I ran away to Mexico with my lover today.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t that have an exotic sound?\u00a0 The very words taste delicious when I roll them off the end of my tongue. \u00a0The reality of it verges on intoxication. \u00a0We got up at o\u2019dark thirty, the first hint of fuchsia sunrise in the east, and fled into the friendly skies.\u00a0 We winged our way at 37,000 feet to palm trees, warm-your-bones sunshine and the certainty there was a world of possibility waiting at the Guadalajara airport to welcome us to our new life.<\/p>\n
Preflight, as we prepared for takeoff from PDX, securely cinched into our seats, the pilot kept apologizing and explaining the plane was \u201cundergoing difficulties\u201d. \u00a0In my excitement at finally launching into our new adventure, I heard it only as background noise, completely missing the nuances of possible problems getting into and staying in the air, and had not a twinge of concern.<\/p>\n
Ordinarily, I\u2019m an eager flyer. \u00a0Relish that magical instant the wheels leave the ground and you’re launched into the wild blue. \u00a0As a student pilot, I adore being in the air, but the longer we sat on the tarmac, the sound coming from the the plane engines was getting pretty unnerving.\u00a0 It sounded like the old Ford truck we used to have on the farm when you tried to start it on a hard-frozen January morning.\u00a0 Grumbling and reluctant to turn over and wake up. \u00a0As they towed us away from the gate, it continued to growl, and I wasn\u2019t sure the pilot was going to get it started in time to takeoff. Did I say unnerving? \u00a0The pilot now had my undevided attention! \u00a0If my car sounded like that when I tried to start it in the morning, I’d tow it, too. \u00a0To the nearest mechanic!<\/p>\n
Just in case it was more serious than simply getting started, I sent a last minute text to my two sons,\u00a0saying how much I loved them. \u00a0Lightly mentioning that in case we didn\u2019t come back, where our stuff was stored, and that they should divvy it up and throw a hell of a party celebrating a life full of pretty great adventures.\u00a0 No regrets.\u00a0 I can only imagine their reaction, since the flight attendent glaring down at me forced me to turn off my cell phone for takeoff.\u00a0 The big silver bird finally grumbled and lumbered it\u2019s way off the ground into the air towards Guadalajara. Engines rumbling away smoothly, just like they were supposed to.<\/p>\n
As the flight attendant went through her safety spiel, she instructed us that, due to security issues, we were required to use only the toilet in our own zones.\u00a0 It was obvious bullshit. \u00a0I\u2019ve been traveling for a really long time and toilets have never had anything to do with security.\u00a0 Not that kind, anyway.\u00a0 There were four toilets on the plane.\u00a0 Two in first class, serving twelve people, and two in the very back of the plane, serving 138 people. \u00a0You can probably see the only potential\u00a0security\u00a0problem here and it was a sanitary issue not a\u00a0safety one. \u00a0It was simply another reminder of the privileges of money. \u00a0Even in the air. \u00a0Who knew money would buy you better bathroom privileges?<\/p>\n
As we slipped along the jet stream south, I looked back at what had gotten us this far and recognized that it wasn\u2019t revolutionary.\u00a0 As we’ve gotten older, we’ve made it\u00a0more and more a way of life to\u00a0follow our hearts and then jump in with both feet.\u00a0 It\u2019s never been predictable in our twenty years together, but it\u2019s always been full of life and new juice. Juice – you can probably tell I’m really liking that analogy.\u00a0 We\u2019ve become familiar with how one small, committed step has a way of leading to unexpected adventures.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a powerful quote from The Scottish Himalayan Expedition<\/i><\/b> of 1951, where W.H. Murray wrote, \u201c\u2026Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.\u00a0 Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.\u00a0 All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.\u00a0 A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one\u2019s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.\u00a0 I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe\u2019s couplets: Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.\u00a0 Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!\u201d (Published by J.M. Dent and Sons, Ltd.).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s powerful, because if you do it, it works.\u00a0 Seriously.\u00a0 It does.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re walking away from so much.\u00a0 Hoping for so much.\u00a0 Anything is possible in this foreign country where we\u2019re going – where we know nobody, don\u2019t speak the language (yet), don\u2019t know the value of the currency, and have no idea where we\u2019re going to sleep tonight.<\/p>\n
Our fifteenth\u00a0wedding anniversary is less than a month away and we\u2019ve run away together like two giddy youngsters going on our honeymoon.\u00a0 Anything can happen. Our money is sparse, our hopes are high, and we are together on a crazy, open-ended adventure.<\/p>\n
I can feel the juice starting to drip off the end of my chin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I ran away to Mexico with my lover today.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t that have an exotic sound?\u00a0 The very words taste delicious when I roll them off the end of my tongue. \u00a0The reality of it verges on intoxication. \u00a0We got up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbear.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbear.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbear.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbear.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbear.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=958"}],"version-history":[{"count":101,"href":"https:\/\/mbear.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1260,"href":"https:\/\/mbear.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions\/1260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbear.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbear.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbear.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbear.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}