Days of Easy Rhythms

Our days fall into an easy rhythm. Breakfast in our apartment, or rather on our verandah. Usually yogurt with a banana and granola. Some days, though, a couple of eggs or scrambled egg sandwich. And yesterday, breakfast at one of the beach restaurants. At about 10am, after reading the newspaper, ( can't throughly escape from the real world) we head down to the beach. The choice - which beach of three that we can walk to. And then, which restaurant. There are three or four on the close beach, a couple more on the further beach which is still very close. But we can't figure out where one restaurant ends and the next begins. The chairs and tables are all similar, as are the umbrellas. Even the menus are nearly identical. So we just try to choose different tables every day and hope we are choosing all of them in turn. We either have an early lunch or a late one on the beach, And our other meal we have in the apartment, either cheese and bread or crackers, proscuitto for the first few days until we finished it. Or, if we've had the earlier lunch on the beach, usually egg and cheese burritos for supper. The cheese is either queso blanco, a mild salty white cheese, or queso de Oaxaca, also a white mild cheese. We actually eat egg and cheese burritos at home for supper fairly often. So although it's Mexican, it's also from our own home culture at this poiont. I''m actually not sure if here in Mexico they make egg and cheese burritos. I should try to find out. For our early or late lunch on the beach, the choices are fish, shrimp, or octopus. You can have them cooked a variety of ways. I believe I've had shrimp most every day, except one or possibly two. There's shrimp salad( with mayo) shrimp cocktail(in a tomato sauce but not like at home with ketchup and horseradish.) and ceviche. The ceviche is "cooked" with lime juice, although I think they might poach it first. And served with lots of tomato, onion, and I think cilantro. A little spicy but not very. Everything comes with a basket of tostadas, flat baked or fried tortillas, They are similar to what we call hard tacos at home, but not folded. I believe the taco shells we buy at home are TexMex and not really Mexican at all. And nowadays the taco shells they serve in restaurants in the US. tend to be the soft ones. I've settle on shrimp ceviche plus guacamole as my beach meal of choice. Load it all up on a tostado and add some fresh lime juice and hot sauce and yum. A couple of evenings we've gone to a restaurant off the beach, just next door to our apartment. We've been practically the only customers, one other table but we think they are actually family. One night we had a whole fish, red snapper, which was enough for the two of us. It was delicious but the skin was a bit too charred for our taste. So last night we ordered the same kind of fish, but al vapor. (steamed.) There were more tostadas than we could eat, and he told us to take the rest home. The waves here are gentle, a constant lulling whether we are on the beach or here on the verandah. After a while I don't consciously notice the sound anymore, like a clock ticking in your house that you are so used to that you don't even hear it. But I think the lulling sound has a calming effect anyway. same for the view. I am a timid swimmer, actually don't really swim at all, more float along with the waves. I never learned to swim as a child, and maybe that's why. I took a swimming class in grad school. I am comfortable when the surf is very gentle as it is here, and the water is not over my head. It took me a few days to feel comfortable in the water by myself while Loring went off on one of his long swims. Now i feel comfortable floating around and listening to music on my much loved underwater mp3 player. my current playlist includes some Blondie, some Joni Mitchell, and a few songs with water themes like Crosby Stills Nash, and Young's Wooden Ships. And also Bruce Springsteen from the Seeger Tapes, a song called Oh Mary Don't You Weep, with its "Pharoh's Army Got Drowned"/ lyrics. A bit of irony. And, my alltime favorite underwater song, a piece from Cirque de Soleil's O, which is entirely performed in and underwater, and think is one of the best performances I've ever seen. I don't like swimming, don't feel comfortable in open water, and yet I love being in the water. The only exercises I truly enjoy are in the water, aqua aerobics, aquas zumba, aqua cycle, and an oddly named La Blast Splash, a licensed aqua dance program with great music and a delightful teacher. And, and I find this hard to believe myself, I took a scuba course some years ago, got licensed, along with our kids who were pretty young at the time, on a beach on an island in Nicaragua called Little Corn Island. And I liked it. I actuallly felt calmer deep in the water with a tank than I ever felt on the surface. Strange. Sadly, though, none of us ever continued diving. But I am glad I did it. Today I went out deeper than any day here, with Loring beside me. Maybe tomorrow I'll venture even further or at least further away from him. We shall see. We only have three more days here, so it's soon, or never!