I thought I was going to tell you about my trip to La Paz. That was my original intention for this week’s column. In fact, my entire trip I kept trying to come up with the opening line in my mind. “There is no sense of urgency in La Paz. Life is slow, drawn out like the little ripples across the shores of Baja California.”
I was going to tell you about the importance of taking time to slow down and to remove your mind from computers, technology and all of those “must have” gadgets. I wanted to tell you how the hot air in Mexico felt like the softest wind to ever caress my skin. I wanted to tell you all of these grand things. However, as I sit here in the wee early hours of the morning, those images are wonderful, but they cannot convey to you the tranquility I found in a small fishing town, that most have overlooked as a vacation spot. I cannot capture in words the serenity I found in those scattered hot moments of daily showers to keep cool, or the wonderful day we laid out in the sun too long and my husband was sunburned. I cannot fit into this column the emotion that sits in me as I write this. I am pondering my thoughts to dig out the shining days we so loved. Yet, I cannot convey to you what I found in Mexico.
What can I tell you? I found pieces of my soul I had forgotten. While honeymooning in La Paz, I remembered the importance of silence and reflection. Lately, I have been so busy trying to do as much as possible when really I have missed out on the simple things we seem to forget, or maybe it’s just me. I think with all that has transpired over the past couple of months, I took refuge in those 10 days in stillness of the blue sky. The simple shades of the shallow water near the shores of town spoke to me.
I even found a bus ride to Cabo San Lucas to be one of the most romantic days of my life. Robin and I had chartered a bus to Cabo for one day. On our return ride home, we accidentally bought tickets for the bus that made all of the pit stops on the way back. Our two-hour bus ride turned into a crammed ride with local residents and their children watching a black and white movie in Spanish. Our legs were squished against the seats, and the speakers had a high-pitch whistle blaring out of the overhead-outdated speakers. This was not the trip back we had planned, but it turned out to be one of my favorite moments. The beauty of the resorts, the peaceful water, all of it reawakened that sense of innocence that I had misplaced. “I enjoyed the journey.” You know, that cliché saying that’s been written in too many self-help books over the last 30 years.
I found all of these little lessons for me in those 10 days under the hot sun. I reflected on the importance of gratitude and love. I thought about all of my wonderful friends, and co-workers I had back in San Diego.
As I took my last ferry ride across the Sea of Cortez back to the airport, I kept thinking of the opening line for this column.
What I discovered is sometimes words cannot replace the experience of a soft summer breeze or the quiet moments we find in a fishing town called La Paz.
Story originally appeared: Sea of Cortez
