Home Alone

I put Cynthia on a plane for Estados Unidos Tuesday night. For a variety of reasons she will be gone up to 5 weeks. After two nights together in our own bed for the first time in four months, I'm now alone in a foreign country for the first time ever, and this will be our longest separation in 39 years of marriage.

How do I feel about all this? Honestly, at least right now, OK. As you know we just moved into our permanent residence (and many thanks for all the kind comments, both in public and through email), so there's the stimulation of all that newness (is that a word?). I can't sit around and watch TV the whole time, or any of the time, because we still don't have service connected. All our books are still packed and will remain so until mi esposa's return.

That means I'm either going to meditate a lot and work on my "spiritual journey," or I'm gonna hit the streets and have some fun. Let's see--contemplate my navel or have some beers with friends? Chant "Om" or join that biking group? Tough choice but--------, I think I'll go with Door #2!

And that's the main reason I think I will successfully survive this separation. We lived in Las Vegas for 4 years and left with one new friend. Pathetic--that's one tough town to meet people. We've been here 4 months and have quickly developed such an amazing network of expats and locals. Folks like us that have a zest for life and want to get out and do things, experience things, and are happy to have others come along--would rather have others come along.

As an example, I mentioned in my post about Salinas that Cynthia and I were contemplating just taking off up the coast on buses with a little money and no agenda. I was drinking some of those aforementioned beers last night with a couple who had read this entry and they said,"Hey, we loved your idea about that trip but we're buying a car soon. When Cynthia gets back why don't we all go together?." See, once again these difficult decisions--comfortable car with friends or backpacking on buses with strangers? Gosh, this time I'm going to have to take Door #1.

And please understand that we didn't arrive in Cuenca with a calculated agenda of, "OK, here's the plan--let's get unpacked and start attending every event possible and meet as many people as possible and-----." No, we came here with no preconceived notions about anything except that we would jump into this adventure without our swimmies, not drown, and have fun. Everything beyond that simple notion has developed organically.

One thing I'm definitely looking forward to, now that we've at least secured a beachhead, is establishing some semblance of a routine. The only regularly scheduled aspect of our life, and this speaks volumes when I think about it, is our hot stone massage appointments every other Thursday. Freelancing has been a blast, but there can perhaps be a little more "meat on the bone" here. Baby steps, though--yesterday I scheduled a facial for the off Thursday next week. Hey, it's a start!

So, totally uncharted waters ahead for yours truly and we'll learn together how this ends up. Upbeat now but it's early in the first quarter. Stay tuned--we'll be right back-------.