Vacation from Vacation

For some reason, before I went down to Guatemala this most recent time, I decided I wanted to go to the beach, and that I wanted to go with my friends. The ones who make me laugh.

I first told Dannyboy about it. He said "no way man, Monterricco sucks". He had never actually been to Monterricco. With the contrary opinions of Bernhard, Joss and Lisa, Danny agreed to go. Alex (the tri-passport holding man of many wise words yet not that many years), Fernando from San P and an Israeli chick Daphna joined us. We took a private shuttle and partayed the whole way to the beach. The hotel (a place I have stayed before called Brisas Del Mar) was smart and put us all in the back buildings. Which allowed us to rage all night long on the front porches and lawns of our little cottages. I convinced Danny to bring the speakers (man, I am full of simple yet good ideas) and I got to be dj the whole time. Despite not having my Crapple computer (it is currently in the shop....surprise surprise) I still brought some music down that seemed good enough for everyone. I know it was good enough for me!

In the morning, the boys would go buy fish from the fisherman for what ended up being $1.50 or so a pound. We'd chill amidst flowers on the grass laughing hungover and eventually would make our way to the beach. The water was perfect except for one day when the waves were WAY too big to even try to deal with. Danny and Alex went in and I am glad that Danny's still alive. It looked like Hawaii at some points that day. But besides that, it was great swimming. Although I don't actually do too much swimming. I prefer standing or floating around, and catching the occasional wave in, if the tide and undertow are right. Lisa didn't swim at all. She'd stand along where the ocean met the sand and watch the waves spit out the boys. Bernhard and Alex are both Picses and they seemed to be in the water the most. The lovely female Canadian Alex also joined us for a few days- she was a Picses too and was fucking cool.

We'd set up camp under palm trees a ways from the water, on the sand in front of beach grass. And garbage. There's alot of garbage in Guatemala. I think they were too busy dealing with the 40 years of war to get into things like Earth Day and Reduce-Reuse-Recycle. It's all good though. I used some stuff I found on the ground.

We'd lay out blankets and they'd prepare the fish and the fire, and sometimes veggies and we'd chill, drink, and laugh. We'd marvel at how good live is. Cause....it is.

For the sunset we'd go to Johnny's Place, where I've been going for years. It's a fancier resort with a bar on the ocean and they serve these really good chocolate banana rum drinks. You can chill in their hammocks (although they made it less comfortable than it used to be), order food if you like, etc. Our group sort of took the San Pedro to Johnny's Place- stirred up things just a little bit energetically. After a night or two, the bar staff was not too fond of us. That's their fault I think, since we were spending a substantial amount of money, and were polite to them. You know what I am realizing more and more though? People whose job it is to deal with other people are often miserable, no matter what. Miserable people are miserable people, and it doesn't matter if you are nice to them or not, because they will still be miserable. This doesn't mean I am going to just be a bitch to whomever.....I am still nice to people. But I am just remember that some unfortunate people find it painful to be happy. It hurts some to smile.

On the contrary, I love this fucking thing called happiness. I know it's not something that I can grasp always, 100% of the time, but let me tell you- I fucking love laughing with my friends. And my family. And complete strangers too, even. (That happens every now with the right timing, and it's fun to feel awkward unfamiliarity switch like a light into fondness and familiarity).

But yeah- my vacation from vacation made me so happy. I kind of like thinking of my life in the terms of one vacation to the other, with some work in between. A vacation to vacation to vacation to vacation to vacation with work winding its way in between. Like a thin thread of labor stitched throughout a beautiful shimmery-shiny fabric of leisurely fun.