the mean streets of barra

Some people are the victim of rumors. Others generate rumors about themselves.

I have been in both groups. But, this week, it has been mainly the latter.

According to Mexpatriate, the last time I talked with you was Wednesday of last week (passing the ball to mom) when I told you of the unalloyed pleasure of sharing evenings with my mother while she rooted on her NBA team. (She is undoubtedly pleased that the Blazers snatched an away game from the Nuggets last night in their second round of playoffs.)

Of course, some of you know I have communicated since then. I took down two posts dealing with what turned out to be a bout of contact dermatitis -- leaving the impression, according to a series of emails I have received, that something drastic must have happened. It hasn't.

That condition along with one of the worst colds I have ever had (the type that often falls into the category of "after a long struggle with a debilitating respiratory infection ---") and over a month of traveling drained my energy level enough that I had little interest in doing anything other than getting the house back into occupancy state. That I have done.

Returning to Barra de Navidad has been pleasant, even though I was disappointed to miss the semana santa crowds. When I walked to central Barra yesterday morning, I was met with streets as vacant as a John Ford set at high noon.

The sight set off a string of reveries. I have recently been on two cruises that a lot of people would call dream vacations. The first was last December when we transited the Panama Canal and visited several Central American countries -- one (Nicaragua) that was new to me. The second was a cruise from Sydney around the northern coast of Australia and on to Singapore.

Both had the makings of great trips. I was traveling with three of my favorite people (Sophie, Nancy, and Roy) and we were visiting new lands while traveling in the equivalent of a luxury hotel.

My friend Jennifer pointed out that I have returned from both trips with a certain sense of melancholy. She is correct. In fact, on this last cruise, it set in while we were still cruising.

I lost interest in almost everything. Because I was feeling fatigued, I stopped my walking routine. Most of the food lost had little allure, but I ate lots of it, and got no pleasure from it. And I started getting annoyed at the little inconveniences that occur when people are crammed together in a small space for extended periods of time -- cruise ships, prisons, marriages.

For the past week I have been assessing what has happened to change my perspective on a traveling mode I once adored. And I think I have some ideas.

I may be chasing the dragon of happiness. "Chasing the dragon" is often used to refer to the quest of drug users to re-capture the experience of their first high. Similar to Tolian Soran's passion to rejoin the Nexus in Star Trek Generations (a reference for you less familiar with the heroin culture). Of course, it is a fool's errand. And that may be true for me, as well.

Because I am who I am, my first thought was I had been seeking luxury when the true values of life are those without discount tags. That possibility came to me while I was listening to Aaron Copland's renditions of the old Shaker Hymn "The Gift to be Simple" in Appalachia Spring.

As I sat there listening, it occurred to me that the lyrics are true. That I do find my greatest joy in things that are simple.

'Tis the gift to be simple/ 'Tis the gift to be free,/ 'Tis the gift to come down/ Where we ought to be

And then I started laughing at my hubris, maybe even hypocrisy. There I was celebrating simplicity while listening to a symphonic version so grandiose that "CBS Reports" used it to set the tone of its overblown reporting. I do not remember who said it, but it is true that people who advocate simplicity first have money in the bank.



Worse, while thinking these simple thoughts, I was ensconced in the luxury of a first class Cathay Pacific cabin 32,000 feet in the air on my way back to Los Angeles -- with all forms of sybaritic pleasures mine by merely pressing a service button. I was as simple as Al Gore on his way to lecture others.

But, as Edison taught us ("I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."), wrong answers often lead us to correct ones. And I may be on to something.

Socrates thought the unexamined life is not worth living. So, I decided to be a bit more honest with myself. What is it that has made my few days back in Barra so pleasant?

First, I am now feeling better. It is difficult to be fully engaged when you feel as if the obituary editor is working on a hook. The weakness in that explanation is that it is based far too much on temporal circumstances. But, it certainly has been a factor. I contracted respiratory problems on both cruises.

The answer may be one I do not like. One of the dangers of aging is slipping into comfort and complacency. The familiar trumps the adventurous.

I call it TOMS -- The Old Man Syndrome. Where the sufferer likes nothing more than sitting in his easy chair re-reading familiar books in his own home with no distractions. It is the very antithesis of why I moved to Mexico.

But here I am. Sitting in my patio, slipping back into my routine of reading, writing, cooking, and walking. Where my day is consumed with the rhythm of routine and the comforting sense of the inevitable that is designed to disguise the soft pad of mortality creeping up behind the vines.

Maybe that is the answer. I am a place in life where I am still healthy enough to tend my life. To exercise. To get back to eating well with food I cook myself. To keep informed with my magazines and morning newspaper. And to enjoy what Henry Higgins called his room "as restful as an undiscovered tomb" (even though Mexico's normal volume level taints the ideal). In short, I have created a life almost indistinguishable from that of an Edwardian English gentleman civil servant in Bombay.

Socrates counseled that it is important for us to examine our lives to know ourselves. But there is an obvious corollary. The unlived life is not worth examining.

So, that is what I am about to do. And, if you wish to come along for the ride, you can slip into the back seat with Adam Smith and Viktor Frankl. Kurt Vonnegut is riding shot gun and muttering something about "What if the examined life also turns out to be a clunker?"

I guess we will have to see.