We’ve been in Mexico since late February, and I’ve been journaling about it since we arrived. We’re headed home soon, so today I will begin my travelogue, the good, the bad and the ugly. There’s been some of each.

February 26th, 2015

Steve asked me this morning why I like Cabo Pulmo, Mexico so much. I’d just thanked him for agreeing to come here again; I know he’d rather not travel for the entire time we’ll be here – 10 days would have been fine by him; I booked us for almost a month. So in answer to his question I told him it reminded me of a place I spent summers as a kid, only with jalapeños.

You always feel a bit grubby, laundry and dishes never get completely clean or stay that way, and there are occasional weird odors it’s best to just ignore.

I had a very blessed childhood. My dad had a good friend who owned property on Mashpee Lake, not far over the Sagamore Bridge on Cape Cod. He allowed my dad to haul in a couple of passenger busses that had been stripped of most all of their innards and retrofitted with bunk beds and a kitchenette. Think early, stationary and very rudimentary airstream trailers. To us kids this was heaven. Fishing, swimming, rowboats, waterskiing, cookouts, fishfrys, illegal fireworks on the 4th of July… Life didn’t get any better. Cabo Pulmo is kind of like that. Six miles down a dirt road and totally off the grid (if it isn’t solar or propane it isn’t happening) it’s like the adult version of Mashpee. Here we swim, snorkel, bird watch, hike, read, write and in Steve’s case play guitar. Internet is sketchy, e-mail and browsing only. The TV is a vehicle for playing movies (most rental places here don’t even have one). Cell service is sparse. It’s the perfect place to unplug.

I liken Cabo Pulmo to being on our sailboat. You always feel a bit grubby, laundry and dishes never get completely clean or stay that way, and there are occasional weird odors it’s best to just ignore. But it’s hard to worry about things and be anything but in the moment on both our boat and in Cabo Pulmo. I wasted an entire morning grinning like an idiot watching the resident birds with my binoculars. Most of them were less than ten feet away. I didn’t have a worry in the world.

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This, mind you, is from the woman who could find most anything to worry about, anywhere. Surprised by that? Me, too. I continue to put forth a good game face.

Mine was a gradual decline into worried-ness. I had always thought myself to be pretty fearless, that I’d try most things – many of them risky, that life was one big adventure. How did I end up clenching my teeth at night to the point of breaking porcelain crowns – years and years after giving up caffeine? I’ve thought about blaming it on my mom – she was high strung and spent her entire life on tranquilizers. Even those didn’t help much but I couldn’t imagine what she’d have been like without them. My sister was the same way, so it could be an inherited trait. But I think my slide into the kingdom of worry came with having so much to be happy about and grateful for and the fear of losing it. Health issues, my own and those of the ones I love, scare the crap out of me. The state of the world and the environment frighten me as well. And I do happen to be a fairly intense person, which many of you have experienced.

Do I let my worry stop me from having my adventures? Not by a long shot. I just keep my mouth guard nearby and my dentist on speed dial.

Time to go look for Moray Eels in the Sea of Cortez.

Deborah