Scraps

Now that Miguel is in school, Michael is back to work, I have resumed my freelance work and career gyrations, and the 2009 taxes are finally done (thank you extension), it is probably fair to declare our sabbatical over. The dust, or ash, is settling.

In our fast packing prompted by Tungurahua's outburst, we seem to have misplaced the small pile of scrap paper we used for capturing memories that had not made it into the blog. I realized they were gone while we were doing our taxes. I would have easily traded the banker's box worth of mail we accumulated while we were gone for those wisps of memories (including two place-mats from our mother's day date at Luna Runtun). As disorganized as I can be, I am ruthless about holding on to paper scraps, which is why I still have an assortment of incriminating notes passed between me and Lisa Rosman back in 8th grade.

I can picture where I last saw our notes. They were tucked into a file folder I had brought to Ecuador for one of the projects I was working on.  Having completed the project, I think I pitched the folder as we frantically tossed everything into bags while our windows shook from the volcano's blasts. Serves us right for getting spooked.

At first I was devastated. These were the notes I planned to work from as I sifted through the 4000 plus pictures and rounded out our report--if only for ourselves--of this amazing journey. I do not lose notes. I might not ever go back to look at them, but I know they are there--my brain's external hard drive since my memory can not be trusted.

But maybe Miguel's can. He still talks about Joanna's chickens, Adita's glue gun, Wouter's car and Tungurahua's ash. He wants to know when we can visit Jim, Marshia and Simon again.  Perhaps all that  matters is that he was happy there and that we weathered more time together as a family.

Yeah, yeah. I want my damn details back! Compounding matters is that we hardly wrote at all while on the road this summer.   It's all receding into a blur of different skies. Because I always remember the sky, even as the words, thoughts and events of the day slough off.

Maybe that is why I keep traveling.  Unable to remember adventures of the past, I keep itching along for more.

I do not remember many details about the cross country hitchhiking trip with Billy when I was 20 but I do see the indigo sky trimmed with lingering sunset and rising stars dwarfing the big rigs pulled to the side of the road. (Why were we stopped? What state were we in???)  I remember benign warm clouds tucking us in on an uncertain evening as we crashed--I think--in an RV campground with canned goods and hope for someone else's fire and can opener. And the stretched as tight as a powder blue hospital sheet sky above the embankment that led to my first and only freight train hopping experience.

I never got around to writing about that trip--one of my great regrets. But then there are the trips I did write about, the epic bike rides with friends over the years, but those notes are buried in journals I never read so maybe it does not matter if I write or not, or if those scraps turn up.

Just means we need to start planning some more adventures.

high tide

In keeping with the coastal theme of my last post, I declare today's133 to be my high water mark. May it take less than 8 months to lose the15 pounds of junk in the trunk I accumulated during our travels.

According to various charts and measures, and the unyielding waistlines of all of my clothes, I have officially popped out of the "healthy weight" range for my 61 inches.

Was it all those chocolate bolitas from the panderia around the corner?
Living in a small town--ie, short commutes--for 5 months?
Hitting 38 years?
Being on an anti-depressant?
Eating out many times a week?
Slouching in a rental car for three weeks around the Pacific Northwest?
Poaching food from Miguel's plate? (he seems to have left his pudge behind)

Makes me wonder how much more I would have gained if I hadn't been running, hiking, swimming, biking and doing yoga. Then again, exercise is what has always allowed to me ignore calories; maybe I got a little reckless. A three mile hike is no match for three of those bolitas!

Well. We are home now. There will be longer commutes (mixed blessing), more home cooking and less partying. This is a challenge, not a crisis. I love challenges. Oh, but how I hate watching what I eat.

Got the alarm set for a morning run. Come on exercise--do your thing!