The Simple Life

Biku said to me the other day that I really should have been born on a homestead in the 1800's, and I really think she's right. Despite the fact that I'm writing this on a computer while listening to synthesized music and taking advantage of the modern miracle of air conditioning, I'm not really a modern woman. I could do without modern conveniences, and given half a chance, I would heartily embrace doing my own preserves, washing my laundry by hand, and growing my own food. Of course, I'd rather not die of polio or smallpox, but I don't live for IPods or HDTV.

So what do I live for? Well, let me use the last week as an example. I have been reading an interesting book about human nature (White Teeth by Zadie Smith), learning the ropes of my menial job (working at the fresh foods counter at Dominion making sandwiches and pizza, serving gelato, portioning out pudding, washing dishes, etc.), cooking for myself and my parents, and helping Biku cope with her recent breakup with her boyfriend.

And I am happy. Not, of course, happy that Biku's and M. have broken up (that has been terrible, and I hope she never has to go through it again), but happy that I can be with people I love, can learn new things about people I've just met (be they real or fictional), and can be of some use to others in this world. As hard as it was to see her that unhappy, I'm so glad I able to be there to help Biku cope. As menial and dumb and low-paying my job is, I'm happy to meet my coworkers and walk home with some sense of accomplishment. As frustrating as my parents sometimes are, their gratitude for the simple act of making a salad and bean burritos makes me feel good.

We all need to eat. We all need to know we're not alone. We all need to have a purpose. Fulfilling those three things (for myself and others) is what gets me up in the morning. I know it's not enough for some people, but for some strange reason, it's all I need. I guess that's why I'd like to become a minister one day -- because (at least in non-ritualistic denominations like United or the Mennonites) it's one of the few professions left where those three essentials are the primary job description. I don't particularly like theology or all the moral high-ground that seems to come with Christianity, but I do love making large vats of soup, listening to broken-down people, and helping them find out what they need to feel fulfilled.

I'm sorry if I've written about this before (as James Kochalka once said when he discovered his daily strip was almost an exact copy of one he'd written 8 months before, "Have I just devolved into a paler, less interesting version of myself?"), but I'm forgetful and not very self-aware. So it takes a couple of tries before any of my revelations about my "grand purpose in life" penetrate into this thick skull.

Keys

When I was young, I used to keep a whole box of keys in my closet. Silver and Gold, shiny and dull, old and new -- they all jumbled together in a jewellry case. The only thing they had in common was that I'd found them somewhere (in my granfather's antique boxes, in old purses, in nooks and crannies of our house) and that I didn't know what lock they belonged to. I don't know why I kept them -- I didn't ever test them out in locks, or even expect to find where they belonged -- other than that I felt like it was important somehow. Keys are tools, made to be useful, made for a purpose, and to throw them out just because I didn't seem to know that purpose seemed somehow cruel.

Of course, we all grow up, and one day having a heavy box full of keys to locks long-forgotten seemed as useless as it actually was. I don't have any of those keys anymore, but I still remember them sometime.

Keys are filled with rich symbolism, it seems to me. They are the thing which can ensure our freedom as well as our increased responsibility. The giving of keys is an act of trust, a gesture of goodwill. The taking back of keys means the end of something, of locking a door you'll never be able to open again.

Early in our two years at our apartment in Kingston, I had a fourth set of keys made so that visitors wouldn't have to be dependent on our comings and goings to explore the city. I loved having that extra set, being able to casually give these keys to people whether they were visiting for a day or a week or the summer. I loved the way it said, more than any words could, that I thought of these people not as guests, but as friends and housemates who just happened to be leaving sooner than I would like. My desire to make my apartment a welcoming and open one where people could always find a place to sleep was encapsulated in those two keys which lived in the glass dish in our front hall.

A couple of weeks ago, I discovered another benefit to this extra set of keys. I had been doing well with moving out -- until I had to take my keys off thei ring and leave them in the apartment. Suddenly, it was final. I was leaving, never to return. But then (since we decided that our open-door policy wouldn't perhaps sit well with our landlord) I ended up taking the extra set of keys home with me. And when I found this out, I felt much better about packing up my truck and leaving.

Sure, I was still never coming back. Sure, I would still never be able to reclaim my years as a university student in that scuzzy, sloping, loud, and utterly wonderful apartment. But those keys reminded me that even though I was leaving, I was taking all sorts of good memories with me. I'll never use those keys again, but I know what they mean, and what doors they open.

Perhaps someday a child will discover them, and use them to start another box...

When My Brain Is A Jumble of Thoughts, I Make a List

1. Bender...
Is the name of my new laptop, which my parents kindly bought for me to take to Japan. It's shiny and silver and (most important, in my opinion) has a scroll bar underneath the touch pad. Sadly, the battery is terrible (only an hour and a half!), but other than that it's lovely. The wireless internet clearly works, since I'm on it now at the library, I spent the other day cleaning my room while listening to the music I'd just loaded on it, and it's filled with lovely goodies like a large hard drive and neat quick-launch buttons. I know it's like taking coals to Newcastle to buy a laptop before going to Japan, but I'd rather get something made in Japan here than try and translate "wireless internet capability" into Japanese.

2. Sleep...
Is what I didn't get enough of last night, due to some upsetting circumstances that I won't discuss here (don't worry, nothing's wrong with me, it's a friend who needs me). I'm constantly amazed at how a little think like only getting 5 hours of sleep can screw me up so much. Many people live on less than that for years at a time, and yet I'm operating through a thick fog just because I got three hours less shut-eye than normal. Clearly, I'll never be Napoleon (who only needed about four hours a night, allowing him to strategize and read at night while conquering Europe during the day). Although I think perhaps I don't have the "killer instinct" (not to mention dashing hat and white horse) needed to attack, subdue, and reshape all of European civilisation.

See what I mean? It's only 4:30 pm, and already I'm babbling on like it's past midnight.

3. Spiritual Energy...
Is something completely different from faith, as I realized the other day (thanks to an interesting conversation with Biku where, for once, we completely agreed on a matter concerning faith. I credit this amazing happenstance not to divine intervention, but to our visit to a bakery run by a cute monk).

You see, we all have different levels of things like Physical, Mental, and Emotional Energy. Some of us can run all day and not get tired, and others could think or engage in heart-rending situations all day without burning out. While those of us with a low physical (or emotional or mental) energy level can train ourselves upwards, we all have a different base level. This is why I will never win the Tour de France, no matter how much I try, and why I know that I think about the nuances of situations waaaay more than others. It's much the same with Spiritual Energy -- while everyone can have a firm faith if they want to (whether that faith be in Jesus, money, or Buddha), some people just have more aptitude for and interest in matters of belief. This is why some Christians will never do anything more than go to church most Sundays, while others can't imagine a faith that doesn't include three bible studies, a weekly stint at the volunteer shelter, and lots of good spiritual discussion.

What's interesting for me (since I'm basically an egotist) is figuring out where I fit on this scale. Saying that I have a high level of Spiritual Energy explains why I ended up believing in Christianity despite not having been brought up in it, why I got so involved in QCF at university, and why I can go a month and a half without going to church and not feel as if I've lost any of my faith. I've thought about these matters, and certainly, I'd like to have a public chance to express my faith (maybe this Sunday?), but my own predilictions towards Mental and Spiritual Energy mean that I do just fine reading, thinking, and writing about matters of faith on my own. This also means that I'll always be interested in the issues of faith, no matter what form that takes.

Now that I've gotten that worked out, I've got another question to wrestle with: Can someone have high Spiritual Energy without having any sort of a faith? (and I don't just mean organized faith, I also mean faith in the Government or Humanity or Hard Work or any of those other big Ideas). Hmmm

4. Kitties...
Are still cute, and much less worrisome now that Leela's gotten over her flu thingy (thanks to me and my newly found skill of getting a skirmy little kitten to swallow her pills!). She's not so thin, and she's back to beating Fry up whenever he tries to attack her. I will post more pictures of them eventually, but they keep breaking their pose whenever I rush off to get the camera.

Strange Thoughts Always Occur to Me When I'm Driving Alone

I sometimes realize when I'm driving how precarious this form of transport is. We can all (I think) agree that most people are, as Liane likes to put it "bastard-coated bastards". We're selfish, pig-headed, and lose our cool easily. And yet, the bastards that we wouldn't trust to do our taxes or take care of our kids or even cut our lawns are the very same people who hold our life in the balance every time we go driving.

Think about travelling down a highway -- hundreds of tons of steel and concrete whizzing by you at a hundred kilometres an hour. I change lanes, and the only assurance I have that another car won't careen into me is a few painted lines, and maybe my use of a little blinking light. I've often been driving and thought "All I (or anyone else around me) have to do is jerk the wheel a few inches to the right or left, and everything would change." Every successful drive from point A to point B involves hundreds of strangers all agreeing to follow some arbitrary rules (green means go, red means stop, and so on) and no one screwing up.

While this way of thinking about driving is guaranteed to freak you out (it certainly gives me the chills when it occurs to me in the middle of the 401), it's also an oddly affirming thing. Because you see, I'm not dead yet. If people really were as screwed up as I sometimes think they are, I'd be dead by now, because I or one of the thousands of strangers I trusted my life to today would have made a mistake (just one, maybe) and I wouldn't be here. But no one made a mistake (some bad decisions maybe, but no, if you'll pardon the pun, fatal errors), and so instead I'm safe at home writing this post.

Life, it seems to me, is often like that. There's only one right way to do lots of things, and hundreds upon hundreds of wrong ways. I, against all reason and all odds, have managed to survive and flourish in this life. Occasionally I get flashes of how precarious my existence is, but rather than making me stop driving, it just makes me marvel all the more at how just managing to survive in this world is a feat of equal parts luck and heroism.

Hot Night in the City

It's funny where life takes you sometimes. If you'd told me yesterday that I would be eating dinner tonight with a Chinese computer programmer and her Quebecois chef roommate, I wouldn't have believed you. But here I am...

The move went as well as could be expected -- everything fit in the van, there were enough people to help (there's nothing more validating to my ego than the double pleasure of being a Packing Master and having friends show up just to help move said possessions), and no one got hurt or overheated. Well, no, we all overheated, but that's what you get when you move in mid-July, and no one fainted or anything. Of course, there were a few problems (my couch wouldn't fit in my room downstairs, and we got stuck on the 401 because of an accident), but no move is problem-free.

But that was yesterday. Today I spent four hours at Spadina and College looking for a laptop in 34 degree heat. But I'm fine with it; in fact, I'm doing fine with everything at the moment. Biku got called off to a last-minute job, M. had to go do some scanning (hence the dinner with people I don't really know), I just moved out of my wonderful university apartment with two awesome roomates, I have tons of boxes to unpack at home, and it's hot enough to be a health risk outside -- but I'm doing fine. Let this (and my last post) be a lesson to y'all; how you feel is all about your mental state, not external circumstances.

A litte late night whine.

Right now I am frustrated and angry and worried. I tried writing a whiny post about all the things that are bothering me right now, but it's all stupid little stuff. Just seeing it written on the screen made me realize both how small it all was, and how writing it down (let alone inflicting it on anyone who would read this) wasn't really going to help. So instead I'm going to have a cold glass of water, pet my kitties, read something mindlessly distracting, and go to bed.

Hopefully, if all this stuff isn't better in the morning (and some of it won't be), at least I'll be more able to deal with it.

Recycled Air

I love flying, but on the way to and from Belize I found myself strangely nervous -- clutching the seat when we hit turbulence, imagining that we were going to crash every time the engine noise changed or we descended a little. Maybe I was picking up on Mum's nervousness or Dad's irritability, maybe I was just thinking too much about being in a metal box hurtling through the air over 10 000 feet above the ground, maybe I ate some bad eggs for breakfast -- whatever it was, I understood for the first time how people could be scared of flying.

Knuckles clenched to white
As the landing gear retract for flight
My head's a balloon
Inflating with the altitude

We had a five hour layover in Charlotte, which made everyone a bit cranky (we're all accustomed enough with air travel to be annoyed that getting from Central America to Toronto takes a whole day), so when we finally got on the plane bound for Toronto there was a sense of relief. It was a good vacation, but now it was time to get home.

For the first time on our flights, I got the window seat, and it was well worth it. The sun had gone down, and it was the July 4th weekend, so I got to see the spider's web network of streetlights and cities as well as fireworks bursting into the air. It's funny how small they look from above-- like the little sparks you sometimes see on a dry winter's night underneath wool blankets. We flew right over Pittsburgh, a city which I've never been to, but identified simply by asking Mum what American city had a baseball stadium at the confluence of three rivers. It was beautiful and serene, an atmosphere helped by that fact that I was listening to Postal Service's "Recycled Air":

I watch the patchwork farms' slow fade
Into the ocean's arms
And from here they can't see me stare
The stale taste of recycled air

That's the second time I've had a Postal Service song perfectly match my mood and location. There was the quiet unease of flying, the voyeuristic excitment of seeing everything from above, the slight nostalgic air of leaving, of ending, of conclusions. It was a good moment, and one worth remembering.

That last flight also made me aware of other people, thanks to a strange note I found in the pocket in front of my seat. Written in girlish capital letters on purple and green paper, here's an excerpt from the letter I found:

"What a flight. No longer than I'm out of the car with Gi and I'm drinking. Almost 5 months I have sober and the day I go home I fuck it all up. I don't want to stop. I want to do cocaine and drink. I want to do it and I don't want any consequences for it... ....I love Randy more than blow -- I love my family more than blow -- yet it calls my name. It calls to me and makes me want it. I hate I ever tried it. I fuckin' hate it."

Sorry for the harsh language, but it's the kind of note that wouldn't read right if it had been censored. Needless to say, it was a bit of a shocking note for straight-laced good-girl me. The air on these planes really is recycled; I sat in the same seat as a recovering addict who was in danger of falling off the rails. I was in her place, and I never would have known it if she hadn't left her rambling, semi-incoherent thoughts behind.

I'm glad she did, as frightening as they are. I don't know her name, but I feel connected to her now. I want her to succeed, to beat back the demon of addiction and rebuild her life. I wish her well, wherever she is.

For me, everything comes back to human connection. Most of my Belize posts have focussed on stuff I did and saw, but what I really love is something I could have gotten without ever leaving home. I met people, some who didn't let me see beyond their masks, and some who let me see more of them than I ever had before. I don't think I'll ever know Meghan's family well, but at least I have more of a sense of them as people. I liked being able to wander over to Geoff and Meghan's house and feel like they enjoyed my random visits (except of course when I visited too early on the morning of the wedding, but even then I was recieved politely and just as politely encouraged to leave ;).

The last person who I had a real conversation with on Caye Caulker was a man who was in line with me to buy johnny-cakes. He talked to me about taking care of his brother, who was also a drug addict. An hour later, I shared a boat off the island with a missionary group from Texas -- young men and women who I was silently judging until one pulled a stuffed animal out of her backpack to helpquiet a crying child sitting next to her. Unlike many Christians, I tend to harshly judge people of my own faith, but that one gesture made me realize I was doing exactly what I was condemning them for -- making unfounded and insulting assumptions about stangers.

But making strangers into people you can recognize and identify with is what I want my life to be all about. It's hard to know you've ever really gotten to know someone, but even if the communication's flawed, even if the people are so broken it hurts to learn about them, I still want to know. The world's too small a place, the air is too recycled, for me to spend my days trying to ignore my fellow people.

Food and Flora and Fauna

Coming from the Land of Mutant Squirrels (ie. Kingston), spending a week in a place with animals that are more likely to have scales or shells than fur is quite a change. But I'm here to tell you that those animals are not only neat to watch, but delicious as well.

No, I didn't eat any lizard, but I did have enough lobster to ... well... I don't know how to finish that sentance. But it was a lot of lobster. Lobster tails, lobster with Italian sauce, lobster salad, lobster alfredo, even the famed lobster burrito -- I had it all, and it was all delicious. It didn't bother me in the least that the literal translation of the Spanish word for lobster is "locust of the sea". I don't care how funny they look, they're delicious. As were the mussels and the conch and all the other gross-looking sea creatures I ate.

As for the fauna which I didn't eat, we went on a snorkelling expedition to the barrier reef (which you could see from the island -- it was weird to see waves breaking a mile offshore). While the fact that I'm basically blind without my glasses was a bit worrisome, I discovered that water is a wonderful magnifying medium. I couldn't count the scales or anything, but I could certainly see quite a bit of the beautiful reef and it's fishy denizens (including one black fish with electric blue fins that I followed around for 10 minutes).

My favourite experience was, however, the "Shark and Ray Alley", where friendly meat eaters will sidle up the boat looking for the guide's handouts of sardines. Most of the rest of the people on the tour were very frightened by the notion of having sting rays (the nurse sharks were shy and took off pretty quickly) swimming around their legs, but I am one of those freaks who is made braver when other people are scared. I stayed in the water, got ticked by rays, and petted one for a while (they are unimaginably soft). It was great. My only problem with snorkelling was that the rather rough waves kept sending salt water into my air tube, but that minor irritant was worth it for the serene overhead views of a beautiful reef.

Our expedition (later in the week) around the end of the island on rented kayaks was less inspiring in terms of what we saw, but there's something very satisfying about being able to sneak up on a pelican or a heron, or try (fultilely) to balance a large orange starfish on the end of your paddle. We never did see any crocodiles while out in the kayaks though, and I'm still not sure if I'm disappointed or grateful.

It's funny -- writing this all out now makes it sound so exotic, but at the time it seemed pretty commonplace. There were so many neat animals and trips to the reef around that (like beautiful ancient churches in Europe) you get very blase about it pretty quickly. Every so often, though, I would realize how different this place was from my four-season home -- like when I asked the owner of our B&B where she got the beautiful flowers for our rooms. She said she cut them from her garden, and when I asked what she did when they stopped blooming, she gave me a strange look and said "They always bloom."

A land where none of the animals need fur, where the flowers are always in bloom, where the second-longest barrier reef in the world is just in your backyard -- it's a wonder-filled place to visit, but it only reinforces my sense that while other places may be more interesting, Canada is home.

[four down, one more Belize post to go -- I'm almost done! Woo!]

Lamanai

Our trip to these Mayan ruins (which I didn't think was a big deal until after I got back and several people got very excited/jealous when I told them) was, like many other things in Belize, an exercise in waiting. It took us about 4 hours (boat ride to the mainland, bus ride to another river, boat ride through the mangroves) to get there. The trip was worth it though, for a number of reasons:

• travelling through flat land for four hours meant that I understood, at a visceral level, that every lump and bump we saw at Lamanai was an un-excavated Mayan ruin. Which is amazing, considering how many hills we saw. The idea that there could be so much history under the jungle, and Belize simply doesn't have the money to excavate it, amazes me.
• The bus we took was an old school bus repainted green with the word "Faith" on it's front. This alternately amused and frightened me as we jolted down the bumpy roads avoiding potholes
• the boat rides gave us a chance to see some amazing local fauna, with the guides slowing down to show us turtles, toucans, water birds, howler monkeys, and an eight-foot crocodile that I thought was stuffed until he got up and slid into the water. Eeeek! It was a very appropriate sighting though, since "Lamanai" itself means "submerged crocodile".
• We got to see how people on the mainland (ie. away from the tourists) lived, from traditional wooden Mayan huts to quite large stucco houses. And of course, there was the Mennonite encampment out in the middle of nowhere. Mennonites! How far they'll go to avoid being conscripted...
• Because we were so far from anywhere, when I finally got atop the Mayan Temple (those things are very, VERY steep) I could see 360 degrees, and nothing but jungle. It was amazing.
  
  

As for the ruins themselves, they were very, very impressive. The Mayans liked putting things on top of other things, so one temple would likely have another one underneath and another one underneath that (like Hungarian stacking dolls). What you could see was worn and scarred, so I understood and respected the archaeologists for not wanting to strip away all the layers just to satisfy their curiosity. It is interesting to see changes in historical records though -- people used to think that the Mayans were peaceful people, when in fact they (like the Aztecs) were very much into the human sacrifice and wide-spread clear-cutting thing. The most shocking detail, I think, was the ball courts where our guide told us that the winner was sacrificed to the gods. Yes, that's right, the winner. See, if you died serving the gods as a sacrifice, then you got to go straight to Mayan heaven with no need for a layover in Mayan hell (sound like any religions you know?).

After a delicious lunch (how our three guides managed to bring chicken, rice and beans, and potato salad through the jungle and have it be warm for us by the time we reached our picnic tables, I'll never know) we headed back onto Boat #1. It was an interesting ride back, since it was raining and the spray combined with the fast-moving boat managed to make things pretty miserable. There was a large black tarp that was spread over most of the other people, but I preferred to be wet and whipped with stinging spray rather than sacrifice the view. Also, it was amazing to little ol' Canadian me that I was in a climate where you could get soaked to the bone on a fast moving boat, and still not only be warm, but dry within an hour of the rain stopping.

Good News, Everybody!

The problem with deciding that you're going to write an exhaustive, multi-post diary of your trip is that life keeps happening once you get home. And should some of that life require recognition by blogging, then you're in trouble...

So consider this a brief hiatus from Belize (I will finish writing about that soon, before my interest in the subject entirely deserts me), while I write about our two new family members:

Kitties! The orange tom is Fry, and the grey tabby is Leela. True to their names, they are both adventurous, but Leela is much smarter and less likely to do stupid things (like try and jump onto a plant) than Fry is. I hope the names work out well -- it's so hard to tell if a cute name gets annoying really quickly, or becomes just part of the cat's personality.

They aren't nearly so smug as they look in their picture -- most of the time they're romping around attacking each other or discovering new corners of the house. They came housetrained (one of the benefits of getting kittens who are already three months old) and they're pretty quiet so far -- just a few squeeky little miaos now and then (Plus, Leela's got the loudest purr I've ever heard in a kitten). I have to remember that there are other things I need to do rather than play with them and pet them and generally melt from their general cuteness.

Of course, having these guys can't help but remind me of Spooky, but it's been in a good way, so far. I'm remembering when he was a kitten, and realizing our wisdom in getting two cats this time since they can keep each other company. My only regret is that I'll be leaving too soon to see them really grow up and get comfortable in the house.

But in the meantime, I get to play proud parent and take lots of pictures and show them off to everybody who cares. There's an open invitation to anyone in the area to come play with the kittens, so come on over!

Warning! Mushiness ahead! (I hope you'll forgive me)

It wasn't meant to be a fancy occasion, which made it, paradoxically, all the more memorable. I mean, think about it -- how many sisters have arrived at their brothers' weddings in a limosine, or a car? I got to my brother's wedding on a bicycle, which I rode through the sand streets. I surprised one sunning iguana and chased him through a puddle. That, I will never forget. That, and some other things...

Of course, there's the often-awkward meeting of families; parents who don't know one another that well (and may or may not like each other) are bound, for that one day, to celebrate their children's choice of partner, and that partner's family. I didn't really know the Allen's very well, and I probably won't see them very often, but it's easy to become comfortable with people when you're all on the same small island, and none of you can go a day without randomly running into one another (at the beach, at dinner, around the town). Also, it's hard to remain perfectly coiffed when it's 35 degrees, and being a little rumpled around the edges makes everyone more likable.

Most weddings have a cake-cutting ceremony, and we did have that. But we also had a Julia-cutting ceremony, Julia being the 25 pound watermelon that M's mother bought. (Don't ask me why it was named Julia -- it was written on the side of the watermelon before it was bought).

And of course, there was the ceremony itself -- short, sweet, and very picturesque. The Spanish priest was soft-spoken and sincere, the fresh-picked flowers M. held in a cup of water were beautiful, and my brother was grinning like his face would split. That wide-mouthed smile that charmed me when I was small, that has always made babies love him, that stretches up into the far reaches of his face and lights up his eyes -- that smile was all for M., who grinned right back. As their they said in their vows, they were two "free and unconstrained souls" pledging themselves to each other "with all their strengths and faults," in front of God and their families as witnesses.

They are happy, and I am happy for them. Long may they smile at each other.

Go Slow

The unofficial motto of Caye Caulker, this little phrase was to hound me most of last week. I mean, I don't mind relaxing and taking things at an easy pace, but Dad seemed to adopt "Go Slow" as his personal philosophy. And while Mum would get annoyed at him sometimes for this (usually when we were going to dinner with our soon-to-be in-laws, and she wanted to make a good impression), she too was quite willing to do very little.

What do I mean by very little? Well, their idea of a good day was to eat breakfast, watch some World Cup Football, eat lunch, watch the second football game, maybe go for a swim, have a nap, have dinner, then retire to bed. And while I too enjoy reading and eating and swimming, I just can't stand doing that much nothing in one day. I love Caye Caulker and the free bikes from our B&B, not only because they were cool, but because they provided me with an escape, a release, a way to expend some energy without having to wait half an hour for my parents' to get ready.

As always, this isn't as one-sided a debate as I'm making it out to be. Mum and Dad didn't always go as slow as the culture would have advised, and we all agreed that slow service on food was not our most favourite part of the "Go Slow" mentality (especially on our flight back, when the airport restaurant took 45 minutes to provide Mum with scrambled eggs and toast). Also, we did occasionally do things -- our trip to the Mayan ruins of Lamanai saw us all get up at 5:30 in the morning and not get back until 4 in the afternoon. Mum and Dad both went kayaking with me, and enjoyed it greatly. And there were many moments (during air travel and with meals, most notably) when I could sink comfortably back into the role of a happy child who is confident in the knowledge that her parent's will take care of the details.

But this trip has taught me something that I didn't particularly want to know -- my parents are rapidly becoming old. I mean, I'd seen the signs before; they are getting more set in their ways, less willing to do crazy things, more likely to have naps in the afternoons and more often they mishear what I'm saying. But this trip just threw all those tendancies into sharp relief, making it abundantly clear to me that the road we're all on is one where I increasingly take responsibility, where I increasingly am the person who takes care of them. I don't like this. I don't like knowing that my life, not action-packed by any means, is great leaps and bounds more active than theirs is. I don't like knowing that for them, "Go Slow" is rapidly becoming less of a suggestion and more of a necessity.

Caye Caulker

It's a funny name, isn't it? Pronounced "Key Cocker", it's much less dirty than it sounds, since "Caye" just generally means island, and "Caulker" has been variously explained as an anglisization of the Spanish name "Caye Hicaco" (which means 'island of the cocoplum'), as a favourite spot for British ships to fill up and cork their water bottles, or even because ships may have been re-caulked in the bay. Whatever the reason for the slightly weird name, it's a lovely little island. With precisely three main streets (Front Street, Middle Street, and, you guessed it, Back Street), a population of 1300, and about five actual cars, it's the epitome of slow Central American living. People walk, ride dilapadated bikes, and putter around on "Club Car" brand golf carts. The locals mainly fish or work in the tourist industry, but it's far from a resort island -- in among the fancier houses and backpacker's hostels there's tiny corrugated-iron shacks, garbage among the palm trees, and a slightly dilapadated look about the place.


They don't have Daylight Savings Time in Belize, so I would go to bed two hours after sundown (about 10 pm) and wake up with the sunrise (6:00 or so). Most mornings I'd hop on the complimentary bike at our B&B (more on it later) and ride around town before breakfast. I'd chase lizards off the packed sand streets, weave my way around puddles, avoid the blue-and-white suited children on their way to school, and greet the locals as they bought hot johnnycakes with cheese for breakfast. I could cycle around the whole island in about 20 minutes, and by the end of the week I had not only memorized the whole layout of the island and was recognizing lots of people, I even knew some of the animals by sight.

While I expected to see the ubiquitous South American mutt there (slightly dirty, skinny, no collar, sleeps everywhere), what I didn't expect was the preponderance of cats on the island. They were everywhere, sleeping on top of roofs, begging food at the local diner with the sand floor (named "Rasta Pasta" and playing Bob Marley, of course), and hanging out at what we called "The Cattery", a run-down lot on the beach that must have had at least 25 cats sleeping in and around it. If you look back up at the picture above, you'll see a cat just walking past the fence gate on the right side.

There were also various native animals -- iguanas sunning by the bar on the beach, tiny lizards that lifted up their tails and fled across the road in front of you, brightly coloured birds, starfish wishing that people would stop picking them up from their underwater homes, and crabs of various colours (orange, blue, and a gorgeous iridescent purple) who scuttled back into their holes as soon as you stopped to look at them.

Of course, not everything was fabulous. The sheer amount of garbage was a little disconcerting at times, and walking back to our B&B at night was very dark and the clicking noises of crabs was a little worrisome. Far more worrisome, of course, after Meghan's sister Bronwen and Bronwen's fiance Sean were mugged one night walking back to their beach cabana. It was a very sobering experience for all of us on an island that we'd been repeatedly assured was very, very safe (and which felt safe too -- I didn't lock my bike, I wandered around by myself a lot). Admittedly, the theft was so uncommon that Sean and Bronwen became somewhat famous around the island (they were the 'muggees'), and the police force took it very seriously, with many more of them patrolling the streets in the days after the mugging.

But despite that one bad moment, Caye Caulker was a great place to spend a week. It felt real, not some cleaned-up version of a Caribbean island but a real place where people cooked and fished and played basketball on the court by the ocean. A place where people talked over the football scores at the supermarket and sent their kids to school and said hello to you as you went by. A place where I could relax.

I Listened.

Well, I took my own advice, and I had a great time on my week-long vacation in Belize. This may also be because I'm currently listening to a Sarah Harmer concert on CBC Radio Two, but the post-vacation blues haven't quite set in yet. So, since it's a quiet Sunday afternoon and I don't want to start applying for jobs until tomorrow, I'm going to write a bunch of short pieces about my vacation. They're not connected enough to be a single post -- just thoughts and reflections, and maybe even some pictures.