We are back from our grand adventure! My husband and I initially went with the idea of treating it like a two-week meditation retreat---perhaps even doing some of it in silence---to completely unwind, ground our souls, and calm our minds. Life at home is busy, and this was our chance to refocus without distraction. I went armed with scriptures, exercise routines, a meditation guide, and good intentions.
And I was good in many ways, breathing and doing my mindfulness exercises and stretches on the balcony, and trying to do walking meditation on the beach, which turns out to be difficult. Partly this is because sand is incredibly tricky to walk on when you have bad knees, and partly because who can possibly focus their minds when surrounded by breath-taking beauty and dare-devil surfers and stunning sunrises and green-fuzzed mountains and fascinating sailboats and whales (yes, really, breaching and blowing whales, on several occasions)? The green-marbled waves were especially tall, thundering into the coral sand with a sound that reminded me of my neighbour back home banging his big plastic garbage bins to the curb. There would occasionally be signs posted saying the surf was especially high so only professionals and experienced swimmers should enter the water. I'd tiptoe out onto the beach and see five-year-old native kids on boogie boards wrestling the waves with fearless aplomb, while pale white northerners kept well back on their towels, slathered in coconut tanning lotion. Once there was a sign saying a shark had been sighted so no one was to enter the water. (The building's handyman told me they'd recently caught a 15-foot tiger shark on that beach. I stuck to the hot tub, thanks very much.) Anyway, the meditation happened, but mostly I just mindfully lazed around and read 12 books in a 14-day period. Yup. And I feel unapologetically wonderful about it.
And that silence thing? My husband and I haven't talked so much in years. We caught up with each other, discussed hopes and dreams and regrets and beliefs. And that was wonderful too.
One of our intentions was also to eat mindfully on this trip (i.e. treat it like Fat Camp). I'm dealing with cholesterol and insulin issues---no surprise there---so we intended to kick off a healthy diet while away from home. Except it turns out that's difficult to do on a tropical island where a little bag of kale is $7 and Spam is apparently the national dish.
We bought chicken in a big ten-pound freezer bag and frozen vegetables and told ourselves we'd eat carb-free stirfry and nourishing soups for two weeks. We were living in our own apartment, just the two of us, in total control of what food was in the place. This was our chance to act intentionally and focus on our health.
My husband and I went from supportive partners to parenting each other to policing each other to being accomplices. Life lesson: When you're detoxing from carbs and sugar, you shouldn't get a sponsor who's equally going through withdrawal. By the end of the trip we were having conversations like:
"I'm going for a walk in the sunshine. I'll be back in twenty minutes."
"Good. That's enough time for me to get to the 7-Eleven and back without you knowing."
"Oh. Uh. I guess I'll see you there, then."
We kept our valuables in a little electronic safe in the bedroom closet, which wasn't handy, because if my husband was napping, I couldn't get to my purse without the beeping waking him up and exposing me.
I found myself walking through Longs Drugs, caressing the Brookside chocolate-covered blueberries and the half-bushel bucket of Red Vines licorice. I was tempted by stuff I've never been tempted by before---fried pork rinds and shrimp-flavoured chips and taro and teriyaki jerky. Do you know they sell Karo syrup in gallon jugs? (My husband leaned down and whispered "Half for you, half for me.")
I did cave and have a manapua with sweet pork filling, because it's something I've eyed on previous trips to Hawaii and have always wanted to get the nerve up to try. For those who don't know what manapua is, it's like eating a little pillow. It's a soft white mound of dough that's a bit sticky but somehow melts in your mouth like cotton candy with no need to chew. The pork inside was magenta, the colour of a melted cherry Bonnie Bell Lipsmacker, and it tasted wonderful. Later I learned manapuas are made from a yeast dough but with shortening in it. Gack. So now I've had the experience and likely won't repeat it.
It turns out there are only so many ways to stir-fry chicken. By day three I was craving Spam, cold, straight from the can. Maybe it was the salt. My husband started fantasizing about opening his own poutine shop. I tried to eat my three healthy fats a day as my dietitian instructed, but avocados require crackers or bread to eat it with, and expecting myself to limit the almond intake to a reasonable serving size was unrealistic. Whose idea was it to treat a two-week tropical vacation like boot camp, anyway? And even supposing we could endure it, how would we carry over the diet once we returned home? As my husband muttered, it's easy to be celibate in a monastery. What about once I resumed my normal routine, trapped in a cubicle with a box of chocolate-pecan Turtles on my colleague's desk?
At the end of the two weeks, we were still righteously eating our carb-free stirfry and then retreating from the heat of the day to watch the impeachment trial and snarf Violet Crumbles. And there was an unfortunate incident with an entire bag of Bugles. And full confession, there might have been some two-bite brownies in there somewhere. But all in all, it was a relaxing and beautiful time, and I returned home weighing the exact same as when I went, which I consider a win. I feel relaxed to the point of being boneless, I avoided sunburn, I now know all I ever wanted to know about the impeachment process, I've seen some amazing rainbows, I've tasted a manapua, and I've seen a dolphin. A successful vacation.
I went to sleep last night with the white-noise machine set to "ocean waves," but it just wasn't the same.
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