the trip to san juan... no new gray hairs, no new cajones either...
i just returned home from a one week visit to San Juan, Puerto Rico to see my son get married. my son is 28 years old and he married a woman that is 30 years old. it's the first marriage for both of them. i had a lot of anticipation about this trip, things that would happen, could happen... some nervousness, primarily about travelling with my 81 year old mother. i've traveled with her a lot over the past few years and she is always hardy and excitable on trips, so i had no basis for grand fears. still, at this age you never know when something could go wrong. thankfully, nothing did go wrong. all of the planes we flew on performed perfectly. our hotel accommodations were impeccable and the people we met everywhere were angelic. never had a tense or untoward encounter with anyone. i think part of my nervousness was the fact that Mercury Retrograde had been entered right at the time our trip was beginning and astrologers warn that it is not a good time to travel, spend money, or enter contract agreements. Hah! We blew Mercury out of the heavens with our good fortune this retrograde!!
one thing that does not bide entirely well with my own soul is how sedate i've become as a 50-ish year old man. there were things that other men my age would have done in Puerto Rico that i imagined doing, but did not. i'm not a drinker anymore, but i can handle one pint of beer or one glass of wine every blue moon. i really felt inclined ahead of the visit to sample some Puerto Rican rum when i was there. but once i got there, i chose to not cease any of the opportunities i had to do so. there was a beautiful bar right in the lobby of our hotel, and i had nice clothes to wear. i could have slipped into the bar for even just 10 minutes, drank a rum, and then scooted back up to our room. had no gumption to do it.
a very great regret is that i passed up the chance 7 days in a row to walk 7 minutes from our hotel to the beach and go into the warm waters of the Atlantic ocean for a swim. 2 years ago i used to be impassioned about how much i missed living near the ocean and how i craved being able to go Santa Cruz to be able to dip into the cold ocean. the last time i actually did that was on the day of my 50th birthday. wow, what a memory. that was one of the best birthday's i ever celebrated in my adult life. i did a photo shoot with a girl from UCSC that i picked up at the Oakland airport, then i drove her home to Santa Cruz. (she had just flown home from visiting family in Boston). then i went down to the beach and swam for about 20 minutes, after which i met Bunnie and Shannon at The Poet and Patriot Pub for drinks. After that we drove across town to Charlie Hong Kong's for dinner. Epic, epic day...
used to be easy to meet a stranger and feel a sense of connection with them when i was younger. it would happen quite regularly, in odd places. it doesn't seem to happen hardly at all anymore. traveling used to be a time that it would seem to happen most easily. you are in a strange place, far from home, your sense of awareness of your surroundings change, you become vulnerable in different ways and are open to having new types of conversations with strangers. this didn't happen at all when i was on this trip. and i met a lot of new people, primarily the friends and family members of my son's fiancée. a few shopkeepers. hotel staff. no real strangers though. no mysterious women sitting alone in a bar.
okay, the next thing i want to talk about in this posting is the opportunity i had to give a speech, or toast at the reception of the wedding. for many month's preceding this trip to Puerto Rico i felt a dark shadow cast upon myself, my persona, and really, it mainly my own doing, my own thinking... but it is all based on facts of my life. i consider myself to be the "black sheep" of the Barnett lineage. the "dark horse" if you will... All of Bethany's family members, including herself, are pretty devout Christians. the type of stock that always have been, always will be. they're from Minnesota for goodness sake. people don't change there. that in my lifetime i've been a devout Christian, and many other devout things, is evidence of the innate wildness of my spirit. who knows what i'll become devout about next?
so the person that was in charge of managing activities at the wedding approached me and told me when it would be my turn to "give my speech". i immediately tracked down Billy to tell him that i had reservations about saying anything, because i didn't want to run wild saying things that i might later regret. or that he might later regret me saying. mainly though that i didn't want his new family to get exposed to how strange i really am. i mean, now in retrospect i sort of see that this is what wedding parties are all about. the two families getting to see the other side of the fence and all... i just care more about things going good for my son and his future than taking a chance of embarrassing him. and luckily, alcohol was not served at the wedding. or i may have taken the microphone and let lose. his best man, Virgil did a good job of giving the run-off-at-the-mouth-i-love-you-man speech though, so that was pretty much the highlight of the event.
WHAT I MAY HAVE SAID
"Friends, new family, we are all gathered here today at this epic moment in history where all of the ghosts of our descendants are smiling with us because of the meeting of these two loving souls. This is such a grand moment in history when two families are joined together, all of the preceding history of the different pathways our peoples have taken in the world, to bring us all together for this meeting. This is not a chance occurrence. And the wonders of the future events these two will create... we should look upon these two mighty people in awe as we wonder about what they will create together as a united force of love and power and trust.
Billy never got to meet the grandfather he is named after, but I can sense that he is here in this room with us today, smiling proudly at what the union of his bond with his grandmother produced. And all of our predecessors... just sit still for a moment, close your eyes, imagine the room full of them all, surrounding us, celebrating with us... Eastvolds and Barnetts! We all salute you, Billy and Bethany!!"
or something like that... ;)
one thing that does not bide entirely well with my own soul is how sedate i've become as a 50-ish year old man. there were things that other men my age would have done in Puerto Rico that i imagined doing, but did not. i'm not a drinker anymore, but i can handle one pint of beer or one glass of wine every blue moon. i really felt inclined ahead of the visit to sample some Puerto Rican rum when i was there. but once i got there, i chose to not cease any of the opportunities i had to do so. there was a beautiful bar right in the lobby of our hotel, and i had nice clothes to wear. i could have slipped into the bar for even just 10 minutes, drank a rum, and then scooted back up to our room. had no gumption to do it.
a very great regret is that i passed up the chance 7 days in a row to walk 7 minutes from our hotel to the beach and go into the warm waters of the Atlantic ocean for a swim. 2 years ago i used to be impassioned about how much i missed living near the ocean and how i craved being able to go Santa Cruz to be able to dip into the cold ocean. the last time i actually did that was on the day of my 50th birthday. wow, what a memory. that was one of the best birthday's i ever celebrated in my adult life. i did a photo shoot with a girl from UCSC that i picked up at the Oakland airport, then i drove her home to Santa Cruz. (she had just flown home from visiting family in Boston). then i went down to the beach and swam for about 20 minutes, after which i met Bunnie and Shannon at The Poet and Patriot Pub for drinks. After that we drove across town to Charlie Hong Kong's for dinner. Epic, epic day...
used to be easy to meet a stranger and feel a sense of connection with them when i was younger. it would happen quite regularly, in odd places. it doesn't seem to happen hardly at all anymore. traveling used to be a time that it would seem to happen most easily. you are in a strange place, far from home, your sense of awareness of your surroundings change, you become vulnerable in different ways and are open to having new types of conversations with strangers. this didn't happen at all when i was on this trip. and i met a lot of new people, primarily the friends and family members of my son's fiancée. a few shopkeepers. hotel staff. no real strangers though. no mysterious women sitting alone in a bar.
okay, the next thing i want to talk about in this posting is the opportunity i had to give a speech, or toast at the reception of the wedding. for many month's preceding this trip to Puerto Rico i felt a dark shadow cast upon myself, my persona, and really, it mainly my own doing, my own thinking... but it is all based on facts of my life. i consider myself to be the "black sheep" of the Barnett lineage. the "dark horse" if you will... All of Bethany's family members, including herself, are pretty devout Christians. the type of stock that always have been, always will be. they're from Minnesota for goodness sake. people don't change there. that in my lifetime i've been a devout Christian, and many other devout things, is evidence of the innate wildness of my spirit. who knows what i'll become devout about next?
so the person that was in charge of managing activities at the wedding approached me and told me when it would be my turn to "give my speech". i immediately tracked down Billy to tell him that i had reservations about saying anything, because i didn't want to run wild saying things that i might later regret. or that he might later regret me saying. mainly though that i didn't want his new family to get exposed to how strange i really am. i mean, now in retrospect i sort of see that this is what wedding parties are all about. the two families getting to see the other side of the fence and all... i just care more about things going good for my son and his future than taking a chance of embarrassing him. and luckily, alcohol was not served at the wedding. or i may have taken the microphone and let lose. his best man, Virgil did a good job of giving the run-off-at-the-mouth-i-love-you-man speech though, so that was pretty much the highlight of the event.
WHAT I MAY HAVE SAID
"Friends, new family, we are all gathered here today at this epic moment in history where all of the ghosts of our descendants are smiling with us because of the meeting of these two loving souls. This is such a grand moment in history when two families are joined together, all of the preceding history of the different pathways our peoples have taken in the world, to bring us all together for this meeting. This is not a chance occurrence. And the wonders of the future events these two will create... we should look upon these two mighty people in awe as we wonder about what they will create together as a united force of love and power and trust.
Billy never got to meet the grandfather he is named after, but I can sense that he is here in this room with us today, smiling proudly at what the union of his bond with his grandmother produced. And all of our predecessors... just sit still for a moment, close your eyes, imagine the room full of them all, surrounding us, celebrating with us... Eastvolds and Barnetts! We all salute you, Billy and Bethany!!"
or something like that... ;)
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