Why Leave?

Lee and I have been back home from Mexico exactly a week, and, as always with vacations, the vacation itself feels so long, so beautiful, then it's over before you know it, and you are back home, and then it's a whispering memory before you know it. These workings of time and vacations feel familiar, but perhaps there is something useful to say about our recent vacation-adventure feeling like adventure past after the last year and a half of covid and everything else. Besides staring up at the stalactites in the cenotes, sipping on perfect beachside mango margaritas, sweating our demons out in the transformative temazcal, the thing that I loved most about being away was the fact that each day was new, different, taking us somewhere we'd not yet been; each day felt like it was entirely our own, to be shaped by our will, our desire, our most immediate needs. And this gift of away-ness and discovery felt sweeter and lighter than I recall, and--even though I bemoaned it, even though I felt really sad our last few days knowing an end to our time was drawing near--so was coming home. Our last full day away, we woke up way too early for vacation in Merida, and drove to Chichen Itza to beat the crowds and the beating sun. The ruins were sprawling and animated by their age, by the vegetation growing from them, by the places we could make out carved images of decapitated heads, of eagles and snakes and wonder at the lives of forebears: how did those who lived here when the buildings were adorned with color face each day? And why did they leave? Where did they go? What did they remember? And how does what we saw pay tribute to all that has disappeared?