makes time feel parallel or overlapping, rather than linear. (I once wrote a poem about this notion.)

As Einstein famously said, "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."

Sometimes the fabric of time seems to wrinkle, past and future overlapping like a bunched-up sheet. Being with family can intensify that. In my 53-year-old sister, sometimes I simultaneously see her at age 12 or 32.

I also felt like a time traveler when we went with Tony and Shannon to see Wild Child. This Doors tribute group is so spot-on, you feel like you're in 1968 but for the iPhones lighting up the dance floor.

That was my first live music event since my surgery. It felt amazing to dance! I've also been enjoying drinking (a little) wine, taking long beach walks, and socializing a lot.

After all this activity, why am I surprised when suddenly I'm tired and have to nap? Or when I need a down day. I can hear part of me saying, "What's wrong with me?" And another part saying, "Give yourself a break! You had brain surgery not even two months ago."

I felt bad yesterday when I pooped out, leaving Dave to do all the preparing for our dinner with friends. But he didn't complain, just dove right in and did a beautiful job. Dinner was great. Hours of conversation over wine, the windows and doors open to the cool sea night.

Then this morning my body said, "You need a whole day off today. No wine, no chatting, not too much movement. Just nestle in, lovingly." I remind myself that listening to my body is a good thing.

elixir

And here's where I once again count my blessings. I have the freedom to do just that, reading and napping and sipping mint tea. I have a loving, generous man in my life--who knows how to cook! The house is filled with the savory scent of his chicken soup. This elixir is meant to comfort and cure.

Dave is using onion, leeks, and chard that came from Ryan's huge organic garden. Ryan is another facet of this rich neighborhood tightly linked to my sister. What a privilege to share her world, if for just a few weeks.

Chef and healer